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More "Knocker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still between lofty walls, with branches of orange and lemon trees, full of fruit, seen every where above them, until at length the guide stopped before a massive gateway, where he knocked loud and long, by means of an ancient-looking iron knocker. Presently a man came down a sort of road, which led through the garden, and unlocking the gate, let the ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... which Piero's dwelling opened, Tito found the heavy iron knocker on the door thickly bound round with wool and ingeniously fastened with cords. Remembering the painter's practice of stuffing his ears against obtrusive noises, Tito was not much surprised at this mode of defence against ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... was on the knocker, and its fall startled me as the clatter echoed far down the street and seemed ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... places; though frail in appearance, it was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the oblong shape and kind which our ancestors called jaquemart, looked like a huge note of exclamation; ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... were essentially Dutch. New York gets her Santa Claus, her doughnuts, crullers, cookies, and many of her odors, from the Dutch. The New York matron ran to fine linen and a polished door-knocker, while the New England housewife spun linsey-woolsey and knit "yarn mittens" for those ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... desire to scream. Then she rose with a jerk and raced down the stairs without looking behind her, and threw open the door and ran out into the street, only pulling up with her hand violently agitating Grodman's door-knocker. In a moment the first floor window was raised—the little house was of the same pattern as her own—and Grodman's full, fleshy face loomed through the fog in sleepy irritation from under a nightcap. Despite its scowl the ex-detective's face dawned upon her like the sun upon an occupant of ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion, built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose threshold General Washington had stood more than once. His father admitted him directly into a prim, wainscoted room with a square-angled stairway in the corner leading above; a ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... knocker at the front door," said Lois. She pounded, and the house vibrated terrifyingly through the stillness. At the same instant a scraping on the gravel walk behind them made them turn. It was the boy on the bicycle, who had sped ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... knew, too, that he was not easily induced to abandon a resolution he had once taken. True, he did not often make one, but this time he seemed to be carrying out a very definite plan. The best thing was to submit, and await the result of his attempt. We went up three steps, and felt for the knocker. "Here it is," said B., and he lifted it and knocked hard. What a dismal sound it made in that sleeping town! I felt as though we had just committed an act of sacrilege. We listened, and heard, through the door, the noise of chairs ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... and a warlike figure appeared upon the threshold, resplendent in the full light of the sun. This was D'Artagnan, who had come alone to the gate, and finding nobody to hold his stirrup, had tied his horse to the knocker and announced himself. The splendor of daylight invading the room, the murmur of all present, and, more than all, the instinct of the faithful dog, drew Mousqueton from his reverie; he raised his head, recognized the old ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... those are the most wretched, who exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate first the manager, and then the publick. Many an humble visitant have I followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the knocker with a shaking hand, and, after long deliberation, adventure to solicit entrance by a single knock; but I never staid to see them come out from their audience, because my heart is tender, and being subject to frights in bed, I would not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... translated into French. Any inaccurate ideas of the laws of nature which the children might get from the passage in question could easily be corrected afterwards by a lecture on Hydrostatics. The poem, however, which gives us most pleasure is the one called The Dear Old Knocker on the Door. It is appropriately illustrated by Mr. Tristram Ellis. We quote the concluding verses of ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... WAVES: The dire curse of this world is idleness. Some are working too hard, while a vast multitude idly look on. Don't be a looker, be a doer. Don't be a knocker, be a booster. Idleness is a sin: "The wages of sin is death." That is why people who stop working soon die off. "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." He can't eat long. He loses his appetite, spoils his digestion, gets heart ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... about you some," said the colonel, shaking hands with him. "Quite a knocker, I believe. Well, you rather look like it. Used to do some myself. Been up north, so the boss says. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... as milk, with a great white moon above the treetops. It made like mother-of-pearl the small grey house with pointed windows occupied, this December, by Stonewall Jackson. A clock in the hall was striking nine as Cleave lifted the knocker. An old negro came to the door. "Good-evening, Jim. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... back rapidly to Bashford's Lane, and without giving his courage time to cool plied the knocker of ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... time the cabriolet was dashing down Regent-street, twisting through the Quadrant, whirling along Pall Mall, until it finally entered Cleveland-row, and stopped before a newly painted, newly pointed, and exceedingly compact mansion, the long brass knocker of whose dark green door sounded beneath the practised touch of his lordship's tiger. Even the tawny Holstein horse, with the white flowing mane, seemed conscious of the locality, and stopped before the accustomed resting-place in the most natural manner imaginable. A tall serving-man, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including—which is a bold word—the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... we will follow Captain Bream, who, one fine morning, walked up to Mrs Dotropy's mansion at the west end, and applied the knocker vigorously. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... there was really no bell, but a ponderous, old-fashioned, wrought-iron knocker. So deliciously mediaeval! The late Graf von Lebenstein had recently died, we knew; and his son, the present Count, a young man of means, having inherited from his mother's family a still more ancient and splendid ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... garden, are English streets between Neuilly and the Champs-Elysees while all behind the apse of Saint-Sulpice, the Rue Feron, the Rue Cassette, lying peaceably in the shadow of its great towers, roughly paved, their doors each with its knocker, seem lifted out of some provincial and religious town—Tours or Orleans, for example—in the district of the cathedral or the palace, where the great over-hanging trees in the gardens rock themselves to the sound of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... much as can well be expected, perhaps, From "very young fellows," for very "old chaps." And if he had said What he'd got in his head, 'Twould have been, "Poor old Duffer, he's certainly dead!" The morning dawned—and the next—and the next And all in the mansion were still perplexed; No knocker fell, His approach to tell; Not so much as a runaway ring at ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... black-clad figure moved among the wilderness of neglected flowers. Virginia tethered her mare, ascended the two or three stone steps, and struck the mailed glove of iron which formed the knocker on the oak of the door. Its echoes went reverberating through wide, empty spaces, and for some moments she stood trembling at her audacity. She said to herself that she could not knock again. If no one answered the last summons she would take it as ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... windows in the lower part of the house opened upon the piazza, and from the second story ruffled white curtains fluttered to the breeze. As the shield-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck's stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool grass. It wasn't a house to be hurried, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... shall be the wife of a senator and a lawyer in the highest repute and practice. She has a very handsome house, with white marble steps and door-posts, and a delicate silver knocker and door-handle; she has very handsome drawing-rooms, very handsomely furnished, (there is a sideboard in one of them, but it is very handsome, and has very handsome decanters and cut glass water-jugs upon it); she has a very handsome carriage, and a very handsome ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... on Loudoun-street, and cantering briskly along the rough highway past the fort, he soon reached the rack before his door, and dismounted. The rack was crooked and quailed—the house was old and dingy—the very knocker on the door frowned grimly at the wayfarer who paused before it. One would have said that Mr. Rushton's manners, house, and general surrounding, would have repelled the community, and made him a thousand enemies, so grim were they. Not at all. No lawyer in the town was nearly so popular—none ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... Lucifer was fading into day across Durnover Moor, the sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle from the outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae's he saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the road-litter, so little did they believe in human aggression at ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... on duty at the ramparts, but he obtained a respite without delay, and hurried on his errand. Why did his heart throb as he hurried along the streets? Why did his hand tremble as he raised the knocker at the well known door. Roderick's instincts were true as are ever those of single minded men. A shadow had been on him for weeks, and he knew that it was now thickening into darkness. Spite of himself, a ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... like a beacon into the surrounding gloom. The moon was struggling through the clouds, and I could dimly discern the outline of the quaint gabled front of the house, with its mullioned windows, and masses of clinging ivy. Dismounting at the old stone porch, I seized the knocker and beat a mighty tattoo. There was no reply. Even the light had disappeared from the window almost simultaneously with the approach of our carriage wheels, and though I hammered for fully five minutes I failed to obtain the slightest ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... which he had made no effort to solve. From the testimony of several members of the American colony in Berlin, it appeared that all New York and half of Boston had heard of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, who, for three or four seasons past, had been using her really choice musicales as a species of knocker upon the portal of New York society. By this time, she had passed the portal and was disporting herself in the vestibule, with one toe resting upon the sacred threshold. Socially, she was as yet impossible; but her recitals had won the reputation of being among the choicest tidbits ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... tell you, as I chanced to go by the Door, I saw the Knocker (called a Crow) tied up in a white Cloth, I wondered what was ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... his head and listened then, before stooping to take up the poker and scatter the grey patch of ashes that still showed letters and words; for he appeared to have suddenly awakened to the fact that the thundering of the knocker was still going on ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... of something in front of me, which the driver had said was the hotel, I should have fancied that I had been set down by the roadside. I was wet to the skin and in no amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or knocker, or even a door, I belabored the side of the house with my heavy walking-stick. In a minute or two I saw a light flickering somewhere aloft, then I heard the sound of a window opening, followed by an exclamation of disgust ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... fair share of the conversation, when there was a quick step on the stairs. Nobody heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just as she had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, and when he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go over and ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... at the end of a steep and narrow street. When she arrived about at the middle of it, she heard strange noises, a funeral knell. "It must be for some one else," thought she; and she pulled the knocker violently. ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... to the Higbee domain is of polished mahogany, set between lights of antique verte Italian glass, and bearing an ancient brass knocker. From the reception-room, with its walls of green empire silk, one passes through a foyer hall, of Cordova leather hangings, to the drawing-room with its three broad windows. Opposite the entrance to this superb room is a mantel of carved Caen stone, faced with golden Pavanazza ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the Argents. The hall door was open, and filled with the servants in their state liveries; but although the door was open, the porter, as each carriage came up, rung a peal upon the knocker, to announce to all the square the successive arrival of the guests. We were shown upstairs to the drawing-rooms. They were very well, but neither so grand nor so great as I expected. As for the company, it was a suffocating crowd of fat elderly ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... odour of the most repellent character of vice was the lofty and cold Student to force his path! The darkness, his quick step, his downcast head, favoured his escape through the unhallowed throng, and he now stood opposite the door of a small and narrow house. A ponderous knocker adorned the door, which seemed of uncommon strength, being thickly studded with large nails. He knocked twice before his summons was answered, and then a voice from within, cried, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strangely circuitous lane, in the parish of Ranton, there stands a little old half-timbered house, known as the Vicarage Farm. Only a very practised eye would suspect the treasures that it contains. Entering through the original door, with quaint knocker intact, you are in the kitchen with a fine open fire-place, noble beam, and walls panelled with oak. But the principal treasure consists in what I have heard called 'The priest's room.' I should venture to put the date of the house at about 1500—certainly pre-Reformation. How did it ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... door quite good enough for such a shabby old dolls' house, when there was the beautiful big new one built like a castle and furnished with the most elegant chairs and tables and carpets and curtains and ornaments and pictures and beds and baths and lamps and book-cases, and with a knocker on the front door, and a stable with a pony cart in it at the back. The minute she saw it she ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... Irishman ran on before her, eager to show the generous lady how useful he could be. In less than half an hour, Iris and her maid were at the door of the farm-house. No such civilised inventions appeared as a knocker or a bell. The boy used his knuckles instead—and ran away when he heard the lock of the door turned on the inner side. He was afraid to be seen speaking to any living creature ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... decided him—the gaiety of a boy's laugh that floated from one of the lower rooms and swinging his stick briskly to add weight to his determination, he ascended the broad steps and lifted the old brass knocker. A moment later the door was opened by a large mulatto woman, in a soiled apron, who took his small hand-bag from him and, when he asked for Mr. Fletcher, led him across the great ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... The knocker sounded, and Mr Amos hastened to admit the first comers. These were Macnab and Wilkie: the one a decent middle-aged man with a fresh-washed face and a celluloid collar, the other a round-shouldered youth, with lank hair and the large eyes and luminous skin which are the marks of phthisis. ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... opened, except for marriages, funerals, New Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously wrought,—sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a lion's head,—and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions taken for ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... caruncle^, corn, wart, pappiloma, furuncle, polypus^, fungus, fungosity^, exostosis^, bleb, blister, blain^; boil &c (disease) 655; airbubble^, blob, papule, verruca. [convex body parts on chest] papilla, nipple, teat, tit [Vulg.], titty [Vulg.], boob [Vulg.], knocker [Vulg.], pap, breast, dug, mammilla^. [prominent convexity on the face] proboscis, nose, neb, beak, snout, nozzle, schnoz [Coll.]. peg, button, stud, ridge, rib, jutty, trunnion, snag. cupola, dome, arch, balcony, eaves; pilaster. relief, relievo [It], cameo; bassorilievo^, mezzorilevo^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... resembled a fat rag doll. The queer object was shaking with strange contortions in the place where the hall-bell should have hung. "I play him one good trick, ain't it?" she added. "Mit a towel I tie up the bell-knocker—zo!" She illustrated with her flour-dusted hands. "Den I wrap him round like one sore foot. Hoffentlich, nopody vill vake him ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... neck and kiss my cheek and pat my forehead and coo over me until I squeeze him so hard he has to grunt. Then he'll probably do his best to pick my eyes out, if I pretend to be asleep, or experiment with the end of my nose, to see why it doesn't lift up like a door-knocker. Then he'll snuggle down in the crook of my arm, perfectly still except for the wriggling of his toes against my hip, and croon there with happiness and contentment, like a ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... stood up again he heard the knocker rap on his street-door. For a moment he had an instinct to run to the window and see who was there; but he put it aside; there was scarcely time to hide the ashes; and it was best too to give no hint of anxiety. He lifted ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... explanations about the dreadful Fanny Bolton mystery, regarding which she had never breathed a word to her son, though it was present in her mind always, and occasioned her inexpressible anxiety and disquiet. She had caused the brass knocker to be screwed off the inner door of the chambers, where upon the postman's startling double rap would, as she justly argued, disturb the rest of her patient, and she did not allow him to see any letter which arrived, whether from bootmakers who importuned him, or ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... allowed the dangling rope to slip from his hands so that the Captain rested quiet in the starshine. Roderick and Florence were coming in through the wide patio door; Norton was just saying that Florrie had promised to play something for him when the front door knocker announced another visitor. Florence made a little disdainful face as though she guessed who it was; ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... against a Person belonging to the Church, and full Proof made, that he had been singularly Industrious in the Execution of that horrid Piece of Barbarity on the Hill, his Lordship commanded him to be hang'd up at the Knocker ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... you won't," said the landlady, tossing her head, "me not 'avin' a knocker, an' your 'and a-scratchin' the paint off the door, which it ain't been done over six months by my sister-in-law's cousin, which 'e is a painter, with a shop in Fitzroy, an' a wonderful ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... as I sat in my little Islington parlor, wishing that the chop I had just eaten had gone farther, and taking a melancholy inventory of the threadbare carpet and rheumatic chairs, the door-knocker fell; there were steps in the hall; my ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... gate was closed, but he tried it and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... and brown with the weather. In the twilight he could see that. Winthrop thought nothing of it; he was used to it; his own house at home was brown and bare; but alas! this looked very little like his own house at home. There wasn't penthouse enough to keep the rain from the knocker. He knocked. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... her breath; she could not be accused of the want of reverence sometimes attributed to Protestants in the great Catholic temples. "Mary, dear," she whispered, "suppose we had to kiss that dreadful brass toe. If I could only have kept our door-knocker, at Northampton, as bright as that! I think it's so heathenish; but Roderick says he thinks ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... myself, as I looked at the knocker, "I know I am not a Proctor; I wonder whether I ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... fer tomorra's the Sawbeth ya ken, an' it wuddent be gude for our souls if the parson shud cum out to investigate." Chuckling away into the silent street they disappeared, while Laurence Shafton stalked angrily up the little path and pounded loudly on the quaint knocker of ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... The heavy knocker fell again and again and again. Between the knocking there was a sound like the roaring of lions. Husband and wife stared at one another with white faces. Firmin picked up his gun with trembling hands, and the movement seemed to set ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... their betters. As for the deaconess, I have said already that the fact of her being a lady, and the possessor of a heart, constituted the only ground of hope that I could have in reference to her. This I felt to be insecure enough when I held the knocker in my hand, and remembered all at once the many little tales that I had heard, every one of which went far to prove that ladies may be ladies without the generous weakness of their sex,—and carry hearts about with them as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... month of September, We find neither riches nor rank; In vain we look out for a member To give us a nod or a frank. Each knocker in silence reposes, In every mansion you find One dirty old woman who dozes, Or peeps through the ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment! Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended, And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps, Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron; Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village, Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music. But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was welcome; Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... swiftness darted up the steps and inserted a large, fat, wet hand between the raised knocker and its bed. It was the sublime gesture of a martyr, and her large brown eyes gazed submissively, yet firmly, at Mr. Batchgrew with the look of a martyr. She had nothing to gain by the defiance of ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... always vowed we would marry. "Ah!" thought I, "if I could but go to Somersetshire now, I might boldly walk up to old Smith's door" (he was her grandfather, and a half-pay lieutenant of the navy), "I might knock at the knocker and see my beloved Mary in the parlour, and not be obliged to sneak behind hayricks on the look-out for her, or pelt stones at ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that make a knocker,[hx] Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker; Mouth that marks the envious Scorner, With a Scorpion in each corner Curling up his tail to sting you,[hy] In the place that most may wring you; Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy, Carcase stolen from some mummy, Bowels—(but ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... White, Horton's mother-in-law, had a violent sick headache, and, as we are all very fond of the kind old lady, we were trying to keep things as quiet as possible down-stairs. Suddenly there came a bang! bang! bang! at the knocker; and then in an instant another rattling series of knocks, as if a tethered donkey were trying to kick in the panel. After all our efforts for silence it was exasperating. I rushed to the door to find a seedy looking person just raising his hand to commence a fresh bombardment. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... up. There were lights in the windows, and the temperate tinkle of my bell brought a servant immediately to the door, but poor Mrs. Stormer had passed into a state in which the resonance of no earthly knocker was to be feared. A lady, in the hall, hovering behind the servant, came forward when she heard my voice. I recognised Lady Luard, but she had mistaken me ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... eyes in the second storey; and high up in the third, the casement of the attic peered out coyly from under the eaves. At the top of a flight of immaculately white steps there was a squat little door painted green and adorned with a brass knocker burnished to the colour of fine gold. The railings of iron round the area were also coloured green, and the appearance of the whole exterior was as spotless and neat as Miss Whichello herself. It was an ideal house for a dainty old spinster such as she was, and rested ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... She grasped the bell and tugged and tugged until she could tug no more. The bell jangled and pealed and clattered reverberatingly from the gloomy house, and then, with a jarring of wires, relapsed into silence. Barbara beat on the door with her hands, for there was no knocker; but all remained still within. Only the dank mist swirled in ever denser about her as she stood beneath ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... clouded brow was lifting his hand toward a tortuous brass knocker the door opened and Barbara, carrying a book and pencil in one hand, while the other held down her hat-brim, tripped ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... rapidly through the grounds and reached the front door of the mansion. There was nobody about; the place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground-floor windows. Inspector Seldon knocked loudly at the front door with the big, old-fashioned brass knocker, and rang the bell. He listened intently for a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Seldon bent down with his ear at the keyhole. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... easy flight of white marble steps led up to the richly-carved front door, with its massive silver knocker bearing the name of Huntingdon in old-fashioned Italian characters; and in the arched niches, on either side of this door, stood two statues, brought from Europe by Mr. Huntingdon's father, and supposed to ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... soldier-servant who had accompanied him, he entered a court in which no sound was to be heard save the plashing of a fountain. He saw the door of a tall old mansion before him. Going up he raised the knocker, and instantly the echoes resounded through the empty house. But no one came to answer. The castle appeared uninhabited, the court a desert. Edward glanced about him, half expecting to be hailed by some ogre or giant, as adventurers used to be in the fairy tales he had read ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... no knocker. The workmen had not reached that part of their improvements yet. But the door was open; and a very neatly furnished parlor at the left of the hall seemed to say, "Come right in, please;" and in ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... to the back door, and raised a feeble clatter with the knocker. Mrs. Squire Bean, who was tall and thin and mild-looking, ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. Our driver pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny hat, appeared on ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of those which they had left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden; there are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's house, with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door. There are no other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear, dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... he turned and beat, with fists none too hard, upon the door that was anything but soft. And cursed, as he had never cursed man before, the architect whose enlightened scheme had found no place for a knocker. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... not without difficulty. He sat astride on the wall for an instant, and then disappeared among the dark foliage of the trees. Maria Remedios ran desperately toward the Calle del Condestable, and, seizing the knocker of the front door, knocked—knocked three times with all ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... drudgery, and haying and harvesting I liked best when they were a good way off; picking up potatoes worried me, but gathering apples suited my hands and my fancy better, and knocking "Juno's cushions" in the spring meadows with my long-handled knocker, about the time the first swallow was heard laughing overhead, was real fun. I always wanted some element of play in my work; buckling down to any sort of routine always galled me, and does yet. The work must be a kind ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... breathing time. The door was free, and so, leaving the refreshment I had ordered untouched, I bolted out of the house in much the same way as a thief might have done, and ran, as if for my life, right down the Alexandra Road until I reached Wareham's office. And there I seized the knocker in a frenzy, and made such a racket as might have awakened the dead. The door suddenly opened, and I fell into the arms ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Constantius, for it has enabled me to find that selfless Reason is the best Comforter, and only sure friend of declining Life. At this moment the sounds of a carriage followed by the usual bravura executed on the brazen knocker announced a morning visit: and Alia hastened to receive the party. Meantime the grey-haired philosopher, left to his own musings, continued playing with the thoughts that Alia and Alia's question had excited, till he murmured them to himself in half audible words, which at first casually, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... disremember, locomote, a right smart ways, chink, afeard, orate, nary a one, yore, pluralized, distingue, ruination, complected, mayhap, burglarized, mal de mer, tuckered, grind, near, suicided, callate, cracker-jack, erst, railroaded, chic, down town, deceased (verb), a rig, swipe, spake, on a toot, knocker, peradventure, guess, prof, classy, booze, per se, cute, biz, bug-house, swell, opry, rep, photo, cinch, corker, in cahoot, pants, fess up, exam, bike, incog, zoo, secondhanded, getable, outclassed, gents, mucker, galoot, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... cheese under his arm Robert walked along Hanover Street to Doctor Warren's house[17]. It was a wooden building standing end to the road. Entering a small yard, he rattled the knocker on the door. The ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... him of 'em, eh! But I'm sorry you hurt his lordship, Terry. Young noblemen ought to be indulged in their frolics. If they do, now and then, run away with a knocker, paint a sign, beat the watch, or huff a magistrate, they pay for their pastime, and that's sufficient. What more could any reasonable man—especially a watchman—desire? Besides, the Marquis, is a devilish fine fellow, and a particular ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he spoken before they were all three hurrying towards the mansion. When at last they stood under the portico, George seized the quaint brass knocker of the front door, and gave it a brisk rap. After some delay a very fat negress opened the door, and eyed the strangers rather suspiciously. Their tramp over the country had not improved their appearance, and her supercilious, inquisitive look was not ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... great iron extinguisher at the side of the door, he sped happily away. After watching the arrival of three or four more chairs and one carriage, I summoned up all my resolution and gave a feeble rat-tat with the massive iron lion's-head which served as knocker. ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... one, verily it would ill become me to tell him so. HAN. Nay, dear one, where true love is, there is little need of prim formality. ROSE. Hush, dear aunt, for thy words pain me sorely. Hung in a plated dish-cover to the knocker of the workhouse door, with naught that I could call mine own, save a change of baby-linen and a book of etiquette, little wonder if I have always regarded that work as a voice from a parent's ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... soon as he had touched the knocker the door was opened by a little old woman, plainly dressed, but neat and tidy: and when the Prince told her who he was, and what he wanted, she answered him with a good-humored smile, very different from the frown of stern Necessity: "Every one can have food in my house who chooses ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... but a big bronze knocker, and in answer to it a young girl, presumably the "hired girl", let us into the hall. She took our coming as a matter of course, so we judged they were prepared for tourists that day, knowing that the hotel was full on account of the wedding. ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... glimmering light, which, at first a long way off, was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the doorstep. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... woman whom we have watched at work for twelve months. She is a trained nurse, a certified midwife, a licensed motor-car driver, a veterinarian and a woman of property. Her name is Mrs. Elsie Knocker, a widow with one son. She helped to organize our corps. I was with her one evening when a corporal ordered her to go up a difficult road. He was the driver of a high-power touring car which could rise ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... is one doll who thinks she has got every prize beauty in the country biting her finger nails with jealousy. Well, she came out, led out at that. I nearly dropped dead in my seat. You know that I am not a knocker, and there is nothing I hate worse than to hear one lady pan another behind her back, so I will merely make this statement. If this person would stop trying to use up all the number 18 in the block, would get operated on for knock-knees, have ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... apologize," said Colonel Prowley, upon opening the hall-door for my admittance, on the afternoon of the second Wednesday in April, and this after repeated summons had been sounded by the brazen knocker,—"I ought to apologize for keeping you here so long; but there has been so much knocking about the house of late, and our cook and housemaid having turned out to be such excellent mediums, taking just as much interest in their circle down-stairs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... The Maples, but a polished brass knocker announced the arrival of any visitor; and it seemed to the worried Widow Sprigg as if that "plaguey knocker had done nothin' but whack the hull endurin' time sence Moses got hurt. I wonder ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... hear your voice if you are as much in earnest as he was! Why should not God hear the voice of William, or Robert, Sarah or Edith? He is no respecter of persons. Is it not written over the door of mercy, "Knock, and it shall be opened?" Aye, and the knocker is so low a child's hand may reach it. St. James tells us that Elijah was "a man of like passions." He was a human being like you and me, but he had faith in God. Why should we not believe in God as much as the prophet ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... fifteen minutes of midnight the strange trio passed up the graveled walk leading to the Martin mansion. The front door had a ponderous old-fashioned knocker, and Bart plied ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... metal! He was, from being BRAZEN, BRASS! He was neither more nor less than a knocker! And there he was, nailed to the door in the blazing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot; and there he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his brass nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... discovered to be close to her, and to be a hollow place so great that she could not tell what it was hollowed out of. Staring at it, she found that it was a doorway; and going nearer and staring harder, she saw the door, far in, with a knocker of iron upon it, a great many yards above her head, and as large as the anchor of a big ship. Now, nobody had ever been unkind to Tricksey-Wee, and therefore she was not afraid of anybody. For Buffy-Bob's box on the ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... lifted the ponderous knocker upon Sylvester's door, he remembered vividly the only other occasion upon which he had visited those chambers. With the member for Mallow, too, indiscreet busybody that he was, had he not a reckoning to settle? The choice of him as an instrument of his punishment, which, if it was primarily ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... on the Sculptor Girl's doorplate. It took me a full minute to get the courage to tap her gargoyle knocker because I was so awestricken at remembering that she was the girl who won the Ambrose Medal and the Pendleton Prize and goodness only knows how much other ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... of using the bell or knocker, Jetson was surprised to hear him give three raps on the door with his stick. There was no answer, and Jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused, crossed to the other corner, from where he could command a ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... moonlit garden with Mr. Previte and some other gentlemen. His elopement with a young Countess from a ball at Lady Jersey's was quite notorious. It was even whispered that he once, in the company of some friends, made as though he would wrench the knocker off the door of some shop. But these things he did, not, most certainly, for any exuberant love of life. Rather did he regard them as healthful exercise of the body and a charm against that dreaded corpulency ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... has been to see how that man works for Jesus. I went to his house some time after that. It was not in the back streets, although he worked there and got some people to sign the pledge. But he came out into the front street, and there was a knocker on his door. When I knocked, his wife admitted me into the sitting room. She told me that Sunday morning that her husband was out visiting the sick. I know that he brought many men to the Sunday morning Bible Class. He told me this story. 'Do you know,' he said, ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... Lois, and they crossed the street, and stopped before a quaint looking building. The massive oak door boasted a huge knocker, in the form of a frowning lion's head that ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... was in a fright having laid in bed cooling down, and thinking of possible consequences; heard the street-door knocker, got out of bed, and in my night-shirt went half way downstairs listening. To my relief, I heard Charlotte in answer to my mother's enquiry, say I had come home about an hour before, and had gone to bed unwell. My mother came to my room, saying ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... only a few steps further, and this space was rapidly covered. As the two girls reached the porch, and before they had a chance to touch the knocker, the door ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm baby when it's fractious. Stop! I'll throw in another article, and I'll give you that, and it's a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... as such tidings always do, and Aunt Plenty was constantly employed in answering inquiries, for her knocker kept up a steady tattoo for several days. All sorts of people came: gentlefolk and paupers, children with anxious little faces, old people full of sympathy, pretty girls sobbing as they went away, and young men who relieved their feelings by swearing at all emigrants in general and Portuguese in ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Edinburgh at ance, no three days after my letter; and up I goes to the Lawnmarket, where she was living wi' her mother, and raps at the door without ony ceremony. But when I had rapped, I was in a swither whether to staun till they came out or no, for my heart began to imitate the knocker, or rather to tell me how I ought to have knocked; for it wasna a loud, solid drover's knock like mine, but it kept rit-tit-tat-ting on my breast like the knock of a hairdresser's 'prentice bringing a bandbox fu' o' curls and ither knick-knackeries, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... a perfect nuisance, and fill the world with innumerable heart-breakings and felo-de-sees. But bad as they are, they are nothing to the intolerable vexation experienced by me, (and I believe by Julia too,) on hearing a slow, loud, solemn stroke of the knocker upon the outer door. It was repeated once—twice—thrice. We heard it simultaneously—we ceased speaking simultaneously—we (to wit, Julia and I) ceased ogling each other simultaneously. The whole of us suspended our conversation in a moment—looked to the door of the room—breathed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... still lingered over the meal one warm September morning, as if loth to make further exertion in the growing heat, the Sound of a knocker was heard, and a moment later the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... fresh black ground were inscribed in white paint the words—"This noble freehold mansion to be sold"; with the name of the agent to whom application should be made. "They certainly lose no time," said the visitor as, after sounding the big brass knocker, she waited to be admitted; "it's a practical country!" And within the house, as she ascended to the drawing-room, she perceived numerous signs of abdication; pictures removed from the walls and placed upon sofas, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... crossed the room. They were a trifle above mortal height, or seemed so to the terrified eyes which saw them. They reached the mantel-shelf where the sign-board hung, then a black-draped long arm was seen to rise and make a motion, as if plying a knocker. Then the whole company passed out of sight, as if through the wall, and the room was as before. Mrs. Townsend was shaking in a nervous chill, Adrianna was almost fainting, Cordelia was in hysterics. David Townsend stood glaring in a curious way at the sign of the Blue Leopard. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... the Admiral, going warily—because he was so stiff from saddle-work—made his way down to the house of Widow Shanks, and winking at the Royal Arms in the lower front window, where Stubbard kept Office and convenience, knocked with the knocker at the private door, there seemed to be a great deal of thought required ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... a groan the surgeon went on, and in a few minutes more the party gained the piazza, and Jack was using the big knocker ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... was increased when the Old Maid passed beneath the porch of the deserted mansion, ascended the moss-covered steps, lifted the iron knocker and gave three raps. The people could only conjecture that some old remembrance, troubling her bewildered brain, had impelled the poor woman hither to visit the friends of her youth—all gone from ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on to further details, but as they crossed the hall to the west wing, the knocker on the front door banged with a decisive sound, and Sally opened to find Donald ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... had reached the old brick house and sounded the brass knocker with an eager rat-tat-tat. Presently she heard footsteps resound along the empty hall and the Irish housekeeper flung ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... was fat. He had a straggling gray beard, a very bald pate, high cheek bones, and a glass eye. This eye he turned towards the maid, perhaps because it was steady. He also had a nervous way of drawing one hand down his face till he lowered his jaw prodigiously, after which, like the handle of a knocker, it would fall back to place with quite a thump. He did this twice as he stared at Beth, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... the afternoon it was different,—carriages rolled along incessantly, and streams of afternoon callers were going and coming from the houses when the mistress was "at home;" and at my door, too, soon began the usual din of bell and knocker. Joe was quite equal to the occasion, and enjoyed Friday, the day I received. Dressed in his very best, and with a collar that kept his chin in what seemed to me a fearful state of torture, but added to his height ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... big iron knocker down rather lightly, hoping only Lin would hear it. He did not care to face his father or mother until he got a little more courage. Again the knocker was raised and lowered, a little louder than before. The window sash above was raised and the father's voice, gruffer ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... was merely a door cut in the fence, allowing no glimpse of what was within, and instead of immediately opening it, Mr. Dingley rapped upon it with the iron knocker, whose lion head had been wont to snarl at me years ago. I heard a sharp clicking as of something being unlocked, and the gate opened. But after we were inside I got an uncanny shock, for excepting ourselves there was not a soul to ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... Mitford's own description. 'The Cross is not a borough, thank Heaven, either rotten or independent. The inhabitants are quiet, peaceable people who would not think of visiting us, even if we had a knocker to knock at. Our residence is a cottage' (she is writing to her correspondent, Sir William Elford), 'no, not a cottage, it does not deserve the name—a messuage or tenement such as a little farmer who had made 1400 pounds might ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... child would be born to you in a place like this?' said the doctor. 'Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify? A little more elbow-room is all we want here. We are quiet here; we don't get badgered here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door mat till he is. Nobody writes threatening letters about money to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... her beautiful places of sculpture, but as a common thing they are too much neglected, and attractive only to the lover of oddities and curious old epitaphs. Occasionally you may see a strangely shaped tomb, or as in a well-known village, a knocker placed on the door of his family vault by some odd specimen of humanity. When asked the reason for doing so singular a thing, he gravely replied that "when the old gentleman should come to claim his own, the tenants might have ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... and accepted my overtures with an expression which may have been intended for a smile, or a threat of the most appalling character. I have seen such legs as his on old-fashioned silver teapots; and the crook in his tail would have made it useful as a door-knocker. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... the van got down and let fall the old-fashioned iron knocker. The judas showed a glistening eye for a second, then closed. This was immediately followed by a slipping of bolts and a clanging of iron bars, and then the big gates swung inward. They appeared to do this without human aid, and shut again in the same mysterious ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... old-fashioned house, the door of which was approached by a broad flight of stone steps of a semi-circular form. The brass knocker was an object of much interest to me, in those days; for the whim of the maker had led him to give it the shape of an elephant's head, the trunk of the ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... when I arrived. It was 11 o'clock A.M. I found the front door thrown wide open, with every indication of its being entered by all comers without the least ceremony—not even that of wiping the shoes. There was neither door-bell nor knocker, scraper nor mat; and the floor of the lobby seemed but slightly acquainted with the broom,—to say nothing of the scrubbing-brush. It looked like the floor of a corn or provision warehouse. I had no alternative but to venture in. Immediately ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... as a kitten myself. Take it from me, Wynne will return, Nigel, and when he does he'll see to it that we all hear him. He'll probably break every pane of glass in the place with a stone, and play a devil's dance upon the knocker. That's his usual way of expressin' his pleasure, I believe. Here, here's health to you, old boy, and happiness, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... solitary clerk no longer found time to answer the often agitated bell; and the eyes of the entering client were now saluted by a gorgeous green baize office door; the imposing appearance of which was only equalled by Mr. Toad's new private portal, splendid with a brass knocker and patent varnish. And now his brother attorneys began to wonder "how Toad got on! and ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... vicinity of the stables. Though fast falling to decay, it had more the appearance of a decent habitation than the other huts on the plantation. Its thick plank door was ornamented with a mouldy brass knocker, and its four windows contained sashes, to which here and there clung a broken pane, the surviving relic of its better days. It was built of large unhewn logs, notched at the ends and laid one upon the other, with the bark still on. The thick, rough coat which yet adhered ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... signs of illness or misfortune. So that it may safely be taken to mean that the consultant will shortly be going to see a friend who has had an operation; this fact is borne out by the short dotted line beyond, leading to the door knocker, under which ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... the celebrated pack of Knocker Boys met at the Cavendish, in Jermyn Street. These animals, which have acquired for themselves a celebrity as undying as that of Tom and Jerry, are of a fine powerful breed, and in excellent condition. The success which invariably ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... and knocked at the door of a red brick house—door green—brass knocker. Captain Gregory Jones was a tall man; he wore a blue coat without skirts; he had high cheek bones, small eyes, and his whole appearance was eloquent of what is generally termed the bluff honesty of the seaman. Captain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shut himself in Stratton reeled as if he would have fallen, but a second rat-tat upon the little brass knocker brought him to himself, and, after a glance at the closet door, he opened that of the entry, and then the outer door, to admit a good looking, fair-haired young fellow of about five-and-twenty, most ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... day, and I saw that the servants of the house began to stir, I went over and knocked soundly upon the great brass knocker. A man with a cropped black poll and powder sifted among it, came and ordered me away. I asked when ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Mrs. Knocker came into Dunkirk for a night's rest while I was staying there. She had been out all the previous day in a storm of wind and rain driving an ambulance. It was heavy with wounded, and shells were dropping very near. She—the most courageous woman that ever lived—was ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... extreme. We approached it by an improvised bridge two spans in breadth. The place was buried under layers of mystery. It was silent, it was dark with the blackness of darkness; it was like an unholy sepulchre that gave forth no sound, though we beat upon its sodden door with its rusted knocker until a dog howled dismally on the hillside ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... rigs up this morning, full fig, calls a cab, and proceeds in state to our embassy, gives what Cooper calls a lord's beat of six thund'rin' raps of the knocker, presents the legation ticket, and was admitted to where ambassador was. He is a very pretty man all up his shirt, and he talks pretty, and smiles pretty, and bows pretty, and he has got the whitest hand you ever see, it looks as white, as a ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... when we come to number three, I stretch my hand up—so! And find the old brass knocker's ring; I ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... creeds in churches, I mean creeds in politics, business and everywhere else. I want to get 'em all out of my eyes so I can see what's really here—because I'm so sure there's an awful lot here and an awful lot more that's coming. If I make a noise like a knocker at times you don't want to put me down as any Schopenhauer fan. None of that pessimistic dope for little Joey Kramer. I never open a new book without hoping I'll find the real stuff I want, and I never open a paper without hoping that some more of it will be right here in the news of the day. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... by the clerk had neither bell, knocker, nor porter. Charles knocked loudly at the shutters with his hands. A policeman happened to pass by. Then he was ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... again. I did so, and then discovered for the first time that the knocker had been newly painted, and the paint had come off on my gloves—which ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... Mr. Charles Larkyns, and a throng of their acquaintances were sitting in Mr. Bouncer's rooms, on the evening of November 5, when a knock at the oak was heard; and as Mr. Bouncer roared out, "Come in!" the knocker entered. Opening the door, and striking into an attitude, he exclaimed in a theatrical ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Eunice's heart. A square but rather ornate porch, with fluted columns, supporting the outer edge of the roof, and an elaborately carved hall-door with a fanlight overhead. The stoop stood up some five steps, and at the sides there were benches for out-of-doors comfort on summer nights. A brass knocker, with a lion's head, announced visitors. Chilian, however, let himself in with his latchkey. But both sisters met the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... said the woman hastily just as there was a little rat-tat at the brass knocker of the outer door, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... it seemed to him—which prevailed in the house in Carlton Terrace. For a day or two, indeed, there was much going to and fro, much closeting and button-holing; for rather longer the secretary read anxiety and apprehension in one countenance—Lady Betty's. But things settled down. The knocker presently found peace, such comparative peace as falls to knockers in Carlton Terrace. Lady Betty's brow grew clear as her eye found no reflection of its anxiety in Mr. Stafford's face. In a word the secretary failed to discern the faintest ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... shelter of a thickly leaved oak tree, secured him, and then holding up her saturated skirt with one hand and holding on her cap with the other, she went up some moldering stone steps to an old stone portico and, seizing the heavy iron knocker of a great black oak double door, she knocked loudly enough to awaken all the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... same character. Winter and summer the hall-door, which had long lost the knocker, lay hospitably open. The parlor had a very equivocal appearance; for the furniture, though originally good and of excellent materials, was stained and dinged and hacked in a manner that denoted but little sense of ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... spirit was crushed. He saw in his mind's eye the frowning portals of a convict settlement, and heard the boom of a giant knocker reverberating through ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... garden; then a humble whitewashed cottage with a small leaded casement window on each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, stood ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... with flower-beds, till I stood before the door of as fine a mansion as I had found in the dominion. From within came a sound of speech and laughter, and I was in half a mind to turn back to my cold quarters by the shore. I had no sooner struck the knocker than ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... forbidding aspect of the house had the immediate effect of lowering his spirits. It might well have been the abode of monsters or demons in a child's wonder tale, creatures that only dared to come out under cover of darkness. He groped for the bell-handle, or knocker, and finding neither, he raised his stick and beat a loud tattoo on the door. The sound echoed away in an empty space on the other side and the wind moaned past him between the pillars as if startled at his audacity. But there was no sound of approaching footsteps ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... darkened the window, and a moment afterward there was a fall of the old silver knocker on her door. She thought at first—the shadow had seemed so young—that it was Stephen; but when she opened the door, she saw, with a lovely flush, that it was ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... card," says Vee. "Look at this old door with the brass knocker and the green fan-light ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... too true; and just then we heard the sound of wheels, and a vigorous lifting of the great brass knocker. Holly hurriedly cleared away all signs of our employment, and then opened the door; while I returned to my books, convinced that the poorest time to make gingerbread was on Sunday, and in the dark. But Aunt Henshaw discovered our proceedings through Sylvia, who complained that some one ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... few moments, and then walked up the weed-grown path, and hammered on the front door with the brass knocker. The knocking echoed all over the house, and the door swung slowly open. It was my knocks which had opened it, however,—there was no one inside, so far as I could see. I looked into an empty hall, ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... a queer, long, one-story house with a high-peaked roof in which were set three small dormer windows. There was a little dooryard in front, a Dutch hall door with an iron knocker, a well near by with the old oaken bucket General Morris had immortalised, and back of the house a picturesque ravine through which ran a clear stream of water that presently found its way out to the Passaic. Willows bent over it, elms and maples ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... an energetic resolution, his hand trembled as he raised the knocker of the little door ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... taking my morning walk in the adjoining gallery, pondering in my mind why the kings of Scotland, who hung around me, should be each and every one painted with a nose like the knocker of a door, when lo! the walls once more re-echoed with such shrieks as formerly were as often heard in the Scottish palaces as were sounds of revelry and music. Somewhat surprised at such an alarm in ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... see to me," he thought, and gave a timid rap with the great bronze knocker, which ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... even as her hand reached up to the door knocker; "I admit you have acted as a gentleman should. I do not know what your message may be, but I doubt not it is meant for me. Since you have this much claim on my hospitality, even at this hour, I think I must ask you to step within. There may ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... contemptuously in her secret soul, she none the less understood their way perfectly. Ten years previous she had cooked for Jacob Welse, and served him in one fashion or another ever since; and when on a dreary January morning she opened the front door in response to the deep-tongued knocker, even her stolid presence was shaken as she recognized the visitor. Not that the average man or woman would have so recognized. But How-ha's faculties of observing and remembering details had been developed in a hard school ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... of the mansion. There was nobody about; the place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground-floor windows. Inspector Seldon knocked loudly at the front door with the big, old-fashioned brass knocker, and rang the bell. He listened intently for a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Seldon bent down with his ear at the keyhole. Then the inspector stepped ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... him. I guess he is pretty crazy. But here we are at the minister's, I was to stop for him, you know. You will have to hold the horse. I sha'n't be long," and reining up to the gate of the rectory Sam plunged into the snow, and wading to the door, gave a tremendous peal upon the brass knocker. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... wait in the cab, and Dolly applied herself to the door-knocker. A servant came, a stupid ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... hand was on the knocker, and its fall startled me as the clatter echoed far down the street and seemed to ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... the iron knocker on the door, which had once been painted green but had no colour left now. The sound reverberated through the building, but the door did not open when they tried it. The woman was probably among the berries, and the children ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... but commencing. There was no opening in the wall, neither bell nor knocker at the door; those who came with couriers galloping before them to strike with their silver-headed canes could dispense with a knocker. Gaston was afraid to strike with a stone, for fear of being denied admittance, he therefore ordered the coachman to stop, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... than be the ecstasy of lesser man. Beth Truba's face was upturned to the light—to the last pallor of day. She was like a wraith singing and communing with the tuneful tragedies of women world-wide. But there was gaiety in her heart.... Then the knocker, the scurrying of dreams away, and the voice of Marguerite ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... in front of me, which the driver had said was the hotel, I should have fancied that I had been set down by the roadside. I was wet to the skin and in no amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or knocker, or even a door, I belabored the side of the house with my heavy walking-stick. In a minute or two I saw a light flickering somewhere aloft, then I heard the sound of a window opening, followed by an exclamation of disgust as a blast ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... originality and Christianity's sake, the caduceus of Mercury; and to adorn the front of the pedestals towards the river, being now wholly at our wit's end, we can think of nothing better than to borrow the door-knocker which—again for the last fifty years—has disturbed and decorated two or three millions of London street-doors; and magnifying the marvellous device of it, a lion's head with a ring in its mouth (still borrowed from the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... danger, as there are no further signs of illness or misfortune. So that it may safely be taken to mean that the consultant will shortly be going to see a friend who has had an operation; this fact is borne out by the short dotted line beyond, leading to the door knocker, under which is written ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... difficulty stifling a desire to scream. Then she rose with a jerk and raced down the stairs without looking behind her, and threw open the door and ran out into the street, only pulling up with her hand violently agitating Grodman's door-knocker. In a moment the first-floor window was raised—the little house was of the same pattern as her own—and Grodman's full fleshy face loomed through the fog in sleepy irritation from under a nightcap. Despite its scowl the ex-detective's face dawned upon her like ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... At Knocker's Bay, immediately to the west of this port, the natives made a very determined attack on the boat, whilst she was hemmed in amongst the mangroves, but without doing any damage. King next entered and examined Van Dieman's Gulf, so called by the three Dutch vessels that ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... rising black and grim against the darkening sky; he had almost laid his hand upon the knocker, intending to make known his presence and his peril, and demand admittance and speech with Master Robert Catesby, when forth from the shadows of the porch stepped a tall dark figure, and he felt a shiver of dismay run through ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Lower Priory, which leads out of the Old Square—or what was the Old Square—he will see at the bottom of the said Lower Priory, on the right hand side, a sedate and solid brick building. He will see a brass knocker on the door and a brass plate bearing the name of Smallwood and Sons—"only this, and nothing more." This is the business house of the oldest firm of wine merchants in Birmingham, and I believe that these premises in the Lower ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... prevailed for some distance from the church itself, he was safe from his pursuers. Hexham Abbey and Beverley Minster still exhibit their sanctuary chairs or frith-stools. In the north door of Durham Cathedral there is an ancient, massive knocker, the rapper, of the form of a ring, being held in the mouth of a grotesque head. The frith-stool, to which the seeker went at once, stood near the high altar at which he made his declarations on oath. His case was carefully investigated and often sanctuary-seekers were allowed ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... with a vain attempt to conceal his disappointment, smoked on for some time in silence. The blue seas disappeared, and he saw instead the brass knocker of ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... repeated summons from the ponderous knocker, shuffling footsteps were finally heard within, the door was opened a few inches and the gleaming teeth of a great, gaunt dog were thrust into the opening, followed by an ominous growling. Mauville sprang back a step; ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... broader road with tram-lines crossed. The house was built by itself, back from the highway, with a tiny drive and some dark laurels. It was always gloomy and apparently unkept. The autumn leaves were dull and sodden upon the drive; the bell and knocker upon the heavy door, from which the paint was worn in places, were rusty. No sound came from the little ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... door, good John! fatigued, I said; Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The Dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... used the brass knocker and its echo reverberated down the street. An elderly Scotch woman, Bessie, who had been long with Mrs. Bartlett's family, met them in the hall, her pleasant face alight with smiles. She ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... Johnson, 'those are the most wretched who exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate first the manager and then the public. Many an humble visitant have I followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the knocker with a shaking hand, and after long deliberation adventure to solicit entrance by a single knock.' Works, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... afeard, orate, nary a one, yore, pluralized, distingue, ruination, complected, mayhap, burglarized, mal de mer, tuckered, grind, near, suicided, callate, cracker-jack, erst, railroaded, chic, down town, deceased (verb), a rig, swipe, spake, on a toot, knocker, peradventure, guess, prof, classy, booze, per se, cute, biz, bug-house, swell, opry, rep, photo, cinch, corker, in cahoot, pants, fess up, exam, bike, incog, zoo, secondhanded, getable, outclassed, gents, mucker, galoot, dub, up against it, on ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... proceeding to fill it with all apparent deliberation and calmness, he replied: "So far as I have the honour of Miss Carmichael's acquaintance, she is not in the habit of receiving visitors out of doors. There are both bell and knocker on the door before you, which servants will probably answer; but, if that door doesn't suit you, you will probably find others at the back." With this ungracious speech, he turned on his heel, lit his pipe, and puffed vigorously ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said the Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I nevertheless, aver and maintain that the national evil of this great ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... whitest and stiffest of collars. Mr. Hudson, I need scarcely say, was not so left to himself as to permit his clerical character to be divined by means of a white tie. He came in, as was natural among country neighbours, without thinking of any bell or knocker on the easily opened door, and was about to peep into the drawing-room with "Anybody in?" upon his smiling lips, when he saw a gentleman approaching, picking up his hat as he advanced. Mr. Hudson paused a moment in uncertainty. "Mr. Compton, I am sure," he said, holding out both of his plump ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... left it. He was beset with misgivings as they entered the gate and followed a hedge-lined path that rose gradually to the house; it might be a joke after all; but Hood's manner was reassuring. He swung his stick and praised the landscape, and when they reached the veranda banged the knocker noisily. A capped and aproned maid opened ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... was such a knocker. A wild, extravagant, and utterly incomprehensible knocker. A knocker so mysterious and suspicious that policeman X 37, first coming upon it, felt inclined to take it instantly in custody, but compromised with his professional ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... members of the American colony in Berlin, it appeared that all New York and half of Boston had heard of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, who, for three or four seasons past, had been using her really choice musicales as a species of knocker upon the portal of New York society. By this time, she had passed the portal and was disporting herself in the vestibule, with one toe resting upon the sacred threshold. Socially, she was as yet impossible; but her recitals ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... place, I suppose," said he, fretfully. And he stepped back and looked up at the house. Then he approached the door, and searched for a bell or knocker; but of neither of these appendages could the dwelling boast. First, he rapped with his knuckles, then with his cane. But no one responded to the summons. He looked up and saw lights in the window. So he knocked ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... longer than the head; broad, acutely pointed; nasal apparatus very complicated; the lower leaf very large, concealing the upper lip like a door knocker; the upper leaf like a graduated spire; ears transversely striate; a rather large semi-circular lobe at base of ear; fur long, dense, soft, and lax, slightly curled or woolly black with a silvery grizzle, or greyish-black or ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... horse. I walked slowly up the steps to the great front door of the old house. No servant came to meet me, grinning. I, grandson of the man who built that house, my father's home and mine, lifted the brazen knocker of the door and heard no footstep anticipate my ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... stepping out into the hall, they carefully closed the door, then ran softly along to Vera's door, and tapped upon the panel with a hat-pin for a knocker. The door opened and they were only too glad to have it close behind them. Yet a bit longer they waited before lighting up, and while they waited, they sat upon the ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... was a real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars, a door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at you as you approached through a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Andre-le-Bas.—The Tower Porte de l'Ambulance, Vienne A Street Corner, Bourges Part of Jacques Coeur's House Turret in the Hotel Lallemand Staircase in the Hotel Lallemand Sculpture over the Kitchen Entrance at Jacques Coeur's House Jacques Coeur's Knocker ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... true; and just then we heard the sound of wheels, and a vigorous lifting of the great brass knocker. Holly hurriedly cleared away all signs of our employment, and then opened the door; while I returned to my books, convinced that the poorest time to make gingerbread was on Sunday, and in the dark. But Aunt Henshaw discovered our proceedings through Sylvia, who complained that some ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... harvesting I liked best when they were a good way off; picking up potatoes worried me, but gathering apples suited my hands and my fancy better, and knocking "Juno's cushions" in the spring meadows with my long-handled knocker, about the time the first swallow was heard laughing overhead, was real fun. I always wanted some element of play in my work; buckling down to any sort of routine always galled me, and does yet. The work must be a kind of adventure, and permit of sallies into free fields. Hence ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... word; and she marched out of the shop, boiling over with indignation, through which nevertheless, a little bubble of love now and then rose to the surface; and by the time she reached her own door, love predominated, and she sighed as she laid her hand on the knocker: "After all, if the dear fellow should be killed, what would become of me!—oh!—and that wretch, Dick Dawson, too—two of them. The worst of these merry devils is they ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... front the eaves overhung the doorway and the windows and were broken and moss-grown. There was a big flat stone for the doorstep, a room on one side with two windows, and on the other only one. The hall door was divided in the middle, the upper part open. There was a queer brass knocker on this, and the lower part fastened with an old-fashioned latch. The little courtyard looked tidy, and there was a great row of sweet clover along the fence, but now and then the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... arches still exhibited fragments of stained glass, once the pride of monkish devotion. La Motte, thinking it possible it might yet shelter some human being, advanced to the gate and lifted a massy knocker. The hollow sounds rung through the emptiness of the place. After waiting a few minutes, he forced back the gate, which was heavy with iron-work, and creaked harshly on its hinges. . . From this chapel he passed into the nave of the great ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... light, which, at first a long way off, was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the doorstep. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and that the gleam ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... been told in Mr. Ray's family. "One summer morning, a loud rap with the knocker at the front door arrested the attention and the door being opened, a man entered, who after asking, 'Does the Rev. Mr. Ray live here?' and receiving an affirmative answer, whistled as a signal to attract the notice of his comrades, then cried out, 'Come on, boys!' and forthwith fourteen ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... Hinpoha, her artistic soul delighted beyond measure at the hedge and the walk and the white door with its quaint knocker. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... open the door, only to find that it was locked and barred. This seemed to exasperate a temper already somewhat excited by the various events and experiences of the day, and more especially by the change in Elsa's manner; at any rate he used the knocker with unnecessary energy. After a while, with much turning of keys and drawing of bolts, the door was opened, revealing Dirk, his stepfather, standing in the passage, candle in hand, while behind, as though to be ready for any emergency, loomed the great ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... friend and another of his set seized, blindfolded, and handcuffed this poor wretch, carried him, vi et armis, back to the house of an old maid whom he had been courting for the last ten years, fastened his pigtail (he wore a long one) to the knocker, and so left him. You may imagine the infernal hubbub which his attempts to extricate himself caused in the whole street; the old maid's old maidservant, after emptying on his head all the vessels of wrath ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... table, placed the paper-cutter under the flap and slit it across. Just at this moment, the door of the elevator-shaft opened on her floor—and her knocker fell. She tossed the letter under the leather cover of the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... Paterfamilias on his journey with his wife and children in the sociable, and he passes an ordinary brick house on the road with an ordinary little garden in the front, we will say, and quite an ordinary knocker to the door, and as many sashed windows as you please, quite common and square, and tiles, windows, chimney-pots, quite like others; or suppose, in driving over such and such a common, he sees an ordinary tree, and an ordinary donkey ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... business, and shortly after received a pressing invitation to visit him at his own home. Now, as I had gathered from experience the fact that it is of very little use to rap one's knuckles off on the front door of a country house without any knocker, I therefore made the best of my way along a little path, bordered with marigolds and balsams, that led to the back part of the dwelling. The sound of a number of childish voices made me stop, and, looking through the bushes, I saw the very image of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "very young fellows," for very "old chaps." And if he had said What he'd got in his head, 'Twould have been, "Poor old Duffer, he's certainly dead!" The morning dawned—and the next—and the next And all in the mansion were still perplexed; No knocker fell, His approach to tell; Not so much as a ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... appeared better; received (agreeably to the doctor's directions) another dose of castor oil; and partook plentifully of some warm gruel, the flavor of which he appeared to relish. Towards eleven o'clock he was so much worse that it was found necessary to muffle the stable-knocker. At half-past, or thereabouts, he was heard talking to himself about the horse and Topping's family, and to add some incoherent expressions which are supposed to have been either a foreboding of his approaching dissolution, or some ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... view of the temple is seen in Fig. 236, the dense mountain verdure rising above and beyond it. And then too, within the temple, as the peasant men and women came before the shrine and grasped the long depending rope knocker, with the heavy knot in front of the great gong, swinging it to strike three rings, announcing their presence before their God, then kneeling to offer prayers, one could not fail to realize the deep sincerity and faith expressed in face and manner, while they were oblivious ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... for ever, he had always pictured her as behind that door, and always cherished the conviction that, if ever he should return, he should find her there. At last, he knocked. No response came. He knocked again, and the sound of the diminutive knocker echoed prophetically amidst the stone walls; still there was no response. His heart sank within him, and he leant against the iron hand-rail, gnawing at his lip with a keen disappointment, a blank ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... time, certainly, there it was, and it sounded like somebody hammering on the front-door with his fists. There is no knocker to ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... at the mayor's when the two Bertauds rapped the heavy knocker of the door. After a moment, a servant, half asleep, appeared at one ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... spread far into the horizon, and in the distance a dense grove, which proved to be the park about the house. The coming of the carriage was a signal to a swarm of small black urchins to scramble, grinning and delighted, to the wide lawn. There was no need to sound the great knocker; no need to explain, when Rosalind, hurrying to the door, saw Olympia emerging from the vehicle. They had not seen each other in four years, but they were ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... boast her beautiful places of sculpture, but as a common thing they are too much neglected, and attractive only to the lover of oddities and curious old epitaphs. Occasionally you may see a strangely shaped tomb, or as in a well-known village, a knocker placed on the door of his family vault by some odd specimen of humanity. When asked the reason for doing so singular a thing, he gravely replied that "when the old gentleman should come to claim his own, the tenants might have the pleasure of saying, ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... shy, but then she had never seen so many strangers before. They went up the steps, upon the shaded porch,—where two little girls were sitting in a hammock reading, and looked as if they were birds in a nest,—-and rang the bell. Aunt Emma raised the great knocker upon the front door ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... drive lay back in the cab with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. Our driver pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny hat, appeared ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... week-day to come a-pleasuring; and still fewer who were rich enough to do as they liked at all times. There were some; but Matilda ran little risk of meeting them; and so mounted the parsonage steps and lifted the knocker with no more than her own private reasons for hesitation, whatever those might be. She knocked, however, and steps carne within, and ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... debt, apostrophizes the King's Bench Prison as being the place "where, for the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day, by importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and detainers were lodged merely at the gate." There is a similar passage in "Little Dorrit," where the tipsy medical practitioner of the Marshalsea comforts Mr. Dorrit in his affliction by saying: ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... beneath the eaves just as they had fallen. No hand had touched them; the hand of man indeed had touched nothing. Bevis, whose eyes were everywhere, saw all these things in a minute. "Why," said he, "there's the knocker; it has tumbled down." It had dropped from the door as the screws rusted; the door itself was propped up with a log of wood. But one thing only appeared to have been attended to, and that was the wall about the orchard, which showed traces of recent mortar, and the road leading towards it, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... night-cane for an umbrella. When I reached the end of my walk the cold rain was already beginning to fall, and the wind was gustily hurrying round the corners of the streets and rattling the loose tin upon the housetops. A very few minutes elapsed between my three raps with the old-fashioned brass knocker and the appearance of the neat-looking servant who opened the door. But I may as well use the brief opportunity to tell you that Uncle Joseph was not my uncle at all, and that my habit of calling him so had grown out of a long ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... people were essentially Dutch. New York gets her Santa Claus, her doughnuts, crullers, cookies, and many of her odors, from the Dutch. The New York matron ran to fine linen and a polished door-knocker, while the New England housewife spun linsey-woolsey and knit "yarn mittens" for those ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... heavy iron knocker of the house-door drowned his words. A strange voice called aloud ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... Henry!" She plucked gently at his arm; with her other hand she lifted the huge knocker ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Melozzo da Forli, who was painting there in 1477[374]. In 1476 the principal entrance was decorated with special care. Marble was bought for the doorcase, and the door itself was studded with 95 bronze nails, which were gilt, as were also the ring and knocker, and the frame of trellised ironwork (cancellus), which hung within ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... gravity of her deportment at the Poly.; in her shy essaying of the parallel bars; in the incredible swiftness with which she ran before him in the Maze; in the way her hair, tied up with an immense black bow in a door-knocker plat, rose and fell forever on her shoulders as she ran. He found it in the fact he had discovered that her companions called her by absurd and tender names; Winky, and even Winks, they ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... and no objection to his feeding his family, thus first-handed, though very little breast of the game wild goose comes to the board of such as he.... I was on the way to the forge of a workman. I wanted a knocker for an oaken door; and I wanted it just so. Moreover, I knew the man who would make it ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... and the eyes of the entering client were now saluted by a gorgeous green baize office door; the imposing appearance of which was only equalled by Mr. Toad's new private portal, splendid with a brass knocker and patent varnish. And now his brother attorneys began to wonder "how Toad got on! and who Toad's ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Foster's house was one of six, undistinguished in size, or shape, or colour; but noticed in the daytime by all passers-by for its spotless cleanliness of lintel and doorstep, window and window frame. The very bricks seemed as though they came in for the daily scrubbing which brightened handle, knocker, all down to ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... strong, had grown weaker along with his body during these exciting days of love and fasting. A wave of fury swept over him as he stood before the shut door and heard the servant going away; and hardly knowing what he did, he seized the knocker, and knocked and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... the elevator man, as he let us out. We did so, and just as we got opposite the door with the big silver knob and old bronze knocker that Chad had told us he brought from Europe, it opened, and some one came out. Well, truly, he didn't look any older than fifteen,—two years older than I am, mind you,—but if he didn't have on a long-tailed evening ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... invited Dr. Hansombody; yet that he expected him is no less certain than that, while he spoke, Dr. Hansombody was actually lifting the knocker of ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and the less unhappy, answered Constantius, for it has enabled me to find that selfless Reason is the best Comforter, and only sure friend of declining Life. At this moment the sounds of a carriage followed by the usual bravura executed on the brazen knocker announced a morning visit: and Alia hastened to receive the party. Meantime the grey-haired philosopher, left to his own musings, continued playing with the thoughts that Alia and Alia's question ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Receiving a reply in the affirmative, the young man went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work—Master Porbus, sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de' Medici ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... Green Street, and came to the house of the kind lady who had furnished her and many others with work; raised the knocker, and gave one humble knock at the door. She had never been at the house before, but she had sometimes had to go to other genteel houses where she had been met ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... centre of the room. And out of the boom and thunder of the storm there suddenly came a wild clatter of horses' feet, and a heavy gate was heard to fall back upon its fastening. An instant later there was a mad tugging at the front door bell, and an insaner clatter at the knocker. Jervase himself rushed to answer this sudden and unexpected summons, and opening the door unguardedly, was blown back into the hall, from the walls of which every hanging picture and every garment were ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... his brother. "Let me at him. He's a great knocker. Held the 'varsity championship. You don't know anything about it. Let me at him, Barney. I can do him up." Dick had been 'varsity champion in his own time. But Barney put Dick aside ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... little country towns years ago people had to be very careful how they acted, lest they should offend some local magnate. He remembered a tradesman telling him how once he had got into great disgrace for putting a new knocker on his private side door, without first asking permission and sending round to obtain the opinion of an old gentleman. This person had nothing whatever to do with the property, but lived retired and ruled his neighbours with a rod of iron. The ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Fourth. To find the old house was an easy matter, for almost everyone in town was familiar with its locality, and towards the close of the afternoon he found himself upon its broad steps applying vigorous strokes to the ponderous brass knocker, and half hoping the summons would be answered by Maggie herself. But it was not, and in the bent, white-haired woman who came with measured footsteps we recognize old Hagar, who spent much of her time at the house, and who came to the door in compliance with the request of the young ladies, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... Take it from me, Wynne will return, Nigel, and when he does he'll see to it that we all hear him. He'll probably break every pane of glass in the place with a stone, and play a devil's dance upon the knocker. That's his usual way of expressin' his pleasure, I believe. Here, here's health to you, old boy, and happiness, and the best ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... immediate. The man sat down abruptly on the pavement. Tuppence and Jane took to their heels. The house they sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind them. Their breath was coming in choking gasps as they reached Sir James's door. Tuppence seized the bell and Jane the knocker. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... rain and storm, yet they have never lost the brilliancy of their colouring and are in no wise injured by these accidents. Lorenzo also made a crucifix with many figures inside the door which is in the middle of these figures, called the door of the knocker, at the request of the same Ricciardo and of the superior of the convent, and on the encircling wall he did the confirmation of the rule of St Francis by Pope Honorius, and then the martyrdom of some friars of that order, who are going to preach the faith to ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... was twisted into an exaggerated "door-knocker," at the top of which, with all the appearance of a very fly-away toque, was perched one of the frilled pink shades which covered the electric lights; a piece of Eastern drapery was folded scarf-like round her shoulders. Perk by name and Perk by nature did she appear as she minced ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... "knocker," I used to be sent forth in the April meadows to beat up and scatter the fall droppings of the cows —the Juno's cushions as Irving named them—I was in much more congenial employment. Had I known the game of golf ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... the doctor's door, She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap, The doctor at the casement shews, His glimmering eyes that peep and doze; And one hand rubs ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... Thomas Holbrook, ESQ.; he even sent back letters with this address, telling the post-mistress at Cranford that his name was MR Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic innovations; he would have the house door stand open in summer and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. The closed fist or the knob of a stick did this office for him if he found the door locked. He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in humanity. ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... twice or thrice has she passed before his sight, each time with a heavier step, a paler cheek and more anxious brow, and in the third week of his non-appearance he detects a portent of evil entering the house in the guise of an apothecary. Next day the knocker is muffled. Toward nightfall comes the chariot of a physician and deposits its big-wigged and solemn burden at Wakefield's door, whence after a quarter of an hour's visit he emerges, perchance the herald of a funeral. Dear ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... beginning. He used the simplest means. His experiment was in a different way daily performed for him by nature. He was philosophically daring, indifferently a tinker with nature's terrific machinery; a knocker at the door of an august temple that men were never known to have entered; a mortal who smiled in the face of inscrutable and awful mystery, and who defied the lightning in a sense not merely moral. [Footnote: Professor Richmann, of St. Petersburg, was instantly killed by lightning while ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... eaves for the nest that he knew was near about. Once, standing there with the hot afternoon sun beating down upon him, he whistled in imitation of the tiny bird's call; nothing developing, he mounted the steps and pulled the old-fashioned knocker familiarly. ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... supplies its place, together with the bird's eye, or the colours of some black or white boxer. An accomplished man was the delight of all companies in former times. An out and outer, one up to every thing, down as a nail or the knocker of Newgate, a trump, or a Trojan, now carry the mode of praise; one that can patter flash, floor a charley, mill a coal-heaver, come coachey in prime style, up to every rig and row in town, and down to every move upon the board, from a nibble at the club to a dead ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... June. He wondered if the tansy still grew under the sitting-room window, and if the lilies-of-the-valley flourished on the north side of the house as of old. Then he knocked with the quaint old black knocker, and with the sound came back the present and the thought that he had before him an interview which might be neither pleasant ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... to be gained by standing there in the drenching storm, I moved onward, taking the way to Mrs. Wallingford's dwelling. I had scarcely touched the knocker when the door was opened, and by Mrs. ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... times at Dr Chartley's door-bell, and rapped as many at the great grinning knocker tied in flannel, before he heard the chain put up and the lock shot back, to display the smudgy unwholesome countenance of Elizabeth Gundry, who always blinked like a night-bird when forced to ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... scientist paid no attention to the interruption but bent his head lower over the spectroscope with which he was working. The knock was repeated with a quality of quiet insistence upon recognition. The Doctor smothered an exclamation of impatience and strode over to the door and threw it open to the knocker. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... short, narrow lane, very dirty and very little used, because, whatever might have been in old times, it led now from nowhere to nowhere. Meadows received by this entrance one or two persons whom he never allowed to desecrate his knocker. At the head of these furtive visitors was Peter Crawley, attorney-at-law, a gentleman who every New Year's Eve used to say to himself with a look of gratified amazement—"Another year gone, and I not struck ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Gluck, "that my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I'm sure, when they have such a nice piece of mutton as this, it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them." Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up. "It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... that February morning he had ascended the broken steps of the old grey mansion, a little curious, perhaps, but, as he would have told you, "ready for anything." There being no bell, he had raised and let fall the great knocker, and then stood still in the sunshine looking placidly about him. The desolation of the park left him unmoved. Money, judiciously expended, could rectify that. And the house seemed sound enough. They knew how to build in the old days. Colonel Winchester was probably using only one ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... history's page. Washington rode out there on horseback, and while his aide held his horse, he visited and drank mulled cider and ate doughnuts within. Hancock came often, and Otis, Samuel Adams and Loring used to enter without plying the knocker. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Every time he touches a spiritual thing, he makes it (as God makes mountains out of sunlight) a material thing. Every time he touches a material thing, in proportion as he touches it mightily he brings out inner light in it. He spiritualizes it. He abandons the glistening brass knocker—pleasing symbol to the outer sense—for a tiny knob on his porch door and a far-away tinkle in his kitchen. The brass knocker does not appeal to the spirit enough for the modern man, nor to the imagination. ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... window as any in the county, and the doorway itself was celebrated throughout the state. It had a wonderful fan light and side lights, green blind doors outside of the white painted one with its massive brass knocker, and still more unique and impressive, it had for its approach, semi-circular stone steps instead of the usual oblong ones. The large blocks of granite had been cut so that each of the four steps should be smaller ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... she caught even as she spoke a rat-tat-tat of the knocker, which struck her as a sign. ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... put on much style," said Melas, as he lifted the knocker on the door. "He is too great to need display. He cares more about fine public buildings for the city than about making his neighbors envious by living better than they do. Just get the idea out of your head that greatness means wealth and luxury, or you ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... heavy knocker on the door and a slot opened for a quick check of his identity. The door opened wide and Technician Martin ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... man who had so kindly directed her, and went to the house of Hugh Price. This house, next to the home of Governor Berkeley, was the most elegant mansion in Virginia. On the front door was a large brass knocker, common at the time, and, seizing it, the young girl struck the door. It was opened by a negro woman whose red turban and rich dress indicated that she was the household servant of an aristocratic family. The stranger ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... very early period churches and churchyards were regarded as so sacred that a criminal, having reached one of these, like the Biblical cities of refuge, could not be disturbed. On the north door of Durham Cathedral there is a ponderous bronze knocker-ring, to which the criminal, clinging, was safe. There is another at Hexham, and at St. Gregory’s, Norwich. At Westminster, Worcester, Croyland, Tintern, and many other places, there was the same privilege. In Beverley Minster there is a remarkable stone called the “Frith-stool,” ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... we were given to understand by very wide-awake sentries with bayonets, policemen, and enthusiastic special constables. But at last we reached the consulate and laid siege. One man pressed the electric button, kicked the door, and pounded with the knocker, others hurled pebbles at the upper windows, and the fifth stood in the road and sang: "Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... times—when a successful couplet had the same prominence and discussion as a walking match to-day; when one poet thought his two lines a satisfactory morning's work, and another said of him that when such labor ended, straw was laid before the door and the knocker tied up—are over, once for all. Now and then a poet stops to polish, but for the most part spontaneity, fluency, gush, are the qualities demanded, and whatever finish may be given, must be dominated by these more apparent facts. Delicate fancies still abound, and are more and more the portion ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... apparent preoccupation), there fell upon his ear the sound of a loud knocking at the door. Dinner had been served in a small room at the back of the house, and the President could not command a view of the knocker without going out on to the veranda, which ran all round the house, and walking round to the front. When the knock was heard, ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... advanced, and the mending was not finished, when the unwonted door-knocker sounded again. This time the door was opened by some one whom Pitt did not know, and who did not know him; for Mrs. Bounder had come into town, and, as Barker's hands were just in her bread, had volunteered to go to the door ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including—which is a bold ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... startled by a loud bang of the knocker on the big front door. Rarely in their remembrance had the great brass griffin's head sent that hollow booming through the hall. Since they had been living in the south wing the neighbours always came to the ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Mrs. Lexman was not in and neither the ringing at her electric bell nor vigorous applications to the knocker brought any response. The hall porter of the flats where she lived was under the impression that Mrs. Lexman had gone out of town. She frequently went out on Saturdays and returned on the Monday and, he ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
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