"Postern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ratcliffe, "he calls me—Miss Vere, return home, and leave unbolted the postern-door of the garden; to that which opens on the back-stairs I ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged have the better." "Saint George strike for us!" said the knight; "do the false yeomen give way?" "No," exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly; the Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax; the thundering blows which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of the battle; stones and beams are hailed down on the brave champion; he regards them no more than if they were ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the slow scavengers with unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the rubbish, assisted by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market days. While there was yet an hour or two to wane before the autumn sunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge, and postern and double-ditch, would see the last white-hooded cart lessening in the avenue of lengthening shadows of trees, or the last country boat, paddled by the last market-woman on her way home, showing black upon the reddening, long, low, narrow dike between him and the mill; ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... Of lovers and winds and streams, And the face of a thousand sorrows At the postern ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... happened to stand centinel in the second watch, the moon shining very bright, he observed two armed Indians in their plumes of feathers, passing over the ditch on a tree that lay across instead of a bridge. These men came to a postern which they entered without asking leave, on which Silvestre gave one of them a cut on the forehead, on which he immediately fled. The other Indian, without waiting for his wounded companion, got into ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Tower Warders found that our holiday time was over. Whilst the war still raged in Scotland, scarcely a day passed without some person of consequence being brought either by water to Traitor's Gate, or by a strong escort of Horse and Foot to the Tower Postern; not for active participation in the Rebellion, but as a measure of safety, and to prevent worse harm being done. And many persons of consequence, trust me, saved their heads by being laid by the heels for a little time while the hue and cry was afoot, and Habeas Corpus suspended. Fast bind, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... fancied he should never be weary in showing Eustace the particular places which were signalized by conspicuous actions; the hall where Walter the Inflexible sat in judgment; the tower from whence Rodolph the Bold overlooked the tournament; the postern where Allan the Magnificent welcomed his princely guests with the courtly subservience of an humble host; or the chamber in which Orlando the Good paid the debt of nature, while the monks told their beads in the anti-room, and the inner court of the castle was ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... from the walls, and her attention had been attracted by the bracelets and rings which they wore; and she finally made an agreement with the Sabines that she would open the postern gate in the night, and let them in, if they would give her what they wore upon their arms, meaning the ornaments which had attracted her attention. The Sabines bound themselves to do this and then went away. Titus Tatius, accordingly, when ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... that evening they found that the wall was continued at an angle at either end for a distance of some twenty feet back so as to give a postern gate behind each of the corner towers through which a sortie might be made. Geoffrey and Walter talked the matter over, and together contrived a plan of operation ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... for this business. Well, then, wait in the moat at ten. I do not think you will have to wait long. Then, or thenabouts, a cavalier coming by the mountain road will tie his horse to a tree beyond the bridge that spans the ravine. He will cross the bridge and walk to yonder window hard by the postern." ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... shrub-plots, meandering walks. Too genteel and ambitious for the most aesthetic of workhouses or advanced of hospitals, we wonder what the building is; and our wonder is not decreased by seeing a postern opened in a huge black wall, from which a handful of conspirators creep silently. We rub our eyes. Are we dreaming? Is this, or is it not, the age of scientific marvels, levelling of castes, rampant ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... meadow, like the head of a sheep after washing-day. Observing with some curiosity how carefully this white thing moved along the bars of darkness betwixt the panels of firelight, I ran up to intercept it, before it reached the little postern which we used to call Gwenny's door. Perceiving me, the white thing stopped, and was for making back again; but I ran up at full speed; and lo, it was the flowing silvery hair of that sage the Counsellor, who was scuttling away ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... a postern in the outermost wall of the castle on the western side, seldom used, commanded by the guns of the tower, and opening upon a large field of grass, with nothing between but a ditch. It was just wide enough to let one horse through at a time, and by this the governor resolved to turn them out, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Plea for the Sanctuary of God, Common Service, and White Robe of the House. Printed for the Author, and sold by R. Reynolds, at the Sun and Bible in the Postern." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... entire solitude; as the greater part of them, having feasted in the towers, were either asleep from the effects of wine, or else, half asleep, were still drinking. A few of them, however, they surprised in their beds, and put to the sword. They began then to break open a postern gate near the Hexapylos, which required great force; and a signal was given from the wall by sounding a trumpet, as had been agreed upon. After this, the attack was carried on in every quarter, not secretly, but ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... street they found the crowd extended beyond the arsenal; and then in order not to disturb the people, they went under the postern and sat down on the damp steps, with their little bundles on the ground beside them, and waited for the procession to pass. They had come from a great distance, and hardly knew what was ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... against which the wretched merchant was crouched without the city-wall; wherefore she, being therein, heard the weeping and trembling kept up by Rinaldo, who seemed as he were grown a stork,[85] and calling her maid, said to her, 'Go up and look over the wall who is at the postern-foot and what he doth there.' The maid went thither and aided by the clearness of the air, saw Rinaldo in his shirt and barefoot, sitting there, as hath been said, and trembling sore; whereupon she asked him who he was. He told her, as briefliest ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... get through with this job." He turned thoughtfully toward the big windows on the south of the room, and mused aloud: "That's the way through the two long rooms to the postern ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... babe of fourteen days. She returns carrying another unconscious infant form, she places it in the hands of the ruffian Sauerbeck, she disappears. The miscreant speeds with the child through a postern into the park, you hear the trample of four horses, and the roll of the carriage on the road. Next day there is silence in the palace, broken but by the shrieks of a bereaved though Royal (or at least ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... anon; but the little postern door is seldom locked since thou art gone, and I can get out thus. Linger not beside the house, Cuthbert; speed to the chantry—I will meet thee there. He might hear or see thee here. Do not linger; go. I will be with ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... by a postern door-way, which showed symptoms of having been once secured with the most jealous care, Brown (whom, since he has set font upon the property of his fathers, we shall hereafter call by his father's name of Bertram) wandered from one ruined apartment to another, surprised at ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Boers. That gave him the prestige which was requisite for anyone who would go to Thaba Bosigo. Having a Boer for guide, and a few natives for retinue, the Governor presented himself at the outer postern of the ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... enter, commanded by Lysistratus an Olynthian. These passed through the sea wall, and without being seen went up and put to the sword the garrison of the highest post in the town, which stands on a hill, and broke open the postern on the side ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... discharged, and the three gentlemen were not long in discovering the small door, which was a sort of postern in a lane between two garden walls. It still wanted ten or fifteen minutes of the appointed time; the rain fell heavily, and the adventurers sheltered themselves below some pendent ivy, and spoke in low tones of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the second floor of it. He had a camp-bed set up on the first floor, and established a wire communication with the police office. At the slightest alarm he could ring a bell in Ransome's ear. He also clandestinely unscrewed a little postern door that his predecessors had closed, and made a key to the lock, so that if he should ever be compelled to go out at night he might baffle his foes, who would naturally watch the great gate ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... he rejoined, with a touch of pique that convinced me of his sincerity. "Of course I want you to stop, though I shan't be here many days; but I feel responsible for you, Cole, and that's the fact. Think you can find your way?" he continued, accompanying me to the gate, a postern in the high garden wall. "Hadn't ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... tiles, with roses and clematis bursting out in crimson and purple all over the front. It stood at right angles to the wall and to the lane, and there was a long grass-garden in front of it, with walls all round and herbaceous borders under the walls; and from the high postern door in the outer wall opening to the lane a wide flagged path went all the way in front of the house to the door in the inner wall that led into the kitchen garden and the orchard. Further down the lane were the doors of the courtyard at the back of the house where the outhouses and the stables ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... noble duke in Cornwall, named the Duke of Tintagil, that held long war against him. And the duke's wife was called a right fair lady, and a passing wise, and Igraine was her name. And the duke, issuing out of the castle at a postern to distress the king's host, was slain. Then all the barons, by one assent, prayed the king of accord between the Lady Igraine and himself. And the king gave them leave, for fain would he have accorded with her; and they were married in a morning ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... such temptations; they know that they cannot fall to the depth of evil at once, and they have no sympathy, no fear; their spirits are not "put in the act of falling." But show them the steep path, the little declivity at first, the step by step downwards, and they tremble. Show them the postern gates or little breaches in their citadel of virtue, and they fly to guard these; in short, show to them their own little faults which may lead on to the greatest, and they shudder; that is, if this be done with truth and brought home to their consciousness. This is all, which ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Their catapults rained missiles on the town, and their men-at-arms waited impatiently for a breach to be battered in the Porte Beauvoisine. But it remained steadfastly shut, and the Duke made another brilliant sally from a postern gate with the blood-red standard waving again above his Norman knights, and swept back once more the assailing lines of Germany until the French had to bring up their reinforcements from the rear and ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Algate, and the several porters of Bisshopesgate, Crepulgate, Aldrichesgate, Neugate, Ludgate, Bridge Gate, and the [1]Postern,—were sworn before the Mayor and Recorder, on the Monday next after the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle [24 August], in the 49th year etc., that they will well and trustily keep the Gates and Postern aforesaid, each ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... to wake up with that word, and said: I have the key of the priest's door of the chapel, and the postern beyond it; that shall be thine out-gate, lady. I will come and scratch at thy chamber-door much betimes, and I will see to it that thy palfrey is bestowed in the bower wherein thou didst rest the first night thou camest amongst us. She said: I trust thee, friend. ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... reigns over the seas surrounding the coasts of these kingdoms; and from the gateways of the channels, from promontories as if from watch-towers, from estuaries of rivers as if from postern gates, from passage-ways, inlets, straits, firths, the garrison of the Isle and the crews of the ships going and returning look to the westward to judge by the varied splendours of his sunset mantle the mood of ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... away, to court, to show The near approach of dreaded foe: The King must stand upon his guard; Douglas and he must meet prepared.' Then right-hand wheeled their steeds, and straight They won the Castle's postern gate. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... drawbridge over the moat, for their exit. Without expressing any astonishment at the strange scene thus presented to him, Conrad D'Amboise glided from his post, and favored by the shadows of the frowning battlements, gained a postern in an angle of the wall, and stealthily left ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... downstairs (but still without hurting her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants will tell you there that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where she lay, to another where the bed's head of the chamber stood close to a privy postern door, where they in the night came and stifled her in her bed, bruised her head very much broke her neck, and at length flung her down stairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a mischance, and so have blinded their villainy. But behold the mercy and justice of God in revenging ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... palace with his dolorous cries Echo again. Oh, well do I remember! Electra swiftly bore me through this hall Thither where Strophius in his pitying arms Received me—Strophius, less by far thy father Than mine, thereafter—and fled onward with me By yonder postern-gate, all tremulous; And after me there ran upon the air Long a wild clamor and a lamentation That made me weep and shudder and lament, I knew not why, and weeping Strophius ran, Preventing with his ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... else. With a musket in his hand, and in the face of the enemy, he reconnoitered the place, and observed every accessible approach to the house, and with a few colliers, under cover of a cart-load of hay, which they pushed on before them, came up to the postern-door of the kitchen. Here with his own hand he fired several pistol-shots, to make it ignite, but from the state of the weather, which was damp and heavy, and from the constant down-pour of rain on the previous day, this ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... original act. Our English rite of "Confirmation," by which, in years of awakened reason, we take upon us the engagements contracted for us in our slumbering infancy,—how sublime a rite is that! The little postern gate, through which the baby in its cradle had been silently placed for a time within the glory of God's countenance, suddenly rises to the clouds as a triumphal arch, through which, with banners displayed and martial pomps, we make our second ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Once through the postern there now remained only a single palisade or stockade—a great fence constructed of iron bars and iron trellis-work, which constituted the outermost barrier between the fleeing prisoner and liberty. Once over that iron palisade he had only to dash into ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... added further: "Where the shining glass, Lets in the light amid your temple's side, By broken by-ways did I inward pass, And in that window made a postern wide, Nor shall therefore this ill-advised lass Usurp the glory should this fact betide, Mine be these bonds, mine be these flames so pure, O glorious death, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... being perhaps the best. Despite these uninviting figures, the Lover (as he is soon called) desires violently to enter the park; but for a long time he can find no way in, till at length Dame Oyseuse (Idleness) admits him at a postern. She is a very attractive damsel herself; and she tells the Lover that Delight and all his Court haunt the park, and that he has had the ugly images made, apparently as skeletons at the feast, to heighten, not to dash, enjoyment. Entering, ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew, "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through. Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... much impressed," thought Beatrice to herself, as she tugged away at the postern bell; "I think he must be ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... castle of Tintagil is but ten miles hence; so this was done as they devised. But the duke of Tintagil espied how the king rode from the siege of Terrabil, and therefore that night he issued out of the castle at a postern for to have distressed the king's host. And so, through his own issue, the duke himself was slain or ever the king came at the ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... save as footmen," Harry said that night to his host. "There is a postern gate, is there not, behind the castle? Methinks that if we could get out in the dark unobserved, and form close to the walls, so that their pickets lying around might not suspect us of purposing to issue forth, we might, when daylight ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... he has recorded in an interesting letter published in A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land, by W. R. Hughes, for the background of his drawing of "Durdles Cautioning Sapsea". There are, however, two other gatehouses, the "Prior's", a tower over an archway, containing a single room approached by a "postern stair", and "Deanery Gate", a quaint old house adjoining the Cathedral which has ten rooms, some of them beautifully panelled. Its drawing-room on the upper floor bears a strong resemblance to the room—as depicted by Sir Luke ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... windows, its gloomy porch decorated with fetters, and defended by an enormous iron door, had a stern and striking effect. Over the Lodge, upon a dial was inscribed the appropriate motto, "Venio sicut fur." The Gate, which crossed Newgate Street, had a wide arch for carriages, and a postern, on the north side, for foot-passengers. Its architecture was richly ornamental, and resembled the style of a triumphal entrance to a capital, rather than a dungeon having battlements and hexagonal towers, and being adorned on the ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Beyond the postern were Giles and Black Roger with the horses, and Giles sang blithe beneath his breath, but Roger sighed oft ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... The Champion's bat Seemed twice the breadth of postern door. The leather flew at pace immense To crackle on the boundary fence, Acknowledged by the public roar. Dobbin went on with Tweaks, Robin obliged with Sneaks, And Diccory Dizzard, as fast as a ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... blotting out of their prospects. To such mourning children there is little comfort, but in contemplating the easier life which lies behind, and (it may be hoped) the happier one which stretches before their parents, on the other side the postern of life. If there is sunshine on the two grand reaches of their path, the shadow which lies in the midst is necessarily but a temporary gloom. To grieving parents it should be a consoling truth, that as the life is more than food, so is the soul more ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... that your two hands might have clipped her; and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tiptoe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet and ankles, so white was the maiden. She came to the postern-gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right clear, and so wandered she till she came to the tower where her lover lay. The tower was flanked ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... went to look at the drawbridge, with a faint hope that she might chance upon some unexpected means of escape, but all was secure there, and a little postern, opening on the moat, which she discovered near by, was also carefully fastened, with bolts and bars strong enough to keep out an army. As these seemed to be the only means of exit from the chateau, she felt that she was a prisoner indeed, and understood ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... A postern gate on the side facing the river had been pointed out by a captive, and Clark stationed his men so as to guard it. Then he went inside along to the entrance of the large hall where public ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... and Joris, and he' I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; Good speed!' cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; 'Speed!' echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... from the wall and crossed the drawbridge to the outwork. As soon as the horsemen came within bow-shot of the castle they lighted some torches, and three knights, preceded by a trooper carrying a white flag, and two others with torches, came towards the work. When within fifty yards of the postern they halted. ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... as he had said. Three days later, a prince was born, and, with pomp and ceremony, was christened by the name of Arthur; but immediately thereafter, the King commanded that the child should be carried to the postern-gate, there to be given to the old man who would ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... one of his dogs, whom he found dumb, and to whom he had given the post of watching the gardens; so taking him in his hands, he strangled him with rage. This fact incited him by induction to suppose that the other constable came into his house by the garden, of which the only entrance was a postern opening on ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... arose upon my view at eight o'clock. The little servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company, and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective view of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... that were lost are being found again, gathered in humility from this stone floor; where poor-making riches are banished from the postern, and rich-making poverty streameth in as light from the grated window; where care vexeth not now the labourer emptied of his gold, and calumny's black tooth no longer gnaws the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... magnificent castle, its walls white and glistening; while the sunlight glinting against the deep windows, flashed and scintillated like a bed of diamonds. As they came nearer, the lady left the broad road, and wound along a narrow path, and came to a little postern gate, and up a broad marble terrace, with sparkling fountains, and with flowers brighter than he had seen before, and birds of gay plumage flashing their beauty through the tree-tops. At the top of the ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... the war was begun, in one of the briskest skirmishes, so it was, that a company of the Lord Will-be-will's men sallied out at the sally-port, or postern of the town, and fell in upon the rear of Captain Boanerges' men, where these three fellows happened to be, so they took them prisoners, and away they carried them into the town; where they had not lain long in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in 1768, and the present gate erected by Earl Grosvenor. The custody of the Water-gate belonged to the Earls of Derby. It also was destroyed, and the present arch erected in 1788. A new North Gate was built in 1809 by Robert, Earl Grosvenor. The principal postern-gates were Cale Yard Gate, made by the abbot and convent in the reign of Edward I as a passage to their kitchen garden; New-gate, formerly Woolfield or Wolf-gate, repaired in 1608, also called Pepper-gate;[7] and Ship-gate, or Hole-in-the-wall, ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... a gift into her hand, As one that had a boon to crave; She stole across the ruined land Where lay the dead without a grave, And to Achilles' hand she gave Her gift, the secret postern's key. "To-morrow let me be thy slave!" Moaned ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... "by this outrage? Know ye not that this is the Monastery of St. John, and that it is sacrilege to lay a hand of violence even against its postern? Begone," he said, "or we'll lodge a ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... vaulting the little gate leading into the shrubberies, and dashing down a back way almost dark with the thick laurel-bushes overhead, he soon reached what was known as the postern door. Entering a low passage, narrow and dimly lighted from some invisible opening, he pursued his way along various twists and turns of the old house, with now and again a few stairs up, till he finally came upon a crimson-baize ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... them who were suffering from blows and from trampling hoofs, and other injuries they had received; but as they ran they recovered their well-trained formation, and with their leader dashed two and two through the narrow postern gate and along the darkened road for full a couple of hundred yards, before the stern command rang ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... off the blow aimed at him by the marquis, and passed on. All this I saw ere I gave up hopes of getting out by the gate; but seeing this was hopeless, I pursued my way back again, with intent to get out by one of the postern windows, and hurry homeward across the fields; and having opened a window near unto the buttery, I hung by my hands, and then shutting my eyes and commending my soul to Heaven, I let go, and dropt safely down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... been captain under the name of Pierre de Luna. For five months he defended himself, pointing his engines of war with his own hands from the heights of the chateau walls, engines otherwise far more murderous than his pontifical bolts. At last forced to flee, he left the city by a postern, after having ruined a hundred houses and killed four thousand Avignonese, and fled to Spain, where the King of Aragon offered ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... incumbent upon him to call on Mr. Jasper before leaving Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to the gatehouse, and climbed its postern stair. But Mr. Jasper's door being closed, and presenting on a slip of paper the word 'Cathedral,' the fact of its being service-time was borne into the mind of Mr. Grewgious. So he descended the stair again, and, crossing the Close, paused at the great western ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Alberich next glided to this maiden's side, and bade her hasten to the postern gate early on the morrow, if she would see the king. As Ortnit had been told that he would find her there, he went thither in the early dawn, and pleaded his cause so eloquently that Sidrat eloped with him to Lombardy. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... the cry, Roland jumped out of bed, and, without staying for clothes or horse, ran off in his shirt, escaping by a postern gate which opened on the forest just as de Menon entered by another. He found Roland's bed still warm, and took possession of his clothes, finding in a coat pocket a purse containing thirty-five Louis, and in the stables three superb horses. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... interview with the priest was in Farnsworth's mind when, boiling with rage, he left Hamilton's presence and went forth into the chill February air. He passed out through the postern and along the sodden and queachy aedge of the prairie, involuntarily making his way to Father Beret's cabin. His indignation was so great that he trembled from head to foot at every step. The door of the place was open and Father Beret was eating a frugal meal of ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... Major and Florence reached the postern-gate which opened into the cherry orchard, and then Florence stood still and raised her voice and called, "Kitty! Kitty Sharston!" and there came an answering call, clear and high as a bird's, and the next ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... to steer clear of the burning rubbish which encumbered our path. Several outlets were tried, but unsuccessfully, as the hot breezes from the fire struck against our faces, and drove us back in terrible confusion. At last a postern opening on the Moskwa was discovered, and it was through this the Emperor with his officers and guard succeeded in escaping from the Kremlin, but only to re-enter narrow streets, where the fire, inclosed as in a ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... from kissing and clipping, coupling and carousing till day began to wane; when the Mamelukes rose from the damsels' bosoms and the blackamoor slave dismounted from the Queen's breast; the men resumed their disguises and all, except the negro who swarmed up the tree, entered the palace and closed the postern door as before. Now, when Shah Zaman saw this conduct of his sister in law he said in himself, "By Allah, my calamity is lighter than this! My brother is a greater King among the kings than I am, yet this infamy goeth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... conducted Waverley out by a passage different from that through which he had entered the apartment. At a distance he heard the hall of the chief still resounding with the clang of bagpipes and the high applause of his guests. Having gained the open air by a postern door, they walked a little way up the wild, bleak, and narrow valley in which the house was situated, following the course of the stream that winded through it. In a spot, about a quarter of a mile from the castle, two brooks, which formed ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... that would not excite inquiry if I had to lie hid in the forest a few days. I did not think flight would be so difficult a matter, but I knew that every moment spent in Mortimer's Keep was at peril of my life; and I had but just made my escape through a small postern door before I heard the alarm bell ring, the drawbridge go up, and knew that the edict had gone forth for my ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... forwarding the execution, if not at that very time, binding her husband to the gallows, filling all the air with a confused buzz—and the coming of the men to seize and secure her—she sprang forward out of a postern, and, with the rapid step of flying despair, endeavoured to get beyond the dreadful sounds which haunted her ear. In her flight—the consequence of the spur of frenzy, as much as of a wish to lessen pain which was insufferable—she came to the Henderland Linn, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... that your two hands might have clipped her, and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tip- toe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet, so white was the maiden. She came to the postern gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Biaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right clear, and so wandered she till she came to the tower where her lover lay. The ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... vengeance; and when they came, he changed his habit and disguised himself, whilst Ja'afar and Ishak and Masrur and al-Fazl[FN136] and Yunus[FN137] (who were also present) did the like. Then he went out, he and they, by the postern, to the Tigris and taking boat fared on till they came to near Al Taf,[FN138] when they landed and walked till they came to the gate of the high street. Here there met them an old man, handsome in his hoariness and of a venerable ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... his bosom, and in a few seconds he had passed the postern, closing and locking it behind him. Five minutes' hard running and he was free of the stockade and at the summit of a hill that commanded the scene which he had just left. The conflagration was progressing with astonishing rapidity; already the Great House itself was in ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... was now exercising those of engineer, and displaying great skill, as well as wonderful personal strength, in directing and assisting the establishment of a large mangonel, (a military engine used for casting stones,) upon a station commanding an exposed postern gate, which led from the western side of the castle down to the plain; and where a severe assault was naturally to be expected. The greater part of his armour lay beside him, but covered with his cassock to screen it from morning dew; while in his leathern doublet, with arms bare to the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... postern door, yet unobserv'd and free, Join'd by the length of a blind gallery, To the king's closet led: a way well known To Hector's wife, while Priam held the throne, Thro' which she brought Astyanax, unseen, To cheer his grandsire and his grandsire's queen. Thro' this ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... Quintaine," he told the man. It was not a long ride. In less than a quarter of an hour, Peter Ruff presented himself before a handsome white house in a quiet, aristocratic-looking street. At his summons, the postern door flew open, and a man-servant in plain livery ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Launcelot more than a month throughout the sea, where he slept but little, but prayed to God that he might see some tidings of the Sangreal. So it befell on a night, at midnight, he arrived afore a castle, on the back side, which was rich and fair, and there was a postern opened toward the sea, and was open without any keeping, save two lions kept the entry; and the moon shone clear. Anon Sir Launcelot heard a voice that said: Launcelot, go out of this ship and enter into the castle, where thou shalt see a great part of thy ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... to penetrate into the castle by the postern gate in disguise, steal from the Margrave by artifice the key of the great door, and then by a blast of his horn summon his followers to the assault. Alas! there was need for haste, for at this very Yuletide, on this ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... with weeds, and in the fall of the year is gay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated. Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the house has the lock-jaw. There are two doors, and to each a single chipped and battered marble ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... himself, he determined to help Segwin against his sovereign the Emperor Regnier. He therefore gathered fifty knights together with Heraud, and coming secretly at night to the city of Seysone, was let in at a postern gate without the enemy being aware. In the morning after mass they made a sally against their foes, which numbered thirty thousand strong, and routed them, taking many noble prisoners. Three times the Emperor came against the Greeks, each time with a new army larger than before. Twice did Sir ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... stopped before the closed gateway of the Palazzo Chiaromonte and pushed the little postern that stood ajar. The big porter was within, standing dejectedly before the door of his lodge, and already dressed in the deep mourning which is kept in readiness in all the great Roman houses. The ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... who gather'd round her and the home that she loved so well, And the deathless fame of a woman's name whom nothing but love could quell. Who, when the men would have yielded, with her own sweet lily hand, Led them straight from the postern gate, and drove the foe from the land. There's many a little homestead that is cosy and sung to-day, Because of a woman who stood in the door and ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... red-bronze with the sea tan, his crisp, curly head bared, his eyes alight with a terrifying welcome; and a tremor of a fear akin to ecstasy ran through her: the fear of the women of days gone by whose courage carried them to the postern or the strand, and fainted there. She could have taken no step farther—and there was no need. New strength flowed from the hand she held that was to carry ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the people of this world, For no thought is contented. The better sort, As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word: As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again, 'It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a needle's eye.' Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails May tear a passage through the flinty ribs Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls; And, for they cannot, die in their own pride. Thoughts tending to ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... a castle, protected, probably, by battlements and mantlets and turreted walls, and with its keep and its drawbridge, its postern and its fosse—simple works of defence that were armed for retaliation, with catapult and mangonel, the canon raye of the period, besides arquebuse and other hand weapons wielded, no doubt, by mighty men at arms, mail-clad and helmeted, who ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of God.' I have heard this and similar texts ingeniously explained away and brushed from the path of the aspiring Christian by the tender Great-heart of the parish. One excellent clergyman told us that the 'eye of a needle' meant a low, Oriental postern through which camels could not pass till they were unloaded—which is very likely just; and then went on, bravely confounding the 'kingdom of God' with heaven, the future paradise, to show that of course no rich person could expect to carry his riches beyond the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ladders were too short; the rescuers broke into a postern door. Scrope told this to his Government on the day after the ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... without doubt, the most extraordinary weather,' I said. My teeth chattered like Barbou's. It was all I could do to keep myself steady. No one made any reply; but Lecamus said, 'Have the goodness to open the little postern for foot-passengers: M. le Maire wishes to make an ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... learned that there was but one entrance to the castle from the town. It was known as the Postern, though it had a portcullis and a drawbridge spanning the moat. To the Postern the duke took his way, as we could see at intervals by looking down cross streets. Yolanda did not follow him. She held her ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... or a dog gets ripped up!—all sorts of mischief come. So, being quite aware of this, I always try and set off at early daybreak, before that author of mischief, who sleeps like a dormouse, has opened his eyes; or else I slip out by a back way by the postern gate. Don't you see?" ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... been prevented from leaving the palace. Afterwards I knew that Offa had had all going out of the place stopped, hoping to take some man who knew more of the secret of Ethelbert's end, if not Gymbert himself. Hilda had been thrust out by a private postern hastily, and doubtless Gymbert had been told where to seek her long before. I believe it was no affair of the spur of the moment, but wrought in revenge on ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... postern open'd on a court— Say rather, grave-yard; gloomy yews begirt Its cheerless walls; ranges of headstones show'd, Each on its hoary tablature, half hid With moss, with hemlock, and with nettles rank, The sculptured leer of that hyena ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... "Hurrah! we have got Fort Harrison!" exclaimed his enthusiastic subordinates. Grant would much rather have heard, "We have got the White Oak road!" Fort Harrison was a strong out-post simply; the White Oak road was the postern door ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... majesty, prepared to make the same proposition, with the fleetest horse in my father's stables, and two trusty servants, well mounted, all of which await his highness at the postern gate." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... admit their countrymen. Here fell two valiant alcaydes, Nicholas de Roja and Sancho de Avila, but they fell honorably, upon a heap of slain. At length Ortega de Prado succeeded in throwing open a postern through which the marques of Cadiz, the adelantado of Andalusia, and Don Diego de Merlo entered with a host of followers, and the citadel remained in ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... night, scarcely did more for his friend than was here done for us in the bright sunshine and open air. The keys that were to be made use of in this journey, to gain us a passage through many a tower, stair, and postern, were in the hands of the authorities, whose subordinates we never failed to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Devon. For a whole month Salt Cellar was a secret camp. But somehow, at length—woe to "lost causes and impossible loyalties"—Herrenhausen had wind of it; and one night, when the soldiers of the white cockade lay snoring beneath the stars, stealthily the white-faced Warden unbarred his postern—that very postern through which now Zuleika had passed on the way to her bedroom—and stealthily through it, one by one on tip-toe, came the King's foot-guards. Not many shots rang out, nor many swords ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... to guard-room, casting flickering shadows in the long passages, and gleaming on the gay liveries of the guard as it stood to arms in the gallery where Olympia and Armand had held hurried conversation. Below, the narrow postern opened hastily, and through the swaying and excited crowd pressed the Captain Destouches and his escort of Swiss guards, hurrying with his report to his master, the timorous Duke of Orleans, uncle of the king, and bitter enemy of Mazarin ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks |
