Penny Dreadfuls, 1916 · page 90 of 400
Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil: A Young Virginian in the Revolution — page 90: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page Description This is a page of running prose (page 74) from the penny dreadful *Tom Anderson, Dare-Devil*. The text describes a spy named Billy climbing a chimney at night to peek through a window at people inside a house, stealing a small Madonna figurine, and being caught by an overseer. It concludes with a character named Egger apparently discovering a "red-coat" (likely a soldier or authority figure) and riding urgently to Charlottesville to report something that will bring "disaster to the Anderson family." The narrative emphasizes suspense and melodrama typical of Victorian sensation fiction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
74 Tom ANDERSON, DarE-DEVIL come down from the second-story window by the ivied- chimney route, Billy — under cover of darkness — climbed the same ladder. His weight was nothing, his clawlike fingers and toes handy. When he stood on the abutting shoulder of the chimney, he could hear voices — behind a closed window and drawn curtain. He found a cracked pane; picked away the crumbling putty; and lifted out a little triangle of glass. So, an opening a bat might have flown through. He plucked the stuff curtain aside, by a thumb’s width, and gazed —in an ecstasy of gratified cunning — on those within. There was “Marse Tom”’; “Miss Dare”; “de little wench-ooman whut cyarn’ talk”’ — Mimi!— and there was another. Who could he be? The spying eyes fell on the little pink-and-gold Madonna on the mantel. A tiny black claw went through the broken pane — concealed from every eye in the room but one, literally one. At this instant it was that the old mouser, One-Eye, saw outside the window a face as big as a bushel, surmounted by a broom of black wool a foot long. Ani- mals are all believers in the supernatural. But even as the terrified cat dashed up the chimney, the Black Thistle blew away, unseen. Next day his prize went into the over- seers pocket, and the overseer’s hand tugged at Billy’s luckless wool. ““Whur’d ye git it?” he demanded. And Billy blubbered: “‘Marse Troupe gib it ter me. He up ter de Big House.”’ The overseer’s jaw fell. “Ye air lyin’, Addle-Head. But I’ll eaves-drap the truth out’n some- body.” Late in the afternoon he appeared at the house, asking permission to get his orders from Mrs. Ander- son. On leaving her door he loitered in the upper hall, in the twilight. Presently, a step. It was the mouchard’s minute: the only time the schoolroom door had ever been left unbolted. It opened to Egger. And there —a red- coat! It was not too dark for Egger to make sure of that! In ten minutes he was spurring on to Charlottesville. He had a story to tell that would set the authorities by the ears—that must bring disaster to the Anderson family! ECONMMICLOOOKS,(e©) m