"Knocker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain for a bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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, ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... 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
... 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 ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... 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
... boarding-house was the light of Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury. In the brown monotony of the street it stood out splendid, conspicuous. Its door and half its front were painted a beautiful, a remarkable pea-green, while its door knob and door-knocker were of polished brass. Mrs. Downey's boarding-house knew nothing of concealment or disguise. Every evening, at the hour of seven, through its ground-floor window it offered to the world a scene of stupefying brilliance. The blinds were up, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... 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 |
