Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 69 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 69: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Analysis: *Stalking a Ghost*, Page 53 This is a page of running prose from the middle of a Victorian penny dreadful serialization. A doctor has just examined a wounded, feverish man in hiding—apparently a soldier or "Terrible British Dragon"—warning those sheltering him to maintain absolute secrecy or "it's all up with him." The narrative then shifts to describing how the Anderson family, using a secret door in their schoolroom known only to grandmother, has moved the patient to a hidden room in the house's extension, where the doctor later checks on him and grimly tells the young people attending him that he is critically ill but urges them not to give up.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
STALKING A GHOST 53 senses. Now for the arm,” cutting away the blood-stained sleeve. “Why, my Lord! When did he get this slash? Been in hiding, eh? Wandering round out of his head with fever, eh? — Oh, the broken bone and saber-cut would have been no great matter, but the fever’s eating him up. Been dangling this arm about like a tassel on a bed-cur- tain for twenty-four hours!— somewhere! What the devil’s at the bottom of this, I wonder?” The bone set, the doctor gave explicit directions for the care of his pa- tient. Inconclusion: “I want to tell youone thing. You’ve got to use the utmost secrecy. If your man here is dis- covered — it’s all up with him. Be watchful! Be secret! As cautious as if there were twenty old Whigs out of the Committee of Public Safety nosing around Oxheart.” He felt his way down the black stairs — they dared not light him—more shaken up than he had been in years. “Two secrets, and the life of the Terrible British Dragoon on my hands! Where the dickens did he come from?”’ The Anderson brood knew —traditionally —that a door once opened from the “schoolroom,” where Troupe’s tutor had taught, where Mimi now taught Dare, on an upper veranda. Door and veranda were done away with when the L was added to the house. The location of the once-upon-a-time door was traditionally back of the cedar-closet in the schoolroom. But the story belonged to “ver Gran’ paw Anderson’s time”’; and nobody fooled with grandmother’s keys. Before it was fairly daybreak, [om hadopened this door. ** Domore to safeguard him than any- thing under the sun,’ was Dr. Pratt’s observation, when, a few hours later, he called to see Mrs. Anderson, and from her bedside passed through the unsealed door into the L, where, amid jumbled woolen looms and spinning-wheels, stood the bed of his distinguished patient. When he came out, Tom and Dare were waiting for him in the school- room, with looks that made words useless. “Well, young people, that’s a mighty sick man you’ve got on your hands. Be nip and tuck with him. But don’t give up.” CORNICLOO® eS (C() mm