Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 241 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 241: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from page 223 of a Victorian penny dreadful titled "My Lord Rawdon and the Runty Rebel." The text narrates how a character named Troupe came to be imprisoned in Charleston during what appears to be the American Revolutionary War: he escaped his Tory captors, swam to visit a woman named Elinor Elliott at Marley plantation, was betrayed by a spy, narrowly escaped again with Elinor's help, but was captured by British forces twenty-four hours later. The passage concludes with a revelation that other characters—including one called "Tom Calvert"—did not realize Troupe was the American officer they had heard about in a story.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
My Lorp RawpoNn AND THE RUNTY REBEL 223 pals in a memorable duel — as startling as It was secret — to be fought that night, before the moon went down. But how came [Troupe to be in Charleston and a paroled prisoner? In brief, his Tory captors took him by water to Charleston. He escaped from them, and swam the Ashley to see the fair Elinor, he having been no infrequent visitor at Marley before the surrender of the city. Some spy con- veyed to British headquarters the information that an American officer was at Marley. A bit later, while Elinor Elliott, standing, taper in hand, between two of the mighty Corinthian columns of the colonnade, bluffed Tarleton’s dragoons, Troupe escaped. Twenty-four hours afterwards he was seized by a British scouting party, and imprisoned. Subsequently, with other paroled Southern officers, he was quartered in a dismantled old house deserted by its refu- gee owners, flying from the British. How little Troupe dreamed that his father and his brother were close by! And how little did “Tom Calvert”? suspect, when Rory told the story of the heiress of Marley and her reckless American sweetheart who dared the river, the outpost’s aim, and Tarleton’s Legion for speech with her, that this was Troupe! “Eh, sirs! The lassie’s Rebel jo, ye ken!” GOMIGooOo SS (C©) im