Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 352 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 352: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil*. The text describes a medical scene where characters named Mac, Tulloch, and others examine an apparently unconscious man named Knatchbull, debating whether he suffered a seizure or something else (with one character suggesting "voodooed"). A servant named Catulle is summoned for coffee, and reveals that his master Knatchbull left unusually early that morning on horseback. The passage concludes with Macglashan walking to a pool where Knatchbull nearly died. The language includes Scottish dialect and period racial slurs typical of Victorian-era fiction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
282 Tom ANDERSON, DarE-DEVIL Mac’s whole mind seemed to have gone down into the two fingers on Knatchbull’s pulse. He raised his keen green eyes — they were really green, with red specks in them, and, by the way, what they could n’t see the crea- tor has reserved for Eternity, that his Long Parliament may not be without interest for Scotch doctors! “But Dick did na droon,— God be thankit!— sae Mac is able tae mak’ oath that it was no a seizure.” Tulloch stopped short in his noiseless tramp through the deep-piled velvet. “Maybe you think he was voodooed. Eh, Mac?” The green eyes narrowed. The Scotchman smiled queerly on his fiery old friend. ‘Tulloch swore by him. “Ye are no sae far wrong as common, Captain.” “Tut, tut!’ snorted the barracks surgeon, the whole bunch staring at Macglashan. “We’ve whipped up a pulse, at last. Eh, Pomeroy?” The surgeon nodded. “He’ll do now.” ‘““Wheer’s that nigger?”’ nage evoked, Mr. Knatchbull’s own man stood before them. “Catulle, bring us some coffee. Hot, an’ plenty of it. By the way, did your master eat or drink anything this morning, at allr”’ Catulle was certain that he had not. His master’s coffee was always brought to him after his bath. He answered, too, that Mr. Knatchbull’s invariable habit was to take that plunge in the marble pool on waking. Of course not at this queer hour. His master had rung for him an hour before day, told him he was going away, and ordered that his horse be at the door 1 in twenty minutes. “When Marse Dick ainh comin’ he’s gwine; but I never has know’d him start nowhere ’fo’ day, ontel dis mawnin’,” declared the distressed manservant. Macglashan lit his pipe, and strolled out into the pak: lery; out into the Jessamine Alley; and so to the pool where Dick had grazed death. He approached the spot noiselessly. The early sunlight kindled into splendor the ECONMMICLOOOKSa(e© m