Tennyson - "The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson"

Esther Chamberlain - "The Coast of Chance"

G. A. Henty - "By England's Aid"

Various - "Georgian Poetry 1911 12"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Gray Dawn

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Gray Dawn




"I hardly think they intended that," murmured Johnson.

"Meant!" snorted the judge. "The words will bear that interpretation, won't
they? Who cares what they meant!"

The following morning this version was industriously passed about. When
Coleman heard of it he pulled his long moustache,

"The time has come," he said with decision. "After that, it is either
ourselves or a mob."

He went immediately to the hall.

"Call Olney," he told a messenger. The head of the guard was soon before
him.

"Olney," said his chief, "will you accept the command of a picked company
in an important but somewhat perilous movement?"

Olney's tall form stiffened with pleasure.

"I will--with thanks!"

"Well, then, pick out from all the forces, of whatever companies, sixty
men. Accept none but men--of the very highest bravery. Let them know that
they are chosen for the post of danger, which is the post of honour, and
permit none to serve who does not so esteem it."

Olney saluted, and went at once to the main floor, which, for drilling
purposes, was shared by four companies. He stood still until his eye fell
on Johnny Fairfax--him he called aside.

"You can get the whole sixty right here if you want to," Johnny told him.
"But if you want to distribute things----"

"I do," said Olney.

"Then I'd take Keith, Carter, that teamster McGlynn, and Salisbury."

Together they went the rounds of the impromptu armouries, going carefully
over the rolls, picking a man here and there. By eight o'clock the sixty,
informed, equipped, and ready, were gathered at the hall. Olney dismissed
all others, and set himself to drilling his picked body.

"I don't care whether you can do 'shoulder arms' or not," he said, "but
you've got to learn simple evolutions so I can handle you. And you must
learn one another's faces. Now, come on!"

At two o'clock in the morning he expressed himself as satisfied. From the
stock of blankets with which the headquarters were already provided they
selected, bedding, and turned in on the floor. At six o'clock Olney began
to send out detachments for breakfast.

"Feed up," he advised them. "I don't know what this is all about, but it
pays to eat well."

By eight o'clock every man was in his place, lined up to rigid attention as
Coleman entered the building.

"There they are!" said Olney proudly. "Every man of them of good, tough
courage, and you can handle them as well as any old soldiers!"

Other men came into the hall, some of them in ranks, as they had fallen in
at their own company headquarters outside, others singly or in groups.
Doorkeepers prevented all exit; once a man was in, he was not permitted to
go out. Some of the leaders and captains, among whom were Doane, Olney, and
Talbot Ward, were summoned to Coleman's room. Shortly they emerged, and
circulated through the hall giving to each captain of a company detailed
and explicit directions. Each was instructed as to what hour he and his
command were to start; from what given point; along exactly what route; and
at exactly what time he was to arrive at another given point--not a moment
sooner or later. Each was ignorant as to the instructions given the others.
Never was a plan better laid out for concerted action, and probably never
before had such a plan been so well carried out. Each captain listened
attentively, returned to head his company, thoughtful with responsibility.

Olney gave the orders to his picked, company in person. They were told to
leave their muskets. Armed only with pistols, they were to make their way
by different routes to the jail.

Keith, and Johnny Fairfax started out together, "This is a mistake, as far
as I am concerned," observed Keith to his companion. "I can't shoot a
pistol. I ought to be in the rank and file, not with this picked lot. They
chose me merely because I was your friend."

"You can make a noise, anyway," replied Johnny, whose eyes were alight with
excitement. "I wonder what's up? This looks like business! I wouldn't miss
it for a million dollars!"

Apparently the general populace had no inkling that anything was forward.
The streets were much as usual except that an inordinate amount of street-
corner discussion seemed to be going on; but that in view of the
circumstances was normal. A broad-beamed Irish woman, under full sail alone
accosted them. Her face Keith vaguely recognized, but he could not have
told where he had seen it.

"I hear Mr. King, God rest him, is better," she said. "And what are the men
going to do with that villain, Casey? If the men don't hang him, the women
will!".

A little farther Keith stopped short at sight of two men hurrying by.

"Hold on, Watkins!" he called.

The four of them drew aside a little, out of the way.

"Weren't you in the jail guard?" asked Keith.

Watkins nodded.

"How does it happen you're outside?"

"The committee sent notice that the truce was over."

Johnny uttered an exultant yell, which he cut short shamefacedly when a
dozen passersby looked around.




LIX


It happened on this day that Nan Keith had refused an invitation to ride
with Ben Sansome, but had agreed as a compromise to give him a cup of tea
late in the afternoon. Nan's mood was latterly becoming more and more
restless. It was an unconscious reflection of the times, unconscious
because she had no real conception of what was going on. In obedience to
Keith's positively expressed request she had kept away from the downtown
districts, leaving the necessary marketing to Wing Sam. For the moment, as
has been explained, her points of touch with society were limited. It
happened that before the trouble began the Keiths had been subscribers to
the Bulletin and the Herald, and these two journals continued to be
delivered. Neither of them gave her much idea of what was really going on.
For a moment her imagination was touched by the blank space of white paper
the Bulletin left where King's editorials had usually been printed, but
Thomas King's subsequent violence had repelled her. The Herald, after
rashly treating the "affray" as a street brawl, lost hundreds of
subscribers and most of its advertising. It shrunk to a sheet a quarter of
its usual size. Naturally, its editor, John Nugent, was the more solidly
and bitterly aligned with the Law and Order party. The true importance of
the revolt, either as an ethical movement or merely as regards its
physical size, did not get to Nan at all. She knew the time was one of
turmoils and excitements. She believed the city in danger of mobs. Her
attitude might be described as a mixture of fastidious disapproval and a
sympathetic restlessness.

About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Sherwood came up the front walk and
rang the bell. Nan, sitting behind lace curtains, was impressed by her air
of controlled excitement. Mrs. Sherwood hurried. She hurried gracefully,
to be sure, and with a reminiscence of her usual feline indolence; but she
hurried, nevertheless. Therefore, Nan herself answered the bell, instead
of awaiting the deliberate Wing Sam.

"My dear," cried Mrs. Sherwood, "get your mantle, and come with me.
There's something going to happen-something big!"

She refused to answer Nan's questions.

"You'll see," was all the reply she vouchsafed. "Hurry!"

They crossed by the new graded streets where the sand hills had been, and
soon found themselves on the low elevations above the county jail. Mrs.
Sherwood led the way to the porch of a onestory wooden house that appeared
to be unoccupied.

"This is fine!" she said with satisfaction.

The jail was just below them, and they looked directly across the open
square in front of it and the convergence of two streets. The jail was
buzzing like a hive: men were coming and going busily, running away as
though on errands, or darting in through the open door. Armed men were
taking their places on the flat roof.

In contrast to this one little spot of excited activity, the rest of the
scene was almost superlatively peaceful. People were drifting in from all
the side streets, but they were sauntering slowly, as though without
particular interest; they might have been going to or coming from church.
A warm, basking, Sunday feel was in the sunshine. There was not the
faintest breeze. Distant sounds carried clearly, as the barking of a dog--
it might have been Gringo shut up at home--or the crowing of a distant
cock. From the square below arose the murmur of a multitude talking. The
groups of people increased in frequency, in numbers. Black forms began to
appear on roof tops all about; white faces at windows. It would have been
impossible to say when the scattered groups became a crowd; when the side
of the square filled; when the converging streets became black with
closely packed people; when the windows and doors and balconies, the
copings and railings, the slopes of the hills were all occupied, but so it
was. Before she fairly realized that many were gathering, Nan looked down
on twenty thousand people. They took their positions quietly, and waited.
There was no shouting, no demonstration, so little talking that the low
murmur never rendered inaudible the barking of the dog or the crowing of
the distant cock. The doors of the jail had closed. Men ceased going in
and out. The armed forces on the roof were increased.

Nan had left off asking questions of Mrs. Sherwood, who answered none. The
feeling of tense expectation filled her also. What was forward? Was this a
mob? Why were these people gathered? Somehow they gave her the impression
that they, too, like Mrs. Sherwood and herself, were waiting to see.

After a long time she saw the closely packed crowd down the vista of one
of the converging streets move in the agitation of some disturbance. A
moment later the sun caught files of bayonets. At the same instant the
same thing happened at the end of the other converging street. The armed
columns came steadily forward, the people giving way. Their men were
dressed in sober citizens' clothes. The shining steel of the bayonets
furnished the only touch of uniform. Quietly and steadily they came
forward, the snake of steel undulating and twisting like a living thing.
The two columns reached the convergence of the street together. As they
entered the square before the jail, a third and fourth column debouched
from side streets, and others deployed into view on the hills behind. The
timing was perfect. One minute the prospect was empty of all but
spectators, the next it was filled with grim and silent armed men.

Near the two women and among chance spectators on the piazza of the
deserted house a well-known character of the times leaned against one of
the pillars. This was Colonel Gift. Our chronicler, who has an eye for the
telling phrase, describes him as "a tall, lank, empty-bowelled, tobacco-
spurting Southerner, with eyes like burning black balls, who could talk a
company of listeners into an insane asylum quicker than any man in
California, and whose blasphemy could not be equalled, either in quantity
or quality, by the most profane of any age or nation." In this crisis
Colonel Gift's sympathies may be guessed. He watched the scene below him
with a sardonic eye. As the armed columns wheeled into place and stood at
attention, he turned to a man standing near.

"I tell you, stranger," said he, "when you see those damned psalm-singing
Yankees turn out of their churches, shoulder their guns, and march away of
a Sunday, you may know that hell is going to crack shortly!"

Mrs. Sherwood turned an amused eye in his direction. The colonel, for the
first time becoming aware of her presence, swept off his black slouch hat
and apologized profusely for the "damn."

The armed men stood rigid, four deep all around the square. Behind them
the masses of the people watched. Even the murmur died. Again everybody
waited.

Now, at a command, the ranks fell apart and from the side street marched
the sixty men chosen by Olney dragging a field gun at the end of a rope.
Their preliminary task of watching the jail for a possible escape
finished, they had been again gathered. With beautiful military precision
they wheeled and came to rest facing the frowning walls of the jail, the
cannon pointed at the door.

Nan gasped sharply, and seized Mrs. Sherwood's arm with both hands. She
had recognized Keith standing by the right wheel of the cannon. He was
looking straight ahead, and the expression on his face was one she had
never seen there before. Suddenly something swelled up within her breast
and choked her. The tears rushed to her eyes.

Quite deliberately, each motion in plain sight, the cannon was loaded with
powder and ball. A man lit a slow match, blew it painstakingly to a glow,
then took his position at the breech. The slight innumerable sounds of
these activities died. The bustle of men moving imperceptibly fell. Not
even the coughing and sneezing usual to a gathering of people paying
attention was heard, for the intense interest inhibited these nervous
symptoms. Probably never have twenty thousand people, gathered in one
place, made their presence so little evident. A deep, solemn stillness
brooded over them. The spring sun lay warm and grateful on men's
shoulders; the doves and birds, the distant dogs and roosters, cooed and
twittered, barked and crowed.

Nothing happened for full ten minutes. The picked men stood rigid by the
gun in the middle of the square; the slow match burned sleepily, a tiny
thread of smoke rising in the still air; the sunlight gleamed from the
ranks of bayonets; the vast multitude held its breath, the walls of the
jail remained blank and inscrutable.

Then a man on horseback was seen pushing his way through the crowd. He rode
directly up to the jail door, on which he rapped thrice with the handle of
his riding whip. Against the silence these taps, but gently delivered,
sounded sharp and staccato. After a moment the wicket opened. The rider,
without dismounting, handed through it a note; then, with a superb display
of the old-fashioned horsemanship, backed his horse half the length of the
square where he, too, came to rest.

"Who is he?" whispered Nan. Why she whispered she could not have told.

"Charles Doane," answered Mrs. Sherwood, in the same voice.

Another commotion down the street. Again the ranks parted and closed again,
this time to admit three carriages driven rapidly. As they came to a stop
the muskets all around the square leaped to the "present." So disconcerting
was this sudden slap and rattle of arms after the tenseness of the last
half hour, that men dodged back as though from a blow. With admirable
precision, Olney's men, obeying a series of commands, moved forward from
the gun to form a hollow square around the carriages. Only the man with the
burning slow match was left standing by the breech.

From the carriages then descended Coleman, Truett, Talbot Ward, Smiley, and
two other men whom neither Nan nor Mrs. Sherwood recognized. Amid the dead
silence they walked directly to the jail door, Olney's Sixty breaking the
square and deploying close at their heels. A low colloquy through the
wicket now took place. At length the door swung slowly open. The committee
entered. The door swung shut after them. Again the people waited, but now
once more arose the murmur of low-toned conversation.




LX


Up to this day Casey had been very content with his situation. His quarters
were the best the place afforded, and they had been made more comfortable.
Scores of friends had visited him, hailing him as their champion. He had
been made to feel quite a hero. To be sure it was a nuisance to be so
confined; but when he shot King, he had anticipated undergoing some
inconvenience. It was a price to pay. He understood that there was some
public excitement, and that it was well to lie low for a little until that
had died down. The momentary annoyance would be more than offset by later
prestige. Casey did not in the least fear the courts. He had before his
eyes too many reassuring examples. His friends were rallying nobly to his
defence. Over the wines and cigars, with which he was liberally supplied,
they boasted of their strength and their dispositions--the whole police
force of the city, the militia companies sworn, to act in just such
emergencies, hundreds of volunteers, if necessary the whole power of the
State of California called to put down this affronting of duly constituted
law!

But this Sunday morning Casey was uneasy. There seemed to be much
whispering in corners, much bustling to and fro. He paced back and forth,
fretting, interrogating those about him. But they could or would tell him
little--there was trouble;--and they fussed away, leaving Casey alone. As a
matter of fact, the withdrawal of the committee's guard of ten, and the
formal notice that the truce was thus promptly ended, had caught the Law
and Order party unprepared. With five hours' notice--or indeed by next day,
even were no notice given--the jail would have been impregnably defended.
The sudden move of the committee won; as prompt, decisive moves will.

The bustling of the people in the jail suddenly died. Casey heard no
shuffle of feet, no whisper of conversation. The building might have been
empty save for himself. But he did hear outside the steady rhythmic tramp
of feet.

Sheriff Scannell stood before him, the Vigilantes' written communication in
his hand. Casey, looking up from the bed on which he had fallen in sudden
shrinking, saw on his face an expression that made him cower. For the
first time realization came to him of the straits he was in. His vivid
Irish imagination leaped instantaneously from the complacence of absolute
safety to the depths of terror. He sprang to his feet.

"You aren't going to betray me! You aren't going to give me up!" he cried,
wringing his hands.

"James," replied' Scannell solemnly, "there are three thousand armed men
coming for you, and I have not now thirty supporters around the jail."

"Not thirty!" cried. Casey, astonished. For a moment he appeared crushed;
then leaped to his feet flourishing a long knife he had drawn from his
boot. "I'll, not be taken from this place alive!" he shrieked, beside
himself with hysteria. "Where are all you brave fellows who were going to
see me through this?"

Scannell looked at him sadly. In the pause came a sharp knocking at the
door of the jail. The sheriff turned away. A moment later Casey, listening
intently, heard the door open and close, heard the sound of talking. He
fairly darted to his table, scrawled a paper, and called to attract
attention. Marshal North, answered the summons.

"Give this to them--to the Vigilantes," urged Casey, thrusting the paper
into his hands. North glanced through the note.

TO THE VIGILANT COMMITTEE. Gentlemen: I am willing to go before you if you
will let me speak but ten minutes. I do not wish the blood of any man upon
my head.

JAS. CASEY

But after North had gone to deliver this, Casey again sprang to his feet,
again flourished his bowie knife, again ramped up and down, again swore he
would never be taken alive. A deputy passed the door. Casey's demeanour
collapsed again.

"Tell them," he begged this man earnestly; "tell them if two respectable
citizens will promise me gentlemanly treatment, I'll go peaceably! I will
not be dragged through the streets like a dog! If they will give me a fair
trial and allow me to summon my witnesses, I'll yield!"

And the deputy left him pacing up and down, waving his knife, muttering
wildly to, himself.

On entering the jail door Coleman and his companions bowed formally to the
sheriff.

"We have come for the prisoner, Casey," said Coleman. "We ask that he be
peaceably delivered us handcuffed, at the door, immediately."

"Under existing circumstances," replied Scannell, "I shall make no
resistance. The prison and its contents are yours."

But Truett interrupted pointedly:

"We want only the man Casey, at present," he said. "For the rest we hold
you strictly accountable."

Scannell bowed without reply. North and the deputy came in succession to
deliver Casey's messages, and to report his apparent determination. The
committee offered no comment. They penetrated to the ulterior of the jail.
Many men, apparently unarmed, idling about as though merely spectators,
looked at them curiously as they passed. Casey heard them, coming and
sprang back from the door, holding his long knife dramatically poised.
Coleman walked directly to the door, where he stopped, looking Casey coldly
in the eye. The seconds, passed. Neither man stirred. At the end of a full
minute Coleman said sharply:

"Lay down that knife!"

As though his incisive tones had broken the spell, Casey moved. He looked
wildly to right and to left; then flung the knife from him and buried his
face in his hands.

"Your requests are granted," said Coleman shortly; then to Marshal North:
"Open the door and bring him out."




LXI


On the veranda of the unoccupied house above the jail Nan Keith stood
rigid, her hand upon her heart. During the period of the committee's
absence inside the jail she did not alter her position by a hair's breadth.
She was in the hypnosis of a portentous waiting. Time fell into the abyss
of eternity: whether it were ten minutes or ten hours did not matter in the
least.

For this was to Nan in the nature of a revelation so sudden and so complete
that it filled her whole soul. Had she known what Mrs. Sherwood was taking
her to see, she would have pre-visualized a drunken, disorderly, howling,
bloodthirsty mob; a huge composite of brawling antagonisms, of blind fury,
of vulgar irrationalisms. Here were men filled with purpose; This was what
caught at her breath--the grim silent purpose of it! The orderly
progression of events, moving with the certainty of a fate, was like the
steady crescendo of solemn music. And this crescendo rose in her as a tide
of emotion that overflowed and drowned her. The right and wrong--as she had
examined them intellectually or through, the darkened glasses of her caste
prejudices--were quite lost. This was merely something primitive,
wonderful, beautiful. The spectacle was at the moment of suspense, yet she
felt so impatience--the wheel must turn in its own majestic circle--but
only an intense expectation. And in this she felt, subconsciously, that she
was one with the multitude.

The jail door swung open. The committee came out. In the middle of their
compact group walked a stranger.

"Casey!" breathed a vast voice from the crowd.

An indescribable burst of grateful relief fluttered across the upturned
faces as a breeze across water. It was almost timid at first, but gathered
strength as it spread. It rolled up the hillside. A great, deep breath
seemed to fill the lungs of the throng. The murmur swelled suddenly, was on
the point of bursting into the frantic cheering of twenty thousand men.

But Coleman, his hat removed, raised his hand. In obedience to the simple
gesture the cheer was stifled. In an instant all was still. The little
group entered the carriages, which immediately wheeled and drove away.

Nan, standing bolt upright, her attitude still unchanged, caught her breath
at the inhibition of the cheer. She did not even try to wink away the tears
that rolled down her cheeks. Through them she saw the troops wheel with the
precision of veterans, and march away after the carriages. The crowd melted
slowly. Soon were left only the inscrutable jail, the gun still pointed at
its door, the rigid ranks of Olney's Sixty, who had evidently been left on
guard, and a few stragglers.

Suddenly she turned and walked away. Mrs. Sherwood followed her as rapidly
as she could, but did not succeed in catching up with her. At the corner
below the Keiths' house she stopped, watched until Nan had gained her own
dooryard, then turned toward home, a smile sketching her lips, a light in
her eyes.

Nan flung open her door and went directly to the parlour. She stood in the
doorway contemplating the scene. It was very cozy. The afternoon sun
slanted through the high-narrow windows of the period, gilding the dust
motes floating lazily to and fro. The tea table, set with a snowy doth,
glittered invitingly, its silver and porcelain, its plates of dainty
sandwiches and thin waferlike cookies--Wing Sam's specialty--enticingly
displayed. Two easy chairs had been drawn close, and, before the unoccupied
one a low footstool had been placed. Ben Sansome sat in the other. He was,
as usual, exquisitely dressed. All his little appointments were not only
correct but worn easily. The varicoloured waistcoat, the sparkling studs
and cravat pins, the bright, soft silk tie, were all subdued from their
ordinary too-vivid effect by the grace with which they were carried. Nan
saw all this, and appreciated it dispassionately, appraising him anew
through clarified vision. Especially she noticed the waxed ends of his
small moustache. He had, at the sound of her entrance, lighted the tea
kettle; and as she came in he smiled up at her brightly.

"You see," he cried gayly, "I am doing your task for you! I have the lamp
all lit!"

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