Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 69 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 69: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a page of running prose from *The Taking of Helen*, a Victorian penny dreadful (page 57). The text depicts an interrogation scene in which a man questions a boy named Nireus about his family's whereabouts—they are harvesters gone north—and then turns to question a girl named Myrtle about a dovecot in an upper floor of a house. Nireus observes the girl's face harden when answering, suggesting someone is hiding in the dovecot. The man (apparently an authority figure, possibly military given the reference to "sergeant") grows suspicious and demands to know why the dovecot was not searched, though the sergeant claims he saw no way to access it.
📄 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 57 “So am I, my lad. Where do your people live?” “Live, sir?” “Yes, live; lodge.”’ “Do you mean where they are now, sir, or where they are when they are at home?”’ “Where they are now, of course.”’ ‘They are harvesters, sir: they have gone away north to the harvest. JI don’t know exactly where they are now, but I hope to hear, sir, soon.’’ “Then you are not their only support ?”’ ‘‘Sir, even the very old can help in the harvest.” “That is so. I don’t like your answers, my lad. They smack to me of the shirk. You and I will meet again.” He turned abruptly from Nireus to look at the house. “Girl,” he said to Myrtle, “what is that upper floor above there ?”’ “There, sir? The pigeon-loft or dovecot.”’ Nireus was watching the girl’s face as she spoke; he saw it harden as though it were an effort to answer, and knew at once that one of the two was in the dove- cot. ‘Did you search the dovecot, sergeant ?”’ “No, sir.” “You did not? Why not?” ‘“T saw no way to it, sir.” “You, boy, where is the way to it?”’ ‘“T am not employed in the house, sir.”’ COnniclaooKSs (S(O)