Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 287 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 287: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# A Page from a Victorian Penny Dreadful This is running prose text (page 269) from a serialized narrative titled "A Mulatto from the Rebel Plantations." The scene depicts a dramatic intervention at a whipping-post within brick walls, where a man of noble birth—apparently a marquis, described as slim, well-dressed, and possessing "charm of manner"—arrives to halt a flogging. A white soldier or man of rank is being whipped, crying out against the degradation, while onlookers gather at windows and from an Assembly Hall. The passage emphasizes class, authority, and theatrical confrontation typical of sensation fiction melodrama.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A MutatTro FROM THE REBEL PLANTATIONS 269 profile. There was character in every line of that face. Here, in flesh and blood, was the fulfilling of the obliga- tion of nobility. Within the hot brick walls were four objects: a clothes- line hung with bed-clothing, a bench and tubs, a pump, and the whipping-post. * Hoff with ’is shirt, Bill.” The hot stillness was split by a cry as fierce as a wild beast’s: — ; Help! Shall a white man, and a soldier be lashed like a slave!” There were startled faces in the windows now. Out of the brick pit came the challenge again: — “Ts the blood of the Bishop of Nottingham to be de- graded in this English bishopric?” He saw the faces; but he looked straight into one face, deep into one pair of eyes. They were eyes to swear by. Hands were waved; here and there a lace handkerchief. But he leaned from a window with an authoritative ges- ture which said, “ Halt.”’ Nor was it unheeded. ‘“’Ere’s a rum start,” muttered the man with the strap, surlily. “My heye. The Markiss ’imself,” retorted the other. SO PT ‘““Horders his horders,’ and the “whipping-boss”’ re- signed his back to the wall behind him. “Markiss his hinto heverythink,” with almost a chuckle. Two or three of the more curious had hurried down from the Assembly Hall, but He came first. Straight up to Tom he strode. He was a slim young fellow, chock-full of good looks, good sense, and good breeding. And he had a charm of manner that nobody could withstand. He wore a buff coat richly laced, a tamboured waistcoat, and white twilled-silk smallclothes which looked like kid. And his hyacinthine curls were powdered, and tied in a white silk pouch. : CORNICIOOO® “eS (C(O)