"Portcullis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they are all to 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 ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... 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
... head and fled. Owain 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, and ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... form about, Howled back my curse; but 'midst the tread, The thunder of my courser's speed, Perchance they did not hear nor heed; It vexes me—for I would fain Have paid their insult back again. I paid it well in after days: There is not of that castle gate, Its drawbridge and portcullis weight, Stone, bar, moat, bridge, or barrier left; Nor of its fields a blade of grass, Save what grows on a ridge of wall, Where stood the hearthstone of the hall; And many a time ye there might pass, Nor dream that e'er that fortress was: I saw its turrets in a blaze, Their crackling battlements ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... is an early riser, was playing the organ in the central hall of the Castle when he was apprised of the approach of the raiders by one of his retinue, and at once determined to organise a stubborn resistance. The portcullis was let down, the moat filled to its utmost capacity, while Winchester rifles were served out to the four butlers, sixteen footmen, seven chauffeurs and twenty-four gardeners who compose the staff. The organist was instructed to play martial music to hearten the defenders, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... and his family. It was a building of considerable pretensions, erected on piles close to 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, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 her, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... worthy of a diplomatist, we finally stood upon the drawbridge of the castle. Here the savage customs of the rude days in which it was built immediately impress the beholder. Traces remain of the ponderous iron portcullis, heavy wooden bars, arrow-holes, and slits in the masonry for the pouring of boiling water or oil upon adverse knight or lordly freebooter. A steep path leads through two great entrance-gates into the large inner court, which is erected upon the virgin rock. A roof of old wooden shingles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... 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 front of ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... can imagine you standing on a drawbridge or a portcullis, or whatever it was they trimmed medieval castles with, and waving your hands to the knights going by," began John teasingly; "but it's a stretch of imagination to fancy a medieval princess pouring my tea and seeing that my ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... castle is gained by a bridge crossing the moat; this has replaced the old drawbridge and leads to a gatehouse with battlements, a kind of barbican, of two storeys. The passage is vaulted, and has massive doors of oak studded with iron; formerly there was also a portcullis. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... cornice with a double architrave, in the frieze of which he placed all the arms of the Commune. And what is more, he made the whole staircase of hard-stone up to the floor where the Signori lived, fortifying it at the top and half-way up with a portcullis at each point, in case of tumults; and at the head of the staircase he made a door which was called the "catena,"[23] beside which there was ever standing an usher, who opened or closed it according as he was commanded by those in authority. He strengthened the tower of the campanile, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... absence, was left free to visit every nook of his new home. Pontesordo, though perhaps 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 ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... of playing "I-spy" through Kenilworth Castle with Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Mary Ann Evans and a youth I used to know in boyhood by the name of Bill Hursey. We chased each other across the drawbridge, through the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. Finally Shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to play. Walter Scott said it was "no fair," and Bill Hursey ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... this white and rose castle, with its towers and donjon and keep; it sank at the thought that he, poor old unpretentious Peter Davenant, with no social or personal passports of any kind, must force his way over drawbridge and beneath portcullis—or whatever else might be the method of entering a feudal pile—into the presence of the chatelaine whose abode here must be that of some legendary princess, and bend her to his will. Stray memories came to him of Siegfrieds and Prince Charmings, with a natural gift for this sort of ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... dying a natural death." Said Philippa:—"I don't believe you want it to"—a construction denounced, we believe, by sensitive grammarians. The Earl let it pass, replying:—"I do not wish it to die a violent death." Her ladyship dropped the portcullis of her mind against a crowd of useless reflections. One was, whether her own relation with this young man's father had died a violent death; and, if so, was she any the worse? The rest were a motley crowd, with "might have been!" tattooed upon their brows and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... of the baronial hall, winch opened to her by the immediate raising of a massive brazen portcullis, the ancient insignia of the Beaufort name, she received the joyful obeisance of the old domestics of her honored parents, hailing her, their beloved daughter, with a humble ardor of affection that bathed her enraptured face with filial tears. Thaddeus felt the scene in ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... an imposing courtyard. Within this quadrangle the same silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the windows that overlooked it. I paused, at a loss how to proceed, and I leaned against a buttress of the portcullis, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... bathes its shadow in the Rhine had its castle; not inhabited as now by a few rats and owls, nor covered with moss and wallflowers and funguses and creeping ivy. No, no; where the ivy now clusters there grew strong portcullis and bars of steel; where the wallflowers now quiver in the ramparts there were silken banners embroidered with wonderful heraldry; men-at-arms marched where now you shall only see a bank of moss or a hideous black champignon; and in place of the rats and owlets, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... narrow ledge of rock led to the ditch, now dry, and nearly filled with fragments from the ruins. He passed the tottering arch of the portcullis;—long weeds choked up the entrance, waving drearily as the light breeze went over them. Hildebrand heard not the moan of the coming blast. Evening approached, and the thousand shadows haunted him,—grim spectres that ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... town 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 through ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... further end of which there stands 1130 An ancient castle, that commands Th' adjacent parts: in all the fabrick You shall not see one stone nor a brick; But all of wood; by pow'rful spell Of magic made impregnable. 1135 There's neither iron-bar nor gate, Portcullis, chain, nor bolt, nor grate, And yet men durance there abide, In dungeon scarce three inches wide; With roof so low, that under it 1140 They never stand, but lie or sit; And yet so foul, that whoso is in, Is to the middle-leg in prison; In circle magical conflu'd, With walls of subtile air and wind, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... to the 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. They ate and talked, with ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Exhibition had done its deadly work—Abbey and Parsons were dissatisfied—they wanted to see more. Back of the stagecoach times lay the days of the castle. Back of the musket was the blunderbuss, and back of these were the portcullis, the moat, the spear and coats ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... picturesque ruins, a curious type of the architecture of the thirteenth century. Five of the eight enormous battlemented towers remain, and the flamboyant window of the chapel on the upper floor of the building is still preserved. Traces of the portcullis and drawbridge are visible. Over the gallery is an escutcheon, with a couchant lion holding the arms of Brittany, between two stags, also couchant, at the foot of a tree. The sea that bathed the walls of the castle has been driven back by the accumulation of mud and the crumbling ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... to the massive ruins from which they had been borrowed or taken. Still, enough had been left to show that the place had once been a mansion of considerable pretensions. The old gateway, with its portcullis and drawbridge, was still standing, while the moat which surrounded the entire building indicated that it had been originally of very capacious dimensions. The roof and most of the walls had long since disappeared; trees grew in the centre, and spread out their branches over the space ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... the finest specimens of brickwork in the country, and cost the nation L200,000, but has now completely vanished. It resembled a fortress; the entrance, which stood in Francis Street, was composed of massive granite blocks, and had a portcullis. The prison took the place of a Bridewell or House of Correction near, built in 1622; but in spite of the vast sum of money spent upon it, it ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... man. He had great ideas. How he would glory in our present prospects! 'Tis strange what a strong confidence I have ever had in the destiny of your house. I felt sure that Providence would not desert us. There is no doubt we must have a portcullis.' ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... anxious and weary. When he remembered the old banker, it was with no self-reproach that he himself was now doing what, in the banker's case, he had held up to Abel's scorn. It was only to remember that the wary old man had shut down the portcullis of the bank vaults, and that loans were getting to be almost impossible. His face darkened. He swore a sharp ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... turned out to watch what was done, all being doubtful of their own courage. Finally, thirty Sangleys from those who were uneasy, seeing the last captain enter, ran toward the gate to detain him and laid hands upon him when he was near the portcullis—either to obtain by this service means to ingratiate themselves with Cot-sen, or to secure a person who at all events could direct them. The men stationed at the gate, who saw the haste with which they approached, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... 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. Thus much on the ancestry of the sage. Doubtless he could ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... have it in my power to place on a few copies of each a decisive mark of appropriation. I have chosen for this purpose a device borne by a champion of my name in a tournament at Stirling! It was a gate and portcullis, with the motto CLAUSUS TUTUS ERO. I have it engraved on a seal, as you may remark on the enclosure, but it is done in a most blackguard style. Now what I want is to have this same gateway and this same portcullis and this same motto of clausus tutus ero, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire." Little wonder! If Perry Thomas spoke to me like that I'd cleave his head. But Marmion spares proud Angus. He beards the Doogulus in his hall. He dashes the rowels in his steed, dodges the portcullis, and gallops over the draw. And Perry Thomas is left standing with folded arms, gazing through the chalk-dust haze into the solemn, wide open eyes of the children of ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... The Palazzo Gabrielli, for two or three centuries the chief dwelling of the Orsini, is built in the midst of the city like a great fortification, with escarpments and buttresses and loop-holes; and at the main gate there is still a portcullis which sinks into the ground by a system of chains and balance weights and is kept in working order ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... writhing half my form about, Howled back my curse; but 'midst the tread, The thunder of my courser's speed, Perchance they did not hear nor heed: 390 It vexes me—for I would fain Have paid their insult back again. I paid it well in after days: There is not of that castle gate, Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, Stone—bar—moat—bridge—or barrier left; Nor of its fields a blade of grass, Save what grows on a ridge of wall, Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall; And many a time ye there might pass, 400 Nor dream that e'er the fortress was. I saw its turrets ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... drawn up in three divisions and seated on the ground. On seeing their enemies advance they rose up and fell into their ranks. That of the Prince was the first to do so, whose archers were formed in the manner of a portcullis, or harrow, and the men-at-arms in the rear. The earls of Northampton and Arundel, who commanded the second division, had posted themselves in good order on his wing, to assist and succor the Prince if necessary. You ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... narrow platform, which ran round inside the walls, a few feet below their summit. The only entrance was by a gate, flanked by two additional towers. This could be secured by strong bars, but was destitute of ditch, draw-bridge, or portcullis. The interior of the quadrangle was occupied by the residence of the chief factor and clerks, a hall used as an audience room, and a store-house, besides the dwellings of the hunters and their wives and children, ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... Strada San Gregorio, and reached the gates of St. Sebastian. Then the porter raised some difficulties, but the Count of Monte Cristo produced a permit from the governor of Rome, allowing him to leave or enter the city at any hour of the day or night; the portcullis was therefore raised, the porter had a louis for his trouble, and they went on their way. The road which the carriage now traversed was the ancient Appian Way, and bordered with tombs. From time to time, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 from trap-doors in the vaulted ceiling. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... 2,000 feet in height, and commands a panoramic view of the country for thirty miles round. It has all the characteristics of a town of the feudal times, with high embattled and loopholed walls, numerous towers, and deep and strong gateways, under which are still to be seen the grooves of the portcullis, the warder's guard-room, and the hooks ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... had 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 did not cut right through the whole three enclosures at the same ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... as an affront to the King, and, leaping from his enormous black charger, he approached the portcullis and with his hand tore the ponderous thing from its sockets and broke it into ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... slope the rounded arches built by the Empress Matilda, wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet. The streets and houses shrink into a narrower limit, bounded by a line of bastions, with crenelated towers at intervals, and eight gates each with its watch-tower and drawbridge and portcullis. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... expressions in his legal documents. Secondly, these houses also served as castles and stations for garrisons. Take, for instance, Ewenny; it is much more like a castle than a religious house, with its great embattled walls and towers, and magnificent gate-house furnished with a triple portcullis and "shoots," or holes in the roof above for pouring molten lead on the assailants' heads. The De Londres family were businesslike as well as pious; Ewenny's prime object was to help them to gain heaven, it also helped them to gain the earth. The close and constant connection which these ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... battlements that they could not easily be injured, and could take aim from the top of their turrets, or from their loophole windows. The gates had absolute little castles of their own, a moat flowed round the walls full of water, and only capable of being crossed by a drawbridge, behind which the portcullis, a grating armed beneath with spikes, was always ready to drop from the archway of the gate and close up the entrance. The only chance of taking a fortress by direct attack was to fill up the moat with earth and faggots, and then raise ladders ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 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 ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Vicomte was 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 ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... ambassadors being sent ahead to invite Christina to a conference outside the town. The reception which they met was such as to convince them that the regent's widow possessed, at any rate, a portion of her husband's courage. No sooner did they near the capital than the portcullis was raised and a volley fired upon them from within the walls. Thus discomfited, the ambassadors withdrew, and Krumpen, having insufficient forces to undertake a siege, returned to Upsala, and the Swedish forces that had joined ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... with the waves in a tempest, need not 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
... of semi-barbaric pomp, 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 ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... and a cockpit, which was situated where Downing Street now is. The park was approached by two noble gates, and until the year 1708 the Cock-pit Gate, which opened into the court where Queen Anne lived, was standing. It was surmounted with lofty towers and battlements, and had a portcullis, and many rich decorations. Westminster Gate, the other entrance, was designed by Hans Holbein, and some foreign architect doubtless erected the Cockpit Gate. The scene of the cruel diversion of cock-fighting was, however, obliterated before Anne's time, and the palace, which was a ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the 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 ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... double lines containing the Norfolk arms, a lion rampant, holding a shield in his paws, on which is another lion, a cut which also appears on the title of The Introductory. There is a full page cut of the royal arms with portcullis, &c., on the back, followed by five pages of Table. The preface to his patron, in English,——together with a Latin dedication to Bishop Veysy, in parallel columns,——begins on the verso of signature A iiii, under a cut of the author presenting his book to him, the same as that which appears on ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... his Grace the Lord General, Sir John Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, and Sir Richard Brown; and then to have declared for an equal division of lands, &c. The better to effect this hellish design, the City was to have been fired, and the portcullis let down to keep out all assistance; and the Horse Guards to have been surprised in the inns where they were quartered, several ostlers having been gained for that purpose. The Tower was accordingly viewed, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... cried, "is the king's own favourite, and if any harm come to a lock of her hair, I tell you that there is not a living soul within this portcullis who will not die a death of torture. Fools, will you gasp out your lives upon the rack, or writhe in boiling oil, at the bidding of ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... monarchy. In the castle most of its old defences have not been used for many years, perhaps centuries, and old Ben Martlet sets about restoring them, cleaning up the armour, teaching young Roy the arts of self-defence, by putting him through a course of fencing, by restoring the portcullis and draw-bridge, and by training the men from the neighbouring farms to ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... the winds around the time-scarred walls. The wagon stopped at the great gate. A horn sounded from within, the gate swung open, a drawbridge fell with a hideous creaking of machinery, and we passed in, twenty or thirty feet above the snow-drifted moat. Beyond the portcullis a dim door swung open. Some sort of seneschal met us with a light and led us below the twilight arches, where beyond, I could catch glimpses of the baileys and courts and the donjon tower against the ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... all, but lost not a moment. He had not made this haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a week before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and raised it again ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... had been cut in two, and the water ran out as it came in, without refreshing or doing him any good! How it could have happened was quite a mystery to me, till I returned with him to the town gate. There I saw that when I rushed in pell-mell with the flying enemy, they had dropped the portcullis (a heavy falling door, with sharp spikes at the bottom, let down suddenly to prevent the entrance of an enemy into a fortified town) unperceived by me, which had totally cut off his hind part, that still lay quivering ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... 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 ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... gardens. We crossed the drawbridge, which always gives me a sensation of old feudal times and recalls the days of my childhood when I used to sit under the sickle-pear tree at "Cherry Lawn" reading Scott's "Marmion"—"Up drawbridge, grooms—what, Warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall!" wondering what a "portcullis" was, and if I should ever see one or ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... 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 ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... savings, and so were equally fair game to the royal plunderer. He lies in the south-west corner of the crypt, and his monument, which has suffered considerably at the hands of the Puritans, bears the Tudor portcullis and the archbishop's rebus, a hawk or mort standing on ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... PORTCULLIS, a strong grating resembling a harrow hanging over the gateway of a fortress, let down in a groove of the wall in the case ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... 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 ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... is, some are regular; as, trellis, trellises: so, annolis, butteris, caddis, dervis, iris, marquis, metropolis, portcullis, proboscis. Some seem to have no need of the plural; as, ambergris, aqua-fortis, arthritis, brewis, crasis, elephantiasis, genesis, orris, siriasis, tennis. But most nouns of this ending follow the Greek or Latin form, which simply changes is to es: as, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... 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 ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... night; that refectory, upon which the architect had bestowed the air, the beauty, and the rose window of a cathedral; that elegant chapel of the Virgin; that monumental dormitory; those vast gardens; that portcullis; that drawbridge; that envelope of battlements which notched to the eye the verdure of the surrounding meadows; those courtyards, where gleamed men at arms, intermingled with golden copes;—the whole ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... 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 ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... 'light off him again so soon: howbeit, I did as I was bid. Madam Isabel suffered her lord to lift her upon the other; and away hied we for the Castle, our cavaliers a-walking behind. When we 'light, and the portcullis was drawn up, Master Jeronymo prayeth the porter to send word unto the ineffable Lord Comptroller that the English damsel sent hither by the most noble Lady, Dona Catalina (so they call my Lady of Suffolk's Grace) doth entreat for leave to ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... clustered about the commissariat motors while hams and quarters of beef were handed out. As we approached Verdun the cannonade had grown louder again; and when we reached the walls of the town and passed under the iron teeth of the portcullis we felt ourselves in one of the last outposts of a mighty line of defense. The desolation of Verdun is as impressive as the feverish activity of Chalons. The civil population was evacuated in September, and only a small percentage have returned. Nine-tenths of the shops are closed, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... badly; Kay is as usual quite sure that he would 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 is saved, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... a chariot, splendid in his fine robes of fur, with a gold chain about his neck. And the guards hurried to let down the portcullis for him, and with low bows bade him enter. But when Saint Berach came he wore only his gray monk's robe, all torn and tattered. He was shivering with cold, and weak from having walked so far. So they thought him ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... 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 ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... of the Castle of Machecoul, a gloomy chteau, composed of huge towers, and surrounded by deep moats, a residence much frequented by Do Retz, notwithstanding its sombre and repulsive appearance. This fortress was always in a condition to resist a siege: the drawbridge was raised, the portcullis down, the gates closed, the men under arms, the culverins on the bastion always loaded. No one, except the servants, had penetrated into this mysterious asylum and had come forth alive. In the surrounding country strange tales of horror and devilry circulated in whispers, ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... their long train, soldiers, ecclesiastics, women, and children, they saw a galloping band of Arabs in pursuit. The archbishop bade them turn instantly into a deserted castle they were just passing, to drop the portcullis and man the walls. That they might look as numerous as possible, he bade all the women dress themselves like men and tie their long hair beneath their chins to resemble beards. He then put helmets ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... thou, then, To beard the lion in his den,— The Douglas in his hall? And hopest 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 ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... doctor said he ought not to walk much for two or three months. The lovers were delighted to transfer their trysting place to those romantic quarters—a castle tower in the heart of New York, surrounded by a harbor moat, and an elevator which served well the purpose of a bridge leading to the portcullis of the upper floors. Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, and their daughter, the winsome Nellie, were delighted to have them as visitors, and entered into their defense against the cruel father and his co-conspirators, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... the thickening reek a rusty draw was dropped; Thro portcullis sped a quickening Shadow past to where with sickening Feet, befixed by awe I stopped— There she laughed a laugh No devil's soul ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... time we had 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... with the Black Knight, although 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 ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... there on a warm day, and then watch the perspiration trickle out through the clapboards on the outside. On the closing afternoon, during the matinee performance, the building was struck by lightning and a hole knocked out of the Corinthian duplex that surmounts the oblique portcullis on the off side. The reader will see at once the location of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the rock fell 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 ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 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 Blodgett, who stands there in the lobby, so ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... thy steel-clad barons are at rest; Thy turrets sound to warder's tread no more; Beneath their brow the dove hath hung her nest; High on thy beams the harmless falchion shines; No stormy trumpet wakes thy deep repose; Past are the days that, on the serried lines Around thy walls, saw the portcullis close. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... occasional glimpses of 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... 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 ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... of strong slabs of ice, long and so narrow, that a fox can with difficulty turn himself in it, and a wolf must actually remain in the position in which he is taken. The door is a heavy portcullis of ice, sliding in two well-secured grooves of the same substance, and is kept up by a line which, passing over the top of the trap, is carried through a hole at the farthest extremity. To the end of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... nave, and 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 and slew ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... the fortress which now remain, it is scarcely possible to say what was its ancient form; but it is most generally supposed to have been quadrangular, having only one entrance, a large double portcullis, at the west end of the southern front, turreted and embattled, as was the whole of the front, with a tower at its eastern end, corresponding with that on the west. This front, with its gateway and turrets, are perhaps the only remains of the original structure. Winding steps, now almost worn ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... the gates of a most forbidding-looking edifice constructed of heavy blocks of masonry, and which had all the appearance of being a fortress. Passing through the gloomy gateway— which was protected by a portcullis—we found ourselves in a large open paved courtyard, across which we marched to a door on the opposite side. Entering this door, we wheeled to the right and passed along a wide stone passage which conducted us to a sort of guard-room. We were here received by a lanky, cadaverous-looking ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... there 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 Duchess, in ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... volume was borrowed, he put the dummy in its place on the shelf, inscribing it with the name of the borrower. He also defended his shelves with locked brazen wires. "Tutus clausus ero" ("I shall be safe if shut up"), his anagram, was his motto, under a portcullis. Borrowers, of course, are nearly the worst enemies of books, always careless, and very apt to lose one volume out of a set. Housemaids are seldom bibliophiles. Their favourite plan is to dust the books ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... 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 ruin so vast, so impressive, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... civilization. I would illustrate my views by observing that, in ancient times, before the Wars of the Roses, a baron, or even a yeoman, would surround his residence with a moat to be crossed only by a drawbridge, and instead of the convenient door of modern times, he would have a portcullis, which he would raise or let fall to admit a friend, or exclude a foe. A visitor, too, would have instead of gaining immediate access, to sound a horn at an outer gate, and hold parley with a warder upon a lofty tower, before he could gain admission. There could be no doubt that all these ceremonies ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... or hooked from rock to rock to the stone building away up at the basin. To return, however, to the building: the veranda rested on square rough masonry full twenty feet from the ground, which was loopholed for musketry, and with but one narrow slip of a doorway that fell like a portcullis, banded and strapped with bars and studs of wrought iron. Within this stone inclosure was a large and roomy vault, half filled with cases, barrels, and packages, and at the upper angle was a narrow subterranean vaulted passage, barred ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... monseigneur," said the Chancellor Olivier, the Cardinal de Tournon, and Birago, who were stationed outside of the portcullis. ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... to sleep—and I lay awake, chattering to Kate and Isabel, who were my bedfellows, about some grand play we meant to have the next afternoon, in the great gallery—when all at once we heard a horse come dashing up to the portcullis, past our chamber wall, and a horn crying out into ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... bridge across the chasm, while what I had first thought to be rugged piles of rock took the form of grim battlements and towers, rising so straight from the edge of the rock that I had thought them a part of it. Across the bridge frowned an angry portcullis. As the place stood, it looked as if one man could hold it against a thousand, so unapproachable did it seem. On our side the bridge, on the mainland, was a large courtyard or barrack, with an outer wall and moat round ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... last week the portcullis, which hail been placed in the northern gate, and was composed of solid rice paper, with cross-bars of chop-sticks, was much damaged. It is now under repair, and will be coated entirely with tea-chest lead, to render it perfectly impregnable. The whole ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... meridian height, And all the northern bastions shone in light; 70 With hoarse acclaim, the gong and trumpet rung, The Moorish slaves aloft their cymbals swung, When the proud victor, in triumphant state, Rode forth, in arms, through the portcullis' gate. With neck high-arching as he smote the ground, And restless pawing to the trumpet's sound,— With mantling mane, o'er his broad shoulders spread, And nostrils blowing, and dilated red,— The coal-black steed, in rich caparison Far trailing to the ground, went ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... wall was an open space of grass, with other grey avenues 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 tombs—" ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... entered the gate of what looked like a big reformatory or hospital. I believe it had been a home for destitute children. There were sentries at the gate and massive concentric circles of barbed wire through which we passed under an arch that was let down like a portcullis at nightfall. The lieutenant showed his permit, and we ran the car into a brick-paved yard and marched through a lot more sentries to the office of ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... 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
... language, when they reached the gate, called up the guards, and ordered the gate to be opened, for the consul had arrived. The guards, as if awakened at their call, began to be in a hurry and bustle, and exert themselves in opening the gate, which was closed by letting down the portcullis; some raised this with levers, others drew it up with ropes to such a height that the men could come in without stooping. The opening was scarcely wide enough, when the deserters eagerly rushed through the gate, and after about ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... the castle and the huge moat which surrounds it. Great linden, oak and beech trees shadow the walk, and in secluded nooks little mountain-streams spring from the side of the wall into stone basins. There is a tower over the moat on the south side, next the mountain, where the portcullis still hangs with its sharp teeth as it was last drawn up; on each side stand two grim knights guarding the entrance. In one of the wooded walks is an old tree brought from America in the year 1618. It is of the kind called "arbor vitae," and uncommonly ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... 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, ...
— 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
... castle indeed!—something to call a castle!—with its huge square tower at every corner, and its still huger two towers in the middle of its front, its moat, and the causeway where once had been its drawbridge!—Yes! there were the spikes of the portcullis, sticking down from the top of the gateway, like the long upper teeth of a giant or ogre! That was a real castle—such as he had read of in books, such as he ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... that I speak of castles, not of rooks. I do not know whence came this custom of calling the most romantic piece on the board by the name of a very ordinary bird, but I, at least, will not be a party to it. I refuse to surrender the portcullis and the moat, the bastion and the well-manned towers, which were the features of every castle with which hitherto I have played, in order to take the field with allies so unromantic as a brace of rooks. You may tell me that "rook" ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... 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 and beet-root,—from those ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... did not seem likely that we should be besieged by any force having guns, and I let the matter remain until the tenants should be better off and we could spend our money on such work. However, it is too late now to think of that. I suppose there is a portcullis ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... 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 days of Noah, and undesecrated by mortal eye for 3000 years, lay full in their grasp before them." On ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... the spring the enemy attacked Compiegne. Joan threw herself into the town to save it. She had not been there many hours when, in a sortie, the French were repulsed. Joan and some of her followers remained outside fighting, while the drawbridge was raised and the portcullis dropped by the frightened commandant. The Burgundians crowded around her. Twenty of them surrounded her horse. One, a Picard archer, "a tough fellow and mighty sour," seized her and flung her to the ground. She was a prisoner ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... age. They were formed, Sir, on the principle of purveyance and receipt in kind. In former days, when the household was vast, and the supply scanty and precarious, the royal purveyors, sallying forth from under the Gothic portcullis to purchase provision 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 in an hundred caverns, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... hand voluptuous, as beseems Thy daughter and thy darling, without end." Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, Sad instrument of all our woe, she took; And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train, Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew, Which, but herself, not all the Stygian Powers Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns Th' intricate wards, and every bolt and bar Of massy iron or solid rock with ease Unfastens. On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, Th' ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... in the most thickly wooded and wildest part of the country, may be found, crouching within a ravine, a little ruined chateau. The dilapidated turrets would not catch your eye until you were about a hundred yards from the principal portcullis. The venerable trees around and the scattered rocks above, bury it in everlasting obscurity; and you would experience the greatest difficulty, even in broad daylight, in crossing the deserted path leading to it, without stumbling against the gnarled trunks and rubbish that ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... 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
... as joyful as any lover would have been in his place, when the portcullis was lowered, and the old lord galloped away across the country. He had been in such suspense that he made a vow to build a pillar at his own expense in the cathedral at Tours, because he had escaped the danger of his mad scheme. He gave, indeed, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac |
