Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 166 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 166: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a page of running prose from page 150 of a Victorian penny dreadful titled *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil*. The text describes the aftermath of a cabin being swept over a cliff during a supernatural storm called the "Hollow Wind." Egger, who had sheltered in the cabin, regains consciousness in a treetop with two other survivors—including Tom Anderson, whom Egger believed dead. Egger learns that Anderson's unexpected survival threatens the Tory conspirators' plans, and he rushes to warn his associates that the prisoners will be hanged. The passage combines melodramatic action with period dialect and supernatural elements typical of the penny dreadful genre.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
150 Tom ANDERSON, DarRE-DEVIL into the vortex of the wind, this history had never been written. What happened —I am writing of verities — was this: The cabin was swept over the cliff like a leaf shaken from the hem of the storm; and left to circle, leaf- like, down, down, down, until it anchored in the topmost limbs of a live-oak in the Valley! [he three in this queer airship were suffocated; like others who have encountered the Hollow Wind — and come forth alive. The first to regain his senses was Egger. For it was Eg- ger who had taken refuge in the cabin! In that extremity he would have burst in upon his worst enemy. Still he did not suspect that anybody was in that long-deserted house. Now he discovered that he and two others — they ap- peared to be dead — lay in a heap on a sort of floor in a treetop. Ihe cabin had been whittled down toa floor en- closed with a few logs. The night was calm. The moon shone. It was about midnight. Who were those other two— “piled up” there? Egger had felt comfortably certain that Tom Anderson was dead and gone. Blown up in that lucky explosion. Therefore, when the overseer leaned over this gypsy-faced fellow stretched across his feet, and recog- nized the proud, bold features that he would have seared away — Lum Egger turned sick. It was a shock — even to that conscienceless brute. The Heir’s return had been © black luck. With his own eyes had he seen ‘l’roupe Ander- son riding — white and rigid as a dead man — through the streets of Charlottesville, followed by the town’s folk, cheering the boy to the echo, while the outlaws were marched to jail. Egger set off for the mountain to see the rest of the Tory gang. They must “do about.” Troupe Anderson’s presence in the vicinity just now would spell disaster to the schemes of the overseer, the Tories, and their British coadjutors. People said the Heir — curse him!— would not die; and the Tory prisoners would hang. “Hang?” said Butcher McNab to Egger as he was mounting his mouse-colored mule in the darkening street. “Don’t ye know they’ll hang? Governor’ll hang ’em high Eomicbooks: Go m