Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 41 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 41: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Description This is page 29 of running prose from *The Taking of Helen*, a Victorian penny dreadful. The text depicts a conversation among soldiers and a lad about horses, love, and relationships. A soldier shares crude advice about treating women harshly, while another character asks Nireus about "Madame Fantasy," a housekeeper at the Curlews who has caused trouble. The page ends with the arrival of another troop of horsemen. The dialogue reveals period attitudes toward courtship and domestic life through crude soldier's banter.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE TAKING OF HELEN 29 “That’s weaving,’ the lad said. ‘‘When a horse does that, he is said to weave. And when a horse weaves, he is safe from being stolen, for it’s like death or love, there’s no cure for weaving.”’ “There’s a cure for love,’ one of the soldiers said. “Run away with the lady for a month.” | “That is the cure for folly,” the lad from the Cur- lews said. ‘But nobody gets over love; it goes deep down and changes a man.” ‘It does,”’ Nireus said. ‘“‘T was in love once,” the soldier answered, “‘and at first I wanted to eat her; then, as my miss got uppish, I gave her one or two on the side of the head. That stopped her weaving; aiter that we got on better. Treat them rough, like you would dogs, and you won’t ever suffer from love.” “Sir,” the lad from the Curlews said to Nireus, ‘when you were at the Curlews, did you see Madame Fantasy, as they call her? Rather a big, brisk, bus- tling woman, with a bright colour?”’ “No. Who is she?” ‘“‘She is the housekeeper there. She has made a lot of unpleasantness since she came into the house.”’ “T am sorry to hear that.’’ “Well, you know what Lord Halys is, sir.’’ “That is too true,’ Nireus said, wishing that it were. There came a noise of horses from down the glen; in a minute or two the other troop had ridden up. IGOMMIIGIOO “S (C(O)