Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 194 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 194: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Running Prose Page from a Victorian Penny Dreadful This is a page of running prose narrative (page 176) from a Victorian penny dreadful titled *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil*. The text describes a Revolutionary War-era adventure: Tom Anderson, a courier nicknamed "Dare-Devil," is sent to locate a military leader named Clark and warn him that Ferguson's forces intend to capture him in South Carolina. After searching unsuccessfully across the countryside, Anderson encounters a mysterious figure emerging from the forest on a lean pony—someone wearing a travel-stained women's riding skirt, apparently traveling from Charleston. The narrative builds suspense as the courier awaits to discover who this unexpected visitor is.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
176 Tom ANDERSON, DaARE-DEVIL (“Patterroller.””) “Patterroller”’ and Betty Martin were eating their heads off in my Lord Rawdon’s stables in Camden. Tom backed the black from Tarleton’s Legion —-with a swagger! “Dare-Devil, whur’s yer critter? Whur’s Betty Martin?” dernanded Andy. “Been horse- tradin’ with Tarleton, Andy! But I’m going to rue-back!”’ he answered: which saying was repeated and chuckled over in every cabin for miles around. During the next three months Anderson saw service of the sternest sort. Cornwallis had come. Ferguson’s march was a prolonged skirmish. His Tories stole slaves, burned homes, and hanged prisoners, busily. One name was in every mouth in the South: “Clark of Georgia!” “When Georgia and South Carolina were evacuated by their Governments, and the forces of the United States were withdrawn from them, Clark alone kept the field: and his name spread terror through the whole line of British posts from Catawba to the Creek Nation.” Tom was sent with dispatches to Clark. But where Clark was, nobody knew. Ferguson was dispatched to cut him off in South Carolina. It was to forewarn Clark of Ferguson that Sumter sent “ Dare-Devil.” “Ferguson has been ordered to throttle Clark in South Carolina. Such a calamity must not overtake us. Find Clark!” Our courier hawked over the country from the Cowpens to the Savannah River, shunning Cornwallis’s spies by the hardest sort of work. The earth might have opened and swallowed Clark, so completely had he effaced his trail. In desperation, Tom struck eastward across the country. He plunged into the pine barrens. At the end of another day’s ride he had seen no living thing but cows and crows. As the red dusk fell, he heard the whicker of a horse. Con- cealing himself among the scrub pines, the bearer of Sumter’s dispatches awaited developments. Out of the thicket came, no vidette, but a lean pony, wearing a broken bridle and dragging from the saddle a travel- stained linsey riding-skirt. ‘Somebody on the road from Charleston.” The heroic ECONMMIEL OOO KS,(€©) m