Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 249 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 249: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled "Pink" (page 231). The text depicts a dramatic narrative account: a character named Deveaux recounts a brawl in a shop involving an oyster-shell, a redcoat named Williamson, and Major Roderick McIntosh of the Scottish Militia, who intervenes and breaks Williamson's sword with his dirk. The passage then shifts to a scene where a black butler from Madame La Motte's household enters a hall carrying a silver salver with a pasty, apparently delivering it to General Lachlan McIntosh. The prose emphasizes action, dialect, and melodramatic confrontation typical of the genre.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘PINK 231 “With Rawdon’s gibbet in your face, boy?” “Aye!” with blazing eyes. They dropped their nuts to wring his hand. And General McIntosh demanded, “What then, De- veaux?”” “Oh, as I shied the old oyster-shell at his pug, J bawled out, “Balance that on your nose!’ — and, by the Eternal! the blood ran for it. In a rage, he jumped up and made at me with his sword. I had no weapon — worse than the gingerbread. Don’t know how I’d have fared, but a red- faced old fellow whiskered like a fox comes striding into the shop as if he owned it, and stood glowering at William- son. ‘Dinna bait a hungry mon, he roared. ‘Who are you?’ snorted Williamson. ‘Il am Major Roderick McIntosh, o’ His Mayjesty’s Militia. Tak tento’ ’t!’ he thundered. With that he drew his big Scotch dirk, broughc :t down like a sledgehammer on Williamson’s sword, and broke it in two pieces! It was a blow would have cracked a stone toma- hawk. And then he glared at our renegade. ‘I like not a turncoat!’ says he. And he strutted up and down before the crowd, well pleased with the brawl he’d stirred up. The shop was full of people who had tumbled in to see the big Highlander and the redcoat run each other through. Williamson was as bloody from my oyster-shell as if he’d been slashed by somebody’s sword, and I should have been cut but for the old one-eyed Covenanter. May his shadow never grow less!’’ “Rory McIntosh himself,” ejaculated Lachlan McIn- tosh. “Is he a kinsman of yours, General?” oat Ele (is. But he serves the King: and I serve the Cause of Liberty.” Cat-footed, a man had come through the tunnel-like darkness of the great hall. It was Madame La Motte’s black butler. He advanced with much ceremony and set down a silver salver, on which was a monstrous “ pasty.”’ He bowed low. “Madame La Motte sont this ter General Lachlan CORNICLMOOO SS (CO) im