"Drawbridge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... proved (as described in our earlier tale) incapable of a prolonged defence, yet its situation was quite such as to protect the priory from any sudden violence on the part of the "merrie men" or nightly marauders, and when the drawbridge was up, the gateway closed, the good brethren slept none the less soundly for ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... there watching that falcon he heard the portcullis of the castle lifted, with a great noise, and the drawbridge let fall, and therewith there came a lady riding out of the castle very rapidly upon a white mule, and she rode toward where Sir Launcelot watched the falcon upon the tree. When that lady had come nigh to Sir Launcelot, she cried out to him: "Sir Knight, didst thou see a falcon fly ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... formed a drawbridge which allowed vessels of larger size than barges to pass up the river and could be used to keep back an enemy. In this way Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1557 was kept out of London. Before this drawbridge stood a tower ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... ran out from their houses, baring their heads, bowing low, and each in turn receiving some kind word or nod of greeting from the lord whom they welcomed, while one after another of his armed followers turned aside, and was absorbed into a happy family by wife or parent. A drawbridge crossed the moat, and there was a throng of joyful servants in the archway—foremost a priest, stretching out his hands in blessing, and a foreign-looking old woman, gray-haired and dark- eyed, who gathered young David into her embrace as he sprang from his ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... knight, asked him to get them back their pigs, which his menials, they said, had the night before taken from them, which was false. The master gave them leave to go in, that they might discover their pigs and move them away. As soon as they had crossed the drawbridge they seized upon the master, threw off their false clothes, drew their weapons, and blew a blast upon the bagpipe; and forthwith appeared their comrades from their hiding-places in the neighboring woods. They took possession ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... guardian crew, He, sword in hand, the squadron set upon; This one he wounded, and that other slew, And, point by point made good, the drawbridge won: And ere of his escape Alcina knew, The gentle youth was far away and gone. My next shall tell his route, and how he gained At last ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... falling upon him made one glory of his armour and of his yellow hair. Then, as Annoure gazed upon the King, her heart grew hot within her, and she resolved that, come what might, she would have him for her own, to dwell with her always and fulfil all her behests. And so she bade lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis, and sallying forth accompanied by her maidens, she gave King Arthur courteous salutation, and prayed him that he would rest within her castle that day, for that she had a petition to make to him; and Arthur, doubting ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... in constant dread. He had a wide trench round his bedroom, with a drawbridge that he drew up and put down with his own hands; and he put one barber to death for boasting that he held a razor to the tyrant's throat every morning. After this he made his young daughters shave him; but by ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lady Ursula's brother in Kittery. A drawbridge to the house, which was raised every evening, and lowered in the morning, for the laborers and the family to pass out. They kept thirty cows, a hundred sheep, and several horses. The house spacious,—one room large enough to contain forty or fifty guests. Two silver ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... only to arrange my dress and drink a cup of wine, asked the way to the Chateau, which was situate, I learned, no more than a third of a mile away. I went thither on foot by way of an avenue of trees leading up to a drawbridge and gateway. The former was down, but the gates were closed, and all the formalities of a fortress in time of war were observed on my admission, though the garrison appeared to consist only of two or three serving-men and as many foresters. I had leisure after sending in my ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... unexpectedly before the gates of Phalsbourg. Did you ever, my dear friend, approach a fortified town by the doubtful light of a clouded moon, towards eleven of the clock? A mysterious gloom envelopes every thing. The drawbridge is up. The solitary centinel gives the pass-word upon the ramparts; and every footstep, however slight, has its particular echo. Judge then of the noise made by our heavy-hoofed coursers, as we neared the drawbridge. "What want you there?" said a thundering voice, in ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the fortress, when one of those chances which Heaven bestows on men of strong will caused Grimaud suddenly to perceive the carriage, which was entering by the great gate of the drawbridge. This was the moment that D'Artagnan was, as we have seen, returning from his visit to the king. In vain was it that Raoul urged on his horse in order to join the carriage, and to see whom it contained. The horses had already gained the other side of the great gate, which again closed, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of earth instead of a wall, planted with reeds and canes that grow to a prodigious height and thickness. These reeds are continually green, so that there is no danger of fire. There is no ditch or drawbridge before the gates leading to the palace, but, on each side, a wall of stone, about ten feet high, that supports a terrace on which some guns are planted. A small stream runs through the middle of the palace, which is lined with stone, and has steps down to the bottom of it ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... "I-spy" through Kenilworth Castle with Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Mary Ann Evans and a youth I used to know in boyhood by the name of Bill Hursey. We chased each other across the drawbridge, through the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. Finally Shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to play. Walter Scott said it was "no fair," and Bill Hursey thrust out the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... 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 there was such scanty room, The ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the delay, the tardy boat arrived, and a steady stream of people flowed by the three gangways to the upper and lower decks. The last straggler was on board and the gangplank lifted, reminding me of the stories I had read of raising the drawbridge across the moat of some ancient feudal castle, and leaving the mole with its imitation portcullis behind we steamed out into the bay. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and there was not enough wind to straighten out ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... with faint praise' the loyal, generous, joyous, chivalrous, religious soldier, Frederick, Baron de la Motte-Fouque, and prince of romance. When the latter presents himself for admission my castle needs short siege. The drawbridge falls before the summons; and when I see him cross my threshold with his lovely and noble children, Ondine and Sintram, I should be almost too happy, if I were not afraid of his being affronted by the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... drawbridge and entered the portals Francis was surprised to see sentinels everywhere. Her spirit sank a little and her heart quailed as she noted all of the means employed ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... chance that such a general may learn much of the castle from one or other of its inmates. It might be possible that, through neglect or inadvertence, the drawbridge would be left down some night and the portcullis raised. In other words, the castle, impervious to direct assault, may fall ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... new 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 ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... Cairncarque. There was a castle indeed!—something to call a castle!—with its huge square tower at every corner, and its still huger two towers in the middle of its front, its moat, and the causeway where once had been its drawbridge!—Yes! there were the spikes of the portcullis, sticking down from the top of the gateway, like the long upper teeth of a giant or ogre! That was a real castle—such as he had read of in books, such as he had seen ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... grandees, clad in mail and bearing ponderous swords. Some have lost an arm, some a head, and one poor fellow is chopped off at the middle. There is a saying that if a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk across the court to the castle front without saying anything, he can made a wish and it will be fulfilled. But they say that the truth of this thing has never had a chance to be proved, for the reason that before any stranger can walk from ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... voice behind her. "Now raise the drawbridge and lower the portcullis, and the honours ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... walls, and on the other side of the river from the fortified city, the intermediate communication being by a handsome bridge, one of the eight arches of which, having given way to the shock of an earthquake, has not been rebuilt, but is replaced by wood. It has been proposed to construct a drawbridge at this point, so as to allow the colonial shipping to proceed up the river above the bridge, which they cannot now do. And should the project be carried into effect, it is likely that the small sized coasting vessels, when nothing better offers for them to do, will ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing even louder into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry—which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the outer court: soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... healed of his wounds, armed himself, and took his horse and spear and rode straight to the castle of Dame Lyones, for greatly he desired to see her. But when he came to the gate they closed it fast, and pulled the drawbridge up. And as he marvelled thereat, he saw the Lady Lyones standing at a window, who said, "Go thy way as yet, Sir Beaumains, for thou shalt not wholly have my love until thou be among the worthiest knights of all the world. Go, therefore, and labour yet in arms for twelve months more, ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... along without him. It was Pop, the property man of the company, who made many of the devices used when the company went to "Oak Farm," as told in the second volume, where scenes for farm dramas were filmed. Pop could use a drawbridge in one scene, and, in the next, convert it into a perfectly good cow-barn. Pop ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... another, with their headfasts 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 ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... Green Court, were the Bird Gallery, the Armour Gallery, and the Green Gallery, and lords' apartments and ladies' apartments "capable of quartering an army," to quote a writer on the subject. On each side of the entrance, gained by a drawbridge, was a tower—the Watch ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... was built by a Baynton, about perhaps Henry the Fifth. Here was a noble old-fashioned house, with a mote about it and drawbridge, and strong high walles embatteled. They did consist of a layer of freestone and a layer of flints, squared or headed; two towers faced the south, one the east, the other the west end. After the garrison was gonn the mote was filled up, about 1650, and the high ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... rein, 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 ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... what right and law demand, and victory in a just quarrel proclaims the power and vigour of the commonwealth. On another wall Ambrogio has depicted the prosperous city of Siena, girt by battlements and moat, with tower and barbican and drawbridge, to insure its peace. Through the gates stream country-people, bringing the produce of their farms into the town. The streets are crowded with men and women intent on business or pleasure; craftsmen at their trade, merchants with ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... answer, and the man again shouted, peering over the wall to endeavour to discover what had caused the splash. In a few vigorous strokes Wallace was across, hauled himself up to the sill of the door, and with his heavy battleaxe smote on the chains which held up the drawbridge. Two mighty blows and the chains yielded, and the drawbridge fell with a ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... pursuit, the captors kept at a brisk pace, not drawing rein until the walls of a large and strong castle loomed up near the forest border. The gates flew open and the drawbridge fell at their demand, and the small cavalcade rode into the powerful stronghold, the entrance to which was immediately closed behind them. It was the castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach, Saxony, within whose strong walls the man thus mysteriously ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... second he was 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 everywhere. Even Mouche ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... spurs of the Abyssinian mountains. The flags of Egypt and of Italy were hoisted. The troops of both countries, drawn up in line, exchanged military compliments. Then the Egyptian guard marched across the drawbridge into the fort and relieved the Italian soldiers. The brass band of the 16th Battalion played appropriate airs. The Italian flag was lowered, and with a salute of twenty-one guns the retrocession ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... ambassador were for having you kicked out, and the Republicans for making you at home. I heard that their High Mightinesses had given Paul Jones the use of the Texel fort for his wounded and his prisoners, and thither I ran. And I was even cursing the French sentry at the drawbridge in his own tongue, when up comes your commodore himself. You may quarter me if wasn't knocked off my feet when I recognized the identical peacock of a sea-captain we had pulled out of Castle Yard along with you, and offered a commission in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of Lafontaine decided me. Even the risk seemed less serious than before, and we drove over the drawbridge. The interior of the fortress formed a striking contrast to the scenes which I had just left behind me. All was still ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... individual man. The cerebral system of the nerves has its correspondent ANTITHESIS in the abdominal system: but hence arises a SYNTHESIS of the two in the pectoral system as the intermediate, and, like a drawbridge, at once conductor and boundary. In the latter, as objectised by the former, arise the emotions, the affections, and, in one word, the passions, as distinguished from the cognitions and appetites. Now, the reason has been shown to be superindividual, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... castle, the prisoners were compelled by their guards to alight and were hastened across the drawbridge into the castle. They were immediately conducted to an apartment where a hasty repast was offered them, of which none but Athelstane felt any inclination to partake. Neither did he have much time to do justice to the good cheer placed before him, for the guards gave ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... where we now sat. Into the spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander, into our town of Mondolfo never. Not since my father's departure upon his ill-starred rebellion had she set foot across the drawbridge. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... "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 keys ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... mined and counter-mined, and were soon found to be untenable. The besieged then abandoned this fortification, and retired further back towards the centre of the bridge, which, as well as its approaches, was defended by towers. Part of the bridge on the side near the English was blown up, and a drawbridge, which could be raised or lowered at pleasure, was thrown across the ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... the half-moon which defended the gate, which the dragoons mounted and carried in a trice, about twenty-eight men being cut in pieces within. As soon as the ravelin was taken, they burst open the gate, at which I entered at the head of 200 dragoons, and seized the drawbridge. By this time the town was in alarm, and the drums beat to arms, but it was too late, for by the help of a petard we broke open the gate, and entered the town. The garrison made an obstinate fight for ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... the road I saw Murphy wave his white flag; and, a moment later, the Orange Gate, which was built like a drawbridge, fell with a muffled report, raising a cloud of dust. Over it, presently, our horses' feet drummed hollow ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... d'Ancre, Concini Concini," he read, "was killed by a pistol shot on the drawbridge of the Louvre by Vitry, Captain of the Bodyguard, on the 24th of April, 1617.... It was proved that the Marechal and his wife made use of wax images, which ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... 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 enough to find ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... 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 ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... over the Pont la Guillotiere, we were led to remark the probable antiquity of its construction. The centre still retains the drawbridge; and the whole fabric appears to have been widened, when wheel carriages came into fashion, with a supplementary parallel slice, riveted on to it by iron bolts. This expedient rather reminded me of a story which I had heard in my ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... the baron and the chaplain, who prayed his further tarrying, to share in another flagon of Rhenish about to be produced. The horse and dog were at the porch, and, in a few minutes, the knight had passed the drawbridge, and was in the same fair ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... night, for all that the hour was early. The air of the place was as that of some gigantic sepulchre. A little daunted by this all-enveloping stillness, I skirted the terraces and approached the house on the eastern side. Here I found an old-world drawbridge—now naturally in disuse—spanning a ditch fed from the main river for the erstwhile purposes of a moat. I crossed the bridge, and entered an imposing courtyard. Within this quadrangle the same silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the windows that overlooked it. I paused, at a loss ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... crossing each other, pointed on the lower edge with iron and hung by chains in grooves in the chief gateway of the castle, so that on the sudden appearance of an enemy it could be let down to keep him out more quickly than the drawbridge could be raised to prevent his crossing the moat, or the ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... feeling comes over us directly we leave the highroad and make our way down the sloped passage and across the drawbridge over the moat, past the massive gates and under the echoing tunnel that leads through the mighty walls. Within we see the parapets on which in bygone days the cannon thundered at the foe. We pass on into the great spaces of the Fort; and in our imagination we can people ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... contracts itself as is necessary to render the voice either big or slender, hollow or clear. But lest the aliments, which have their separate pipe, should slide into the windpipe I have been describing, there is a kind of valve that lies on the orifice of the organ of the voice, and playing like a drawbridge, lets the aliments freely pass through their proper channel, but never suffers the least particle or drop to fall into the slit of the windpipe. This sort of valve has a very free motion, and easily turns any way, so that by shaking on that ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... Young answered, when I had finished, "that I ever heard o' th' party you refer to, but if this Horace—what did you say his last name was?—pinched his fingers in th' drawbridge chains as damnably as I pinched mine in th' chains of that infernal grating, I'll bet a hat he was sorry that he hadn't run away!" And I truly believe that Young thought more about his pinched fingers than he did about the resolute bravery that he had shown in finishing his work upon ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... on to the mere, now filled up with mire and weeds. But the largest passage and most used was, and is, that towards the south and town; there being formerly a portcullis over that gate, which was made in one of the strongest towers, and a drawbridge without, defended by an half-moon of stone, about a man's height, standing in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... who does not know, that one sin yielded to, that one passion uncontrolled, too often brings with it a train of other sins, and betrays the drawbridge of the citadel ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... the shire of Leicester, close by the River Weak—or at least it stood there when last I saw it. It is ten long years since I crossed its drawbridge and not twelve months of my life have been ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... on quietly at Hedingham. The village stands near the head waters 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 gate-house and a lofty tower, on another the great hall and chapel and the kitchens, on a third the suites of apartments of the officials and retinue. In ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... the planking of the open drawbridge Rusty's chattering teeth were audible to the rider close at his side, and Jarvis muttered angrily, drawing up his horse by the gate which ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... moat was accessible to my friends. Placing the poor King on a table to be out of the water, and tying up his head in my handkerchief to disguise him from Michael's guards, I drew my sword and plunged downstairs with the cataract in search of the miscreant Rupert. I reached the drawbridge, when I heard the sounds of tumult and was twice fired at,—once, as I have since learned, by my friends, under the impression that I was the escaping Rupert of Glasgow, and once by Black Michael's myrmidons, under the belief that I was the King. I was struck ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... hoarse baying of the watch-hounds in the courtyard, and then the creaking of the drawbridge, as though it were being lowered. Then came to his ear the patter of many small feet on the stone staircase, and next he heard indistinctly the sound of light footsteps in the chamber ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... are indiscriminate and satisfied. They do not know the relation of what appears to what is. If they chance to skirt along the coasts of your Purple Island, it will be only chance, and they will not know it. You may close your port-holes, lower your drawbridge, and make merry, for they will never come within gunshot of the "round tower of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... elephants or other wild animals. The height, however, of the palisade was such that even a lion or leopard would have found it difficult to leap over. Within it could be penned also a considerable number of cattle and horses and sheep. The front was, however, left open, a drawbridge only crossing the moat; but materials for filling up the gap were kept stored on either side, so that in a few hours the whole circle could be completed. The planks were of such a thickness, that neither assegais nor bullets could pierce them, and certainly ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... thanked them, bowed, and made his way by degrees through the crowd, when, just as he was about to cross the drawbridge, a fair-haired lady, with a haughty and disdainful air, a stranger to him, a sister of the bridegroom, perhaps, approached him, holding a ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... the midst of a small island surrounded by a moat thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge. So Jack employed men to cut through this bridge on both sides, nearly to the middle; and then, dressing himself in his invisible coat, he marched against the giant with his sword of sharpness. Although the giant could ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... deck stool nearer to him, and he acknowledged the action with another half smile, but did not stir from his entrenchment, remaining as if hedged about with an inviolable fortress of exclusiveness. Yet I knew that my Chinook salutation would be a drawbridge by which I might hope to cross the moat into ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... at Count William's court that the brave Lady of Arkell, mother of the Count Otto, had made her way, disguised, into we castle of her son, had herself lowered the drawbridge, admitted her armed retainers, overpowered and driven out her rebellious son; and that then, relenting, she had appealed to Count William to pardon the lad and to receive him at court as hostage for his own fealty. So this fling ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... botanical gardens on the boulevard, at the small booth where Juliana sells cigars and bottled soda, following the turnpike over the moat, you come to the Parian gate, crowned by the Spanish arms, in crumbling bas-relief. Beyond the drawbridge—lowered never to be raised again—where rumbling pony-carts crowd the pedestrians to the wall, the passage opens into gloomy dungeons, with barred windows looking out upon the stagnant waters of the ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... of Vevay, situated on the northern side, and containing some nine thousand inhabitants. A few miles from this point, where the Rhone enters the lake, stands the famous Castle of Chillon, connected with the shore by a drawbridge,—palace, castle, and prison, all in one. Some of its dark damp cells are hewn out of the solid rock beneath the surface of the lake. This fortress of the Middle Ages has been rendered familiar to us by Byron's poetic pen. It was built by ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... only the most obliging tide would run through it. As a consequence, it is a sort of a sluice merely, of insufficient width, and as a "sight" very disappointing to great expectations. Between the points of debouch of this canal crosses a drawbridge of pontoons, for the use of our troops, and just beyond it Aiken's Landing, where the flag of truce boat stopped. A fine brick mansion stands in shore, with a wharf abreast it. The banks around it are trodden here ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... square castle of gray stone, with a round tower at each corner. It was built about a courtyard, and was surrounded by a moat, across which was a drawbridge that could be raised or lowered. When it was raised the castle was practically a little island and very hard for ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... by a tremendous alarum, and sallying forth, and looking from his castle wall, he perceived a large party of armed men on the other side of the moat, who were calling on the warder in the king's name to lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis, which had both been secured by Matilda's order. The baron walked along the battlement till he came opposite to these unexpected visitors, who, as soon as they saw him, called out, "Lower the ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... seems certainly to have belonged to Gorlois when Uther was Pendragon or Head-king of Britain; it would have been a cliff-castle such as that on Pentire Head. As years passed the rock probably became more insular, and when the Norman stronghold was built it was connected with the mainland by a drawbridge. From earliest times the castle attached to the Earls of Cornwall, one of whom protected David, Prince of Wales, during his revolt against Edward I. Later it was used as a kind of prison, a Mayor ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... according to custom, and disappeared whistling a national air. A quarter of an hour later the contractor left the place, and as soon as the functionary who had seen him depart was relieved by another, the prisoner left his hiding-place, crossed the drawbridge in his turn, simulating the gait of his twin, and, without any hindrance, rejoined his orderly at the place agreed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... boys," I added. And with as much fire as I could kindle in so short a time and under conditions so dampening, I thundered the resounding lines: "'No, by St. Bride of Bothwell, no! Up drawbridge, grooms—what, warder, ho!'" ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... years the baby lived in the castle alone with his nurses, taking his airings on the broad terraces, which were surrounded by walls, with a moat beneath them, and only a drawbridge to connect them with the ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... do I hear Along the drawbridge sounding? A song! Now let it reach my ear Through palace-halls resounding!" So speaks the king; the small page flies; The lackey comes; the message hies; The old man comes, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... speedily decided what to do. He set his men at work tearing the wreck of the Santa Maria to pieces. Out of her timbers and woodwork, helped out with trees from the woods and a few stones from the shore, he made quite a fort. It had a ditch and a watch-tower and a drawbridge. It proudly floated the flag of Spain. It was the first European fort in the new world. On its ramparts Columbus mounted the cannons he had saved from the wreck and named the fort La Navidad—that is, Fort Nativity, because it was made out of the ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... called 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
... audaciously. "Mary, you and I were born in the wrong age. We belong to the days of 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 prowess that ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... 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 ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... gray rocks, rising sheer and bold and bare, stood the walls and towers of Castle Drachenhausen. A great gate-way, with a heavy iron-pointed portcullis hanging suspended in the dim arch above, yawned blackly upon the bascule or falling drawbridge that spanned a chasm between the blank stone walls and the roadway that winding down the steep rocky slope to the little valley just beneath. There in the lap of the hills around stood the wretched straw-thatched huts of the peasants belonging to the castle—miserable serfs ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... unequal sides, which covered the Porta a Mare, or of S. Rocco. Three other gates, the Porta Grande, which faced to the country, the Porta S. Francesco or Del Castello, and the Portizza, which joined the Imperial road of Zaule with a drawbridge, added to the defences, and a chain ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... 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 ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "It is then decided, since you speak only of the method. I shall lead him through the park; only order one of your maids whom you can trust to lower, exactly at midnight, the little drawbridge which leads from your antechamber to the flower garden and leave the rest to me." Having said this he rose and without waiting for any further comment from the Princess, he left, remounted his horse and went to look for the Duc de Guise, who was waiting for ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... shone out, and gave them a view of the solitary 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, while ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... the ridge where we stand is a beautiful example of a Venetian fortified country-house,—a little castle, turreted and loop-holed, with a drawbridge thrown from a tower rising opposite the doorway, and still in excellent preservation. Other similar houses may be seen, but I have nowhere in the island found one so fine as this. At the farther edge of the plain, lying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of 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; Remy here, whom I left four days ago in the Rue de Bussy; here now, ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... tone, guise; modus operandi, 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; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to a pleasant and unobtrusive evidence of neighbourhood. Had the traveller come in a carriage, the sound of its wheels would certainly have been heard; and nearer at hand, the tramp of horses on the hollow of the old drawbridge, not raised these hundred years, must have heralded the summons of the bell. But none of these sounds had warned Juliette de Gemosac, who sat alone in the little white room upstairs, nor Marie and her husband, dumb and worn by the day's ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... down will fall the drawbridge with a mighty clatter." Mary-Clare looked majestic even in her muddy trousers as she portrayed the action. "And over the Gap will come the Princess Light-of-my-Heart with ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... discovered this castle, for it exists only on paper. When Mr. Gordon Selfridge requires mental relaxation, he may be found poring over the plans which are to be the basis of this fairy edifice. Moat and parapet, tower, dungeon, and drawbridge, are all there, only awaiting the Mason of the future to translate them into actuality. But the success of Mr. Selfridge lies in his frugality, and not in his dreams. One can afford to have a castle in Spain when one possesses the ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... waves of his mail-coat; he walked fast, and was disappearing in the shadows of the trees near the moat, but turned before he was quite lost in them, and waved his ungauntletted hand; then she heard the challenge of the warder, the falling of the drawbridge, the swing of the heavy wicket-gate on its hinges; and, into the brightening lights, and deepening shadows of the moonlight he went from her sight; and she left the porch and went to the chapel, all that night praying ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... might have been saved had not the King's orders for the march of the troops from Versailles, and the environs of Paris, been disobeyed. She blamed the precipitation of De Launay in ordering up the drawbridge and directing the few troops on it to fire upon the people. 'There,' she added, 'the Marquis committed himself; as, in case of not succeeding, he could have no retreat, which every commander should take care to secure, before he allows ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... door swung shut behind her; then he walked on slowly, past the great basins, over the drawbridge, along the crooked streets of the old town, past the station, and finally he stopped in the shadow of a crag of rock which sprang abruptly three hundred feet into the air. Its summit was crowned by the frowning walls of the great fort which commands ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... obstacles in the way constitute its greatest charms for you. I ought to congratulate you, it seems to me. This Isabelle, for an actress, is not easy of access; she dwells in a fortress, without drawbridge or other means of entrance, and guarded, as we read of in the history of ancient chivalry, by dragons breathing out flames of fire and smoke. But here comes our ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... inclosure is protected by crenellated walls and surrounded by a moat. These semi-fortifications were erected by Bishop Ralph, who perhaps found that a mitre was as uneasy a headgear as a crown. A gate-house, with a drawbridge commands the entrance. If the porter has not been too worried by tourists a peep may sometimes be obtained at the sacred enclosure. The actual palace forms the E. boundary of what was once a stately quadrangle. ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... guard this city, by day in spirit, and by night in body also; and never on ancient holidays have its conduits run wine more merrily than we will pour forth our legendary lore. We are old chroniclers from this time hence. The crumbled walls encircle us once more, the postern-gates are closed, the drawbridge is up, and pent in its narrow den beneath, the water foams and struggles with the sunken starlings. Jerkins and quarter-staves are in the streets again, the nightly watch is set, the rebel, sad and lonely in his Tower dungeon, tries to sleep and weeps for home and children. Aloft ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... feudal system, and is loath to abandon them for a system adapted to the requirements of modern 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 ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... mingled feelings shall pursue When London's faded glories rise to view? The mighty city, which by every road, [13] In floods of people poured itself abroad; Ungirt by walls, irregularly great, No jealous drawbridge, and no closing gate; Whose merchants (such the state which commerce brings) Sent forth their mandates to dependant kings: Streets, where the turban'd Moslem, bearded Jew, And woolly Afric, met the ...
— Eighteen Hundred and Eleven • Anna Laetitia Barbauld
... at the towers that controlled the drawbridge across the outer moat was changed at four o'clock; six men came out, under an officer, from the inner court; the words were exchanged, and the six that went off duty marched into the armoury to lay by their pikes and presently dispersed, four to ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Jesuits jobbed it. I composed a neat Oration, developing my inoffensive intentions in connexion with this Bottle, and delivered it in an infinity of guard-houses, at a multitude of town gates, and on every drawbridge, angle, and rampart, of a complete system of fortifications. Fifty times a day, I got down to harangue an infuriated soldiery about the Bottle. Through the filthy degradation of the abject and vile Roman States, I had as ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... its green 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 of ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... 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 ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... later the three clattered over the drawbridge and along the road that leads toward Lustadt. The escort rode a short distance behind the girl, and they were hard put to it to hold the mad ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... directly into the nest, and the other half turning aside, skirting the board, ascending a bit of perpendicular canvas, and entering the nest from the rear. The entrance was well guarded by a veritable moat and drawbridge of living ants. A foot away, a flat mat of ants, mandibles outward, was spread, over which every passing individual stepped. Six inches farther, and the sides of the mat thickened, and in the last three ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the 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 ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... into view—a black mass, with turrets en poivriere. We followed a sort of causeway, which gave access to the court-of-honor, and which, passing over a moat full of running water, doubtless replaced a long-vanished drawbridge. The loss of that draw-bridge must have been, I think, the first of various humiliations to which the warlike manor had been subjected ere being reduced to that pacific aspect with which it received me. The stars reflected themselves ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... over. Joshua's soldiers threw down their arms, and ran or galloped to right and left, save a number of them who fled through the gates of the palace, which they had opened, and across the drawbridge into the courtyards within. After them, or, rather, mixed up with them, followed the Mountaineers, killing all whom they could find, for they were out of hand and would not listen to the commands of Maqueda and their officers, that they ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... surrounded by a marshy ditch with a drawbridge which was but seldom let down:—not all guests are good people. Under the roof were loopholes to shoot through, and to pour down boiling water or even molten lead on the enemy, should he approach. Inside the house the rooms ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the snorting of the broken-winded horses, the smell of the scorched hoofs, the slapping of the pats of the washerwomen kneeling by the water, the heavy thuds of the butcher's chopper next door, the clatter of a horse's hoofs on the stones of the street, the creaking of a pump, or the drawbridge over the canal, the heavy barges laden with blocks of wood, slowly passing at the end of the garden, drawn along by a rope: the little tiled courtyard, with a square patch of earth, in which two lilac-trees grew, in the middle of a clump of geraniums and petunias: the tubs ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Together they splashed and waded for upwards of half a mile through a horrible black mud. The French brigade landed on the left, and in the same manner in the neighbourhood, but finding somewhat harder ground, were the first to reach the causeway. A cavalry picquet now appeared on a drawbridge across the causeway, watching the movements of the allies, but they also, as the troops floundered on, mounted their horses and rode at a dignified pace southward towards Taka. The whole day was occupied in ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 and threatened; but the draw remained up, and the provincials ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... of peasantry, excepting that he was still called—more in mockery, or at least in familiarity, than in respect—the Baron of Plenton. A causeway connected the castle with the mainland; it was cut in the middle, and the moat only passable by a drawbridge which yet subsisted, and which the poor old couple contrived to raise every night by their joint efforts, the country being very unsettled at the time. It must be observed that the old man and his wife occupied only one apartment ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... shoulders of his comrades, till he could climb in 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 ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... 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— "Bring ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... stately—sometimes one enters by a large quadrangle, quite surrounded by low arcades covered with ivy, a fountain and good-sized basin in the middle of the courtyard, and a big clock over the door—sometimes they stand in a moat, one goes over a drawbridge with massive doors, studded with iron nails and strong iron bolts and chains which defend the entrance, making one think of old feudal days, when might was right, and if a man wanted his neighbours property, he simply took it. Even some of ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... apology, tore it open. It was from Heinzman, and requested an immediate interview. Orde delayed only long enough to get Mr. Welton's signature, then hastened as fast as his horse could take him across the drawbridge to the village. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... flung him aside, and in a voice of thunder cried for the wildest steed in his stables to be brought forth. Paralysed with fright, the luckless page was seized and bound by the heels to the tail of the half-tame creature, which was led out beyond the drawbridge, and pricked with daggers till it flung off the men-at-arms and dashed screaming down the rocky ascent ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... way for an Emperor, I'd hold my road for a King— To the Triple Crown I would not bow down— But this is a different thing. I'll not fight with the Powers of Air, Sentry, pass him through! Drawbridge let fall, it's the Lord of us all, The ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... by Henry III, but has been entirely refaced. Through its archway we reach the stone bridge, which had formerly in the centre a drawbridge ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie
... of and to sins, all to have presented it in all its features so ugly, so ill favoured, and so unreasonable a thing to the soul, that the soul should forthwith have let down the sluice, and pulled up the drawbridge, put a stop, with greatest defiance, to the motion now under consideration; but the imagination being defiled, it presently, at the very first view or noise of the motion of sin, so acted as to forward the bringing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... island, with the Empress Dowager's eunuchs to guard him. These were changed daily lest they might sympathize with their unhappy monarch and devise some means for his liberation. Each day when the guard was changed, the drawbridge connecting the island with the mainland was removed, leaving the Emperor to wander about in the court of his palace-prison, or sit on the southern terrace where it overlooked the lotus lake, waiting, hoping and perhaps expecting that his last appeal to Kang Yu-wei in which he said: ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... her arrival at the Bush, took a hackney-coach, and left the care of directing the coachman to Betty Williams, who professed to have a perfect knowledge of Bristol. Betty desired the man to drive to the drawbridge; and, at the sound of the word drawbridge, various associations of ideas with the drawbridges of ancient times were called up in Miss Warwick's imagination. How different was the reality from her castles in the air! She was roused ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the shadowy outlines of the low-lying town take shape and enlarge, dotted with lamps as though pricked over with pin-holes. The fiery clock of the station, that sits up all night from year's end to year's end; the dark figures with tumbrils, and a stray coach waiting; the yellow gateway and drawbridge of the fortress just beyond, and the chiming of carillons in a wheezy fashion from the old watch-tower within, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... I lost no time in crossing the drawbridge and entering the long low archway which, passing under the rampart, communicates with the town. Beneath this archway paced with measured tread, tall red-coated sentinels with shouldered guns. There was no stopping, no sauntering ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... descending to fly with them. One of these mirrors shows Huon of Bordeaux playing at chess with the king's daughter: another represents a castle, which occupies the upper centre of the circle, and under the window is a drawbridge, across which passes a procession of mounted knights. One of these has paused, and, standing balancing himself in a most precarious way on the pommels of his saddle, is assisting a lady to descend from a window. Below are seen others, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... only at night. On the seaward side of this enclosure was what may be termed the citadel, or real fortification; it was built of solid masonry, with parapets, was surrounded by a deep ditch, and was only accessible by a drawbridge, mounted with cannon on every side. Its real strength, however, could not well be perceived, as it was hidden by the high palisading which surrounded the whole establishment. After a careful survey, Philip recommended that the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... swamps, according to the position of each side. These moats, or defensive ditches, were crossed by drawbridges. To enter a fortified place in the Middle Ages one had to pass a barbican (i.e. an outwork consisting of a fortified wall along each side of the one way); a drawbridge across the moat; a portcullis or gate of stoutly inter-crossing timbers (set horizontally and vertically with only a small space between any two beams, giving the whole gate the appearance of a large number of small square holes, each surrounded by solid ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... to be judged? Why then should the present trouble 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 Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... at Phalsbourg, and, when he was on the road to Saverne, the guns fired their last shot, and silence reigned once more. The guards at the French gate raised the drawbridge, and the ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... on the other side by the sea. In this slip, upon an open shore, I saw Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the contrivance of art. For, though it be almost surrounded with water, on the west with a river, over which there is a drawbridge, and on either side with the sea, except to the north, where it is joined to the continent; yet it is fenced with strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into an oblong quadrangle. Besides the towers upon these, there is a mole or mount, to the east, from whence ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... home, with toy pails and spades; but if you take notice you will find that their sand-structures differ widely from those of children in America: you may even see a perfect model of a feudal castle grow into shape, with barbacan, gate, moat, drawbridge, towers, bastions, donjon-keep and banqueting-hall complete. A brass band—the members in full uniform of bright colors, with little rimless red-and-gold caps—is playing under the battlemented garden-wall which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... the drawbridge, gather some forces To Cornhill and Cheapside:—and, gentlemen, If diligence be weighed on every side, A quiet ebb will follow this ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... King, who saw, as he passed, this fine castle of the Ogre's, had a mind to go into it. Puss, who heard the noise of his Majesty's coach running over the drawbridge, ran out and said ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... boys stared and then Steve leaned quickly over the chart. "By Jiminy!" he muttered. "There's a way out there. Look, fellows! See where it says 'Drawbridge'? Evidently you can get through there into the Squam River, and the river takes you out into Ipswich Bay! It's dollars to doughnuts that's where they took the Follow Me!" Steve drew down the throttle and the cruiser lunged forward in response. ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... With bows and stern raised high in air, And balconies hanging here and there, And signal lanterns and flags afloat, And eight round towers, like those that frown From some old castle, looking down Upon the drawbridge and the moat. And he said with a smile, 'Our ship, I wis, Shall be of another ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... themselves in a great arched gate-house—the enormous doors were shut and barred. There was a window in a little room at the bottom of the round turret up which the stair wound, rather larger than the other windows, and looking through it they saw that the drawbridge was up and the portcullis down; the moat looked very wide and deep. Opposite the great door that led to the moat was another great door, with a little door in it. The children went through this, and found themselves in a big courtyard, with the great grey walls of the castle ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... shoot, and looking uneasily at the castle windows as though expecting to 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
... of January, 1583, the duke dined somewhat earlier than usual, under the pretext of proceeding afterward to review his army in their camp. He set out at noon, accompanied by his guard of two hundred horse; and when he reached the second drawbridge, one of his officers gave the preconcerted signal for an attack on the Flemish guard, by pretending that he had fallen and broken his leg. The duke called out to his followers, "Courage, courage! the town is ours!" ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Elizabeth absently, all absorbed in a winding river, a moat, and a drawbridge. "Aunt Margaret won't let me have one, I know. Will they wear them ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... situated in a large and woody park, and surrounded by a moat. A drawbridge which fronted the entrance was every night, by order of Mr Delvile, with the same care as if still necessary for the preservation of the family, regularly drawn up. Some fortifications still remained entire, and vestiges were every where to be traced of more; no taste was shown in the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... countrymen outside; the Constable of France, Arthur de Bretagne, Comte de Richemont, with the Comte de Dunois and some two thousand horsemen, were waiting for them; the first twenty men introduced through a little postern gate opened the great doors and let down the drawbridge, all the cavalry trooped in without meeting the least resistance. "Then the Marechal de l'Isle-Adam mounted upon the wall, unfurled the banner of France, and cried ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... Dunkirk at once and continued toward La Panne. A drawbridge in the wall guards the road out of the city in that direction. And here for the first time the pink slip threatened to fail us. The Red Cross had been used by spies sufficiently often to cover us with cold suspicion. And it was worse than that. Women were ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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 later, though ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... Street and continues by viaduct over Naegle Avenue, Amsterdam Avenue, and Broadway to Bailey Avenue, at the Kingsbridge station of the New York & Putnam Railroad, crossing the Harlem Ship Canal on a double-deck drawbridge. The length of this route is 13.50 miles, of which about 2 miles ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... when the fortress consisted of a single house, to present as much difficulty as possible to a besieger. It was always at some height in the wall, and was reached by a winding, or rather rambling, stairway leading from the drawbridge, and often running round a considerable part of the wall. One or more gates in the course of this stair could be closed at pleasure. A large and imposing portal admitted the visitor to a small tower occupied by the guards, through which the real entrance was approached. This stood in ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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
... set out alone to explore the strange place, and with much difficulty and some apprehension—for I did not know how the natives were disposed—ascended a steep rocky path, at the summit of which a wooden drawbridge leads over a deep abyss to the gate of the city. This bridge is the only access to Yezdi-Ghazt, which is, so ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... a few days with Thomas Clarkson, in Ipswich. He lived in a very old house with long rambling corridors, surrounded by a moat, which we crossed' by means of a drawbridge. He had just written an article against the colonization scheme, which his wife read aloud to us. He was so absorbed in the subject that he forgot the article was written by himself, and kept up a running applause with ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Huet Bay, and, wheeling hastily at the sight of them, found us behind him. Like a spent hare that runs into a hole, he spurred to the house at Blanchelande that lay at the head of All Saints' Bay, and we that followed at a run heard his beast clatter over the drawbridge of the moat. We rolled a great stone on to the bridge that none could draw it up, and, with the Normans following behind, pursued him into his cover. The good steed stood riderless before the gate. With all our weight we burst the door, and ran in a great ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... castle was surrounded by a moat, thirty feet deep and twenty wide, over which lay a drawbridge. Jack set men to work, to cut the bridge on both sides, near the middle; and then dressing himself in his invisible coat, went against the Giant with his sword of sharpness. As he came close to him, though the Giant could not see ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... way," said Alberic. "I scrambled down that wide buttress by the east wall last week, when our ball was caught in a branch of the ivy, and the drawbridge is down." ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... banks, a moat to be overpassed without drawbridge, lay ahead of the foremost horse and rider. A moment and the two burst through the screen of willows, another, and from the high, bare bank they had leaped into the narrow, deep, and sluggish stream. "That horse's ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... built a castle, 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 ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit |
