Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 62 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 62: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 46 of Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil This is a page of running prose from a Victorian penny dreadful serial. The text describes Dare visiting a sick Irish immigrant woman named Molly Randy, then accompanying Mimi to a church to retrieve a Madonna statue left behind at a christening. In the darkened church, Mimi encounters a mysterious, haggard young man who identifies himself as "Tarleton." The passage emphasizes Gothic atmosphere—the dim light, Mimi's terror, the stranger's bloodshot eyes and disordered appearance—building suspense about this apparition's identity and intentions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
46 Tom ANDERSON, Dare-DEvIL creatures that did need her. She must see how poor Molly Randy was doing. The Randy couple were two out of a horde of “sold passengers”? dumped on Virginia shores a few weeks before. Randy was a big, raw County Donegal boy with a stout heart in him. But Molly, his wife, had wept herself blind for the Old Country or ever she saw the shores of the new. Dare found her out. Molly lay abed. For two days she had refused food. Randy was desperate. He hung over the bed with a bowl of broth. “Ate, now, Molly. 4ze, darlint!’”? Molly shook her head. “How kin | ate, whinwe venayther but-thernerhoney:”’ “Ate, Molly!” wildly, “er I'll whop ye!” Enter Dare. And straightway the Irish girl was propped up in bed, drinking “chany tea”’ from the cup in Dare’s hands,—while Randy set out the contents of the basket from the big House. Then Dare heard Mimi’s voice calling her. Mimi was in tears. “De Wirgin gone ergin, Miss Dare!” Ole began; but Dare declared that at the Ambler baby’s christening the Madonna had been slipped under the hassock. ‘And there’s where the Madonna is. We’ll drive over and fetch her.’ No, it was not too cold; nor too late. Half an hour after [om and Unaka rode away from Oxheart, the old green gig from the Oxheart stables was ploughing along the snowy road, in it Mimi and Dare. On reaching the little church, Mimi tripped up the steps, sure of finding the door unbolted. People made small account of bolts and bars in Virginia then. Out of doors the vermeil light suf- ficed. Within the building, vagueness. She looked about her, listened; there was no sound but her own quickened breathing. Hurrying to the pew where she had sat the previous day, while the Ambler baby screamed, Mimi groped among the hassocks and found her treasure. She turned to go. There, at her elbow — an apparition! A tall young fellow — how pale! His hair, how disordered! But how beautiful his features! Her throat clicked with terror. She faltered out, “Who are you?”’ His big, blue eyes, hollow and bloodshot, stared. “I am Tarleton.” ECOMICIOOKSa€©