"Portcullis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trod on unseen flowers. They loved to hear and to tell of the grand and beautiful things at that fairy palace, the Castle,—a noble old edifice, with massive towers, a moat, a lofty gateway, and an ancient drawbridge and portcullis, which stood high in the midst of ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... a lofty turreted wall, of an architecture to which the pilgrim was unaccustomed: gates with drawbridge and portcullis, square towers, and loopholes for the archer. Sentinels, clothed in steel and shining in the sunset, paced, at regular intervals, the cautious wall, and on a lofty tower a standard waved, a snowy standard, with a ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... the huge portcullis went, And the draw-bridge over the moat creaking, shrieking, downward bent; On his armor flashed the torch-light, over helmet, cuirass, shield, With its lion d' or couchant upon a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... sigillum ad causas, used for minor public documents or for private papers authenticated by public authority. This paper bears a seal having the legend "Sigillum ad causas oppidi Rotterodami", encircling an impression of a castle with portcullis, standing on a shore, with a swan swimming in ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... of Henry VII. we have the celebrated cope of Stoneyhurst, woven in Florence, of a gold tissue, the design raised in crimson velvet. It is without seam, and the composition which covers the whole surface is the crown of England lying on the portcullis; and the Tudor rose fills up the space with a magnificent scroll. The design is evidently English, as well as the embroidery, which is, however, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... near the water's edge to the high, arched gateway upon the Castle Hill. We will climb those steps, only of course the stones were newer and cleaner then, and less worn by generations of climbing feet. Up them we mount till we reach the gateway with its threatening portcullis, where the soldiers of King Charles the Second, in their jackboots, are walking up and down on guard, determined to keep out all intruders. Intruders we certainly are, seeing that we belong to another generation and another century. There is no entrance at that gateway for us. Yet except ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... Fierce he broke forth,—"And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no! Up drawbridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall." Lord Marmion turned,—well was his need,— And dashed the rowels in his steed, Like arrow through the archway sprung; The ponderous gate behind him rung: To pass there was such scanty room, The bars, descending, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... sparkling wine, not at all inferior to champagne. There is also there an odd chateau, designed, it is believed, by Marshal Vauban, on the plan of a mimic fortress, with bastions, curtains, glacis, portcullis, and loopholes. It is now the residence of the owner of the great vineyards where the S. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... to render the proper salutes, acted as chief mourner, surrounded by weeping mourners, who made the ruins of Janina echo with their lamentations. The guns were fired at long intervals. The portcullis was raised to admit the procession, and the whole garrison, drawn up to receive it, rendered a military salute. The body, covered with matting, was laid in a grave beside that of Amina. When the grave had been filled in, a priest approached to listen to the supposed conflict ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Norman Conquest, when the Earls of Chester were lords of the place. In the fourteenth century it was fortified with walls of great height and thickness, three miles in circuit and strengthened by thirty-two towers, each of the twelve gates being defended by a portcullis. A parliament was held at Coventry by Henry VI., and Henry VII. was heartily welcomed there after Bosworth Field; while the town was also a favorite residence of Edward the Black Prince. Among the many places of captivity for Mary Queen of Scots Coventry also figures; the walls ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... in derision. Rinaldo remained in the den all night, and next day was taken to a place where a portcullis was lifted up, and the monster rushed forth. He was a mixture of hog and serpent, larger than an ox, and not to be looked at without horror. He had eyes like a traitor, the hands of a man, but clawed, a beard dabbled with blood, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... said the Chancellor Olivier, the Cardinal de Tournon, and Birago, who were stationed outside of the portcullis. ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... upon arches spans this peculiar ditch, the communication depending upon a double drawbridge and portcullis. Immediately facing the entrance outside the fortress is an old Turkish churchyard, through and above which the closed masonry aqueduct is conducted into the town. Following the course of the aqueduct along a straight line of sandy heights ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... isn't a castle at Menouville," he said. "I know there is, although I've never been there, and I never heard of the place before. When we arrive the drawbridge will be down and the portcullis up. All the men-at-arms will have burnished their armor brightly and will wait respectfully in parallel rows to welcome us as we pass between. His Grace, the Duke of Light Heart, in a suit of red velvet will be standing on the steps, and Her Graciousness, ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... death, King Lot, on the King Pellinore. Anon after this Balin and the damosel rode till they came to a castle, and there Balin alighted, and he and the damosel went to go into the castle, and anon as Balin came within the castle's gate the portcullis fell down at his back, and there fell many men about the damosel, and would have slain her. When Balin saw that, he was sore aggrieved, for he might not help the damosel. Then he went up into the tower, and leapt over walls into the ditch, and hurt ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... the jumbled rocks, beyond the reach of wind and weather. They were of great variety, large, small, wide, narrow; all ready to move into. They were the conies' castles, ready refuges from enemies, their devious passages as effective as drawbridge or portcullis. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... placed but on argent, or argent but on or, that illegitimacy should be denoted by a lozenge, and widowhood by a bend, the new science would be just as good as the old science, because both the new and the old would be good for nothing. The mummery of Portcullis and Rouge Dragon, as it has no other value than that which caprice has assigned to it, may well submit to any laws which caprice may impose on it. But it is not so with that great imitative art, to the power of which all ages, the rudest and the most enlightened, bear witness. Since ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... devil has ruined us yet more: The fort's revolted to the emperor; The gates are opened, the portcullis drawn, And deluges of armies from the town Come pouring in: I heard the mighty flaw, When first it broke; the crowding ensigns saw, Which choked the passage; and, what least I feared, The waving arms of Aureng-Zebe appeared, Displayed with your Morat's: In either's flag the golden serpents ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... nightingales, till the moon comes up. Or shall we turn into the garden through the lovely Arch of the Princess Elizabeth, with its stone columns cut to resemble tree-trunks twined with ivy? Or go rather through the great archway, and under the teeth of the portcullis, into the irregular quadrangle, whose buildings mark the changing style and fortune of successive centuries, from 1300 down to the seventeenth century? There is probably no richer quadrangle in Europe: there is certainly no other ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... it was the end of his usefulness, also that his own self-respect and dignity must be carefully preserved; and he wrote to the Assembly of Massachusetts to say that it would be impossible for him longer to act as its agent. From that time he never attended the levee of a minister. The portcullis had dropped; the days of his ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... Albert made arrangements to leave his castle to engage in the perilous holy war against the Saracens, from which few ever returned. A few years were employed in the necessary preparations. At the sound of the bugle the portcullis was raised, the drawbridge spanned the moat, and Albert, at the head of thirty steel-clad warriors, with nodding plumes, and banners unfurled, emerged from the castle, and proceeded to the neighboring convent of Mari. His wife, Hedwige, and their three sons, Rhodolph, Albert ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... over the moat, and rode under the first archway into the outer ward. As she had expected, not a soul was here. The arrow-slits, portcullis-grooves, and staircases met her eye as familiar friends, for in her childhood she had once paid a visit to the spot. Ascending the green incline and through another arch into the second ward, she still pressed on, till ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... This was in process of clearing from weeds and rubbish by a set of gardeners, and the soil was so encumbered that in rooting out the weeds such few hardy flowers as still remained in the beds were mostly brought up with them. The groove wherein the portcullis had run was as fresh as if only cut yesterday, the very tooling of the stone being visible. Close to this hung a bell-pull formed of a large wooden acorn attached to a vertical rod. Somerset's application brought a woman from the porter's ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... picking up memories as though he were building a pleasure-house. Here was his dream, there was disappointment, here that flaming discovery, there this sudden terror—nothing had changed for him, the Moor, St. Arthe Church, St. Dreot Woods, the high white gates and mysterious hidden park of Portcullis House—all were as though it had been yesterday that he had last seen them. Polchester had dwindled before his giant growth. Here the moor, the woods, the roads had grown, and it was he ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... the portcullis were two small guard-houses, which, very carelessly, had been left empty. Kleerhagen, with his fifty followers, successfully climbed into these lurking-places, where they quietly ensconced themselves for the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... reached the great gate, part of the foemen had already entered Rome, and we had them in our rear. The castellan had ordered the portcullis to be lowered, in order to do which they cleared a little space, and this enabled us four to get inside. On the instant that I entered, the captain Palone de' Medici claimed me as being of the papal household and forced me to abandon Alessandro, which I had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... solid as the best yew hedge. I marvel at thee. A knight might have spoken it, under favour. They stopped her at Warwick—to see what? two old towers that don't match, {105a} and a portcullis that (people say) opens only upon fast-days. Charlecote Hall, I could have told her sweet Highness, was built by those Lucys who came over with Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror, with cross and ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... the party was halted by the guard. An officer with a lantern stepped out upon the lowered portcullis. The lieutenant who had captured them ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... west end and tower of the cathedral, and is of itself a monument of the first rank, being so designated by the Commission des Monumentes Historiques. A feudal defence, square, broad-based, turreted, flanked with circular watch-towers, and still further strengthened by a barbican which once held a portcullis, this wonderfully effective barrier more than suggests the mediaeval stronghold. Two other towers of the ancient enceinte still remain, the Tour Gougin, and ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... got up opposite the mighty rock, which sparkled all over with crystals, he found a narrow bridge, defended by gates and portcullis and towers with loopholes. But the gates stood wide open, and were dropping from their great hinges; the portcullis was eaten away with rust, and clung to the grooves evidently immovable; while the ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... once proceeded to visit the western suburb. This part of Canton has been built in recent years and is somewhat cleaner than the old town. It is separated from the Shameen by bridges which may be drawn up like an ancient portcullis. Here we at once plunged into the thick of native life. The streets, not over ten feet wide, were ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... the edge of the water, above which it rose with a somewhat sombre and gloomy aspect. Not a window could be seen on the lower story, and the only entrance, which had the appearance of a gateway, with a portcullis, looked towards the mainland, to which access was obtained by a drawbridge, lowered and raised by two heavy chains. A broad veranda ran round the building above the ground-floor, on which the windows, unusually narrow, opened. From the part of the veranda above the entrance of the gate, projected ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... could perceive, now, that the drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, and all the bars and shutters of the castle in place. Moreover, in the outer darkness in which he moved, he imagined there roamed lions and wolves and ravening beasts—and he with no guide but Judge ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... fare better; but Ywain actually undertakes the task. He has a tough battle with the knight who answers the challenge, but wounds him mortally; and when the knight flies to his neighbouring castle, is so hard on his heels that the portcullis actually drops on his horse's haunches just behind the saddle, and cuts the beast in two. Ywain is thus left between the portcullis and the (by this time shut) door—a position all the more awkward that the knight himself expires immediately after he has reached shelter. The situation ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... a shield over the arch: we proceed to another gateway in a spacious square building, whose angles are strengthened by two noble round towers: this opens into the interior area; had several prison rooms, and was armed with a portcullis: but the whole of it is ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... fear an undisciplined people in their fury. Your daughter shall be as dear to me as mine own; and in that faith you may prick forth—if, indeed, you will not still, like a wiser man, shut gate, down portcullis, up drawbridge, and let your archers and my crossbows man the wall, and tell the knaves you are not the fool that they take ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... his keep on the forest-bound gazed: The drawbridge was down, the portcullis was raised: And true to his hope came the palfrey amain, With his only loved lady, who checked not ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... great brick gate, the outermost of all, and turning aside from the steps leading up to the white stone gate and main entrance beyond, with its drawbridge and double portcullis, Richard, by his companion's directions, led his mare to the left, and, rounding the moat of the citadel, sought the western gate of the castle, which seemed to shelter itself under the great bulk of the Yellow Tower, the cannon upon more than one of whose bastions closely commanded it, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... rather aside than forward And welcomed her with his grandest smile; And, mind you, his mother all the while 160 Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward; And up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis; And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies, The lady's face stopped its play, As if her first hair had grown grey; For such things must ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... to the barred gate of the castle, where in a little cubbyhole dark even at noonday, and black as Egypt now, the warder slept with his hand upon his keys, and his head touching the lever of the gear wherewith he drew the creaking portcullis up and rolled back the iron doors which shut the keep off from the world of the wide outer courtyard and the garrison which manned ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... civil war that it showed itself in its full force. The weakness of the Crown and the strife of political factions for supremacy left the nobles masters of the field; and the white rose of the House of York, the red rose of the House of Lancaster, the portcullis of the Beauforts, the pied bull of the Nevilles, the bear and ragged staff which Warwick borrowed from the Beauchamps, were seen on hundreds of breasts in Parliament or ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... the gray rocks, rising sheer and bold and bare, stood the walls and towers of Castle Drachenhausen. A great gate-way, with a heavy iron-pointed portcullis hanging suspended in the dim arch above, yawned blackly upon the bascule or falling drawbridge that spanned a chasm between the blank stone walls and the roadway that winding down the steep rocky slope to the little valley just beneath. ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... bars, and chains, between her own bedroom and any intruder of human build. To reach her, even in her drawing-room, was like going, as a flag of truce, into a beleaguered fortress; at every sixth step one was stopped by a sort of portcullis. The panic was not confined to the rich; women in the humblest ranks more than once died upon the spot, from the shock attending some suspicious attempts at intrusion upon the part of vagrants, meditating probably nothing ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... over the draw-bridge through a gateway covered with ivy, and still guarded as of old, by an ancient portcullis. In the hall of the castle, pannelled with richly carved oak, are religiously guarded the helmet of Cromwell, the armor of the Black Prince, and many historic relics and art treasures. The drawing-room is finished in cedar. In former days guests were summoned to ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... of the anxiously listening captives, when loud acclamations and cries of joy announced the arrival of the first detachment at the castle. The heavy gates of the fortress were opened with much din and rattle; after a short space they were again slammed to, the portcullis fell, and then no further sound broke the deep silence that reigned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... protecting the main entrance, that opened through a lofty arch in the centre of the curtain into the inner court of the castle. The arms of the family, carved in freestone, frowned over the gateway, and the portal showed the spaces arranged by the architect for lowering the portcullis and raising the drawbridge. A rude farm-gate, made of young fir-trees nailed together, now formed the only safeguard of this once formidable entrance. The esplanade in front of the castle commanded a ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... adjective in the art of military engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops of chicory ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... a grotesque, old-fashioned, castellated sort of a sentry-box, made of a smoky-colored wood, and with a grating in front, that lifted up like a portcullis. And here would this Danby sit all the day long; and when customers grew thin, would patronize his own ale himself, pouring down mug after mug, as if he took himself for ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... but one entrance—at least Durward saw none along the spacious front, except where, in the centre of the first and outward boundary, arose two strong towers, the usual defences of a gateway; and he could observe their ordinary accompaniments, portcullis and drawbridge—of which the first was lowered, and the last raised. Similar entrance towers were visible on the second and third bounding wall, but not in the same line with those on the outward circuit; because the passage ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... than a happy fastness for those precociously brilliant creatures—creatures whose brilliance is too often the hectic indication of a constitutional unsoundness of mind—who can "get in" before the portcullis of the nineteenth birthday falls. These new educational elements may either grow slowly through the steady and painful pressure of remorseless facts, or, as the effort to evoke the New Republic becomes more conscious and deliberate, they may be rapidly brought into being by the conscious ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... independent, a circumstance peculiarly galling to Caleb, who had been wont to exercise over them the same sweeping authority in levying contributions which was exercised in former times in England, when "the royal purveyors, sallying forth from under the Gothic portcullis to purchase provisions with power and prerogative, instead of money, brought home the plunder of an hundred markets, and all that could be seized from a flying and hiding country, and deposited their spoil ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... sudden, the horse stopped at the door of a great house; and, but that he knew the place was ten miles off, my father would have thought he was at Redgauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer courtyard, through the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons. They lap off, and ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... of polished syenite; after which the limestone re-appears, and the passage opens into the vestibule (E). The part built of granite is interrupted thrice, at intervals of two to two and a half feet, by three enormous portcullises of granite (D). Above each of these a hollow is left, in which the portcullis stone could be held up by props, and thus leave a free passage (fig. 139). The mummy once placed inside, the workmen, as they left, removed the supports, and the portcullises fell into place, cutting off all communication with the outside. The vestibule was flanked on the east by a flat-roofed ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... the drawbridge over the ancient moat and entered the castle gate. The light above it revealed the ghastly, iron-toothed portcullis, that looked ready to fall and impale any audacious passenger under its impending fangs. And they entered the old paved courtyard and crossed over to the main ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... vaults of the Hotel Dieu at Paris, cellars open on the level of the water, paved basements in whose depths of prison twilight stone steps could be seen; and on going out through the Porte Guillaume across a little humpbacked bridge, under the archway still showing the groove in which the portcullis had worked which was let down of yore to defend this side of the town, he came upon yet another arm of the river washing the feet of more houses, playing at hide and seek in the courts, musing between walls; and at once he was haunted by the recollection of another ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... plate to fit out men-at-arms so that they might join the grand armies of Christendom and win renown in the Holy Wars. The Count Luigi raised money, like the rest, and one mild September morning, armed with battle-ax, portcullis and thundering culverin, he rode through the greaves and bucklers of his donjon-keep with as gallant a troop of Christian bandits as ever stepped in Italy. He had his sword, Excalibur, with him. His beautiful ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Emperor re-enter his box and take his place as Androcles, desperately frightened, but still marching with piteous devotion, emerges from the other end of the passage, and finds himself at the focus of thousands of eager eyes. The lion's cage, with a heavy portcullis grating, is on his left. The Emperor gives a signal. A gong sounds. Androcles shivers at the sound; then falls on ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... top of the cavern, curled there or passed out into the glen through the briers that dropped like a portcullis. The fagots crackled in the flame, the light danced, the warmth was pleasant. So was the sense of adventure and of solitude a deux. They stretched themselves beside the flame. Alexander produced from his pouch four small red-cheeked apples. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... I did let thee go, whither wouldst thou fly?" said Rothsay. "The bridges are up, the portcullis down, and the men who follow me are strangely deaf to a peevish maiden's squalls. Be kind, therefore, and you shall know what it is ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... my children, are of course familiar with, for you were all born here. At that date the great central tower alone stood erect amid the universal destruction. A black wolf's head reared itself high above the portcullis. The moat was filled with drift of crumbling years, and the walls, fallen in many places, ran hither and thither in aimless curves and angles, much as they ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Coffer when first discovered.—When, about a thousand years ago, the Caliph Al Mamoon tunnelled into the interior of the pyramid, he detected by the accidental falling, it is said, of a granite portcullis, the passage to the King's Chamber, shut up from the building of the pyramid to that time. "Then" (to quote the words of Professor Smyth) "the treasures of the pyramid, sealed up almost from the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... their milky blossoms. In the absence of the old peer, young Hopeful spends his time as befits his rank and expectations. He grooms his steed, plays with his hawks, feeds his hounds, and labours diligently to acquire grace and dexterity in the use of arms. At noon the portcullis is lowered, and out shoots a brilliant array of ladies and gentlemen, and falconers with hawks. They bend their course to the river, over which a rainbow is rising from a shower. Yonder young lady is laughing at our stripling squire, who seems half angry, half pleased: they are lovers, depend ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... open seashore; a pretty little harbour surrounded with quaint-looking houses; two or three white villas in fertile gardens, on a raised road; and, dominating all the scene, a fine old feudal castle, with keep, battlements, drawbridge, portcullis, and all that ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... that if we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me that it was an ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were drifting in that suffocating stillness past a great cannon that stood just within a raised portcullis, with nothing between me and it but the moat, a most uncommon jackass in there split the world with his bray, and I fell out of the saddle. Sir Bertrand grabbed me as I went, which was well, for if I had gone to the ground in my armor I could not ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... his visor down, like Sir Boucicault, or the Lord de Roye, or the doughtiest of Froissart's heroes. A long white-washed mud wall, with green folding gates, began somewhat to cool our Gothic enthusiasm—. "Perhaps the portcullis was destroyed at the Revolution." A bell hung at the gate. "Pshaw, it ought at least to have been a bugle-horn." When we had rung, instead of sounding a blast, not a dwarf, but a slipshod dirty girl, not much bigger, opened the door cautiously. ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... its huge square tower at every corner, and its still huger two towers in the middle of its front, its moat, and the causeway where once had been its drawbridge!—Yes! there were the spikes of the portcullis, sticking down from the top of the gateway, like the long upper teeth of a giant or ogre! That was a real castle—such as he had read of in books, such as he had seen ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... five hundred iron-clad horses carried their mailed riders beneath the portcullis of the grim pile, and Norman the Devil, riding at their head, spurred rapidly in the direction of the castle of Peter ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... through Kenilworth Castle with Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Mary Ann Evans and a youth I used to know in boyhood by the name of Bill Hursey. We chased each other across the drawbridge, through the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. Finally Shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to play. Walter Scott said it was "no fair," and Bill Hursey thrust out the knuckle of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... half, of the sixteenth century, but the highly finished and intricate marqueterie and carving would seem to prove that Italian or German craftsmen had executed the work. It should be carefully examined as a very interesting specimen. The Tudor arms, the rose and portcullis, are inlaid on the stand. The arched panels in the folding doors, and at the ends of the cabinet are in high relief, representing battle scenes, and bear some resemblance to Holbein's style. The general arrangement of the design reminds one of a Roman triumphal ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... angry gestures he leapt from his horse, and seizing a hatchet that hung from his saddle-bow, went with the apparent intention of battering down the opposing gate. A few men came to aid him; their numbers increased; under their united blows the obstacle was vanquished, gate, portcullis, and fence were demolished; and the wide sun-lit way, leading to the heart of the city, now lay open before them. The men shrank back; they seemed afraid of what they had already done, and stood as if they expected ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... and rose castle, with its towers and donjon and keep; it sank at the thought that he, poor old unpretentious Peter Davenant, with no social or personal passports of any kind, must force his way over drawbridge and beneath portcullis—or whatever else might be the method of entering a feudal pile—into the presence of the chatelaine whose abode here must be that of some legendary princess, and bend her to his will. Stray memories came ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the portcullis at Strasburg, Max spurred his horse to Yolanda's side. She neither lifted her veil nor gave any sign of recognition. The news of impending war had been discussed, and Max supposed Yolanda was frightened. He spoke reassuringly to ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... encounter and behold him in his bodily shape. Anon, he and the hermit buried the good knight Sir Perin, and rode on with the damsel till they came to a great castle, whereinto they were about to enter. But when Sir Balin had passed through the gateway, the portcullis fell behind him suddenly, leaving the damsel on the outer side, with men around her, drawing their swords as ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... away almost sheer from the castle walls, whilst on the other two a deep moat had been dug, which was fed by small mountain rivulets that never ran dry; and the entrance was commanded by a drawbridge, whose frowning portcullis was kept by a grim warder looking fully equal to the office allotted ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in apartments close by. The kings of other days used to have fights between the beasts, and James I. was very fond of combats between lions and dogs in presence of his court. All these animals were moved several years ago to the Zooelogical Gardens. We passed through strong gates, defended by a portcullis, and on our left we saw what the warden called the Bell Tower, and which was the prison of Bishop Fisher, who was beheaded for not acknowledging Henry VIII. to be the head of the church. I wanted to see the Traitor's Gate, and found it was on the right hand, having a communication with the ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... of a yard of bread, and a bottle of porter, for Mr. Jorrocks on the journey, and ere another sun went down, the sandy suburbs of Calais saw them toiling towards her ramparts, and rumbling over the drawbridges and under the portcullis, that guard the entrance to her gloomy town. Calais! cold, cheerless, lifeless Calais! Whose soul has ever warmed as it approached thy town? but how many hearts have turned with sickening sorrow from the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... the rain, and looking up with awe at the massive defences, two knights appeared with outstretched hands of welcome. Down went the drawbridge, up went the portcullis, the horses clattered over the moat, and the reception was hearty indeed. 'Well met, my Lord of Musgrave! I knew you would soon be ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in sight, however; and after the usual sputter of gutturals which precedes any arrangement in this country, we were mounted in a high, awkward carriage, and rode to the town. Two ancient round tower and a wall first met my eye; then a drawbridge, arched passage, and portcullis. Under this passage we passed, and at our right hand was the church, where once was laid the worn form that had stood so many whirlwinds—where, in short, Luther was buried. But this we did not then know; so we drove by, and went to a hotel. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... from his own, how could he hope to make himself heard? He knew that her family and her immediate friends—Mr. Langhope, the Gaineses, Mrs. Ansell and Mr. Tredegar—far from being means of communication, were so many sentinels ready to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis at his approach. They were all in league to stifle the incipient feelings he had roused in Bessy, to push her back into the deadening routine of her former life, and the only voice that might conceivably speak for him ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... hard to understand. On the roof may be seen the three lions of England, a cross between four martlets, three crowns each pierced by an arrow, and another design. The smaller designs include four-leaved flowers, Tudor roses, fleurs-de-lys, the portcullis, some undescribable creatures, crossed keys, crossed swords, crossed crosiers, crosses, crowns, crowns pierced with arrows, crowned female heads, an eagle, the head of the Baptist in a charger, an angel, mitres, three feathers rising from a crown, S. Andrew's cross, and perhaps ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... as ancient as Donnaz, was but a fortified manor in the plain; but here was the turreted border castle, bristling at the head of the gorge like the fangs in a boar's throat: its walls overhung by machicolations, its portcullis still dropped at nightfall, and the loud stream forming a natural moat at its base. Through the desert spaces of this great structure Odo wandered at will, losing himself in its network of bare chambers, some now put to domestic uses, with smoked meats hanging from the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... sternly, "if you are of the same way of thought as your brother, you may not pass under portcullis of mine." ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they studied fortresses—those of Domfront and Falaise. They admired under the gate the grooves of the portcullis, and, having reached the top, they first saw all the country around them, then the roofs of the houses in the town, the streets intersecting one another, the carts on the square, the women at the washhouse. The wall descended perpendicularly as far as the palisade; and they grew pale as they thought ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the arch is charged with the portcullis and foliage alternately; and on the point are the royal arms in a garter, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... call general attention to it, that they made the joints fine and close to that degree that they escaped the attention of all men until 1865 A.D. The answer came from the diagonal joints themselves, on discovering that the stone between them was opposite to the butt end of the portcullis of the first ascending passage, or to the hole whence the prismatic stone of concealment through 3000 years had dropped out almost before Al Mamoun's eyes. Here, therefore, was a secret sign in the pavement of the entrance-passage, appreciable only to a careful eye and ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... leading, with some twenty in a clump hard behind us, rang loud on the drawbridge over the dry fosse. The bridge planks quivered strangely; we were now within the gateway, when down fell the portcullis behind us, the drawbridge, creaking, flew up, a crowd of angry faces and red crosses were pressing on us, and a blow fell on my salade, making me reel. I was held in strong arms, swords shone out above me, I stumbled on a body—it was Robin Lindsay's—I heard ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... of cities should mould the temper of the people to their own likeness? S. George, the chivalrous, is champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the Cathedral porch, so feudal in its medieval pomp. He and S. Michael are painted in fresco over the south portcullis of the Castle. His lustrous armour gleams with Giorgionesque brilliancy from Dossi's masterpiece in the Pinacoteca. That Ferrara, the only place in Italy where chivalry struck any root, should have had S. George for patron, is at ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... been arrested, and was kept, with Nial Garve, a close prisoner in Dublin Castle. An anonymous pamphleteer celebrated the victories that had been achieved by the lord deputy, giving to his work the title, 'The Overthrow of an Irish Rebel,' having for its frontispiece a tower with portcullis, and the O'Dogherty's head impaled in the central embrazure. The spirit of the narrative may be inferred from the following passage: 'As for Tyrone and Co., or Tyrconnel, they are already fled from their ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... a Protestant; of ancient family and limited means. Where the living scions of the noble stock held their land, and went forth over their acres from under the ancestral portcullis, was more than even Mrs. Rowe had been able, with all her penetrating power in scandal, to ascertain. But the young nobleman was Mr. Mohun's friend—and that was enough. There had been reverses in the family. Losses fall upon the noblest ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... the brown stone above and between the Turkish houses. The Castelli of to-day is the principal street of this quarter, running through its centre, and guarded by the gates whose arches remain, valueless and without portcullis, but showing in their present state how strong a defence was needed to assure the patricians in their slumbers against any importunate attempts of their malcontent subjects and fellow-townsmen to clear off the score which the infamous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... history of the times as a soldier of great prowess and daring bravery. In the year B.C. 562, when serving at the siege of a place called Peh-yang [4], a party of the assailants made their way in at a gate which had purposely been left open, and no sooner were they inside than the portcullis was dropped. Heh was just entering; and catching the massive structure with both his hands, he gradually by dint of main strength raised it and held it up, till his friends had made their escape. ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... the archway was suspended a portcullis of wrought-iron bars. This was the real barrier, for, even if the attacking party succeeded in battering down the outer gate, they would find themselves cooped up in the passageway and exposed to missiles discharged both through the grating and ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... shoes, and a flat hat with a border of the red and white roses of York and Lancaster in satin ribbon,—these made up my costume. There were forty of us in the Tower, mounting guard with drawn swords at the portcullis gate and at the entrances to the lodgings of such as were in hold, and otherwise attending upon unfortunate noblemen and gentlemen who were in trouble. On state occasions, when taking prisoners by water from the Tower to Westminster, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... of Dunbar, as all folk know, is a strong Castle, standing as it doth well out to sea, on a mass of solid rock, and connected with the mainland only by one narrow strip of land, which is defended by a drawbridge and portcullis, and walls of solid masonry. Its other sides need no defence, for the wild waters of the Northern Sea beat about them with such fury that it is only at certain times of the tide that even peaceful boatmen can find a safe landing. Indeed, 'tis one of the strongest fortresses in the country, and ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... collar (date 1534)," says Mr. Timbs, "is of pure gold, composed of a series of links, each formed of a letter S, a united York and Lancaster (or Henry VII.) rose, and a massive knot. The ends of the chain are joined by the portcullis, from the points of which, suspended by a ring of diamonds, hangs the jewel. The entire collar contains twenty-eight SS, fourteen roses, thirteen knots, and measures sixty-four inches. The jewel contains in the centre ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... time-scarred walls. The wagon stopped at the great gate. A horn sounded from within, the gate swung open, a drawbridge fell with a hideous creaking of machinery, and we passed in, twenty or thirty feet above the snow-drifted moat. Beyond the portcullis a dim door swung open. Some sort of seneschal met us with a light and led us below the twilight arches, where beyond, I could catch glimpses of the baileys and courts and the donjon tower against ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... gaining on him inch by inch. By the time the castle moat was reached, Sir Ivaine was only five feet behind. The horses thundered one after the other over the bridge. The Black Knight rode under the portcullis, or sharp iron gate, which was raised. The instant he was inside, the portcullis fell, in order to ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... store of it on another's cravat. Furthermore, the slit in the coat behind tells in a moment what it was made for: a thing of which, in regard to ourselves, the best preachers have to remind us all our lives: then the central part of our habiliment has either its loop-hole or its portcullis in the opposite direction, still more demonstrative. All these are for very mundane purposes: but Religion and Humanity have whispered some later utilities. We pray the more commodiously, and of course the more frequently, for rolling up a royal ell of stocking round about our knees: and our ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... pursued him, and followed close upon him, although he was not near enough to strike him with his sword. Then Owain descried a vast and resplendent castle; and they came to the castle gate. The black knight was allowed to enter, but the portcullis was let fall upon Owain, and it struck his horse behind the saddle, and cut him in two, and carried away the rowels of the spurs that were upon Owain's heels. And the portcullis descended to the floor. And the rowels of the spurs and part of the horse were without, ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... this instance, belie its designation, being, in fact, a massive, gloomy-looking, castellated, stone building, with battlements, turrets, small windows, a moat, a drawbridge, and a portcullis, the lower portion of which showed in the head of the archway that gave access to the interior of the building. The drawbridge was lowered, and, from his coign of vantage, Mildmay saw the professor boldly cross it and walk up to the gate, through which, after a brief parley with the gate-keeper, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... in front closely guarded by the Spanish captain—it was seen by the assailants that Redhead had kept his word: the drawbridge across the moat was down and the portcullis was up. Within the fort Lord Willoughby, Vere, and two thousand men were waiting them. When about fifty had crossed the drawbridge the portcullis was suddenly let fall and the drawbridge hauled up. As the portcullis thundered down Grimeston tripped up the surprised Spaniard, ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... was lost to sight. The ends of the grass came together spitefully behind it, weaving themselves together, knitting, as we watched, an opaque blanket. It closed over and around so that the smooth track ended abruptly, bitten by a wiry green portcullis. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... come to the child when he has entered upon the war-path of getting "something to do." If legitimate means fail, then "let the portcullis fall;" the ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... covered with hard-trodden earth, overgrown at the edges with grass, that, in spite of the massive chains connecting it with the gateway, it seemed permanently fixed on the ground. The spikes of the portcullis frowned above in threatening array, but a wreath of ivy was twining up the groove by which it had once descended, and the archway, which by day stood hospitably open, was at night only guarded by two large oaken doors, yielding to a slight push. Beneath the southern wall ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fortifications are elevated 300 feet from the level of the ocean. The upper is separated from the lower town by a stone wall, which has the form of a horn-work. Through this wall is a gate, [115] which has a guard; the guard-room is opposite the gate, and by means of a portcullis defends the entrance. For the convenience of foot-passengers there is a door [116] near the gate, with wooden stairs, by ascending which you reach the upper town. On the right of the gate is a building which resembles a chapel, [117] and serves ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... carved and decorated with the same badges which we see on the bronze gates, and all over the inside of the chapel. Chief amongst these are the Tudor rose, the flower of York and Lancaster alike, and the portcullis, which was the emblem of Henry's maternal relations, the Beauforts, who traced their descent from John of Gaunt. This badge, originally a castle protected by a portcullis, was a symbol of Henry's ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... gateway—with its portcullis still ready to be dropped, if need be, and with the iron plates that sheathe it pierced with bullets—as at S. Michele, the visitor enters at once upon a terrace from which the two foregoing illustrations were taken. I know nothing like this terrace. On a summer's ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Bid the varlets lower the draw-bridge and raise the portcullis. Order pasties and souse-fish and a butt of malmsey; see the great hall is properly decored for my Lord Bishop of Carisbury, who will take his ambigue and bait his ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... two after they had departed? Paul knew that when he went, whatever befell those whom he loved and would fain help, he could not stretch a hand to do anything for them. He knew that death dropped the portcullis between him and them, and, whatever their sore need on the one side of the iron gate, he on the other could not succour or save. Jesus Christ said, 'It is better for you that I should go,' because He knew that all His influences would flow through the grated door unchecked, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... two huge square towers; and from a yet higher but slender tower on the inner side, the flag gave the "White Bear and Ragged Staff" to the smoky air. Still, under the portal as he entered, hung the grate of the portcullis, and the square court which he saw before him swarmed with the more immediate retainers of the earl, in scarlet jackets, wrought with their chieftain's cognizance. A man of gigantic girth and stature, who officiated as porter, leaning against the wall under ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in late buildings as a crest or ornamental finishing to cornices, etc., to which it gave an embattled appearance. Cornices and brackets were frequently ornamented with busts of winged angels called angel-brackets, and angel-corbels. The portcullis and the Tudor rose—both badges of the house of Tudor—also figure prominently among the ornaments of the period. The crockets for the most part partake of the squareness which pervades all the foliage of ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... Montrond, Hyacinth had been reared, partly in a mediaeval mansion, with a portcullis and four squat towers, near the Chateau d'Arques, and partly in Paris, where the lady had a fine house in the Marais. The sisters had never looked upon each other's faces, Angela having entered upon the troubled scene after Hyacinth ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: "If I wait long enough, the guardian will turn up and show me the ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... following the northern base of the pillars, we find a very beautiful alabaster monument (11), with the effigy of Sir John Cheyney (died 1509) clad in military garb, and wearing the collar of SS. with the portcullis badge of Henry VII. suspended therefrom. Sir John Cheyney was the standard-bearer of Henry of Richmond at Bosworth Field. To quote from Hall's "Chronicle"—"King Richard set on so sharply at the first brount that he ouerthrew th'erle's standard ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... some extent fortified houses. Great and small houses alike are evidently built with a view to defence from within. If you take a country walk anywhere in Normandy you find that the gardens of the country houses have massive gates and high walls, the front door is like a portcullis, and the window shutters are barricades. The smallest cottages have great doors and window shutters, and if there is a garden, it is two to one that the wall is a real wall. And not only in the country districts, but in the towns, pre-eminently in Paris itself, each house or ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... most of whom appear, from their names, to have been of Scottish birth or descent, flew to the guard room, armed themselves, seized the keys of the city, rushed to the Ferry Gate, closed it in the face of the King's officers, and let down the portcullis. James Morison, a citizen more advanced in years, addressed the intruders from the top of the wall and advised them to be gone. They stood in consultation before the gate till they heard him cry, "Bring a great gun this way." They then thought it time ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age: Fierce he broke forth,—"And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by St. Bride of Bothwell, no! Up drawbridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall."— Lord Marmion turned,—well was his need!— And dashed the rowels in his steed; Like arrow through the archway sprung; The ponderous grate behind him rung; To pass there was such scanty room, The bars, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... a few paces behind, and offering his hand to Dame Editha, he led her to the group of archers, while Cuthbert, alone, crossed the drawbridge, and entered the portal, the heavy portcullis falling after him. ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... that opened through a lofty arch in the centre of the curtain into the inner court of the castle. The arms of the family, carved in freestone, frowned over the gateway, and the portal showed the spaces arranged by the architect for lowering the portcullis, and raising the drawbridge. A rude farm-gate, made of young fir-trees nailed together, now formed the only safeguard of this once formidable entrance. The esplanade in front of the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott |
