Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 61 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 61: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful titled "Stalking a Ghost" (page 45). The text describes a tense scene in which characters pursuing a wolf discover a dead body—"the corpse in the red coat"—propped in church pews, along with a terrified girl who nearly shoots the wolf. The passage emphasizes gothic atmosphere through descriptions of moonlight, the abandoned church, and the macabre discovery of the uniformed corpse with a sword beside it.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
STALKING A GHOST _ 45 light, though “the moon like a rick on fire” was flaring in the east. Unaka pointed to the wolf, trotting along, muzzle to earth. [hey followed, Tom’s hair rising on his head. Nos- ing the snow, the wolf galloped up the slope to the little white church atop the hill. The rear door of the building, rarely bolted, had been pushed open. And the animal had disappeared when the stalkers came up. “Old Broken Jaw would n’t have gone in there?”” But Unaka pointed to a blotch on the door sill. In they went. This door led into the vestry — and darkness. But the vestry door too stood wide. ‘They halted. Not a sound. ‘Look yonder!” Into the white brilliance from one moonlit window, was obtruded — a wolf’s head. Reared on his hind legs, the creature's sinewy length was upstretched to the top of one of the high-walled, closed pews. They were high-walled, and no mistake, — the segregating pens for the purposes of worship that then obtained. Tom was in the lead now. With long, noiseless strides he reached the spot. No con- jurings of superstition could have electrified him more than the actuality before his eyes. Propped among the pew cushions, his head on the window sill, was “the corpse in the red coat.””’ One arm—din a bloody sleeve — was folded across his breast; the other dangled — the lifeless fingers touching a sword that lay on the floor. ‘he moon- light danced over his pallid features, powdered hair, gold- laced uniform. And there, at his feet, crouched a girl with a face as white as the dead. Wide-eyed with horror, she stared straight into the eyes of the wolf. His broken jaw dangling, his tongue lolling, he could have licked her blanched cheek. Suddenly, she shoved a pistol into those gaping jaws — - and Tom found his senses. ‘Don’t shoot him!”’ he yelled. When Dare, awed and lonely, stole away from the door of the sick-room, she bethought her of certain hapless CORNICLIOO® SS (C©)