Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 283 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 283: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from the novel "A Mulatto from the Rebel Plantations" (page 265). The text describes an auction scene in which a character named Tom, being sold to the highest bidder, is persuaded to sing. Instead of performing as expected, Tom sings a Scottish ballad about Britain's loyalty and military courage—lines beginning "Loudon's bonny banks and braes." The passage captures the dramatic moment when his unexpected song choice provokes applause and increased bidding from the assembled Barbados planters. The page portrays this as an ironic, even darkly humorous scene of an enslaved person's artistic performance amid a human auction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A MULATTO FROM THE REBEL PLANTATIONS 265 ments. Speaks French, — equal to Captain La Rue, — writes a fine hand, — what an amanuensis for a gentleman, —and casts accounts. Save any merchant the hire of an ac- countant. And dance? Likea ballet-girl from the Theater Royal, London. Who said “sing’’? Why, his voice would draw tears from the eyes of a deaf man! | believe it would soothe the worst case of Barbados leg! If there’s any gentleman in this representative Barbados crowd, afflicted with Barbados leg, we'll test the matter. Listen, gentle- men, to a voice that equals any in ‘The Nobleman’s Catch-Club’ — the eminent musical association in Lon- don.”’ He put the banjo in Tom’s hand, and appealed to the singer's sense of the dramatic. His whisper was curious in its supplicating intensity: “Do zt right/”’ The grotesque- ness of the thing! About to be knocked down to the highest bidder, Tom was implored to sing. His sense of humor came to his relief. In an instant his choice was made. He touched a minor chord, and sang — bravely and well—the noblest Scotch ballad in the world, the song they’d learned from Arthur Leslie. It was new, even in Europe. The London-going Barbados planters, who brought home the fashions of London and other European capitals to the Caribbee Islands, had not heard this latest ballad. Looking straight into the faces of these island- born Royalists, every whit as stanch in their allegiance to the English throne as if they had been born within the sound of Bow Bells, he sang: — ““Loudon’s bonny banks and braes, I must leave them a’, lassie: Wha would thole when Britain’s faes Wad gie Britain law, lassie? Wha would shun the field o’ danger? Wha to glory be a stranger? Wha — when Britain bids avenge her — Wha would turn and flee?”’ There was an uproar of applause— and bids. Men tossed up their hats. Buyers vociferated. “Seventy-five CORNICLIOO® “eS (C(©) mn