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More "Drawbridge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... built the old house in the midst of the Chedworth woods. A mile beyond this interesting relic of Roman times is the manor house of Cassey Compton, built by Sir Richard Howe about the middle of the seventeenth century. It stands on the banks of the Coln, and in olden times was approached by a drawbridge and surrounded by a moat. The farmer by whom it is inhabited tells me that, judging by the fish-ponds situated close by, he imagines it was once a monastery. This was undoubtedly the case, for we find in Fozbrooke that the Archbishop of York had license to ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... drawbridge up, and the gate locked, as Edgar's father said he had left them. They entered and secured them in the same manner. When they came to the house, they cautiously unlocked the door, and proceeded to the chamber, where they struck a fire and lighted candles, which they had brought with ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... shooting him. This was soon effected, for on his appearing for a walk on the ramparts in his full uniform, one of the men shot him dead: and when the Spaniards found that they had lost their commander, they soon became disheartened, and lowering the drawbridge, came out of the citadel and gave themselves up. Part of our troops immediately took possession, pulling down the Spanish colours and hoisting the English flag from the town and citadel in their stead. We took about four thousand prisoners in all, who were sent ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... sake, that he might share the broken bits of the wedding feast; but he was churlishly refused by the porter, who would not be moved by any entreaties. At last Horn lost all patience, and broke open the door, and threw the porter out over the drawbridge into the moat; then, once more assuming his disguise, he made his way into the hall and sat down in the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... slender, hollow or clear. But lest the aliments, which have their separate pipe, should slide into the windpipe I have been describing, there is a kind of valve that lies on the orifice of the organ of the voice, and playing like a drawbridge, lets the aliments freely pass through their proper channel, but never suffers the least particle or drop to fall into the slit of the windpipe. This sort of valve has a very free motion, and easily turns any way, ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the towers that controlled the drawbridge across the outer moat was changed at four o'clock; six men came out, under an officer, from the inner court; the words were exchanged, and the six that went off duty marched into the armoury to lay by their pikes and presently dispersed, four to their rooms in the east side of the quadrangle, two ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... it was of timber staunched with clay and was roofed with rushes. Without it was white with lime, conspicuous afar to mariners sailing in the Muirnict. [Footnote: The Irish Sea or St. George's Channel. Muirnict means the Ictian Sea.] There was a rampart round the dun and a moat spanned by a drawbridge. Before it there was a spacious lawn. Down that lawn there ever ran a stream of sparkling water. Setanta sailed his boats in the stream and taught it here to be silent, and there to hum in rapids, or to apparel ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... we HAD got a moat and drawbridge," said Roberta; "then, when we didn't want people, we could just pull up the drawbridge and no one else could get in. I expect Father will have forgotten about when he was a boy ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... true enough at the city gates where the sentinels recognised her and allowed her carriage to pass across the drawbridge by a careless nod of acquiescence to ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... Naples nibbled it, Rome refused it, Austria accused it, Soldiers suspected it, Jesuits jobbed it. I composed a neat Oration, developing my inoffensive intentions in connexion with this Bottle, and delivered it in an infinity of guard-houses, at a multitude of town gates, and on every drawbridge, angle, and rampart, of a complete system of fortifications. Fifty times a day, I got down to harangue an infuriated soldiery about the Bottle. Through the filthy degradation of the abject and vile Roman States, I had as much difficulty in working my way with the Bottle, as if ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... the guardian crew, He, sword in hand, the squadron set upon; This one he wounded, and that other slew, And, point by point made good, the drawbridge won: And ere of his escape Alcina knew, The gentle youth was far away and gone. My next shall tell his route, and how he gained At last the realm where ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... of their bony tread echoed through the silent air as they pressed grimly on. They passed through the city and clomb the wall, and marched along the great roadway that was made upon the wall, till at length they once more reached the drawbridge. Then, as the sun was sinking, they returned again towards their sepulchre, and luridly his light shone in the sockets of their empty eyes, throwing gigantic shadows of their bones, that stretched away, and crept and crept like huge spiders' legs as their armies wound across the plain. Then they ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... the Porta a Mare, or of S. Rocco. Three other gates, the Porta Grande, which faced to the country, the Porta S. Francesco or Del Castello, and the Portizza, which joined the Imperial road of Zaule with a drawbridge, added to the defences, and a chain closed ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... paint and tramp heavily into the bathroom about 8.30 A.M. when I am trying to get off to sleep. They have also dug a large moat right through the lawn and the garden-path, which rather spoils the appearance of these places, though it is nice to be able to pull up the drawbridge at night and feel that one is safe from burglars. Anyhow, whether it is my house or theirs, the fact remains that the electric-bells were wrong. The man of whom I am speaking lives next-door, and he came in and pointed this out. "It is not much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... he rode straight to the City Gate, and commanded the porter to let him in. 'Let down the drawbridge,' called he, 'and be quick, for time presses.' But he forgot that he had changed his own arms, and had taken instead those of Aerofle the Saracen; therefore the porter, seeing a man with a shield and pennon and helmet that were strange to him, thought he was an enemy, and stood still ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... built across the river, connecting the new town with the city of Bridgeport, and a public toll-bridge, which belonged to Barnum and Noble, was thrown open to the public free. They also erected a covered drawbridge at a cost of $16,000, which was made free to the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... fall the drawbridge with a mighty clatter." Mary-Clare looked majestic even in her muddy trousers as she portrayed the action. "And over the Gap will come the Princess Light-of-my-Heart with ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... morning I set out alone to explore the strange place, and with much difficulty and some apprehension—for I did not know how the natives were disposed—ascended a steep rocky path, at the summit of which a wooden drawbridge leads over a deep abyss to the gate of the city. This bridge is the only access to Yezdi-Ghazt, which is, so to ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... modus operandi, MO; procedure &c. (line of conduct) 692. path, road, route, course; line of way, line of road; trajectory, orbit, track, beat, tack. steps; stair, staircase; flight of stairs, ladder, stile; perron[obs3]. bridge, footbridge, viaduct, pontoon, steppingstone, plank, gangway; drawbridge; pass, ford, ferry, tunnel; pipe &c. 260. door; gateway &c. (opening) 260; channel, passage, avenue, means of access, approach, adit[obs3]; artery, lane, alley, aisle, lobby, corridor; back-door, back-stairs; secret passage; covert way; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of pursuit, the captors kept at a brisk pace, not drawing rein until the walls of a large and strong castle loomed up near the forest border. The gates flew open and the drawbridge fell at their demand, and the small cavalcade rode into the powerful stronghold, the entrance to which was immediately closed behind them. It was the castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach, Saxony, within whose strong walls ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... outer wall Round the realm of thought unseen; Ah! to let the drawbridge fall Leading to that magic hall! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hair's breadth of being too late; their adherents had not come forth; the citizens had been aroused; the gates were all fast but one—and there the porter was quarrelling with a French soldier about an arquebuss. The drawbridge across the moat was at the moment rising; the last entrance was closing, when Guitoy de Chaumont, a French officer, mounted on a light Spanish barb, sprang upon the bridge as it rose. His weight caused it to sink again, the gate was forced, and Louis with all his men rode triumphantly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the land; and is so great and strong that our bishop's castle of St. Andrews seems but a cottage compared to it. From the hill-top there is a wide prospect over the tower and the valley of the Vienne, which I liked to gaze upon. My master, then, went in by the drawbridge, high above the moat, which is so deep that, I trow, no foeman could fill it up and cross it to assail the walls. My master, in limping up the hill, had wearied himself, but soon passed into the castle through ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... bearings and proceed towards the Auteuil gate of the ramparts. As he did not wish to be fired upon again, he deemed it expedient to hoist his pocket handkerchief at the end of his umbrella as a sign of his pacific intentions, and finding the gate open and the drawbridge down, he attempted to enter the city, but was immediately challenged by the National Guards on duty. These vigilant patriots observed his muddy condition—the previous day had been a wet one—and suspiciously inquired where he had come from at that early hour. His answer being given in broken ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... 50 O'ercame the ashen hue of age: Fierce he broke forth: "And darest thou, then, To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hopest thou hence unscathed to go?— 55 No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no!— Up drawbridge, grooms!—what, Warder, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... the south shore of the lake, and as far as the railroad drawbridge, a hard bottom is found. The material is principally packed sand, rather fine, with a small amount of clay, and occasionally some broken shells. Beyond this distance from the shore, the bottom is softer, consisting of mud mixed with sand. From the bridge over the remainder of ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney
... north, south-east and south,—the Udine Gate, the Gradisca Gate and the Maritime Gate. Each gate is double, so that you pass through a small square court, almost like a well, and at each gate you can see the remains of an old portcullis and drawbridge. Each is topped by two slender towers, and is wide enough to allow only one vehicle to pass at a time, and at each there is a guard of Carabinieri in their grey lantern-hats, to stop and examine all ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... Buckhurst, apparently quite pleased to see that we laughed with him. "It don't look like it was in the nature of things, somehow, does it? Fact, though, he did indeed. Shoved me right in, so quick I didn't know what the Devil was the matter, until I soused kersplash! and see him taking out over the drawbridge ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... the gateway ringing? What bard upon the drawbridge singing? Go bid him to repeat his song Here, in the hall amid the throng," The monarch cried; The little page hied; As back he sped, The monarch said— "Bring in ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... chivalrous age, and it thus became the prototype of that class of novel which was afterward imitated by Mrs. Radcliffe and perfected by Sir Walter Scott. The feudal tyrant, the venerable ecclesiastic, the forlorn but virtuous damsel, the castle itself with its moats and drawbridge, its gloomy dungeons and solemn corridors, are all derived from a mine of interest which has since been worked more efficiently and to better profit. But to Walpole must be awarded the credit of its ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Mont Valerien on Paris. I then drove to St. Denis, the Prussian headquarters. Thence I drove again (the La Chapelle gate of Paris being shut) to Pantin. After a long parley the Belleville-Villette drawbridge was lowered for me, and I was admitted to Paris, having been almost all round it ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... soon found to be untenable. The besieged then abandoned this fortification, and retired further back towards the centre of the bridge, which, as well as its approaches, was defended by towers. Part of the bridge on the side near the English was blown up, and a drawbridge, which could be raised or lowered at pleasure, was ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... sufficient force, they retreated, crossing the river and the canal. The enemy immediately pursued. Marcelle Semer, who was following the French troops, had the presence of mind, after the last soldier had crossed the Somme Canal, to open the drawbridge in order to prevent the Germans from crossing it, and to hurl the key to the bridge into the canal in order that they might not take it from her when they came up. An entire enemy army corps was thus detained for twenty-four hours by this young girl's presence of mind; and it was only on ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roads just in time to meet the Claremont baker and buy my dinner loaf of him. And when my walk was nearly done, I came out on the low bridge at Sewell's, which is a drawbridge, just before they raised it for a passing boat, instead of the moment after. Because I was all right I felt myself and called myself "The Child of Good Fortune." Dear reader, in a world made by a loving Father, we are all of us children of good fortune, if we only have wit enough to find it ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... castle stands, while on the mainland another portion is built. We were now standing at the bottom of a chasm looking up two hundred feet or more to the castle walls, which were originally joined by a drawbridge. The castle was anciently called Dunchine, or the Fort of the Chasm. A zigzag path enabled us to gain the summit of the cliffs. The entrance to the castle was through a gateway, a ruined archway which still stands. Passing through it, we entered a court, called King Arthur's Garden, immediately ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... covered the drawbridge and portcullis. On a green lawn in front of the castle was a well, with a curious bell-shaped covering suspended over it. The lovers leaned over the mossy fern-grown wall of the well, and, looking down, they could see that the narrowness ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... beat to and fro the castle and the rock, and ran baffled into every corner of that market-place of nothing. For in that garth was neither knight nor squire nor sergeant; no spear-head glittered from the wall, no gleam of helm showed from the war-swales; no porter was at the gate; the drawbridge over the deep ghyll was down, the portcullis was up, and the great door ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... no fire return, But, tow'rd the batteries that above them burn, Climb hard from crag to crag; and scaling higher They pierce the long dense canopy of fire That sheeted all the sky; then rush amain, Storm every outwork, each dread summit gain, Hew timber'd gates, the sullen drawbridge fall, File thro and form within the sounding wall. The Britons strike their flag, the fort forgo, Descend sad prisoners to the plain below. A thousand veterans, ere the morning rose, Received their handcuffs from five hundred foes; And Stonypoint beheld, with dawning day, His ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... was somebody else and herself too.") The night lay about her as any other winter night, white and black,—a clean white world on which men set a pattern of highway and shelter, a clean dark sky on which a story is written in stars; and between—no mystery, but only growth. Out toward the drawbridge the road was not well broken. She went, stumbling in the ruts and hardly conscious ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... source. In the footbridge across the pit may have been a trap-door, or other means for suddenly breaking communication in case of need. Overhead probably lay the roadway for horsemen with a proper drawbridge. The thickness of the walls indicates their having been built to a considerable height, sufficient probably to form parapets masking the passage ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... they had crossed the drawbridge and arrived opposite to the Old Hall. The gorgeous Betty and the fair Margaret, accompanied by the others, and talking rapidly, had passed through the wide doorway into its spacious vestibule. Inez looked after them, and perceived, standing like a guard at the foot of the ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... dresses beyond what you see.' She was already attired in a bountiful wine-coloured velvet that was embroidered with silver wire into entwined monograms of the initials of her name. Her hood of purple made, above her ample brows, a castellated pattern resembling the gate of a drawbridge. She, being the mistress of that household, and compassionately loved by the ladies because she was so helpless, timorous, and unable to control them, they had combined to comb and perfume her and to lace her stomacher ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... This, again, is strictly analogous to what takes place in the vital organisation of the individual man. The cerebral system of the nerves has its correspondent ANTITHESIS in the abdominal system: but hence arises a SYNTHESIS of the two in the pectoral system as the intermediate, and, like a drawbridge, at once conductor and boundary. In the latter, as objectised by the former, arise the emotions, the affections, and, in one word, the passions, as distinguished from the cognitions and appetites. Now, the reason has been shown to be superindividual, generally, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the way advised silence. For they were nearing the great castle walls. When they came thereto they found the gates closed and the drawbridge up. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... not a shock to her faith. It was neither a cheerful nor a luxurious abode, but it was as full of wonders as a box of old heirlooms or objects "willed." It had battered towers and an empty moat, a rusty drawbridge and a court paved with crooked grass-grown slabs over which the antique coach-wheels of the lady with the hooked nose seemed to awaken the echoes of the seventeenth century. Euphemia was not frightened out of her dream; she had the pleasure ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but actually was raised ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... welcome greeted us, nor did any murmurs of distrust smite upon our ears. There was whispering and a rustling of garments, and the clank of arms; but no articulate words, either friendly or hostile, till, as we passed the drawbridge, one of the sentries, a great, brawny fellow, half French half Scottish, uttered an insult to the Maid, accompanying his words by ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Cuckmere, and abounding in fish for fast-day fare. Although it had proved (as described in our earlier tale) incapable of a prolonged defence, yet its situation was quite such as to protect the priory from any sudden violence on the part of the "merrie men" or nightly marauders, and when the drawbridge was up, the gateway closed, the good brethren slept none the less soundly for ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... that falcon he heard the portcullis of the castle lifted, with a great noise, and the drawbridge let fall, and therewith there came a lady riding out of the castle very rapidly upon a white mule, and she rode toward where Sir Launcelot watched the falcon upon the tree. When that lady had come nigh to Sir Launcelot, she cried out to him: "Sir Knight, didst thou see ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... The ponderous drawbridge slowly fell, the grim portcullis rose with creak and rattle, the great gate swung open wide, and into the castle yard ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... beautiful forest of Villers-Cotterets and another hour in the train. We stopped at the little station of Anizy just outside the gates of the park; a brougham was waiting for us and a very short drive through a stately avenue brought us to the drawbridge and the iron gates of the "Cour d'honneur." The house looked imposing; I had an impression of a very high and very long facade with two towers stretching out into the court-yard, which is very large, with fine old trees and broad ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... poles, and thus let them pass without doing me injury. Happily, however, I was not compelled to resort to this perilous expedient, but passed the bridge in safety. At the end I found another nearly as long, connected with it by a drawbridge. When I drew near it was up for a boat to pass; but a man called to me, and asked if I wish to go over. I told him I did, and he let down the bridge. As I approached him he asked, "Are you mad? or how came you here?" I told him I had walked from the depot at Rouse's Point. He appeared ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... him as they crossed a port drawbridge above a deep moat which was a fairyland of aquatic plants. Although not a sound had come from the castle, the great ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... it stood highest above the land below, but it has mostly perished, leaving only a few windows which are too large to date from the beginning of the twelfth century. The square keep stands within a few feet of the western wall, rises high above it, and was reached by a drawbridge from the walk on the top of the castle walls. Its wooden floors are gone, its windows are mere slits, and like the rest of the castle it owes its distinctive appearance to the battlements which crown the whole building, ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... off the heads of several of the men, while the rest fled out of reach of the strange being with the long hair and strong arm. When they were all gone Bevis brought out the best horse in the stable, and rode out across the drawbridge into the world again. ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... the Pont la Guillotiere, we were led to remark the probable antiquity of its construction. The centre still retains the drawbridge; and the whole fabric appears to have been widened, when wheel carriages came into fashion, with a supplementary parallel slice, riveted on to it by iron bolts. This expedient rather reminded me of a story which I had heard in my infancy, of a prudent housewife, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... mudbanks; and when they had drawn the canoe on shore, Jack found himself standing before a strong stockade or fort with a deep ditch round it. There was no gate on the side turned towards the river, but going round some way, they arrived at an entrance over a rough drawbridge. The negroes talked a few minutes together, and then led Jack in. The object for which the fort was used was very clear. In the centre stood a large barracoon full of slaves. This barracoon was a shed built of heavy piles driven down into the ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Ortez, giving the watchword of that day of slaughter. The drawbridge lowered, and open swung ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... the full light of a lamp. Mary remarked that the girl was exquisitely pretty. She wanted him to say that she herself was a thousandfold prettier. But he did not say it; and she led him off the front rather sulkily, taking him over a drawbridge and on to the quay that bisected the harbour. They strolled about amid the piles of timber and along more quays and drawbridges, now and again encountering other promenaders in the soft darkness. For awhile Morgan found the ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... Crossing the drawbridge, and coming to the low Norman arched doorway, one entered at once into the hall. This was a lofty room some twelve feet wide. At one end of it was a broad fire-place, where huge resinous pine logs sent ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... was but one entrance to the castle from the town. It was known as the Postern, though it had a portcullis and a drawbridge spanning the moat. To the Postern the duke took his way, as we could see at intervals by looking down cross streets. Yolanda did not follow him. She held her course down a narrow street flanked by overhanging eaves. Looking down this street, I could see that it terminated abruptly at the castle ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... my freedom. I now had three weeks during which to prepare for my journey. Early on Monday morning, before Master Hugh had time to make any engagement for me, I went out and got employment of Mr. Butler, at his ship-yard near the drawbridge, upon what is called the City Block, thus making it unnecessary for him to seek employment for me. At the end of the week, I brought him between eight and nine dollars. He seemed very well pleased, and asked why I did not do the same the week before. He little knew what my plans were. My ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... wall, and passing through a solid arched gateway and across a small court upon which the prison opens, we ascend the steps leading to the upper work. This is a large square house, pierced in front for one door and three windows, and connected by a bridge, formerly a drawbridge, with the two tall belvideres, once towers guarding the eastern entrance. The body is occupied by the palaver-hall of the opper koopman (chief factor), now converted into a court-house and a small armoury of sniders. ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... the morning boat. The storm of emotion had spent itself, and while Alan Hawke squired, the aggressive Miss Genie, Casimir Wieniawski was bending over the slightly dreamy and more romantic Miss Phenie! They distributed themselves in open order, as they strolled along toward the drawbridge of that most hospitable of old horrors, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... in constant dread. He had a wide trench round his bedroom, with a drawbridge that he drew up and put down with his own hands; and he put one barber to death for boasting that he held a razor to the tyrant's throat every morning. After this he made his young daughters shave him; but by and by ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from the embankments and the stones which have fallen from the battlements, have a wide, deep curve, like hatred and pride; and the portal, with its strong, slightly arched ogive, and its two bays that raise the drawbridge, looks like a great helmet with holes ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... January, 1583, the duke dined somewhat earlier than usual, under the pretext of proceeding afterward to review his army in their camp. He set out at noon, accompanied by his guard of two hundred horse; and when he reached the second drawbridge, one of his officers gave the preconcerted signal for an attack on the Flemish guard, by pretending that he had fallen and broken his leg. The duke called out to his followers, "Courage, courage! the town is ours!" The ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... thence their ancient road again, They reached a city, with the westering sun; Which, in the midst of France, from Charlemagne Marsilius had in that long warfare won: Nor them to interrupt or to detain, At drawbridge or at gate, was any one: Though in the fosse, and round the palisade, Stood many men, and piles of ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... dragoons mounted and carried in a trice, about twenty-eight men being cut in pieces within. As soon as the ravelin was taken, they burst open the gate, at which I entered at the head of 200 dragoons, and seized the drawbridge. By this time the town was in alarm, and the drums beat to arms, but it was too late, for by the help of a petard we broke open the gate, and entered the town. The garrison made an obstinate fight for about half-an-hour, but ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... in the midst of a small island surrounded by a moat thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge. So Jack employed men to cut through this bridge on both sides, nearly to the middle; and then, dressing himself in his invisible coat, he marched against the giant with his sword of sharpness. Although the giant could not see Jack, he smelt his approach, and cried ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... castle, and upon reaching the drawbridge Ned was surprised to find that it was not lowered for them to cross over, although they waited for ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.' As some outnumbered army, unable to make head against its enemies in the open, flees to the shelter of some hill fortress, perched upon a crag, and taking up the drawbridge, cannot be reached by anything that has not wings, so this man, hard pressed by his foes, flees into God to hide him, and feels secure behind ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of weeping women told him as he thundered over the drawbridge of the castle that he was too late. But Dagmar had only swooned. As he throws himself upon her bed she opens her eyes, and smiles upon her husband. Her last prayer, as her first, is for mercy and peace. Her sin, she says, is not great; she has done nothing ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... abode Beholding all, then on he rode And to the castle-gate drew nigh, Till fell the drawbridge silently, And when across it he did ride He found the great gates open wide, And entered there, but as he passed The gates were shut behind him fast, But not before that he could see The drawbridge rise up silently. Then round he gazed oppressed with awe, And there ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... built a castle, of course, but castle-building is rather poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last, to wet everybody up to the waist ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... her defence; and as the army of Sir Thomas Wyatt passed on the Surrey side in sight of the Tower, the ordnance which was placed thereon was discharged at them. Though the guns roared loudly, however, no injury was inflicted. When they came to London Bridge they found the gates shut and the drawbridge cut down. Onward they marched therefore to Kingston, there being no other means of passing the Thames till they could reach that place. Here also the bridge was broken down; but the Queen's men being dispersed, the insurgents ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... a large and splendid mansion, not far from the Porte St. Antoine, and commanding a direct view of the Place de la Bastille, with its esplanade, drawbridge, and principal entrance, a group was collected at one of the windows, nearly overlooking the gate itself, which seemed to take the liveliest interest in the proceedings of the day, although that interest was entirely unmixed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... town. Two days later Fairfax himself arrived, and batteries, furnished with 'several great Peeces,' were erected against the church and castle. The actual fighting lasted only a short time, for a shot broke the chain of the drawbridge, and it fell; the Parliamentary soldiers rushed across it without even waiting for the command, and the Royalists lost their heads and their courage ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... off by James with "a sweit letter of supplication," praying the Earl to deliver over the unfortunate gentleman to the messenger for love of the King. The Earl was at dinner when, "bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste," Sir Patrick arrived at the castle, where the drawbridge was lifted and the doors closed. "The Earle caused incontinent draw the boards, and rose and met the said Sir Patrick with great reverence and humilitie, because he was the King's principal servant ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... or two he stood bewildered. There was no drawbridge to this eccentric moat; there was, on this side of the rock at least, not so little as a boat; if Lamond ever held intercourse with the adjacent isle of Scotland he must seemingly swim. Very well; the Count de Montaiglon, guilty of many outrages against ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... off, on the Tiffauges side, by a vast moat, at the bottom of which mighty trees were growing. One would have had to pass over the tops of the trees, growing to the very verge of the wall, to gain a porch on the other side, for there was now no drawbridge. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... delighted," I announced, leaping into the vehicle, and soon we were mounting upward, battling with the winds around the time-scarred walls. The wagon stopped at the great gate. A horn sounded from within, the gate swung open, a drawbridge fell with a hideous creaking of machinery, and we passed in, twenty or thirty feet above the snow-drifted moat. Beyond the portcullis a dim door swung open. Some sort of seneschal met us with a light and led us below the twilight ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... was practically a fruit garden, as it is to-day, with perhaps a generous sprinkling of flowers and aromatic plants. The verger was always outside the walls, but not far from the entrance or the drawbridge crossing the moat and leading to ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... sufficiently indicates its situation. This fortress, perched on very high rocks, has precipices for its trenches; it is reached on all sides by steep and dangerous paths; and, like every ancient castle, its principal gate has a drawbridge over a wide moat. The commandant of this prison, delighted to have charge of a man of family whose manners were most agreeable, who expressed himself well, and seemed highly educated, received the Chevalier as a godsend; he offered him the freedom of the place on parole, that they might together ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... for about three hours, then the litter stopped. I heard a door open, we went on, and I fancied we were crossing a drawbridge. I was not wrong, for, on looking out of the litter, I saw that we were in the courtyard of a castle. What castle was it? We did not know. Often, during the route, we had tried to discover where we were, ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... the edge of the present village. It stands out in the sea on a great spur of rock, entirely separated from the main land by a deep chasm about thirty feet wide, over which there was then a broken bridge which had once been a drawbridge. It was a huge, grim ruin with only a few roofed rooms, built in about the thirteenth century originally, and of course added to and modernized. The house actually standing within the great towers is of the date of Louis XIV. It stood there, a dark mass, defying the storm, although the huge ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... the height of old was Wyndham Towers, Clinging to rock there, like an eagle's nest, With moat and drawbridge once, and good for siege; Four towers it had to front the diverse winds: Built God knows when, all record being lost, Locked in the memories of forgotten men. In Caesar's day, a pagan temple; next A monastery; then a ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the King Himself will come against me. Follow them out, Drive them out of my gates, then raise the drawbridge And let none cross. Oh, I foresaw, foretold! Robin ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the chambers one day found for us a large chateau, situated in a woody ravine, old-fashioned in structure, and surrounded by a moat. There was only one drawbridge, flanked by two tall towers, surmounted by turrets and culverins. Its owner was in residence at the time. He came to the King and the Queen, and greeting them in French, placed his entire property ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... little further west, and the king helped him with the proceeds of a tax on wool, which gave rise to the old saying that "London Bridge was built upon woolpacks." Peter's bridge was a curious structure, with nineteen pointed arches and a drawbridge. There was a fortified gatehouse at each end, and a gothic chapel towards the centre, dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the spurious martyr of Canterbury. In Queen Elizabeth's reign there were shops on either side, with flat roofs, arbours, and gardens, and at the south end ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... upon me like one of her own family and interest. So thence, my wife and people by the highway, and I walked over the park with Mr. Shepley, and through the grove, which is mighty pretty, as is imaginable, and so over their drawbridge to Nun's Bridge, and so to my father's, and there sat and drank, and talked a little, and then parted. And he being gone, and what company there was, my father and I, with a dark lantern; it being now night, into the garden ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... sometimes means the inability to be afraid—this man Plank was casually telling him things which men regard as secrets and as weapons of defence—was actually averting him of his peril, and telling him almost contemptuously to pull up the drawbridge and prepare for siege, instead of rushing the castle and giving it to ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... whole caravan halted in the wood, and Gog and Magog reclined amongst the trees, that their enormous strength and size should not be discovered, and give umbrage to the lord of the castle. Our embassy approached the castle, and having demanded admittance for some time, at length the drawbridge was let down, and they were suffered to enter. As soon as they had passed the gate it was immediately closed after them, and on either side they perceived ranks of halberdiers, who made them tremble with fear. "We come," the herald proclaimed, "on the part of Hilaro ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... guarded the Chagres River's mouth, was built on the right bank of that river, on a high hill of great steepness. The hill has two peaks, with a sort of natural ditch some thirty feet in depth between them. The castle was built upon the seaward peak, and a narrow drawbridge crossed the gully to the other summit, which was barren and open to the sight. The river swept round the northern side of the hill with considerable force. To the south the hill was precipitous, and of such "infinite asperity," that no man could climb it. To the east was the bridged gully connecting ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... arsenal; and, under the platform of the redoubt, a magazine well furnished with military stores. The parish church, also, stood within the citadel, and without was another, belonging to the hospital of St. Jean de Dieu, which was an elegant and spacious structure. The entrance to the town was over a drawbridge, near which was a circular battery, mounting ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... and fifty feet high. The castle was raised upon a table of calcareous rock; but only the towers, a portion of the outer wall built of enormous blocks of stone, and a ruined archway marking the spot where the drawbridge once hung, remain to tell the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... a castle, protected, probably, by battlements and mantlets and turreted walls, and with its keep and its drawbridge, its postern and its fosse—simple works of defence that were armed for retaliation, with catapult and mangonel, the canon raye of the period, besides arquebuse and other hand weapons wielded, no doubt, by mighty men at arms, mail-clad and helmeted, who knew how to give and take with the best ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... somewhat larger ones above. In these buildings everything was made subordinate to strength and security. They were surrounded by a high stone wall and deep ditch, generally filled with water. The entrance to them was over a drawbridge through an archway protected by an iron grating, or portcullis, which could be raised and lowered at pleasure. The Tower of London, Rochester Castle, Norwich Castle, Castle Rising, Richmond Castle, Carisbrooke Keep, New Castle on the Tyne, and Tintagel Hold were built ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... castle moat and drawbridge have, indeed, been transferred from the actual world to that of fiction, history, and art, except where preserved as memorials of antiquity; but the civil importance which from the dawn of civilization attached to the bridge is as patent to-day as when a Roman emperor, a feudal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... having reached the farther side of the drawbridge, he turned, and, Christian as he was, unable to forgive Elizabeth, not for his own sufferings, but for his mistress's, he faced about to those regicide walls, and, with hands outstretched to them, said in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... position. Standing on a knoll, between the ramp of high land and the slope of shore, it would still have been conspicuous to traveller and to voyager but for the tall trees around it. These hid the moat, and the relics of the drawbridge, the groined archway, and cloven tower of the keep—which had twice been struck by lightning—as well as the windows of the armoury, and the chapel hushed with ivy. The banqueting hall was in better repair, for the Carnes had been hospitable to the last; but the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... chief adhered to the ancient etiquette, and would on no account suffer the doors to be unbarred. Irritated at this cold reception, the old Laird rode on to Sanquhar Castle, then the residence of the Duke of Queensberry, who no sooner heard his name, than, knowing well he had a will to make, the drawbridge dropped, and the gates flew open—the table was covered anew—his grace's bachelor and intestate kinsman was received with the utmost attention and respect; and it is scarcely necessary to add, that upon ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... as he passed, this fine castle of the ogre's, had a mind to go into it. Puss, who heard the noise of his majesty's coach running over the drawbridge, ran out and said to the king, "Your Majesty is welcome to this castle of my ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... at him, her face alert with apprehension, ready to dart into her citadel and lower the drawbridge. ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... price. The exceeding greatness of that price, however, makes of it a badge of nobility which converts these democratic hostelries into feudal castles, more inaccessible to the Long Denied than as though entered by a drawbridge and surrounded by ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the west side, leading to a dungeon, and forth on to the mere, now filled up with mire and weeds. But the largest passage and most used was, and is, that towards the south and town; there being formerly a portcullis over that gate, which was made in one of the strongest towers, and a drawbridge without, defended by an half-moon of stone, about a man's height, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... being almost at right angles to the course of the river, only the most obliging tide would run through it. As a consequence, it is a sort of a sluice merely, of insufficient width, and as a "sight" very disappointing to great expectations. Between the points of debouch of this canal crosses a drawbridge of pontoons, for the use of our troops, and just beyond it Aiken's Landing, where the flag of truce boat stopped. A fine brick mansion stands in shore, with a wharf abreast it. The banks around it are trodden here with many feet. These are the traces ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... roadway and the bridge. Sebastian was a tall man, and had no need to stand on tip-toe in order to see the straight rows of bayonets swinging past, and the line of shakos rising and falling in unison with the beat of a thousand feet on the hollow woodwork of the drawbridge. ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... by Antonio da Ponte, in 1588. It was anciently of wood, with a drawbridge in the centre, a representation of which may be seen in one of Carpaccio's pictures at the Accademia delle Belle Arti: and the traveller should observe that the interesting effect, both of this and the Bridge ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and garden-terrace of Elisabeth, wife of the Pfalzgraf Frederick. In the rear are older palaces and towers, forming a vast, irregular quadrangle;—Rodolph's ancientcastle, with its Gothic gloriette and fantastic gables; the Giant's Tower, guarding the drawbridge over the moat; the Rent Tower, with the linden-trees growing on its summit, and the magnificent Rittersaal of Otho-Henry, Count Palatine of the Rhine and grand seneschal of the Holy Roman Empire. From the gardens behind the castle, you ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... over. Joshua's soldiers threw down their arms, and ran or galloped to right and left, save a number of them who fled through the gates of the palace, which they had opened, and across the drawbridge into the courtyards within. After them, or, rather, mixed up with them, followed the Mountaineers, killing all whom they could find, for they were out of hand and would not listen to the commands of Maqueda and their officers, that they should ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... at this day passes Amritsar by train will, if he looks to the south, see hard by the formidable fortress of Gorindghar. Over its battlements now floats the Union Jack, and on its drawbridge may be seen the familiar red coat of the British sentry. Should he ever pass that fort again, he may perhaps regard it with greater interest after reading the stirring tale of how it was captured from the Sikhs by a handful of resolute men of the Guides. To tell this story we must be forgiven ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... half ashamed, she begins to "pretend." She snatches off the red table cover and drapes it about herself for a train, casts the crude furniture for the roles of moat and drawbridge and castle wall, and herself for a captive princess, held by a robber chief, flinging herself into her fantasy with such abandon that she does not hear the approaching hoof beats. At the pinnacle of her big speech the door is wrenched open and THE MAN stands there, ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... the sight of the passing ships, in his daily walk along the narrow neck of shingle connecting the castle with the mainland, and in the companionship of his select attendants in the evenings, when the drawbridge was up, the guard set, the woodfires blazing indoors, and the candles lit. He had brought with him from Newport fourteen personal attendants in all, including his two gentlemen of the bedchamber, Mr. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... said Elizabeth; 'clear away the mist of incredulity from your eyes, and behold keep, drawbridge, tower and battlement, and ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... place for writing bad English, and secondly for daring to 'damn with faint praise' the loyal, generous, joyous, chivalrous, religious soldier, Frederick, Baron de la Motte-Fouque, and prince of romance. When the latter presents himself for admission my castle needs short siege. The drawbridge falls before the summons; and when I see him cross my threshold with his lovely and noble children, Ondine and Sintram, I should be almost too happy, if I were not afraid of his being affronted by the mischievous humor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... seized a quantity of powder and arms, which belonged to them, but had been sequestered in the fort. The British, as a set-off, marched to Salem to capture some stores there; they did not find them, and proceeded toward Danvers. A river, spanned by a drawbridge, intervened, and when they arrived, the draw was up. There stood Colonel Timothy Pickering, with forty provincials, asking what Captain Leslie with his two hundred red-coated regulars wanted. The captain blustered and threatened; but the draw remained up, and the provincials ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... entrance, we thought it advisable to seek admission, though rather doubtful whether the Swiss gendarme might not deem it a sin to let us into the castle on Sunday. But he very readily admitted us under his covered drawbridge, and called an old man from within the fortress to show us whatever was to be seen. This latter personage was a staid, rather grim, and Calvinistic-looking old worthy; but he received us without scruple, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... defenceless woman. My maternal grandmother occupied at the time of that rebellion the castle of Dungulph, in the county Wexford, the family residence. It was an old stronghold regularly fortified and surrounded by a moat, with a drawbridge; and when she left it to take refuge in the fort of Duncannon, with the other gentry of the county, it was immediately taken possession of by a force of rebels from the county Kilkenny, as a most valuable place of defence, &c. They remained in possession for about a fortnight, and during that ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... fanciful picture. Round to this we went, drowned as rats, Leda sighing and bedraggled, and found a narrow spit of low land projecting into the lake, where we left the car, walked forward with the bag, crossed a small wooden drawbridge, and came upon a rocky island with a number of thick-foliaged trees about the castle. We quickly found a small open portal, and went throughout the place, quite gay at the shelter, everywhere lighting candles which we found in iron sconces in the rather queer apartments: ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the contrivance of art. For, though it be almost surrounded with water, on the west with a river, over which there is a drawbridge, and on either side with the sea, except to the north, where it is joined to the continent; yet it is fenced with strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into an oblong quadrangle. Besides ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... hast lied!"— On the Earl's cheek the flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age: Fierce he broke forth,—"And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by St. Bride of Bothwell, no! Up drawbridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall."— Lord Marmion turned,—well was his need!— And dashed the rowels in his steed; Like arrow through the archway sprung; The ponderous grate behind him rung; To pass there was such ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... and queens—but still in time to be so included in it so as to save all difficulty at the gates. It was, however, very late in the evening when they reached Calais, so that darkness was coming on as they waited their turn at the drawbridge, with a cart full of scullions and pots and pans before them, and a waggon-load of tents behind. The warders in charge of the gateway had orders to count over all whom they admitted, so that no unauthorised person might enter that much-valued fortress. When at length the waggon rolled forward ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... for it, as I urged my nag across the snow and over the narrow drawbridge. Beyond, I stayed a moment to look over my shoulder. They stood gazing after me, a group of some half-dozen men, looking black against the whiteness of the ground. Behind them rose the brown walls of the rocca illumined by the flare of torches, from which the smell of rosin reached my nostrils ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... sufficiently removed from the little town to temper the stir of its streets to a pleasant and unobtrusive evidence of neighbourhood. Had the traveller come in a carriage, the sound of its wheels would certainly have been heard; and nearer at hand, the tramp of horses on the hollow of the old drawbridge, not raised these hundred years, must have heralded the summons of the bell. But none of these sounds had warned Juliette de Gemosac, who sat alone in the little white room upstairs, nor Marie and her husband, dumb and worn by the day's toil, who awaited bedtime ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... centuries, one being nearly a hundred and fifty feet high. The castle was raised upon a table of calcareous rock; but only the towers, a portion of the outer wall built of enormous blocks of stone, and a ruined archway marking the spot where the drawbridge once hung, remain to tell ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... single voice, and that voice could not be mistaken by any who had heard it once before. A second or two, during which the officers and chiefs kept their eyes intently fixed on one another, passed anxiously away; and then nearer to the gate, apparently on the very drawbridge itself, was pealed forth the wild and deafening yell of a legion of fiendish voices. At that sound, the Ottawa and the other chiefs sprang to their feet, and their own fierce cry responded to that yet vibrating on the ears of all. Already were their gleaming tomahawks brandished ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... moat on the drawbridge we foamed and we snorted, And there was a beautiful Queen Who smiled at me strangely; and spoke to my wild little Horse, too— ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... Lord William entered his own castle of Thrieve over the drawbridge, and without even returning the salutations of his guard, he turned about to the two men who had so masterfully compelled ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... cathedral town and its neighborhood was delightful. Freeman's kindness opened all doors to us. The bishop, Lord Arthur Hervey, showed us kindly hospitality at his grand old castle, which we had entered by a drawbridge over the moat. Of especial interest to me was a portrait of one of his predecessors—dear old Bishop Ken, whose morning and evening hymns are among the most beautiful ties between England and the United States. In the evening, dining with ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... towers of Cairncarque. There was a castle indeed!—something to call a castle!—with its huge square tower at every corner, and its still huger two towers in the middle of its front, its moat, and the causeway where once had been its drawbridge!—Yes! there were the spikes of the portcullis, sticking down from the top of the gateway, like the long upper teeth of a giant or ogre! That was a real castle—such as he had read of in books, such as he had seen ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... I at the gateway ringing? What bard upon the drawbridge singing? Go bid him to repeat his song Here, in the hall amid the throng," The monarch cried; The little page hied; As back he sped, The monarch said— "Bring ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... childishly, half ashamed, she begins to "pretend." She snatches off the red table cover and drapes it about herself for a train, casts the crude furniture for the roles of moat and drawbridge and castle wall, and herself for a captive princess, held by a robber chief, flinging herself into her fantasy with such abandon that she does not hear the approaching hoof beats. At the pinnacle of her big speech the door is wrenched open and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... and fighting in Holland things had gone on quietly at Hedingham. The village stands near the headwaters of the Colne and Stour, in a rich and beautiful country. On a rising ground behind it stood the castle of the Veres, which was approached from the village by a drawbridge across the moat. There were few more stately piles in England than the seat of the Earl of Oxford. On one side of the great quadrangle was the gatehouse and a lofty tower, on another the great hall and chapel and the kitchens, on a third the suites of apartments of ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... Close Rolls of 1324, there is an order to "John de Kelvington, keeper of the Castle and honor of Pickering, to cause to be newly constructed a barbican before the Castle gate with a stone wall and a gate with a drawbridge in the same, and beyond the gate a new chamber, a new postern gate by the King's Tower and a roof to a chamber near the small hall; to cover with thin flags that roof and the roof of the small kitchen, ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... said I, "that the art of society among us Anglo-Saxons is yet in its ruder stages. We are not, as a race, social and confiding, like the French and Italians and Germans. We have a word for home, and our home is often a moated grange, an island, a castle with its drawbridge up, cutting us off from all but our own home-circle. In France and Germany and Italy there are the boulevards and public gardens, where people do their family living in common. Mr. A is breakfasting under one tree, with wife and children around, and Mr. B is breakfasting under another tree, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... advanced, his charger stamping threateningly on the drawbridge. Golo, with hypocritical emotion stood before the count, who had now alighted from his foaming horse, and informed him again of what had happened. "Where is the evil-doer who has stained the honour of my house, where is he, ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... the look on the sentry's face as we drew closer and his features grew distinct. He stood in the middle of the short roadway which led to the drawbridge, and clearly it had within a few moments dawned upon him that he was the point upon which these fatal forces were converging. A low wall fenced him on either hand, and as he braced himself, grasping his Brown Bess—a fine picture of Duty triumphing over Irresolution—into this ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... walking in through the gate, or climbing the walls with the help of a scaling ladder. The place is much more formidable looking than the battery, being in appearance a strong castle, with dry ditch, drawbridge, and portcullis to the main and, so far as I could see, the only entrance. In plan it is shaped like the letter L, with the angle turned harbour-ward; and it must mount about thirty pieces of ordnance, for I managed to count that number of embrasures ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... over two bridges and over a pont-levis at the foot of the castle; then through a second gateway into a court, and finally over a drawbridge ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... bridge is so much admired, I must confess it appeared to me a heavy performance, unsuitable to the wealth, and splendour of the city of Rouen, and below the taste and ingenuity of modern times. A handsome light stone structure, with a centre arch covered with a drawbridge, for the passage of vessels of considerable burden, or a lofty flying iron bridge, would be less expensive, more safe, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... set to work again with the greatest spirit to build engines of war and to prepare for the assault. Godfrey, Raymond, and Tancred constructed three movable towers, each higher than the city wall. Godfrey's had three platforms, and on the topmost one a drawbridge to be let ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... heating apparatus, and its shattered vases—brings home more clearly than any textbook the real meaning of the Roman Empire, whose citizens lived like this in a foggy island at the uttermost edge of its world. The Norman castle, with moat and drawbridge, gatehouse and bailey and keep, arrow slits instead of windows, is more eloquent than a hundred chronicles of the perils of life in the twelfth century; not thus dwelt the private gentleman in the days of Rome. The ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... all have regard for big bugs. "But what is this?" cries the fly, pointing to a broken wing, "and this fragment of an insect's foot. There must have been a murder here! Let me go back!" "Ha! ha!" says the spider, "the gate is locked, the drawbridge is up. I only contracted to bring you in. I cannot afford to let you out. Take a drop of this poison, and it will quiet your nerves. I throw this hook of a fang over your neck to keep you from falling off." Word went back to the house-fly's family, and a choir of great green-bottled insects sang ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... the position of each side. These moats, or defensive ditches, were crossed by drawbridges. To enter a fortified place in the Middle Ages one had to pass a barbican (i.e. an outwork consisting of a fortified wall along each side of the one way); a drawbridge across the moat; a portcullis or gate of stoutly inter-crossing timbers (set horizontally and vertically with only a small space between any two beams, giving the whole gate the appearance of a large number of small square holes, each surrounded by solid ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... on the shoulders of his comrades, till he could climb in at an undefended window, where he drew up sixty more with ropes. They burnt down the doors, and entered the castle, where only one hundred and fifty knights remained alive. Keeping them at bay, Bogis lowered the drawbridge, and admitted the rest of the army; the remains of the garrison retreated into the keep, still resolved not to surrender, though battering-rams, catapults, and every engine of war was brought to bear on them. A huge piece of wall fell down, still there was no surrender; but with night, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Bunthorne, the gateway to which is seen, R.U.E., and is approached by a drawbridge over a moat. A rocky eminence R. with steps down to the stage. In front of it, a rustic bench, on which ANGELA is seated, with ELLA on her left. Young Ladies wearing aesthetic draperies are grouped about the stage from R. to L.C., SAPHIR ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... began to move on, and as he was hurried out of the door into the square, they jogged across the square at a trot with their burdens. A few moments later he followed them across the drawbridge of the castle and in under the great gate where a papal soldier, armed with halberd and broadsword, was pacing ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... la Guillotiere, we were led to remark the probable antiquity of its construction. The centre still retains the drawbridge; and the whole fabric appears to have been widened, when wheel carriages came into fashion, with a supplementary parallel slice, riveted on to it by iron bolts. This expedient rather reminded me of a story which I had heard in my infancy, of a prudent housewife, who first ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... the door of the cell, and I followed him out, past the storehouse and the officers' apartments, to the drawbridge. Standing in the shadow by the gate, he took keys from his pocket. 'Here,' said he, 'are what will set you free. This fort is all mine: I act for France. Will you care to free yourself? You shall have escort to your own people. You see I am ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of his wounds, armed himself, and took his horse and spear and rode straight to the castle of Dame Lyones, for greatly he desired to see her. But when he came to the gate they closed it fast, and pulled the drawbridge up. And as he marvelled thereat, he saw the Lady Lyones standing at a window, who said, "Go thy way as yet, Sir Beaumains, for thou shalt not wholly have my love until thou be among the worthiest knights of all the world. Go, therefore, ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... on the doorstep, no attendants by him, and pulling to the great door by the famous knob he would descend the marble steps, the guard would take up position, and, thus escorted, he would cross the drawbridge of the moat and enter the town of the Seven Sisters, marching through the streets to the great well. People would have gathered there even at that early hour, women bearing vessels to secure their supply of the water, which, it was said, had an especial virtue ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... their mingled feelings shall pursue When London's faded glories rise to view? The mighty city, which by every road, [13] In floods of people poured itself abroad; Ungirt by walls, irregularly great, No jealous drawbridge, and no closing gate; Whose merchants (such the state which commerce brings) Sent forth their mandates to dependant kings: Streets, where the turban'd Moslem, bearded Jew, And woolly Afric, met the brown Hindu; Where through each vein spontaneous ...
— Eighteen Hundred and Eleven • Anna Laetitia Barbauld
... and fifty, with Lennox deducted and less ten per cent, would not take her as far as the drawbridge. The fleeting vision of the castle passed, replaced by ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... one; (Hurry!) They have fainted, and faltered, and homeward gone; His little fair page now follows alone, For strength and for courage trying! The king looked back at that faithful child; Wan was the face that answering smiled; They passed the drawbridge with clattering din, Then he dropped; and only the king rode in Where his rose of the isles ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... did it then. It leaped at the sight of this white and rose castle, with its towers and donjon and keep; it sank at the thought that he, poor old unpretentious Peter Davenant, with no social or personal passports of any kind, must force his way over drawbridge and beneath portcullis—or whatever else might be the method of entering a feudal pile—into the presence of the chatelaine whose abode here must be that of some legendary princess, and bend her to his ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... whence they marched to Salem. Before they could arrive at the town, however, the artillery was removed into the country. On discovering this, the field-officer in command of the detachment, hoping to overtake it, marched on, up the country, till he was stopped by a river. There was a drawbridge over this river, but upon his approach it was hauled up by a number of people on the opposite bank. The officer desired them to let this bridge down, which was refused, and perceiving a boat in the river he was about to make use of it for transporting his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for fast-day fare. Although it had proved (as described in our earlier tale) incapable of a prolonged defence, yet its situation was quite such as to protect the priory from any sudden violence on the part of the "merrie men" or nightly marauders, and when the drawbridge was up, the gateway closed, the good brethren slept none the less soundly for ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... that there was but one entrance to the castle from the town. It was known as the Postern, though it had a portcullis and a drawbridge spanning the moat. To the Postern the duke took his way, as we could see at intervals by looking down cross streets. Yolanda did not follow him. She held her course down a narrow street flanked ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... fear of pursuit, the captors kept at a brisk pace, not drawing rein until the walls of a large and strong castle loomed up near the forest border. The gates flew open and the drawbridge fell at their demand, and the small cavalcade rode into the powerful stronghold, the entrance to which was immediately closed behind them. It was the castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach, Saxony, within whose strong walls the man thus mysteriously ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... crossed the drawbridge and entered the portals Francis was surprised to see sentinels everywhere. Her spirit sank a little and her heart quailed as she noted all of the means employed to ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... intrinsic worth not being equal to the labour of removing them: the work of destruction would, however, have extended to the whole of the ruins had not some guardian hand interfered. It will be seen that the moated house was furnished with a ponderous drawbridge and other fortifying resources; from the licentious character of its founders it was consequently haunted many years ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... Castle for a long time, as long as it was in sight. Charlotte said it was a great pity it was so ruined, and Robert wished he could see where the drawbridge used to be. ...
— Adventure of a Kite • Harriet Myrtle
... world. They knew the Carthaginians could handle war galleys better than they could themselves; so they tried to give their soldiers the best possible chance when once the galleys closed. They made a sort of drawbridge that could be let down with a bang on the enemy boats and there held fast by sharp iron spikes biting into the enemy decks. Then their soldiers charged across and cleared everything ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... hill was a fit centre of the closely mingled life of the rulers and their people. Rebuilt on its ancient rude foundations under the reign of Pierre de Savoy, it possessed the great towers and sentinel tourelles, the moat, drawbridge, courtyards, terrace and arsenal of the time, but in its enchanting situation, its intimate, inviting charm, it quite uniquely expressed the sense and love of beauty of ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... quays, I sauntered along the ramparts, which are flanked by broad ditches—of course plentifully supplied with water; and passing over the drawbridge, by which all carriages enter the town—and which absolutely trembles as if about to sink beneath you, as the diligence rolls over it.—I made for the boulevards and tea-gardens; to which, business being well nigh ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of the low-lying town take shape and enlarge, dotted with lamps as though pricked over with pin-holes. The fiery clock of the station, that sits up all night from year's end to year's end; the dark figures with tumbrils, and a stray coach waiting; the yellow gateway and drawbridge of the fortress just beyond, and the chiming of carillons in a wheezy fashion from the old watch-tower within, make ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... the drawbridge, and take the road towards Rochdale, and, after exchanging a farewell wave of the hand with him, returned to the hall and sought ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... upon with parasites, so decayed, so battered, so neglected, such a haunt of rats, so advertised a storehouse of rheumatic agonies, that the heart of an intending occupant might well recoil. A plank, by way of flying drawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the abhorred interior; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on by the telegraph poles, and thus let them pass without doing me injury. Happily, however, I was not compelled to resort to this perilous expedient, but passed the bridge in safety. At the end I found another nearly as long, connected with it by a drawbridge. When I drew near it was up for a boat to pass; but a man called to me, and asked if I wish to go over. I told him I did, and he let down the bridge. As I approached him he asked, "Are you mad? or how came you here?" I told him I had walked from the depot at Rouse's ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... when they had drawn the canoe on shore, Jack found himself standing before a strong stockade or fort with a deep ditch round it. There was no gate on the side turned towards the river, but going round some way, they arrived at an entrance over a rough drawbridge. The negroes talked a few minutes together, and then led Jack in. The object for which the fort was used was very clear. In the centre stood a large barracoon full of slaves. This barracoon was a shed built ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... features torn and marred and his golden hair all hatefully bedabbled, felt his heart burst in sunder, and he groaned, and rising to stumbling feet came to his horse and mounted and rode away 'neath grim portcullis and over echoing drawbridge, yet, whithersoever he looked, he saw only his brother's dead face, pale and bloody. And fain he would have prayed but could not, and so he came into the forest. All day long he rode beneath the ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... Herbert read us the new number of 'Tig and Tag,' while we did this, and made us scream, by acting it with Silas, behind the sofa and on the chairs. At nine, all was done, and we went up the pasture to Mont Blanc. Worked all the morning on the drawbridge. We have got the two large logs into place, and have dug out part of the trench. Home ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... its strategical point in the agitation. And this is precisely what "The Thoughts on African Colonization" did. It dislodged the society from its powerful place in the moral sentiment of the North. The capture of this position was like the capture of a drawbridge, and the precipitation of the assaulting column directly upon the walls of a besieged castle. Within the pamphlet was contained the whole tremendous enginery of demolition. The anti-slavery agent and lecturer thenceforth set it up ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... substantial place of defence, according to Greek tactics. Its deep foss is cut in the solid rock, and furnished with subterranean magazines for the storage of provisions. The three piles of solid masonry on which the drawbridge rested, still stand in the centre of this ditch. The oblique grand entrance to the foss descends by a flight of well-cut steps. The rock itself over which the fort was raised is honeycombed with excavated passages for infantry and cavalry, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... fortifications, like those of the city, much neglected, and partly ruinous. For centuries, clearly, they had been of no account! It had great and strong gates, with something like a drawbridge to them over a rocky chasm; but they stood open, and it was hard to believe that water had ever occupied the hollow before them. All was so still that sleep seemed to interpenetrate the structure, causing the very moonlight ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... every one may there buy board and lodging and mercenary service if he has the price. The exceeding greatness of that price, however, makes of it a badge of nobility which converts these democratic hostelries into feudal castles, more inaccessible to the Long Denied than as though entered by a drawbridge and surrounded by ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... of my dreams," he answered. "There was no other lady I should have looked at in the place. I was always refined. I met the lady of my dreams eventually. It was among the mountains of the Tyrol. Imagine a lordly castle, with drawbridge and moat, portcullis and pleasaunce, and sauntering in the pleasaunce, among the flowers, a ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the outer port, the inner harbor of Joliette, and slipped slowly along past groups of pedestrians and carts that were waiting the closing of the steel drawbridge now opening before their prow. Then they cast anchor in the basin of Arenc near ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... supplication," praying the Earl to deliver over the unfortunate gentleman to the messenger for love of the King. The Earl was at dinner when, "bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste," Sir Patrick arrived at the castle, where the drawbridge was lifted and the doors closed. "The Earle caused incontinent draw the boards, and rose and met the said Sir Patrick with great reverence and humilitie, because he was the King's principal servant and familiar to His Grace." I tell the rest of the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... beyond the reach of wind and weather. They were of great variety, large, small, wide, narrow; all ready to move into. They were the conies' castles, ready refuges from enemies, their devious passages as effective as drawbridge or portcullis. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... place in the vital organisation of the individual man. The cerebral system of the nerves has its correspondent ANTITHESIS in the abdominal system: but hence arises a SYNTHESIS of the two in the pectoral system as the intermediate, and, like a drawbridge, at once conductor and boundary. In the latter, as objectised by the former, arise the emotions, the affections, and, in one word, the passions, as distinguished from the cognitions and appetites. Now, the reason has been shown to be superindividual, generally, and therefore not less so ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... he was afraid that something had gone wrong, when, one afternoon, a light waggon, the horses which drew it covered with foam, drove up to the gate of the Castle. Over the drawbridge it dashed, for the porter did not hesitate to admit it, and a venerable-looking old gentleman, habited as a merchant, descending, handed out two young girls in peasants' dresses. The Knight caught sight ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... embattled and loopholed walls, numerous towers, and deep and strong gateways, under which are still to be seen the grooves of the portcullis, the warder's guard-room, and the hooks that supported the heavy drawbridge. ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... was surrounded by a moat over which there was a drawbridge. Jack set men to work to cut the bridge on both sides, nearly to the middle, and then, dressed in his magic coat, went out to meet the giant. As the giant came along, although he could not see Jack, yet he could tell that someone was near for ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... few days with Thomas Clarkson, in Ipswich. He lived in a very old house with long rambling corridors, surrounded by a moat, which we crossed' by means of a drawbridge. He had just written an article against the colonization scheme, which his wife read aloud to us. He was so absorbed in the subject that he forgot the article was written by himself, and kept up a running applause with ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... narrow passage, led to a great abyss, crossable only by a drawbridge controlled on the other side, which was at this time lowered and ready for us to cross, which we did, accompanied by four honor guards who were dressed in all the pomp and pleasantry known by the Canitaurs. It was a custom among them to greet newcomers with an honor guard which escorted ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... the gangplank and stabled in the forward end of the house. The cabin door was locked and Beauty set on guard. Without the first idea that they were leaving any other human beings upon the barge when they left it, Louise and her father walked toward the drawbridge on the edge of town, over which they had to pass to ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... Howled back my curse; but 'midst the tread, The thunder of my courser's speed, Perchance they did not hear nor heed: 390 It vexes me—for I would fain Have paid their insult back again. I paid it well in after days: There is not of that castle gate, Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, Stone—bar—moat—bridge—or barrier left; Nor of its fields a blade of grass, Save what grows on a ridge of wall, Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall; And many a time ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the ridge where we stand is a beautiful example of a Venetian fortified country-house,—a little castle, turreted and loop-holed, with a drawbridge thrown from a tower rising opposite the doorway, and still in excellent preservation. Other similar houses may be seen, but I have nowhere in the island found one so fine as this. At the farther edge of the plain, lying along ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... according to custom, and disappeared whistling a national air. A quarter of an hour later the contractor left the place, and as soon as the functionary who had seen him depart was relieved by another, the prisoner left his hiding-place, crossed the drawbridge in his turn, simulating the gait of his twin, and, without any hindrance, rejoined his orderly at the place agreed upon. The trick ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Tiffauges side, by a vast moat, at the bottom of which mighty trees were growing. One would have had to pass over the tops of the trees, growing to the very verge of the wall, to gain a porch on the other side, for there was now no drawbridge. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... of these was a moat filled with water. In the centre of the camp was a neat little house which was well provided with books, provisions, and every thing necessary for a prolonged stay. When the drawbridge was up, it would be impossible for Alberdin to get inside of the camp; and, moreover, the ramparts were so high that he could not look over them to see what sort of antagonist he was to have. Old Salim did not tell the ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... botanical gardens on the boulevard, at the small booth where Juliana sells cigars and bottled soda, following the turnpike over the moat, you come to the Parian gate, crowned by the Spanish arms, in crumbling bas-relief. Beyond the drawbridge—lowered never to be raised again—where rumbling pony-carts crowd the pedestrians to the wall, the passage opens into gloomy dungeons, with barred windows looking out upon the stagnant waters of the moat. With an involuntary shudder, you pass on. A native ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... the citadel might have been saved had not the King's orders for the march of the troops from Versailles, and the environs of Paris, been disobeyed. She blamed the precipitation of De Launay in ordering up the drawbridge and directing the few troops on it to fire upon the people. 'There,' she added, 'the Marquis committed himself; as, in case of not succeeding, he could have no retreat, which every commander should take care to secure, before he allows the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... hoarse baying of the watch-hounds in the courtyard, and then the creaking of the drawbridge, as though it were being lowered. Then came to his ear the patter of many small feet on the stone staircase, and next he heard indistinctly the sound of light footsteps in the chamber ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... possessor. After some time he saw in the distance a huge black castle which commanded a view of the whole forest. The Prince felt certain that this must be the abode of the Oracle, and just as the sun was setting he reached its outermost gates. The whole castle was surrounded by a deep moat, and the drawbridge and the gates, and even the water in the moat, were all of the same sombre hue as the walls and towers. Upon the gate hung a huge bell, upon which was written in ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... side of the cliff until we reached a lofty rock, on which one part of the castle stands, while on the mainland another portion is built. We were now standing at the bottom of a chasm looking up two hundred feet or more to the castle walls, which were originally joined by a drawbridge. The castle was anciently called Dunchine, or the Fort of the Chasm. A zigzag path enabled us to gain the summit of the cliffs. The entrance to the castle was through a gateway, a ruined archway which still stands. Passing through it, we entered a court, called ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... bridge in Venice, with a very grandiose and monumental air, bestrides the canal by a single span with a powerful and graceful curve. It was built in 1691, under the Dogeship of Pasquale Cigogna, by Antonio da Ponte, and replaced the ancient wooden drawbridge. Two rows of shops, separated in the middle by a portico in the form of an arcade and permitting a glimpse of the sky, burden the sides of the bridge, which can be crossed by three paths; that in the center and the exterior ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... form of a hollow square and consolidated for mutual protection. The principal entrance, the one at the northern end, was called the water gate, for it should be explained that the keep stood on the bank of the Ochre brook and access was only possible by means of a drawbridge. Some day Sir Gavan intended to turn the course of the stream so as to carry it around the keep and thereby secure the protection of a continuous moat. But hitherto other duties had seemed more pressing, and the plan was ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... onfortnitly has to spell the most of his words, I may say he reads slow. Wall, whenever this lawyer made his appearance I would set the old man a-reading the Legislativ' reports. I kept the young lawyer up one night till 12 o'clock listenin to a lot of acts in regard to a drawbridge away orf in the east part of the State, havin' sent my daughter to bed at half-past 8. He hasn't bin there since, and I understan' he says I go ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... hid in the forest a few days. I did not think flight would be so difficult a matter, but I knew that every moment spent in Mortimer's Keep was at peril of my life; and I had but just made my escape through a small postern door before I heard the alarm bell ring, the drawbridge go up, and knew that the edict had gone forth for ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... on God's side, so have conceived of this motion of and to sins, all to have presented it in all its features so ugly, so ill favoured, and so unreasonable a thing to the soul, that the soul should forthwith have let down the sluice, and pulled up the drawbridge, put a stop, with greatest defiance, to the motion now under consideration; but the imagination being defiled, it presently, at the very first view or noise of the motion of sin, so acted as to forward the bringing the said motion ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a great square castle of gray stone, with a round tower at each corner. It was built about a courtyard, and was surrounded by a moat, across which was a drawbridge that could be raised or lowered. When it was raised the castle was practically a little island and very hard ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... continue the subject further. We talked of books, the war, and various other things, and by-and-by our hostess called to us from the higher level of the old drawbridge ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... thunder cried for the wildest steed in his stables to be brought forth. Paralysed with fright, the luckless page was seized and bound by the heels to the tail of the half-tame creature, which was led out beyond the drawbridge, and pricked with daggers till it flung off the men-at-arms and dashed screaming down the rocky ascent into ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... furlong, the drawbridge across the moat rose slowly and creaking till it stood vertical against the fort and the very moment it settled into this warlike attitude, down rattled the portcullis at the gate, and the towers and curtains bristled ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... master of the place, who was a knight, asked him to get them back their pigs, which his menials, they said, had the night before taken from them, which was false. The master gave them leave to go in, that they might discover their pigs and move them away. As soon as they had crossed the drawbridge they seized upon the master, threw off their false clothes, drew their weapons, and blew a blast upon the bagpipe; and forthwith appeared their comrades from their hiding-places in the neighboring woods. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... earth, which secures them as well as the best wall of stone or brick. The top of this mountain is, in a manner, divided into two parts, between which is a ditch thirty feet deep. The castle hath but one entry, and that by a drawbridge over this ditch. To the land it has four bastions, and to the sea two more. The south part is totally inaccessible, through the cragginess of the mountain. The north is surrounded by the river, which here is very broad. At the foot of the ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... been a hospice at that time,—I do not remember such at present,—a small square-built house, built as if partly for a fortress, with a detached flight of stone steps in front of it, and a kind of drawbridge to the door. This building, about 400 or 500 yards off, is seen in a dim, ashy grey against the light, which by help of a violent blast of mountain wind has broken through the depth of clouds which hangs upon the crags. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... been instinctively approaching the Castle, and he looked up suddenly as he was conscious of a clang of arms and a confused medley of voices, not in very peaceful tones, breaking in upon his meditations. He now perceived that the drawbridge was thronged with armed men, the portcullis drawn up, and the courtyard beyond full of soldiers ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... "I-spy" through Kenilworth Castle with Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Mary Ann Evans and a youth I used to know in boyhood by the name of Bill Hursey. We chased each other across the drawbridge, through the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. Finally Shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to play. Walter Scott said it was "no fair," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... across the river, connecting the new town with the city of Bridgeport, and a public toll-bridge, which belonged to Barnum and Noble, was thrown open to the public free. They also erected a covered drawbridge at a cost of $16,000, which was made free to the public ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... adapted to the requirements of modern civilization. I would illustrate my views by observing that, in ancient times, before the Wars of the Roses, a baron, or even a yeoman, would surround his residence with a moat to be crossed only by a drawbridge, and instead of the convenient door of modern times, he would have a portcullis, which he would raise or let fall to admit a friend, or exclude a foe. A visitor, too, would have instead of gaining immediate access, to ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... gate of the Bastile. Two sentinels were on duty at the gate; they made no difficulty about admitting Aramis, who entered without dismounting, and they pointed out the way he was to go by a long passage with buildings on both sides. This passage led to the drawbridge, or, in other words, to the real entrance. The drawbridge was down, and the duty of the day was about being entered upon. The sentinel at the outer guardhouse stopped Aramis's further progress, asking him, in a rough tone of voice, what had brought ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
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