Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 75 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 75: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a page of running prose from the novel *The Wind in the Keyhole*, page 59. A young girl, awaiting news of her father's return, awakens and becomes increasingly distressed. She sneaks upstairs to Mrs. Anderson's locked room, where she hears an eerie, mournful sound—wind whistling through the keyhole—though the windows are closed. The passage combines gothic atmosphere with melodramatic tension typical of Victorian sensation fiction, focusing on the child's growing anxiety and the supernatural mystery of the unexplained sound.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WIND IN THE KEYHOLE 59 Sitting bolt upright in bed, waiting for some chance sound that would confirm her belief that her father —or Troupe — had been brought home, the excitable child saw, at length, the day break in the east. Then, worn out by ap- prehension and a tortured imagination, she fell asleep. She awoke, while the daylight was yet dim in the room, to see Dilsey, just slipping out of the room. Spick and span was Dilsey; in the whitest of aprons and turbans; dressed as if there were “comp’ny”’ in the house. “Come back, Dilsey!—and tell me. You think J did n’1 hear. | did. I know! Oh!— Have they brought papa home?” She slipped out of bed. Dilsey looked at her helplessly. “Dilsey, I won’t bear it one minute longer. I won’t be deceived!” And now the door was closed; and the evasive black stood at bay. “Babe” (huskily), ““Marse Audley ainh here. De Heir ainh here. How ’t is wid ’°em — Gawd only know.” Her voice broke. “But we’s sho in trouble! You oughter be stiddy. You oughter say, ‘Thank de Lord we’s all ’live!’”’ The winter twilight came down in black gloom. Dare, straining her ears for some sound abovestairs, fancied she heard the bell Mrs. Anderson used to call her maid. The child’s lips were set. Softly she stole up the shadowy stairs. How she trem- bled when she stood in the upper hall! There was no sound. No light but the twilight in the glass door of the balcony — which balcony surmounted the front entrance. By and by she heard — What was it? A faint, harp-like sound— like the wind blowing through a crevice. It came from the direction of Mrs. Anderson's room. She sped along the hall. At last! Once more she stood before the dear old door. She laid her cheek against the panel. Hark, that long, mournful “Uh-h-h” of the wind was in the keyhole! Gently she tried the door. Locked! And how could the wind blow like that through a room with closed windows? She stooped and felt the whin- ing current on her cheek — cold as ice. Down upon her CORNICLIOO® <S (E(©)