"Drawbridge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... residence was then 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 knew how to give and take with ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... peaked gable, situated at the end of a street which stretched out into the country. It stood almost on the edge of a canal, leaning a little forward, as if it wished to see its reflection in the water. A pretty linden tree grew in front which spread over the window like a great fan, and a drawbridge lay before the door. Then there were the white curtains, the green doors, the flowers, the looking-glasses—in fact, it was a perfect little model of ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... wind and weather. They were of great variety, large, small, wide, narrow; all ready to move into. They were the conies' castles, ready refuges from enemies, their devious passages as effective as drawbridge or portcullis. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... of course, but castle-building is rather poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last, to wet everybody up to ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... again, but with extraordinary kindness from my Lady, who looks upon me like one of her own family and interest. So thence, my wife and people by the highway, and I walked over the park with Mr. Shepley, and through the grove, which is mighty pretty, as is imaginable, and so over their drawbridge to Nun's Bridge, and so to my father's, and there sat and drank, and talked a little, and then parted. And he being gone, and what company there was, my father and I, with a dark lantern; it being now ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the sad procession went over the drawbridge, Gaston was placed in a closed and locked chair and taken to the arsenal, which was separated from the Bastille ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... we flew beneath the dark outer port of the castle, clattered through a court paved with slippery blocks of stone, thundered over a noble drawbridge, plunged into a long and gloomy archway, and finally came out in a bright inner palace court with lamps ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... precisely, the ruins of one. It had once been a place of considerable dimensions and of great strength; but it was now far gone towards demolition. The outer walls still stood, completely encircled by a moat, the only entrance being by way of the drawbridge which, to judge by its moss-grown edges, had not been raised for many a day. Marching over it, and through an archway, we found ourselves in the courtyard, a large area roughly square in shape, and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... on shore, that for half a mile together they go across the stream with their bowsprits over the land, their bows, or heads touching the very wharf; so that one may walk from ship to ship as on a floating bridge, all along by the shore-side. The quay reaching from the drawbridge almost to the south gate, is so spacious and wide, that in some places it is near one hundred yards from the houses to the wharf. In this pleasant and agreeable range of houses are some very magnificent buildings, and among ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... behind some bushes we espied my gracious lord the Duke Philippus Julius, with his princely Highness the Duke Bogislaff, who lay here on a visit, standing on a mount and conversing, wherefore we were about to return. But as my gracious lords presently walked on towards the drawbridge, we went to look at the mount where they had stood; of a sudden my little girl shouted loudly for joy, seeing that she found on the earth a costly signet-ring, which one of their princely Highnesses doubtless had dropped. I therefore said, "Come, and we will follow our gracious lords with ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... rectangular donjons of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, one being nearly a hundred and fifty feet high. The castle was raised upon a table of calcareous rock; but only the towers, a portion of the outer wall built of enormous blocks of stone, and a ruined archway marking the spot where the drawbridge once hung, remain to tell the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the Circassians were at last put to flight, and, being intercepted between the enemy's lines and the town, sought for refuge under the walls. Angelica ordered the drawbridge to be let down, and the gates thrown open to the fugitives. With these Agrican, not distinguished in the crowd, entered the place, driving both Circassians and Cathayans before him, and the portcullis being dropped, he was ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... a large and splendid mansion, not far from the Porte St. Antoine, and commanding a direct view of the Place de la Bastille, with its esplanade, drawbridge, and principal entrance, a group was collected at one of the windows, nearly overlooking the gate itself, which seemed to take the liveliest interest in the proceedings of the day, although that interest was entirely unmixed with any thing like the brutal expectation, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... by one; (Hurry!) They have fainted, and faltered, and homeward gone; His little fair page now follows alone, For strength and for courage trying! The king looked back at that faithful child; Wan was the face that answering smiled; They passed the drawbridge with clattering din, Then he dropped; and only the king rode in Where his rose of the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... extraordinarily beautiful work in metal. Between them — for one set is placed at the entrance to an interior, and one at that of the exterior wall — is a fosse, forty-five feet in width. This fosse is filled with water and spanned by a drawbridge, which when lifted makes the palace nearly impregnable to anything except siege guns. As we came, one half of the wide gates were flung open, and we passed over the drawbridge and presently stood gazing up one of the most imposing, if not the most imposing, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... Earl's cheek the flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age. Fierce he broke forth,—"And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by 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 ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Germans at the Somme. Not being in sufficient force, they retreated, crossing the river and the canal. The enemy immediately pursued. Marcelle Semer, who was following the French troops, had the presence of mind, after the last soldier had crossed the Somme Canal, to open the drawbridge in order to prevent the Germans from crossing it, and to hurl the key to the bridge into the canal in order that they might not take it from her when they came up. An entire enemy army corps was thus detained for twenty-four hours ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... hurried them to a little island which the boy himself had constructed with great labor, and accessible only by a single plank. Facing the enemy with a few of his strongest men, he kept them at bay until all his troops had passed into the fortress, he himself being the last to enter. Then the drawbridge was raised and the victory won. The island, preserved by the good pastor, long since gone to his rest, still exists, and is pointed out with great pride by the villagers to curious visitors as the scene of one of the early exploits of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... desired of Linet that he might see her sister, his lady. Sir, she said, I would fain ye saw her. Then Sir Beaumains all armed him, and took his horse and his spear, and rode straight unto the castle. And when he came to the gate he found there many men armed, and pulled up the drawbridge and drew ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... had gone on quietly at Hedingham. The village stands near the headwaters of the Colne and Stour, in a rich and beautiful country. On a rising ground behind it stood the castle of the Veres, which was approached from the village by a drawbridge across the moat. There were few more stately piles in England than the seat of the Earl of Oxford. On one side of the great quadrangle was the gatehouse and a lofty tower, on another the great hall and chapel and the kitchens, on a third the suites of apartments of the ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... castle, which cheered him so much, was quite shut out from his eyes, and at length, when they were coming very near it, with nothing but one valley between them and the building, he perceived that the road went over a narrow drawbridge, and saw two terrible monsters lying close beside the way. Their bodies were like those of lions, very large and very strong, but they had necks like that of a snake, and from each neck issued a hundred horrible heads, all differing in ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... woman. My maternal grandmother occupied at the time of that rebellion the castle of Dungulph, in the county Wexford, the family residence. It was an old stronghold regularly fortified and surrounded by a moat, with a drawbridge; and when she left it to take refuge in the fort of Duncannon, with the other gentry of the county, it was immediately taken possession of by a force of rebels from the county Kilkenny, as a most valuable place of defence, &c. They remained ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... the marshal said. "You see that the walls are 200 feet long, they are 12 feet in height, with a tower at the end and one over the gateway in the centre six feet high. There is a drawbridge defended by an outwork of palisades six feet high. The moat will be a dry one, seeing that we have no means of filling it with water, but it will be supposed to be full, and must be crossed on planks or bridges. Two small ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... picketed in rows to iron bars which ran the length of the sheds, and were fixed into the ground at either end. This camp was separated from the Nest enclosure by a deep canal, thirty feet in width and spanned at one point by a slender and primitive drawbridge that led across the canal to the gate of the camp. Also it was protected on the Nest side by a low wall, and on the slave-camp side by an earthwork, planted as usual with prickly-pears. On this earthwork near the gate and little guard-house a six-pounder cannon was mounted, ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... the King Himself will come against me. Follow them out, Drive them out of my gates, then raise the drawbridge And let none cross. Oh, I foresaw, foretold! Robin has ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... upon it a peculiar lustre. Nelson was hardly keeping up to its early rate of progress, and its central mound, instead of a church bore an ugly fort, into which the nervous townsfolk passed over a drawbridge for their Sunday worship. Wellington was still unsatisfactory, its one wooden church serving for a congregation which was "neither so regular nor so good" as might have been wished. Altogether the diocese appeared to the bishop as "an inert mass which I am utterly ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... was soon effected, for on his appearing for a walk on the ramparts in his full uniform, one of the men shot him dead: and when the Spaniards found that they had lost their commander, they soon became disheartened, and lowering the drawbridge, came out of the citadel and gave themselves up. Part of our troops immediately took possession, pulling down the Spanish colours and hoisting the English flag from the town and citadel in their stead. ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... the other way With some young nobles; but he left them soon; And, if I err not, not a minute since I heard his Excellency, with his train, 80 Gallop o'er the west drawbridge. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... every one may there buy board and lodging and mercenary service if he has the price. The exceeding greatness of that price, however, makes of it a badge of nobility which converts these democratic hostelries into feudal castles, more inaccessible to the Long Denied than as though entered by a drawbridge ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... these thoughts—he came in sight of Valenciennes, from whose church tower eight o'clock was sounding, he perceived that they were about to close the gates. He pushed on, and nearly overturned, on the drawbridge, a man who was fastening the girths of his horse. Henri stopped to make excuses to the man, who turned at the sound of his voice, and then quickly turned away again. Henri started, but immediately thought, "I must be mad; ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... voice, and that voice could not be mistaken by any who had heard it once before. A second or two, during which the officers and chiefs kept their eyes intently fixed on one another, passed anxiously away; and then nearer to the gate, apparently on the very drawbridge itself, was pealed forth the wild and deafening yell of a legion of fiendish voices. At that sound, the Ottawa and the other chiefs sprang to their feet, and their own fierce cry responded to that yet vibrating on the ears of all. Already were their gleaming tomahawks ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... I crossed the drawbridge, and entered to see this shell of a court in miniature, mounting ponderous stairs—it would be a solecism to say a flight—up which a regiment of men might have marched, shouldering their firelocks to exercise in vast galleries, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... knoll, between the ramp of high land and the slope of shore, it would still have been conspicuous to traveller and to voyager but for the tall trees around it. These hid the moat, and the relics of the drawbridge, the groined archway, and cloven tower of the keep—which had twice been struck by lightning—as well as the windows of the armoury, and the chapel hushed with ivy. The banqueting hall was in better repair, for the Carnes had been hospitable ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... MO; procedure &c (line of conduct) 692. path, road, route, course; line of way, line of road; trajectory, orbit, track, beat, tack. steps; stair, staircase; flight of stairs, ladder, stile; perron^. bridge, footbridge, viaduct, pontoon, steppingstone, plank, gangway; drawbridge; pass, ford, ferry, tunnel; pipe &c 260. door; gateway &c (opening) 260; channel, passage, avenue, means of access, approach, adit^; artery, lane, loan [Scot.], alley, aisle, lobby, corridor; back-door, back-stairs; secret passage; covert way; vennel^. roadway, pathway, stairway; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... its fortifications, like those of the city, much neglected, and partly ruinous. For centuries, clearly, they had been of no account! It had great and strong gates, with something like a drawbridge to them over a rocky chasm; but they stood open, and it was hard to believe that water had ever occupied the hollow before them. All was so still that sleep seemed to interpenetrate the structure, causing the very moonlight to look discordantly awake. I must either enter like a thief, or break ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... knew the way advised silence. For they were nearing the great castle walls. When they came thereto they found the gates closed and the drawbridge up. ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... amongst the trees, that their enormous strength and size should not be discovered, and give umbrage to the lord of the castle. Our embassy approached the castle, and having demanded admittance for some time, at length the drawbridge was let down, and they were suffered to enter. As soon as they had passed the gate it was immediately closed after them, and on either side they perceived ranks of halberdiers, who made them tremble with fear. "We come," the herald proclaimed, "on the part of Hilaro Frosticos, Don Quixote, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... called the Tile Tower because of the thin bricks with which it was built. A subterranean passage leading to the keep was discovered here early this century. Entrance to the 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 ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... enough at the city gates where the sentinels recognised her and allowed her carriage to pass across the drawbridge by a careless nod of ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... end of that time he commanded her presence again in his banquet hall. He told her the gates were opened, the drawbridge down and an escort waiting to take her back to her father's lands, if ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... King Arthur. Then I could have worn a coat of mail and have stormed your castle, and I shouldn't have cared if you hurled defiance from the top turret. I'd have known that, at last, you'd be forced to let down the drawbridge; and I would have crossed the moat and taken you prisoner, and you'd have been so impressed with my strength and ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... Weston, "some months ago Ames tried to reach Ed. Stolz through Ketchim, the old man's nephew, and get control of C. and R. But friend nephew dropped the portcullis just as Ames was dashing across the drawbridge, and J. Wilton found himself outside, looking through the bars. First time I've ever known that to happen. Now the boys have got hold of it on 'Change, and Ames has been getting it ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... castle. Here he begged admittance for charity's sake, that he might share the broken bits of the wedding feast; but he was churlishly refused by the porter, who would not be moved by any entreaties. At last Horn lost all patience, and broke open the door, and threw the porter out over the drawbridge into the moat; then, once more assuming his disguise, he made his way into the hall and sat down in the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... whichever of you can steer the best take the helm, and we will bring the sloop to an anchor. We must wait till daylight to get through the outer drawbridge." ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... hill was a fit centre of the closely mingled life of the rulers and their people. Rebuilt on its ancient rude foundations under the reign of Pierre de Savoy, it possessed the great towers and sentinel tourelles, the moat, drawbridge, courtyards, terrace and arsenal of the time, but in its enchanting situation, its intimate, inviting charm, it quite uniquely expressed the sense and love of beauty ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... strong-house of Friesack, walls fourteen feet thick: "You Dietrich von Quitzow, are you prepared to live as a peaceable subject henceforth: to do homage to the Laws and me?"—"Never!" answered Quitzow, and pulled up his drawbridge. Whereupon Heavy Peg opened upon him, Heavy Peg and other guns; and, in some eight-and-forty hours, shook Quitzow's impregnable Friesack about his ears. This was in the month of February, 1414, day not given: Friesack was the name of the impregnable Castle (still discoverable in our time); ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... northwest wind cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roads just in time to meet the Claremont baker and buy my dinner loaf of him. And when my walk was nearly done, I came out on the low bridge at Sewell's, which is a drawbridge, just before they raised it for a passing boat, instead of the moment after. Because I was all right I felt myself and called myself "The Child of Good Fortune." Dear reader, in a world made by a loving Father, we are all of us children of good fortune, if we only have wit ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... across the self-fashioned drawbridge between the two ships and on to the deck of the Frenchman. It was deserted save for the dead men, red-coats all, flung from the falling top, and sprawling broadcast ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Nostrum crossed the outer port, the inner harbor of Joliette, and slipped slowly along past groups of pedestrians and carts that were waiting the closing of the steel drawbridge now opening before their prow. Then they cast anchor in the basin of Arenc near ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... one quick savage glance at the pocket of the giant, S.T. MATE, and then, without a word, he proudly crossed the drawbridge. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... bridges and over a pont-levis at the foot of the castle; then through a second gateway into a court, and finally over a drawbridge to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... Lyons should be put into a state of defence: a tete-de-pont will be established at Broteaux. The drawbridge at La Guillotiere is replacing. The space between the Saone and the Rhone will be fortified: some redoubts are preparing to be constructed in advance of this space. A redoubt will be constructed on the height of Pierre en Size, to support a work, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... at an undefended window, where he drew up sixty more with ropes. They burnt down the doors, and entered the castle, where only one hundred and fifty knights remained alive. Keeping them at bay, Bogis lowered the drawbridge, and admitted the rest of the army; the remains of the garrison retreated into the keep, still resolved not to surrender, though battering-rams, catapults, and every engine of war was brought to bear on them. A huge piece of wall fell down, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... or viridarium, was practically a fruit garden, as it is to-day, with perhaps a generous sprinkling of flowers and aromatic plants. The verger was always outside the walls, but not far from the entrance or the drawbridge crossing the moat and leading ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... had no ill words for him, as she saw him, sword in hand, seeking to make a last stand upon the drawbridge ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and consolidated for mutual protection. The principal entrance, the one at the northern end, was called the water gate, for it should be explained that the keep stood on the bank of the Ochre brook and access was only possible by means of a drawbridge. Some day Sir Gavan intended to turn the course of the stream so as to carry it around the keep and thereby secure the protection of a continuous moat. But hitherto other duties had seemed more pressing, and the plan ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... eagerly; "that's just my ambition. What a pity it's looking backward instead of forward. But I would love to live in a great stone castle, all my own, with a moat and drawbridge and outriders, and go around in a damask gown with a pointed bodice and big puffy sleeves and a ruff and a little cap with pearls on it, and a bunch of ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... must try and run down with us to Lakelands to-morrow,' Mr. Radnor resumed on a cheerfuller theme. 'You have not yet seen all I 've done there. And it 's a castle with a drawbridge: no exchangeing of visits, as we did at Craye Farm and at Creckholt; we are there for country air; we don't court neighbours at all—perhaps the elect; it will depend on Nataly's wishes. We can accommodate ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... passed over the drawbridge and down toward the highroad a few minutes later on his way back to Torn, he turned for one last look at the castle and there, in an embrasure in the south tower, stood a young woman who raised her hand to wave, and then, as though by sudden ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... than to breakfast, and went forward to the house of Mr. Macaulay, the minister who published an account of St. Kilda, and by his direction visited Calder Castle, from which Macbeth drew his second title. It has been formerly a place of strength. The drawbridge is still to be seen, but the moat is now dry. The tower is very ancient: Its walls are of great thickness, arched on the top with stone, and surrounded with battlements. The rest of the house is ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... receive from them hidden shots. Desnoyers marched tranquilly through the centre, and the official, who had been imitating the precautions of his men, finally joined him when he was crossing the drawbridge. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "Castlegripe;" the walls were fortified with bastions, and had various gates, towers, and narrow entrances, which were defended by strong doors and portcullises. The chief communication with the city was by a drawbridge on the southern side of Castle-street. Rolls of the fourteenth century exhibit disbursements for repairs, ropes, bolts, and rings, from which we gather that everything was kept ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... incidents of a chivalrous age, and it thus became the prototype of that class of novel which was afterward imitated by Mrs. Radcliffe and perfected by Sir Walter Scott. The feudal tyrant, the venerable ecclesiastic, the forlorn but virtuous damsel, the castle itself with its moats and drawbridge, its gloomy dungeons and solemn corridors, are all derived from a mine of interest which has since been worked more efficiently and to better profit. But to Walpole must be awarded the credit of its discovery and ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Munich, Augsburg, Regensburg, and perhaps, above all, Nuernberg, represented the high-water mark of mediaeval civilization as regards town life. On entering the burg, should it have happened to be in time of peace and in daylight, the stranger would clear the drawbridge and the portcullis without much challenge; passing along streets lined with the houses and shops of the burghers, in whose open frontages the master and his apprentices and gesellen plied their trades, discussing eagerly over their work the politics of the town, and at this period probably ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... be awake, he expects me, and will take thee for me; mount, with no word, and ride to the eastern port. There show to the gate ward this signet of Sir Thomas Grey, and he will up with portcullis and down with drawbridge, for he has often done no less for me and ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... rocks, rising sheer and bold and bare, stood the walls and towers of Castle Drachenhausen. A great gate-way, with a heavy iron-pointed portcullis hanging suspended in the dim arch above, yawned blackly upon the bascule or falling drawbridge that spanned a chasm between the blank stone walls and the roadway that winding down the steep rocky slope to the little valley just beneath. There in the lap of the hills around stood the wretched straw-thatched huts of the peasants belonging to the castle—miserable ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... 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 ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... sink in the same instant, it did it then. It leaped at the sight of 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 ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... anticipation of his subsequent trial, had been removed to the palace of St.[a] James's. In the third week of his confinement in Hurst Castle, he was suddenly roused out of his sleep at midnight by the fall of the drawbridge and the trampling of horses. A thousand frightful ideas rushed on his mind, and at an early hour in the morning, he desired his servant Herbert to ascertain the cause; but every mouth was closed, and Herbert returned with the scanty information that a Colonel Harrison had arrived. At the name ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... probably in this house that Flora was lodged. The castle is on three of its sides little else than a shell; but the fourth is in tolerable repair. The entrance to this sequestered and solemn abode is from the sea, by a staircase; probably in old times a drawbridge, which fell from a staircase. The ancient grandeur of Dunstaffnage, long used as one of the earliest residences of the Scottish kings; famed also as the place from which the stone of Dunstaffnage, sometimes called the Stone of Scone, on which they were crowned, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... last house, nestled among twinkling birch-trees on a bend of the river beyond, we turned about, and made for the fortress,—another conquest of the Great Peter. Its low ramparts had a shabby, neglected look; an old drawbridge spanned the moat, and there was no sentinel to challenge us as we galloped across. In and out again, and down the long, quiet street, and over the jolting level to the top of the sandhill,—we had seen Kexholm in half ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... kingdom; then of an Arab kingdom: now a dull fortified town—of a filth unspeakable, and not to be forgotten or forgiven. Stay not therein an hour, lest you take fever, or worse: but come out of the gate over the drawbridge, and stroll down the canal. Look back a moment, though, across the ditch. The whole face of the wall is a museum of Roman gods, tombs, inscriptions, bas- reliefs: the wreck of Martial's 'Pulcherrima Narbo,' the old Roman city, which was demolished ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... an outer wall Round the realm of thought unseen; Ah! to let the drawbridge fall Leading to that magic hall! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... I. "I know now why he is so hopelessly shut up, and walled up. Never a warmer heart than he keeps stowed away there inside of the fortress, with the drawbridge ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... "Coming on the Drawbridge, I perceived an old stocking-knitter disguised as Grenadier, with his cap, cartridge-box and musket laid to a side, that they might not hinder him in his knitting-work. As I advanced, he asked, 'Whence I came, and whitherward I was going?' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... with nearer greeting, and we began to fancy we could hear its talk with the shore. At length we descended a sharp hill, reached the last level, drove over a bridge and down the line of the stream, saw the land vanish in the sea—a wide bay; then drove over another wooden drawbridge, and along the side of a canal in which lay half-a-dozen sloops and schooners. Then came a row of pretty cottages; then a gate, and an ascent, and ere we reached the rectory, we were aware of its proximity by loud shouts, and the sight of ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... seized a quantity of powder and arms, which belonged to them, but had been sequestered in the fort. The British, as a set-off, marched to Salem to capture some stores there; they did not find them, and proceeded toward Danvers. A river, spanned by a drawbridge, intervened, and when they arrived, the draw was up. There stood Colonel Timothy Pickering, with forty provincials, asking what Captain Leslie with his two hundred red-coated regulars wanted. The captain blustered ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Facata, has a very strong castle built of freestone, but without any cannon or garrison. The ditch of this castle is five fathoms deep and ten broad, all round about the walls, and is passed by means of a drawbridge, and the whole is kept in good repair. The tide and wind were here so strong against us that we could not proceed, for which reason I landed and dined at this town, which was very well built, and seemed to be as large as London is within the walls. All its streets ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... and naked tower, situated on a projecting cliff that beetled on the German Ocean. On three sides the rock was precipitous; on the fourth, which was that towards the land, it had been originally fenced by an artificial ditch and drawbridge, but the latter was broken down and ruinous, and the former had been in part filled up, so as to allow passage for a horseman into the narrow courtyard, encircled on two sides with low offices and stables, partly ruinous, and closed on the landward front by a low embattled wall, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... of soldiers lined the way from the drawbridge to the porlcullis. As the carriage drew up, they presented arms in royal salute. At the same moment the band of the regiment inside the Keep played "God ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sweeps in a sickle-curve round the base of a high rock, Entrevaux shoots far up into the sky. The river bathes its dark walls, protected by devices dear to the hearts of mediaeval Vaubans. Pepper-castor sentry-boxes jut out over the water; a great drawbridge with portcullis, triple gateway, and neat contrivances for pouring oil and molten lead upon besiegers, alone gives access to the town; while behind the old crowded houses a fortified stairway in the rock leads dizzily up ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... is not a ruin, but is one of the best-preserved specimens of the style of fortification of the Middle Ages. We cross the moat and the drawbridge, and over the stone door-way we see the Spanish coat-of-arms, and under it an inscription stating that the fort was built during the reign of King Ferdinand VI of Spain, with the names and titles of the dons who superintended the work. It took sixty ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... prove this Thomas Wyatt, And he will prove an Iden to this Cade, And he will play the Walworth to this Wat; Come, sirs, we prate; hence all—gather your men— Myself must bustle. Wyatt comes to Southwark; I'll have the drawbridge hewn into the Thames, And see the citizens arm'd. Good day; good day. ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... feels honored to be the guest of such a big spider. We all have regard for big bugs. "But what is this?" cries the fly, pointing to a broken wing, "and this fragment of an insect's foot. There must have been a murder here! Let me go back!" "Ha! ha!" says the spider, "the gate is locked, the drawbridge is up. I only contracted to bring you in. I cannot afford to let you out. Take a drop of this poison, and it will quiet your nerves. I throw this hook of a fang over your neck to keep you from falling off." Word went back to the house-fly's family, and a choir ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... absently, all absorbed in a winding river, a moat, and a drawbridge. "Aunt Margaret won't let me have one, I know. Will they ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... our vanity so greatly? And if our play is of so little importance, why should we care whether the scenery is romantic instead of commonplace, or why should we make furious efforts to shift a Gothic castle, a drawbridge, a moat and a waterfall into the slides occupied by the four walls of a Munich ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... sun waked him. Then they continued on their journey, which they brought to an end for that day at a village three leagues off. They alighted at an inn, for it was allowed by Don Quixote to be such, and not a castle, with deep ditch, towers, portcullises, and drawbridge; for since his defeat he spoke with more sense on all matters. He was lodged in a ground room, in which some old painted serge hangings, such as are often seen in villages, served for stamped leathers. On one of these ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... strong that our bishop's castle of St. Andrews seems but a cottage compared to it. From the hill-top there is a wide prospect over the tower and the valley of the Vienne, which I liked to gaze upon. My master, then, went in by the drawbridge, high above the moat, which is so deep that, I trow, no foeman could fill it up and cross it to assail the walls. My master, in limping up the hill, had wearied himself, but soon passed into the castle through the gateway ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... when he was able to take his bearings and proceed towards the Auteuil gate of the ramparts. As he did not wish to be fired upon again, he deemed it expedient to hoist his pocket handkerchief at the end of his umbrella as a sign of his pacific intentions, and finding the gate open and the drawbridge down, he attempted to enter the city, but was immediately challenged by the National Guards on duty. These vigilant patriots observed his muddy condition—the previous day had been a wet one—and suspiciously inquired where he had come from at that early hour. His answer being given in broken ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... I at the gateway ringing? What bard upon the drawbridge singing? Go bid him to repeat his song Here, in the hall amid the throng," The monarch cried; The little page hied; As back he sped, The monarch said— ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Tourelles, were built on the bridge itself, where it rested on an island at a little distance from the tete-du-pont. Indeed, the solid masonry of the bridge terminated at the Tourelles; and the communication thence with the tete-du-pont on the southern shore was by means of a drawbridge. The Tourelles and the tete-du-pont formed together a strong fortified post, capable of containing a garrison of considerable strength; and so long as this was in possession of the Orleannais, they could communicate freely with the southern provinces, the inhabitants of which, like the ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and windlass of which had long been rusted and broken. The latest tenants of the Manor House had, however, with characteristic energy, set this right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the knight's house was in a small island encompassed with a vast moat thirty feet deep, and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge. Wherefore Jack employed two men to cut it on both sides, and then dressing himself in his Coat of darkness, putting on his Shoes of swiftness, he marched against the Giant, with his Sword of sharpness ready drawn. When he came close up, the Giant could not see Jack, by reason of his invisible Coat. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... five and six. Some further acquaintance with this remarkable inmate of the Cohens was particularly desired by Deronda as a preliminary to redeeming his ring: he wished that their conversation should not again end speedily with that drop of Mordecai's interest which was like the removal of a drawbridge, and threatened to shut out any easy communication in future. As he got warmed with the use of the oar, fixing his mind on the errand before him and the ends he wanted to achieve on Mirah's account, he ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... at the gate of the Bastile. Two sentinels were on duty at the gate; they made no difficulty about admitting Aramis, who entered without dismounting, and they pointed out the way he was to go by a long passage with buildings on both sides. This passage led to the drawbridge, or, in other words, to the real entrance. The drawbridge was down, and the duty of the day was about being entered upon. The sentinel at the outer guardhouse stopped Aramis's further progress, asking him, in a rough tone of voice, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... drawbridge is soon let down, and the gates opened wide to receive the knight. Many noble ones hasten to bid him welcome (ll. 773-825). They take away his helmet, sword, and shield, and many a proud one presses forward to do ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... along the side of the cliff until we reached a lofty rock, on which one part of the castle stands, while on the mainland another portion is built. We were now standing at the bottom of a chasm looking up two hundred feet or more to the castle walls, which were originally joined by a drawbridge. The castle was anciently called Dunchine, or the Fort of the Chasm. A zigzag path enabled us to gain the summit of the cliffs. The entrance to the castle was through a gateway, a ruined archway which still stands. Passing through it, we entered a court, called King Arthur's Garden, immediately beyond ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... exclaimed a clear and feminine voice, apparently close to the mouth of the cavern. "They are already at the castle—the gates, no doubt, are shut, the drawbridge raised. Before they could come down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... eyes upon the morning boat. The storm of emotion had spent itself, and while Alan Hawke squired, the aggressive Miss Genie, Casimir Wieniawski was bending over the slightly dreamy and more romantic Miss Phenie! They distributed themselves in open order, as they strolled along toward the drawbridge of that most hospitable of old horrors, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... 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 grouped and clustered about three lofty ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... summit of the pass close to the hospice, or what seems to have been a hospice at that time,—I do not remember any such at present,—a small square built house, built as if partly for a fortress, with a detached flight of stone steps in front of it, and a kind of drawbridge to the door. This building, about 400 or 500 yards off, is seen in a dim, ashy gray against the light, which by help of a violent blast of mountain wind has broken through the depth of clouds which hang upon the crags. There is no sky, properly so called, nothing but ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... gaining possession of the town. Two days later Fairfax himself arrived, and batteries, furnished with 'several great Peeces,' were erected against the church and castle. The actual fighting lasted only a short time, for a shot broke the chain of the drawbridge, and it fell; the Parliamentary soldiers rushed across it without even waiting for the command, and the Royalists lost their heads and their courage ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... The drawbridge was yet down, for a small party of men-at-arms had just been admitted, and across it rushed boy, and horse, and dog before the warder had time to wind his horn: the horse and rider unharmed, but ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger |
