"Parapet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the choir has a central range of single columns running all round it, and the effect of the intersection of so many shafts, columns, and vaultings is perfectly marvellous. There is no triforium in the choir, but only a pierced parapet under the clerestory windows, which are filled with fine early glass. There is much good glass, indeed, throughout the cathedral, ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... came out upon the Devil's Bridge. The spray from the Reuss, which here drops a full hundred feet into the abyss, lashed our faces as with whips; the storm leaped at us out of the blackness like a wolf; the car quivered, and for an instant it seemed that we should be hurled against the parapet of the bridge. But we passed unharmed, and a quarter of a mile further on Winston stopped in the welcome shelter of the Urner Loch, a tunnelled passage ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... form of notes—he had learned by bitter experience to put his trust in nothing but the tangible. He reached the river and the great bridge that spans it here, and on the bridge he paused, leaning his elbow on the parapet, and looking ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... to climb, accomplishing the ascent with no greater difficulty or hurt than the wearing of the soles off my stockings—for I took off my shoes for the sake of quietness and to gain a better foothold. Having gained the parapet, I found two sentries sitting there, with their backs against the wall, fast asleep, with their matchlocks beside them. Gently lifting their weapons in my hand, I shook out the priming—lest perchance they should awake and, seeing me, open fire ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... you hunt me across my own park and come knocking so rudely at my doors, my Lord Abbot?" asked Christopher, leaning on the parapet ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... the iron-clads approached Fort Sumter in line of battle, Col. Alfred Rhett, commandant of the post, mounting the parapet, where he remained, ordered the band to strike up the national air of "Dixie;" and at the same time, in addition to the Confederate flag, the State and regimental flags were flung out at different salients of the fort, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... where we would have our beds when we came down wounded, and the particular pretty sister who should nurse us; and went out into the dazzling sun. Having climbed to a high level that overlooked the harbour, we leaned against a stone parapet, and examined the French warships that slept, with one eye open, up a narrow blue waterway. For Malta in 1915 was a French ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... entered the frith beside the Seaton; not muddy, however, for though dark it was clear—its brown being a rich transparent hue, almost red, gathered from the peat bogs of the great moorland hill behind. Only a very narrow terrace walk, with battlemented parapet, lay between the back of the house, and a precipitous descent of a hundred feet to this rivulet. Up its banks, lovely with flowers and rich with shrubs and trees below, you might ascend until by slow gradations you left the woods and all culture behind, and found yourself, though still within ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... a central tower had been erected as part of the original plan, and also that a new upper part was being added to this same tower about the middle of the thirteenth century. This new portion eventually rose above the roofs to the level of the top of the square parapet, about the base of the octagonal spire, the spire being a still later addition. Now the heightening of this tower—perhaps with already the idea of a future spire in view—would raise many questions. Experience would already have taught the builders ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... evening air; and though I did not observe any thing very characteristic, any thing which would necessarily go down in my journal, I was sufficiently interested not to notice the flight of time, and to allow complete darkness to gather round me while I still leaned over the parapet. Suddenly I was aroused from my contemplations by a snatch of a strange song sung in the most marvelously-sweet voice I had ever heard. I started, not exactly like a guilty thing, but transfixed, as it were, by an almost painful shaft of delight. The voice swelled up on the night air, until, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords, 'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway stands a great mass of buildings with two large round ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... human skulls to pave the court of the king and to ornament the walls about the palace! After a successful war, the captives are brought to the capital of the kingdom. A large platform is erected in the great market space, encircled by a parapet about three feet high. The platform blazes with rich clothes, elaborate umbrellas, and all the evidences of kingly wealth and splendor, as well as the spoils taken in battle. The king occupies a seat in the centre of the platform, attended by his imperturbable wives. The captives, rum, tobacco, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... pleasure lighting his glance. It was a beautiful structure. Its red-brown front and pointed, lifting roof had hardly a Greek line or hint; but the spirit that built the Parthenon was in it—facing the rippling lake. He moved softly across the smooth roadway and leaned against the parapet of stone that guarded the water, studying the line and colour of the house ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... killing by machine-guns before their turn came to be killed or crippled. I thought of a dead boy I had seen that day—or yesterday was it?—kneeling on the fire-step of a trench, with his forehead against the parapet as though in prayer... How sweet was the scent of the clover to-night! And how that star twinkled above the low flashes of gun-fire away there in ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the summit, arrived, on a full run, breathless before the sentinel who guarded the last gates and amiably shook his head at my attempt to enter. The gates were open, and I saw, across the wide parade-ground, or place d'armes, where groups of soldiers were standing and loitering about, the parapet wall of the fortress, whence I had hoped to see the day go down over the Rhine, the Moselle, and all the glorious region round their confluence. "Oh, do let me in," cried I in very emphatic English to the sentry, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... himself. Then he shivered miserably, as the cold wind cut through him like a knife. For a moment he stood motionless, gazing over the stone parapet into the dark river beyond, and as he gazed a thought came into his mind. Why not end it all—here and now? He had nothing to live for. One ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... mortars. If this last were correct no other reason was needed; but as the nearest schooner was but 3,000 yards from Jackson, it seems likely he deceived himself, as he certainly did in believing "on credible information" that a rifled gun on the parapet of Jackson, of the same calibre as that of the Louisiana, had not been able to reach. Three schooners had been struck, one at the distance of 4,000 yards, during the first two days of the bombardment, not only by rifled, but by ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... distinguishing features of the exterior of the building is the variety and arrangement of the battlements and pinnacles. Bishop Benson did his best to spoil the effect of those on the Lady Chapel by removing the upper part of the parapet and by substituting other pinnacles. These have been restored, but the east-end pinnacles do not seem quite in keeping with Gloucester. Viewing the Lady Chapel from the north side, the play of light through the windows on the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... "peace-time warfare." An unpleasant and quite unnecessary little bulge in the trench-line, known as the Toadstool, was manned by the platoon of which he found himself second-in-command. It is rumoured that a Hun patrol, crawling to the edge of our parapet, saw in the ghastly glare of a Verey light the benign and spectacled countenance of Second-Lieut. St. John staring amiably across No Man's Land, and came to the hasty conclusion that they had made a mistake as to direction, since here was obviously one of their own officers of the Herr ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... with a beating heart, peered through the parapet, and recognised Prince Lionheart's sword. So she bade her servant inquire if the woodman had anything else to sell, and he replied that he had a wonderful flying palanquin, which he would show to the Princess, if she wished it, when she walked in ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... but what I thought about I know not. I often became quite absorbed, and once, whilst returning to school on the summit of the old fortifications round Shrewsbury, which had been converted into a public foot-path with no parapet on one side, I walked off and fell to the ground, but the height was only seven or eight feet. Nevertheless the number of thoughts which passed through my mind during this very short, but sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was astonishing, and seem hardly compatible with what physiologists ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... native of Vienna, stood condemned for execution. His crime was murder. He was convicted of having enveigled his nephew, of eight years old, to the Molker bastion of the city fortification, and of having thrown him over the parapet into the dry ditch below. The depth of the fall was between thirty and forty feet, and the shattered body of the boy explained his miserable death. His nephew's cloak became loosened in the struggle, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... by side, leaning against the parapet, looking down at the water.... And from the water rose up Love, and Love fluttered down from the trees, and Love was borne along upon the night air. Ferdinand did not know what was happening to ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... two o'clock, Mr. Bartholomew Malthus, of 16 Chepstow Place, Westbourne Grove, on his way home from a party at a friend's house, fell over the upper parapet in Trafalgar Square, fracturing his skull and breaking a leg and an arm. Death was instantaneous. Mr. Malthus, accompanied by a friend, was engaged in looking for a cab at the time of the unfortunate occurrence. As Mr. Malthus was paralytic, it is thought that his fall may have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and leaned over the low parapet to the left. Some way below a footfall sounded, on the track leading to the watch-house—-the footfall of Beesley. A stone, dislodged by his tread, trickled and fell over the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of the lake and paused again. He could go no farther, for nothing but a rocky parapet, less than twenty feet wide, barred the waters from tumbling headlong ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... river, the long gleaming front of the Louvre, the quaint, glistening gables of the Tuilleries, the far-reaching trees of the Champs Elysees all silvered in the soft, uncertain moonlight. It was a most calm and beautiful picture; and I stood for a long time leaning against the parapet of the bridge, and looking dreamily at the scene before me. Then I heard the quarters chime from belfry to belfry all over the quiet city, and found that it was half-past three o'clock. Presently a patrol of gendarmes went ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... poise. The mountain paths stoop to those glens in forky zigzags, leading to some grey and narrow arch, all fringed under its shuddering curve with the ferns that fear the light; a cross of rough-hewn pine, iron-bound to its parapet, standing dark against the lurid fury of the foam. Far up the glen, as we pause beside the cross, the sky is seen through the openings in the pines thin with excess of light; and, in its clear consuming flame of white space, the summits of the rocky mountains are gathered into solemn crowns and ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... by wide gravel-walks and overhung by the frequent elm, with here a cottage and there a villa, on one side a wooded plantation, and on the other a rich field of grass or grain, until, turning at right angles, it brings you to an arched bridge over the Avon. Its parapet is a balustrade carved out of freestone, into the soft substance of which a multitude of persons have engraved their names or initials, many of them now illegible, while others, more deeply cut, are illuminated with fresh green moss. These tokens indicate ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the side of the Elbe, and entered the old town. It was very cold, and the streets were muddy, so I contented myself with looking at the Broadway, (der breite Weg,) the Cathedral and one or two curious old churches, and in walking along the parapet leading to the fortress, which has a view of the winding Elbe. The Citadel was interesting from having been the prison in which Baron Trenck was confined, whose narrative I read years ago, when ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Mr. Godwin sat gazing at Moll's pretty, blushing, half-hid face (as if for his last solace), and then, rising slowly from the little parapet, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Sergeant M'Taggart must have wandered for a breath of cool air to the very verge of the parapet of the Fort ditch. Her tiny night-shift was gathered into a wisp round her neck and she moaned in her sleep. 'See there!' said Mulvaney; 'poor lamb! Look at the heat-rash on the innocint skin av her. 'Tis hard—crool hard even ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Bartholomew; there rose, dark and fretted, the antique tower of Notre Dame, here was the site of the Tour de Nesle, that legend of crime wrought in stone; gracefully looked the bridges as they spanned the swollen current of the river; cheerfully lay the sunshine on quay and parapet; it was a scene where the glow of nature and the shadows of history unite to lend a charm to the panorama of modern civilization. And turning the gaze within, how calm and refreshing seemed the long and high vistas of the gallery; how happy the ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... of the foot soldier, or infantryman, is the bayonet. This is a short blade which the foot soldier fixes on the muzzle of his rifle before he advances to an attack. In the trenches his weapon is the rifle; before the order is given to go "over the parapet"—that is, to climb out of the trenches, to run forward and attack the enemy at close quarters—he "fixes his bayonet." The word bayonet probably comes from Bayonne, the name of ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... built of huge big spars and rafters of the larch-tree, fast bound together with pins and pegs of the same wood, and interchangeably laid on one another, after the fashion of a pile or stack of timber, set up in the fabric thereof to such an apt and convenient height that from the parapet above the portcullis they thought with stones and levers to beat off and drive away such as ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... French regime. The castle went the way of Quebec by fire some forty years ago (23rd January, 1834), and Lord Durham levelled the site and made it a public promenade. A stately arcade of solid masonry supports it on the brink of the rock, and an iron parapet incloses it; there are a few seats to lounge upon, and some idle old guns for the children to clamber over and play with. A soft twilight had followed the day, and there was just enough obscurity to hide from ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... dress in which I had last seen her alive: carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand; and the same card-case in her left. (A woman eight months dead with a card-case!) I had to pin myself down to the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of the road to assure myself that that ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... garlands, and spread eagles. A circular gallery made of osiers and festooned with draperies and other ornaments, was attached by a set of cords to the bottom of the structure. The gallery was three feet wide, and was protected by a parapet over three feet in height. It did not in any way interfere with the opening at the neck of the balloon, under which was suspended a grating of iron wire upon which the occupants of the gallery, who were to be provided with dried straw and wool, could in a few minutes kindle ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... though he were condemning his enemies to descend to the lowest depths of the sea. It looks as if it had been inspired by a drawing of Michael Angelo's, possibly for this statue, which may have been designed as a nude figure of Neptune; the parapet in front of the picture is decorated with a painted ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... object of the opposite party to demolish them with their balls. When a player wishes to throw a ball, he mounts upon one of the inner partings of snow, discharges his shot, and jumps down behind the parapet for more shot. The party on the opposite side may build their castle as they please; but each party should watch each other's movements, and build their different places of defence or annoyance in such a manner as to defend themselves and annoy the enemy in the most ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... the shorter ropes to his bed, and struggled through the shutter—an ungainly figure, for round his body was wound the immense rope necessary for the long descent. Once on the roof-platform he made his way along the parapet until he came to a new stove which he had been told marked the best spot for lowering the rope. He could hear the soldiers talking near at hand, but the fog made him invisible. Unrolling his rope, and fastening his rope to the parapet by threading it through a water-duct, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... platform of the barbican, his helmet being just visible above the parapet. He seemed very busy, and soon an enormous Turkish catapult made its appearance on the platform and aided by the elevation at which it was planted, flung a twentypound stone some two hundred and forty yards in the air; it bounded after that, and knocked some dirt into the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... lad, give me the rope," said Sir Robert in a low voice. "Then follow me along by the parapet. We need not crawl, for it will hide us from the soldiers if we lean inward and keep one hand on ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... with the shouts of the Sioux; shouts never before so welcome in their tidings, for they were shouts of rage and disappointment. They flooded my eyes with vigor, wiped away the daze of the bullet impact; the hollow leaped to the fore—upon its low parapet a dull shade where no shade should naturally be, and garnished ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... parapet and stood leaning over, looking down at the dancers. Save for two or three remote whispering couples, who had stolen apart, he and his guide had the gallery to themselves. A warm breath of scent and vitality came up to him. Both men and women below were lightly clad, bare-armed, open-necked, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... white charger and brandishing a naked sword in the thick of the fight. His last appearance was in 1643, when Oran was closely beleaguered by the Algerines. A sentinel on duty saw a figure moving along the parapet one clear, moonlight night, dressed in a Franciscan frock, with a general's baton in his hand. As soon as it was hailed by the terrified soldier, it called to him to "tell the garrison to be of good heart, for the enemy should not prevail ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... boys unflinchingly pressed on through ravines, over felled trees, and all sorts of intricacies natural and artificial. The final assault was to be made upon an almost perpendicular slope. "Forward!" was the word, and persistently we advanced, reaching just under and near the parapet, but the fire was like hail; the Color Bearer was shot dead and the color staff shot from his hands, but it was again secured and brought off. We lay in this position for some hours unable to advance ...
— History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. • Edward Duffy
... perturbed. "Hang detectives!" It wasn't the kind of thing he had anticipated at all. Hoopdriver, with round eyes and a wondering smile, walked down to where the mill waters glittered in the moonlight, and after meditating over the parapet of the bridge for a space, with occasional murmurs of, "Private Inquiry" and the like, returned, with mystery even in ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... as a pleasure garden. The whole of the houses are large, lofty, and spacious, with stuccoed fronts, porches, balustraded balconies; and those in the centre of each side are decorated with columns, or three-quarter columns, vases on the parapet, &c. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... end of half an hour that two figures were seen above the parapet of the dreary old pile, motionless as bitterns on a ruined mosque. Even then Stephen was not true enough to perform what he was so courteous to promise, and he vanished without ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... objects of interest about the place. It was a ruin; and the house itself bore evidences of better times. It was a large building in the Moro-Spanish style, with flat roof (azotea), and notched parapet running along the front. Here and there the little stone turrets of this parapet had fallen off, showing ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... room looked out on to a square. There was a small balcony with a stone parapet. As John stepped out, a howl of rage burst from ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... it, Mrs. Preston explained, until his death a year or two ago. He had a little chicken farm. As no one else wanted to live in such a desolate place, so far from the scattered hamlets, she had got it for a small rent. The house was a tiny imitation of a castle, with crenelated parapet and tower. Crumbling now and weather-stained, it had a quaint, human, wistful air. Its face was turned away from the road toward a bit of garden, which was fenced off from the lane by arbors ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and farther yet, I see the isles enchanted, bright With fretted spire and parapet, And gilded mosque and minaret, That ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... to the roof and stepped out upon a mosaic pavement of transparent tiles. Looking over the parapet, they beheld a country of vast extent, where field, forest, and watercourse combined in a landscape of rare beauty. Beneath lay the marble city with its palaces, parks, and fountains. In the distance were shadowy hills and gleaming lights; and above, a sky whose singular purity was reflected ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... useless to try to get to Stanley along the passage. He might succeed in getting past the master's room, but what then? The door would be locked, and he could not pass through a locked door. Dormitory X had a window looking on to the parapet outside, and it was by this window he hoped to gain Stanley's room. There was a small lavatory at the end of the corridor, and this likewise had a window leading to ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... his father said, "You must go and try your luck to-morrow," and the third day it seemed as if it would be the same thing over again. And he had half a mind not to go back at all, his father would be so vexed. As he came to a bridge, like the Creek Road one yonder, he leaned on the parapet thinking of his trouble, and that perhaps it would be foolish to run away from home, but he could not tell which to do; when he saw a girl washing her clothes on the bank below. ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... Quasimodo was seen on the parapet of the gallery, holding the scholar by the feet with one hand and whirling him over the abyss like a sling; then a sound like that of a bony structure in contact with a wall was heard, and something was seen to fall which halted a third of the way down in its fall, on a projection in the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... bill to its passage through both Houses of Congress. I know you would if you could see the destitution of instruction, and the poverty which cant pay for it, on the Consecrated peninsula of Jas Town, York Town, and Williamsburg. Ah! tear down every parapet of War— cruel War, wanton war call it if you will—but for the Past, for Piety's sake, for Learning and Moral's sake let Old Wm & Mary stand a Beacon Light for the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... a deep, wide trench whose floor had been trodden into a slop of cheesy, brown mire which clung to the big hobnailed boots of the soldiers. Every foot or so along the parapet there was a rifle slit, made by the insertion of a wedge-shaped wooden box into the wall of brownish sandbags, and the sentries stood about six feet apart. The trench had the ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... the arguments of that Voice of the river, the old, familiar arguments of desolation and despair. I leant over the parapet; in another moment I should have been gone, when I became aware that some one was standing near to me. I did not see the person because it was too dark. I did not hear him because of the raving of the ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... are the most important events in our lives, and in the villages most of the cottagers are more or less related. All the inhabitants were much excited when a poor old widow, living very near my house, sitting on a low circular stone parapet round her well, lost her balance in some way, fell in, and was drowned. I was foreman of the jury at the inquest, and after hearing the evidence, which amounted to no more than the finding of the body soon after ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... progress, President Lincoln stood upon the parapet of the fort watching, with eager interest, the scene before him. Bullets came whistling around, and one severely wounded a surgeon who stood within three feet of the President. Mrs. Lincoln entreated him to leave the fort, but he refused; he, however, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... threateningly the length of the trench and these Mac regarded with deep respect, and addressed in words of wrath. The countless thousands which whistled crosswise over the trench, or else with a spurt of flame struck the sandy parapet, left him unmoved. The first half of his sentry-goes passed quickly enough, but the second dragged a bit, his thoughts being exhausted, and those beastly whirling enfilading bullets ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... lowest passage was a door which opened into a single large vaulted room. It was devoid of furniture, but in the centre was a large and heavy wooden board clamped with iron. This lay upon a rude stone parapet, engraved with inscriptions beyond the wit of the eastern scholars, for this old well dated from a time before the Greeks founded Byzantium, when men of Chaldea and Phoenicia built with huge unmortared blocks, far below the level of the town of Constantine. ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the parapet a beautiful emerald fish some four feet long came sailing beneath my feet in the yellowish water; a little boy shouted with glee, and a brown naked boatman tried to gaff it, then a brilliant butterfly, velvet black and blue, fluttered through the little fleet; ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... children, like the pattering of rain, going off to the Board School round the corner. And a little after four in the afternoon you heard the wild cries of the juvenile community let loose from lessons, the boys trundling iron hoops and the girls skipping to a measured tune over a rope stretched from parapet to parapet. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... with the life and courage of a noble column, was now one heap of dead and dying. The gallant fellow who led them on fell among the first rank, and the little child, as if kneeling, was struck dead beside the parapet; his fair hair floated across his cold features, and seemed in its motion to lend a look of life where the heart's throb had ceased forever. The artillery again re-opened upon us; and when the smoke had cleared away, we discovered that the French had ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... impatient to take the odds, and to make light of impossibilities. A slightly rising ground, raked by a murderous fire, to within a little distance of the battery; a ditch holding three feet of water; a straight lift of parapet, thirty feet high; an impregnable position, held by a desperate and ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... clerestory has no less than twenty-three windows. The ten westernmost, partially restored by Scott, are connected by an arcading; the next ten, as well as the wall that contains them, are new—built by Lord Grimthorpe; the parapet, fortunately quite plain, was rebuilt at the time when the roof was raised; the three easternmost windows of the clerestory are formed of Roman brick in brick walls much restored, and are separated by ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... scene of his exploit before the king's arrival. Under the windows of the king's rooms, at least forty feet from the ground, was a narrow parapet resting on the ends of the beams which supported the rafters on which lay the floor of the upper story in which the king slept. These rafters had been smeared with pitch, and straw had been laid between them, and the pioneer would have known how to find the opening where he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... level fleecy floor, and above us shines out clear in the eternal sunshine every mountain, from Mont Blanc to Monte Rosa and the Jungfrau. What, again, in the lower regions, can equal the mysterious charm of gazing from the edge of a torn rocky parapet into an apparently fathomless abyss, where nothing but what an Alpine traveller calls a "strange formless wreathing of vapour" indicates the storm-wind that is raging below us? I might go on indefinitely recalling ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... appeared over the parapet behind us and after some talk with F., came one who tendered us a pair of binoculars, by whose aid I made out the British new line of trenches which had once been German. So I stood, dry-mouthed, to watch the burst of those huge shells ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... answered Leonard, and in another minute they were over the bridge and standing on the parapet of the slave-camp. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... greater part had fought against the Danes in the battles of the previous year. The attack commenced simultaneously on all sides by a discharge of arrows by the archers of both parties. The Saxons, sheltered behind the parapet on the walls, suffered but slightly; but their missiles did considerable execution among the masses of the Danes. These, however, did not pause to continue the conflict at a distance, but uttering their ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... to the approach, and the battering ram was soon placed in position, while a strong body of archers prevented the defenders showing themselves above the parapet. The wall was of far less strength than that which the Romans had before encountered, and soon began to totter before the blows of the battering ram. The Jews, indeed, were indifferent as to its fall; for they knew that the possession of ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... Hurons, so called by the French, where there are numerous communities, and seventeen villages fortified by three palisades of wood, with a gallery all around in the form of a parapet, for defence against their enemies. This region is in latitude 44 deg. 30', with a fertile soil cultivated by ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... lounged out on the bridge. There was to be no long lingering, however. The clouds were deepening, the rain could not be far off. But if they started soon they could probably reach home before it came down. Elsmere and Rose hung over the gray stone parapet, mottled with the green and gold of innumerable mosses, and looked down through a fringe of English maidenhair growing along the coping, into the clear eddies of the stream. Suddenly he raised himself on one elbow, and, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be put off. The back of the house stood but ten feet from a wall which was really but a stone face built against the cliff cut away by the architect. Above the cliff rose the kitchen garden, and from its lower path we looked over the wall's parapet upon the cisterns. There were two—a very large one, supplying the kitchen and the bathroom above the kitchen; and a small one, obviously fed by the other, and as obviously leading, by a pipe which I could trace, to ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... modern beauty falls into its first sickly sleep, Isabel and Anne conversed on the same terrace, and near the same spot, which had witnessed their father's meditations the day before. They were seated on a rude bench in an angle of the wall, flanked by a low, heavy bastion. And from the parapet their gaze might have wandered over a goodly sight, for on a broad space, covered with sand and sawdust, within the vast limits of the castle range, the numerous knights and youths who sought apprenticeship in arms and gallantry under the earl were engaged ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... roof-beams and that of the floor, and the interval of some 4 to 5 feet between the eaves and the floor remains open along the whole length of the front of the house (I.E. the side facing the river), save for a low parapet which bounds the floor along its outer edge. This space serves to admit both light and air, and affords an easy view over the river to those sitting in the house. The length of the house is in some cases as much as 400 yards, but the average length is probably about ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... view. All has to be done by calculation of angles, and a fraction of error may make all the difference. So we watch anxiously while the shell—a long time in flight—follows its allotted parabola. One bursts just short of the work; but its companion, a second later, goes over the parapet and sends debris flying upwards in a mighty cloud. Thereupon the howitzers are christened promptly "The Great Twin Brethren," "Castor and Pollux," and "Puffing Pals," everybody selecting the name that appeals to his imagination most strongly. ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... I was on the parapet. Nothing had been changed in our valley; it looked just the same; the smoke was even coming out of the chimney. As it came towards us it seemed to me I could smell oak leaves. I jumped down from the ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... la tete derriere son parapet, se mit, dans la nuit froide de decembre, a fixer une etoile qui brillait au ciel d'un feu etrange. Son cerveau commenca a remeur de lointaines pensees; son coeur se fit plus leger, comme s'il voulait monter vers l'astre; ses levres fremirent doucement pour laisser ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... heart of stone, As he tried like a wounded bird to rise, and placed his hand in my own; And he said in a voice half smothered, though its whispering thrills me yet, "I think in a moment more that I would have stood on that parapet. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... capable of defence, and the trenches and rifle-pits were much as we left them on 13th February with General Buller. As for the graves, they were intact. The big earthwork we all helped to raise near the river was covered with water, except a corner of the western parapet. It was, however, partly thrown down, and the ditch and slopes were overgrown with grass and bushes. Then I rode away to Abu Kru battle-field and had a look at what remained of the zereba, the little detached ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... can scarcely style the wretched enclosure which Beck called his own. It was at the top of the house, under the roof, and hot—oh, so hot—in the summer! It had one small begrimed window, through which the light of heaven never came, for the parapet, beneath which ran the choked gutter, prevented that; but the rain and the wind came in. So sometimes, through four glassless frames, came a fugitive tom-cat. As for the rats, they held the place as their own. Accustomed to Beck, they cared nothing ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ran along a deep cutting, from either side of which grew hazel bushes and a few larger trees. Leaning upon the parapet of the bridge, Jasper kept his eye in the westward direction, where the gleaming rails were visible for more than a mile. Suddenly he ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... rather deaf, and has not caught the name, grasps the paper and hides behind it. From long experience he has discovered the utility of the newspaper as a sort of parapet behind which ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... a mile of stumbling among hot boulders, not one of which was big enough to afford cover, or shelter from the sun, another volley whistled over them. Their hands went up again, and this time King could see turbaned heads above a parapet in ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Catholics, the Greeks, and Armenians, provided with large chapels in the body of the church. At the other end it is squared off and furnished with a platform in front, which is ascended by a flight of steps, having a small parapet-wall of marble on each hand, and floored with the same material. In the middle of this small platform stands a block of polished marble about a foot and a half square; on this stone sat the angel who announced the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... recess I have just spoken of a man leaning with his elbows on the parapet, and staring out up the long reach of the stream to the purple evening moors against the sky and the luminous glory itself; and as he came opposite him, wondered vaguely who it was and whether he knew him. Then, as he got just opposite him, he ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... all the other streets of the City, and terminating in a dark, low archway. Upon entering the square the principal door of the huge Cathedral was to the left of the spectator, and facing him were the Hospital buildings. A little beyond, was an opening which gave to view a portion of the parapet of the Quay Notre-Dame. A placard had been recently stuck on the discolored and sunken wail of the archway; it contained these words, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... in pulpits at either side, and here again the Apostles stood in solemn guardianship on its broad parapet—but emblems, rather; of the stony rigidity of doctrines which have been shaped by the minds of men from some little phase of truth, than of that glowing, spiritualized, human sympathy which, as the soul of man grows upward into comprehension, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... set off again, but more slowly, for the road now was paved with bricks instead of the loose sand over which they had travelled hitherto, and moreover it ran, without fence or parapet, along the top of a formidable dyke, the black waters of which far beneath him caused Tristram the most painful apprehension. Captain Salt, guessing this, slackened the pace to a walk. The glare still reddened the sky behind: but either ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... carriage, Hitt urged the wondering Don Jorge into it, and bade the driver convey them to the old ruin of San Felipe, and leave them. There they climbed the broken incline into the battered fortress, and seated themselves in the shadow of a crumbling parapet. They were alone on the enormous, grass-grown pile. From their position they commanded a wonderful view across the town and harbor, and far out over the green waters of the Caribbean. The Cossack lay asleep ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of the dance drown her voice, and all are so occupied by the sights that none pay any attention to her. The youngster who has been devoting all his time to the pranks of the Delight Makers jumps forward in his enthusiasm, and would have tumbled sheer over the low parapet encircling the roof had not one of the men standing near grasped his hair and pulled him back. It saved the boy's life, but the urchin is highly displeased at the informal manner in which he is restrained. ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge: a porthole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone-Ditch; plank resting on parapet, balanced by weight of Patriots,—he hovers perilous: such a Dove towards such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty Usher: one man already fell; and lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry! Usher Maillard falls not: deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread palm. The ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... built-up roof crunched in the darkness under my feet as I walked cautiously to the parapet and looked over its edge to the hunk of desert that stretched away toward Reno, out behind the motel. The third story, behind me, cut off the neon glare from the Strip and left the place in inky darkness. There was silence and invisibility out ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... said the other, as she threw them over the parapet, some falling on Gorman as he leaned out. 'It was a bad habit I learned from yourself, child. I remember when I came here, you used to do this each ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... brilliancy to their equipage; but she still occasionally found herself alone when it suited her mood and where it suited the place. On such occasions she had several resorts; the most accessible of which perhaps was a seat on the low parapet which edges the wide grassy space before the high, cold front of Saint John Lateran, whence you look across the Campagna at the far-trailing outline of the Alban Mount and at that mighty plain, between, which is still so full of all that has passed from it. After the departure ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... patio, Ali had hung a swing of hempen rope, suspended from a bar thrown from parapet to parapet, and on this Naomi would sport with her little ones. She would be swinging in the midst of them, with one tiny black maiden on the seat beside her, and one little black man with high stomach and shaven ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... cells in this budding city was developed further, and a low wall built round each cell. Moreover, more cells were built, always taking the cross as the center of all things—six-sided cells, with a low, incomplete wall, or, rather, parapet, partitioning each off, to the number of about twenty-four cells in all. Each cell was closed, of course, at the top, the top being its floor, and open at the bottom, the bottom being, if I may so put ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... day, when it would still not be impossible to escape. His great strength enabled him to climb up again to his window; still, he was almost exhausted by the time he gained the sill, where he crouched on the lookout, exactly like a cat on the parapet of a gutter. Before long, by the pale light of dawn, he perceived as he waved the rope that there was a little interval of a hundred feet between the lowest knot and the ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... putting him into a cab stationed at the corner of the Pont-Vieux. The horse was already in full trot when Prince des Boscenos, Count Clena, and M. de La Trumelle knocked the driver off his seat. Then, making the animal back and pushing the spokes of the wheels, they ran the vehicle on to the parapet of the bridge, whence they overturned it into the river amid the cheers of the delirious crowd. With a resounding splash a jet of water rose upwards, and then nothing but a slight eddy was to be seen on the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Jocelyn Mounchensey approached, with his visor raised, and his countenance radiant with smiles at the cheers he had received, she recognised in him her former guest, and participating in the general enthusiasm, prevailing for the young knight, she leaned over the parapet, and addressed to him a greeting so hearty that it procured for her a courteous salutation in return. Enchanted with this, she followed with her eyes the graceful figure of Sir Jocelyn till it was lost to view—to re-appear a moment after ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... the air of this place is enervating,' replied Michael, jumping up from the parapet. 'I know people do not generally consider moorland air enervating; but mine is a peculiar constitution, and needs more bracing than other men's. Shall we walk back, my dear?' But as he gave her his hand to rise, the gentle melancholy of his smile smote her with a sudden sense of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... middle of the street. Slops of all sorts, and from all parts of the houses, were emptied into the street before the front doors! The ashes were disposed of in a very peculiar manner. Each house had, on the edge of the parapet opposite, an old flour-barrel, or something of the sort, into which were thrown ashes, sweepings, fish-bones, dead rats, and all kinds of refuse. A dead rat very frequently garnished the top of the barrel. This was the order of things, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... the casement—Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without. The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... as he walked round by the low parapet, and gazed at the view in all directions; "and we can see what everyone else is doing on their roofs, and no one can look down on us—except from the rock over there, behind us, and ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... by the lake in the grounds of the Insel Hotel, Constance. Time, late afternoon. A small boat, containing three persons, is just visible far out on the glassy grey-green water. BOB PRENDERGAST and PODBUBY are perched side by side on a parapet, smoking disconsolately. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... him, and especially for speaking of him as the petit garon. He talked about her 'cheek' all the way back to the boat. It was on returning that I noticed the picturesque charm of our mill, with the old Gothic bridge adjoining it, a weather-beaten, time-worn stone cross rising from the parapet. Fresh provisions having been put on board the boat, we wished our friends of the mill good-bye. They and their children, with about a dozen neighbours and their children, assembled upon the bank to see us off. A long line of dancing rapids ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... he was at his post, looking after everything, with his eyes in ten places at once. You may think that under such a chief the laborers had no chance of idling; and everything was getting on splendidly when one morning, as he was standing on the parapet of a bridge, his foot slipped and down he went, I don't know how far. The fall would have killed him outright if by good luck there hadn't happened to be an Arab underneath (the only time that an Arab ever was of any use, I should say), and Eugene, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... were talking, the couple they were speaking of were standing leaning on the parapet of the wall by the river. They met there every evening when there was no ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... I am a fatalist," he went on. "Ah, you laugh at me! My people must have been owners of the second sight, I have often told you. Humor me, Will, bear with me. Don't question me too deep. Your flag, Will, I know will be planted on the last parapet of life—you were born to succeed. For myself, I still must remember what my mother told me—something about the burden which would be too heavy, the trail which would be ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... does it gleam as yet— That fair and free extent Of moonlit turret and parapet, Which castled, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... allow the size and shape of the tent to determine those of the enclosures. A square of nine or ten feet, inside measurement, is amply sufficient for three guns or archers. The parapets can be built of large stones. A travelling party rarely carries spades, but when they have them, the parapet may be formed of the earth thrown up by digging a trench outside it; the common calculation is, that, with good tools, a labourer can dig one cubic yard of earth an hour, and can continue working for eight hours in the ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... rush of men. Leaping over horse and man they went by. He got a look to right and left. They tore through the slashes, dropping fast and facing a furious fusillade were lost to sight in the underbrush. "By George! they've won," he exclaimed and fell back. "They must have carried the parapet." He waited. In about a half hour a party of men in grey went by. An officer in blue cried out, "Up the hill, you beggars!" More of the grey men ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the fountain must be described in three parts. Aitken's own interpretation is condensed in the following account. On the wall of the parapet at the foot of the pool, sixty feet from the central structure, is a colossal figure symbolizing Helios, in his arms the great globe of the setting sun after it has thrown off the nebulous mass that subsequently became the earth. The whole expresses primitive man's idea of the splashing of the sun ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... the loggia, where groups of people stood refreshing themselves in the mild evening air, which was pleasant with the scent of lilac. Ephie led the way, and Maurice followed her to the edge of the parapet, where they leaned against one of the pillars. Here, he found himself again in the neighbourhood of the other two. Louise, leaning both hands on the stone-work, was looking out over the square; but Schilsky, lounging as before, with his legs crossed, his hands in his pockets, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... long. Most Spanish siege and battering guns had this same proportion, for a shorter gun would not burn all the powder efficiently, "which," said Collado, "is a most grievous fault." However, small cannon of 18-caliber length were too short; the muzzle blast tended to destroy the embrasure of the parapet. For this reason, Spanish demicannon were as long as 24 calibers and the quarter-cannon ran up to 28. The 12-pounder quarter-cannon, incidentally, was "culverined" or reinforced so that it actually served in the ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... balancing sometimes with hysterical precision [Footnote: Hysterical precision. What does this mean?] on the ledge of the parapet, passing each other at whisker's length, but cutting each other dead. [Footnote: Cutting each other dead. Have you ever thought of the quaint absurdity of this figurative expression?] Not a cat had a look or a sniff for his fellow; ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... to walk), an architectural term for an alley, passage, the water-way or flat gutter behind a parapet, the galleries of a clerestory, sometimes even the aisle itself of a church. The term is sometimes written valure ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... thought the ground referred to would be a favourable site; and asked him to tell me definitely how to reach it. He offered to guide me to the place. On getting to the position I found that the conformation of the ground constituted almost a natural parapet for a six gun battery—requiring but little work to complete it for use. It afforded immediate ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith
... me. She was sitting upon a parapet of the brickwork and I was below her. She seemed ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... of the rainbow. His father gave him a garret in the house, and continued to allow him a seat at the table, but he made young Murger give him six of the eight dollars earned. The rest of his salary was spent among the boxes of books which line the parapet of the Paris quays,—a sort of literary Morgue or dead-house, where the still-born and deceased children of the press are exhibited, to challenge the pity of passers-by, and so escape the corner grocer and the neighboring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... Palais-Royal was closed, but an immense crowd filled the gardens, trying to see as much as possible of the gay doings. I was running in front of Charles X. as he walked along, and I saw his tall form advance to the parapet of the terrace on the garden side, with that truly royal air he had about him. He waved his hand several times in greeting to the crowd, which at that short distance, and under that brilliant light, must have recognized him perfectly, not by his features only, but by his full uniform of ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... central and side aisles, all of the same height, is two bays in length and is covered by a fine strong vault resting on short clustered piers.[59] The doorway itself, which is not acutely pointed, stands under a gable which reaches up to the plain battlemented parapet of the flat narthex roof. There are four shafts on each side with a ring-moulding rather less than half-way up, which at once distinguishes them from any romanesque predecessors; the capitals are round with a projecting moulding ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... standing on the right side of him; he looked and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head and legs in the water, her ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Turkish attack was considered possible, every morning we stood-to for that 'witching hour,' immediately before dawn, which is usually selected for 'hopping the parapet.' The brigades reconnoitred, and exchanged shots with enemy pickets. Fritz came, of course. Then the 19th Brigade went on, and took up a position two miles in front behind the Median Wall, of which more hereafter. The battle preparations ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... decorations seem to have been the panelling of exterior walls in a manner resembling the Chaldan terrace-walls, and a form of parapet like a stepped cresting. There were no characteristic mouldings, architraves, capitals, or cornices. Nearly all the ornament was of the sort called applied, i.e., added after the completion of the structure itself. Pictures in low relief covered the alabaster revetment. They depicted hunting-scenes, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... the French and British commands. One morning in place of a French army in Artois a British army was in occupation. The round helmets of the British took the place of the oblong helmets of the French along the parapet; British soldiers were in billets in place of the French in the villages at the rear and British guns moved into French gun-emplacements with the orderly precision which army training with its discipline alone secures; while the French Army was on board railway trains moving ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Barnet leant over the parapet watching them, his mind quickened by his own precarious condition. For a time, he says, he felt nothing but despair at the sight; what should be done, what could be done for this gathering surplus of humanity? They were so manifestly useless—and ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... them from the east, the Billy Bagshot detachment of Berkshires rallying them and firing steadily, the enemy swarming after and stampeding the mules and camels. Over the low bush fence, over the unfinished sand-bag parapet at the southwest salient, spread the shrieking enemy like ants, stabbing and cutting. The Gardner guns, as Connor had said, were "fer the inimy," but the Lushai dandies were for the men that managed them that day; for the enemy came too soon—in shrieking masses ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... they stood basking gratefully in the warmth that presented a striking contrast with the chill shadows from which they had emerged. Leigh observed that he stood upon a platform some fifty feet square, surrounded by a parapet that extended at least a foot above his head. This wall, however, did not shut out the prospect entirely, for the regular depressions of its castellated edge formed a series of embrasures through which it was possible for a man of average height to look out over the surrounding ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... you almost tremble lest the solid barrier upon which you stand should be hurled from its foundations. It meets the curving line of the reef with a tremendous concussion, and thus suddenly arrested by the parapet of coral, reared from the depths of the sea, it rises at once, throughout its entire length, to the height of twelve or fifteen feet perpendicularly, and stands for a moment as if congealed in its progress; then breaking with a hollow roar, it falls in a deluge of foam and spray, filling all ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... of me that dishonest little sneak Rapaud, with a tall parapet of books before him to serve as a screen, one hand shading his eyes, and an inkless pen in the other, was scratching his copy-book with noisy earnestness, as if time were too short for all he had to write about the pious AEneas's recitative, while he surreptitiously read the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... shield; up that dread path he went Hardening his heart from trembling, in his hand Now shook the threatening spear, now upward climbed Fast high in air he trod the perilous way. Now on the Trojans had disaster come, But, even as above the parapet His head rose, and for the first time and the last From her high rampart he looked down on Troy, Aeneas, who had marked, albeit afar, That bold assault, rushed on him, dashed on his head So huge a stone that the hero's mighty strength Shattered the ladder. Down from on high he rushed As arrow from ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... when all the country-side were hastening to the Perth races, Jamie had cut across the fields and reached a bridge near the town, and sat down upon the parapet. He commenced munching away at a large portion of a leg of mutton which he had somehow become possessed of, and of which he was amazingly proud. The laird came riding past, and seeing Jamie sitting on ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... a doorway at one end, and the way in which these openings are dissimulated and utilized is most ingenious, particularly in the "Disputa," where the bits of parapet which play an important part at either side of the composition, one pierced, the other solid, were suggested solely by the presence of this door. In the end walls the openings, large windows much higher than the doors, become of such importance that the whole ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... all of a sudden, she was obliged to let him come downstairs with an umbrella. The rain having ceased almost immediately, she sent him back when they reached the other side of the Pont Louis-Philippe. They only remained a few moments beside the parapet, looking at the Mail, and happy at being together in the open air. Down below, large barges, moored against the quay, and full of apples, were ranged four rows deep, so close together that the planks thrown across ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... ancient custom, not mentioned by Murray, of harboring lost cats in the cloister of San Lorenzo at Florence: "The feeding of the cats, which takes place when the clock strikes twelve, is a most curious sight.... From every roof and arch and parapet-wall, mewing, hissing and screaming, the cats rush down to devour." It sounds like a wicked parody on the poetic assembling of the Venetian pigeons at the daily scattering of grain in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... air;—they were lighting straw to bring down any fugitives concealed in the chimneys. Then the sound of heavy blows began to ring out; they were testing the walls everywhere for hiding-holes; there was a sound of rending wood as the flooring was torn up. Then over the parapet against the stairs looked a steel-crowned face of a pursuivant. The crowd below yelled and pointed at first, thinking he was a fugitive; but he grinned ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... to happen; for a great storm arose at midnight, and raged fearfully round the Red Sea tower, so that it seemed to rock, and when the night-watch went round to examine it, behold three toads crept out, and set themselves upright upon the parapet like little manikins, as the hares sometimes ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... an officer, and the part of the azotea upon which he moved was the roof of the officers' quarter, separated from the rest by a wall of equal height with the parapet. It was, moreover, a sacred precinct—not to be disturbed by the tread of common troopers on ordinary occasions. It was the ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... his so-considered interest. To take the mountain-route was tedious, and in the case of Barbarossa not to be thought of; the bridge of Endarlasa was broken—a most contorted specimen of artistic dilapidation. To be sure, one could manage to creep to the other side by the submerged coping of the parapet, if endowed with the balancing powers of a rope-walker and the lustihood of the navvy. But Barbarossa was not a Blondin, and had not a physical constitution proof against a wetting. I had got across that ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... in a trench when a big Jack Johnson burst right behind me. It killed six of the boys, all my friends, and buried me under the dirt that fell from the parapet back of me. I had sense and strength enough to dig myself out. When I got out I was kind of dazed. The captain told me to go back to the rear. I started back through the communication-trench and got lost. The next thing I knew I was wandering around in the ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... was not in his mind when he started from the monastery; neither had he thought of it on the way, or of the dark history it had helped him to; in a freak, he took the seat he had formerly occupied, placed his arm along the coping of the parapet, and closed his eyes. And strange to say, the conversation of that day repeated itself almost word for word. Stranger still, it had now a significancy not then observed; and as he listened, he interpreted, and the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... with features set, On that hot, still morning, in measured pace, Our column climbed; climbed higher yet, Past the fauss'bray, scarp, up the curtain-face, And along the parapet. ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... quality of the tracery, however, varies with the stone employed; and the towers W. of the Quantocks are, as a rule, inferior to those of the centre and east of the county. Most have large external stair-turrets (commonly at the N.E. or S.E. angle), which, when carried above the parapet and surmounted by spirelets, add dignity to the plainer structures, but which are less appropriate where the pinnacles are sufficiently prominent and graceful to give of themselves an adequate finish. In the case of some of ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... yet discovered this castle, for it exists only on paper. When Mr. Gordon Selfridge requires mental relaxation, he may be found poring over the plans which are to be the basis of this fairy edifice. Moat and parapet, tower, dungeon, and drawbridge, are all there, only awaiting the Mason of the future to translate them into actuality. But the success of Mr. Selfridge lies in his frugality, and not in his dreams. One can afford to have a castle in Spain when one ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... crowning work of bank revetment, although not necessarily in immediate connection. It may be set back a short distance from the revetted bank; but it is, in effect, the requisite parapet. The flood river and the low river cannot be brought into register, and compelled to unite in the excavation of a single permanent channel, without a complete control of all the stages; and even the abnormal rise must be provided against, because this would endanger the levee, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of a square—was only two stories high. The flat roof, accessible through a species of hatchway, and still surrounded by its sturdy stone parapet, was called "The Belvidere," in reference as usual to the fine view which it commanded. Fearing I knew not what, I mounted the ladder which led to the roof. Romayne received me with a harsh outburst of ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... were about 150 yards off, and the level, open space between the two lines wasn't healthy. No man who valued his life would go there unnecessarily, or recklessly put his head above the parapet. One morning, to their horror the men, through the periscope, saw the child standing above the trench on the German side. Cries came from the enemy, but they were not hostile. The sight of the girl, little ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton |
