Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 373 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 373: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose (page 353) from a Victorian penny dreadful titled "In High Cabal." The text describes four men gathered by firelight—Rory, De la Jonquière, a Cherokee, and the narrator Unaka—as Tom recounts his story of carrying Sir Æneas from a church in Charleston to Florida. The passage details each man's racial and social background, describes Unaka's fine clothing and an engraved sword awarded him by Barbados, and ends with Rory responding emotionally to Tom's tale of capture during the American Revolution, mentioning Roderick McIntosh and Lord Rawdon's Headquarters.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
In Hick CABAL 353 “T hae lang syne made Tammie as my ain son. My hoose an’ my heart are open tae ilka ane of his friends.” But no word would he hear till supper was over. Then Tom told his story, from the minute when Rory car- ried Sir A‘neas in his arms out of St. Michael’s church in Charleston to this May night in Florida. And while he talked, the firelight gave a Rembrandtish glow to four wonderful faces. Each face was a striking exponent of race. Rory was massive and heroic, the just outcome of the ancient Whigs who might not pray on the wild moor, but must hang in the church porch. Next him sat De la Jonquieére, charged with the blood of Norman knights, informed with the grace, beauty, chivalric dar- ing which “sprang from that scarlet dew.” Beside the French-West-Indian, an Adam-man, the Cherokee. And the story-teller, standing tall and straight in the topaz light, here was the strain we call “the. Virginians of the Valley,’ —the blood of belted earls in a “ born Amer- ican.’ His face was brown as ever. The Voodoo tal- isman, which came so near costing Unaka his life that the Devil-Queen on the slope of Soufriére must have rejoiced, — a Devil-Queen “worth shucks” is cognizant of all evil, — had failed to take the stain from his skin. His hair was now long enough to tie with a ribbon. He wore a damson-colored cloth suit, Rozelle’s triumph. At his side was a magnificent sword. On its blade was en- graved: “Thomas Calvert Anderson. From Mulgrave. In Commemoration of Heroic Services.”” Unaka wore a bronze medal, which, with.a life-annuity, had been voted him by the Legislative Council of Barbados. Tom’s story of his capture in Charleston stirred Rory to the bottom. “Eh, sirs! An’ when ye were 1’ sic sair straits, [am- mie, Roderick McIntosh was i’ the same hoose wi’ ye; an’ kenned naething o’t! When the Hessians cam wi ye tae my Lord Rawdon’s Headquarters, I was abune the stairs, watchin’ wi’ Sir A‘neas. Nae whisper would they have aroond his bed, or f might hae heard —”’ x CONNICLIOO® SS (©) mn