Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 390 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 390: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from the penny dreadful *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil* (page 370). The text depicts a chaotic scene where a drunken mob ransacks a room containing bridal finery, and a woman wielding an axe attempts to break into a locked oak press. The protagonist Dare intervenes, discovering that the axe-wielding woman is a mulatto character from the plantation quarters, and that imprisoned in the press is a man named Ole hiding from Tarleton's Dragoons (appears to be a Revolutionary War reference). The passage combines melodrama, social transgression, and violent action 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.
370 Tom ANDERSON, DarE-DEVIL fineries were being fashioned, each completed garment be- . ing packed away in the cumbrous oak press. From this room, forthwith, shouts of ribald laughter; blows of an axe on woodwork; yells and screams! The key of the sick-room turned in the lock. “Dare! Come back. You!— among those drunken brutes —”’ “Somebody must stop them!’ And Sarah Anderson looking into that tense face knew that words would avail nothing; because she stood eye to eye with herse/f — in rosebud flesh and blood. Straight into the drunken mob ran the girl. [hey were turning over chests of drawers, strewing the floor with bridal finery — oh, the patient stitches, the tender toil of months — Who was that? A woman! In the white satin bonnet, the lavender tabby silk that were to be Mimi’s bridal dress! She stood before the bulky oak press, using an axe on its locked doors. Her back was turned; but ah! — the bridal laces fell back from tallow- colored arms. Dare sprang forward—and the cessation of noises was as sudden as if a spirit had appeared. The villainous face under the virginal “Maria Edgeworth” hat was crooked round upon Dare. It was the mulatto reprobate of the quarters. “Put down that axe!’ The screams for mercy were stilled. The prisoner in the oak press was listening evi- dently. “Who’s in there?”’ ‘How I know?” brazenly. But the axe was thrown down. A groan from behind the locked doors. “It Ole, Miss Dare. Yust me. Don’ let ’em hang me! Don’ let ’°em hang me!”’ Grandmother’s keys were at Dare’s belt. She unlocked the oak doors, and released a miserable object: Ole, in a blue funk. How could she have suspected that quaking creature of having fired on a redcoat! He had hidden himself there at the approach of ‘Tarleton’s Dragoons, ECONMNICOOOKS.(€©) m