"Back door" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... three or four scraggly sprays of English ivy, and re-greening one or two bay-tree boxes, there was really nothing much to do to the garden. But the house? Oh ye gods! All day long from morning till night,—but most particularly from the back door to the barn, sweating workmen scuttled back and forth till nary a guilty piece of black walnut furniture had escaped. All day long from morning till night,—but most particularly from ceilings to floors, sweltering workmen scurried up ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... saved their fortunes—not for himself, but for Mother. He whistled "The Harum-Scarum Rag" all the way home, interrupting himself only to murmur: "I wonder where the back door of that house is. Not at the back, anyway. Never ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... for enlarged pictures. That was not so bad, but it turned out that the pedlar was a woman, and she came with a rawhide and camped in the office for two days waiting for Jimmy, while he came in and out of the back door, stuck his copy on the hook by stealth, and travelled only in the alleys to get his news. One could hardly say that he was to blame for that, either, as the photographer who paid for the item didn't say the pedlar was a woman, and the boy was ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... dat dere old mis gib 'em ter do, er weavin' er de cloth. Dese wimmens wud be er settin' 'roun de fire weavin' de cloth en de nigger be dar too er courtin' de gal, en all ter once here cum dem paddyrollers, some at de front door en some at de back door, en when de wimmens er hear 'em er comin', dey raise er loose plank in de flo whut dey done made loose fer dis bery puppus, en de nigger he den drap right quick down 'neath de flo twix de jists, en de wimmens den slap de plank ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... seen him divert himself at Swallow shooting (by all, I think allow'd to be the most difficult) and exceeding all I ever saw. The last time I had the Honour to see him, was on his Return from that Exercise. He had been abroad with the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and alighted out of his Coach at a back Door of the Palace, with three or four Birds in his Hand, which according to his usual Custom, he carried up to the Queen ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... got into!" I begged her with tears in my eyes to intercede for me. She answered, "My intercession would be of no service to you: but I will endeavor to save you by other means." She then took my hand, carefully led me out by a back door, and guided ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... watched for the arrival of subpoenas from Washington; men were posted in the streets to give the alarm whenever the Marshal should attempt to serve papers; and before he entered the front door of a Mormon's house, the Church sentry had entered by the back door to warn the inmates. If the Federal power had been moving in a foreign land, it could not have been more determinedly opposed by local authority. Notorious polygamists, wanted as witnesses before the Senate ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... Sallie Malinda to sleep," said Sue after a while. "And I'm going to let her sleep near the back door of ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... comes this way, I shall see it in time, and I can run out the back door and across to the neighbors," she told herself. "If anything comes in the back way, I shall hear and have time to run out the front door; and I know there is nothing in the house." But she could not reassure herself, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Elizabeth! I'm sorry I was such a hassle last week, and thank you for trying to take care of me so well. I was too sick to know any better." She said she had gone out our back door the week before and crawled under a pile of fallen leaves on the ground in our back yard with a black tarp over them. We had looked under the tarp at least fifty times during the days past, but never thought to look ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... riot of uninvited guests I never imagined. I shall try to do something, but I fear my puny might will not effect much against such hordes. The wet and heat together produce such growths as I never saw except in Cuba. There is a real forest at the back door, between the house and the terraces. The greenness is truly English and Irish.—I picked forty ears of corn to-day.—We all met at the Alcotts' at tea-time. It was a clear, frosty air that bit me as I went in through the sunset. We had a delightful visit. Mr. Alcott was ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... He approached the back door of the house without seeing anybody about. It was already growing dark, he had hobbled so slowly on the road. As he stepped upon the porch, Tom heard a sudden furious barking ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... startled, but instantly remembering the night-watch in the underground shanty, she stole to the window and peeped out. There stood Tom! "We want something to eat," he said in a loud whisper; "the B. B.'s are awful hungry. Come down and open the back door." ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... the slope, big John Duck came by-and-by to the gateway, and entering without ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found Mr. Iden near the back door talking to a farmer who had ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... Drake," says the old chronicle, "was the first Englishman to sail on the back side of America," and from that time until now California has been considered the back door of the country. This was natural because the first settlements in the United States were along the Atlantic seacoast. The people who came from England kept their faces turned eastward, looking to the Mother Country for help, and ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... house by a back door, but had to cross the hall to reach the stair. As she ran up, her father came in at the front door, saw her, and called her. She went down again to meet the tempest of his rage, which now broke upon her in gathered fury. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Mr. Bennet appear from either direction. Clay was slightly mystified at this sudden summons, so early in the evening, but like a good chauffeur and the friend of Arethusa's which he so truly was, he asked no questions; and unfastened the back door for her, having driven in the back way without a word of comment. Arethusa knew that Ross and Elinor would still be up at this early hour, within hearing of the opening of the front door, and she wanted ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... morning when Jimmy brought the milk to Mrs. Francis's back door the dark-eyed girl with the "smiley" teeth let him in, and set a chair beside the kitchen stove for him to warm his little blue hands. While she was emptying the milk into the pitcher with the birds on it, Mrs. Francis, with ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... entered by the back door. He was, he said, the village solicitor. I do not assert that he licked Woodhouse's boots, but we should have respected him more if he had and been done with it. His notion was that the matter could be accommodated, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... nightshirt were discernible in almost pitchy darkness), they saw him strut back from the window to slip downstairs and surprise them. Mr Pinsent paused only to insert his feet into a pair of loose slippers, and again, as he unbolted the back door, to snatch a lantern off its hook. Yet by the time he ran out upon the garden the depredators had ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... less than two minutes from the instant of their encounter, they stood outside Troyon's back door, facing a cramped, malodorous alley-way—a dark and noisome souvenir of that wild mediaeval Paris whose effacement is an enduring monument to the fame of the good ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... a penny! He never can learn the cat's tread!" thought the crone, as she arose and withdrew the bolt of the back door. ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... "wash the breakfast things; put them in order; take them all into the pantry. When you have done, go out by the back door, being careful to put on the old man's disguise to-day. Fasten the wig firmly on, and put a patch over your eye. Here's five shillings; get food for the day, and be here by ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... more daring than that of Nancy's effort, it required twice the amount of self-sacrifice. He was to be, from June twenty-seventh till August twenty-seventh, Bill Harmon's post-office clerk and delivery boy, and the first that the family would know about it would be his arrival at the back door, in a linen jacket, with an order-book in his hand. Bravo, Gilly! One can see your heels disappearing over the top of ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to the back door, Charlie, and see that your Aunt Nellie gets home," he said; and people spoke admiringly afterward of the composure with which he ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... and lock the door," he commanded her through the keyhole. "The back door is locked already, so you are ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... to help the man, whose name I had now learned—it was Stanley—with his horse and wagon, and then we came up to the house. Near the back door there was a pump, with a bench and basin set just within a little cleanly swept, open shed. Rolling back my collar and baring my arms I washed myself in the cool water, dashing it over my head until I gasped, and then stepping back, breathless and refreshed, I found the slim girl, Mary, at my elbow ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... run out der back door," was all that she could be made to say in answer to fierce inquiries. Every apartment was examined in vain, and then the roughs departed in search of other prey. Brave, simple-hearted girl! She would have been torn to pieces had her humane ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... "I said that to Jonathan when I come home from the Circle the day they was here talkin' over the fund an' settlin' what they'd do. I come home an' says to Jonathan wipin' his hands on the roller-towel there by the back door, I says, 'What's everybody got ag'inst growin' old, an' growin' hefty, too, for that matter?' I says. 'Seems if folks don't talk about ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... the bench under the old russet apple-tree by the back door one day, regretting her evil fate, she heard footsteps approaching, and, pushing back her old sun-bonnet, looked up to see a shabby, shambling, oldish man coming around the side of the house and gazing in at the windows, "What ye doin' there?" ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... her life in the city, and feels above everybody. She and her brother and her mother will just take possession of our piazza and door-yard, and our swing; and I can wash dishes, and sit on the back door-step, and never see a girl from one month's end to another." ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... Hannah his wife, jumped from an upper chamber window. The young woman sprained her ankle in the fall, and lay helpless, but begged her husband to run to Hatfield for aid, which he did, while she remained a prisoner. The Indians soon got in at a back door, seized Mercy Sheldon, a little girl of two years, and dashed out her brains on the door-stone. Her two brothers and her sister Mary, a girl of sixteen, were captured. The house was used for a short time as a depot for prisoners, and here also was brought the French officer wounded in the ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... sword to the National Defence in the provinces. A number of indignant citizens hastened to the office of Le Combat in order to seize Pyat and consign him to durance, but he was an adept in the art of escaping arrest, and contrived to get away by a back door. At the Hotel-de-Ville Rochefort, on being interviewed, described Pyat as a cur, and declared that there was no truth whatever in his story. Public confidence completely revived on the following morning, when the official journal formally declared that Metz had not capitulated; and, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... and the bill, a very moderate one, paid, the whole family shook hands with us again and wished us every kind of happiness and good luck. Monsieur then conducted us to a back door, and let us loose into an alley quite as dark and filthy as the one by which we entered. He was always firm about refusing to allow us to go by the way we came. I have no idea what his reasons were, but the plan of smuggling us out of the establishment gave us a pleasurable feeling that ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... the 8th of June. The waters were then at their highest point, and my canoe had been anchored close to the back door of our house. The morning was cool and a brisk wind blew, with which we sped rapidly past the white-washed houses and thatched Indian huts of the suburbs. The charming little bay of Mapiri was soon left behind; we then doubled Point Maria Josepha, a headland formed of high ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... it you pleased called for—angelica, ma'am, did you say? At present we are quite out, I'm ashamed to say, of angelica, ma'am—Well, child," continued Mrs. Bertrand to her maid, who was at this moment seen passing by the back door of ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the man Ormsby fell sick once more. Now he was a goodlooking man, and his wife felt sure the "gentry" were coveting him. She went and called on the "faery-doctor" at Cairnsfoot. As soon as he had heard her tale, he went behind the back door and began muttering, muttering, muttering-making spells. Her husband got well this time also. But after a while he sickened again, the fatal third time, and away went she once more to Cairnsfoot, and out went the faery-doctor behind his back door and began muttering, but soon ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... cautious to take an immediate, personal part in the gold-dust sale. There was a certain underling, Mr. Escrocevitch by name, at Sergei Kovroff's beck and call—a shady person, rather dirty in aspect, and who was, therefore, only admitted to Sergei's presence by the back door and through the kitchen, and even then only at times when there ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... shadows, whose feet made no sound, Black Bart and Dan glided to the door and peered into the night—then Barry went back, step by step, until his back was once more to the wall. Not until that instant did the others hear. It was a step which approached behind the house; a loud rap at the back door. ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... her place was at the back door," declared Mildred. "Old Dick Buck's granddaughter needn't expect to get ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... where one hasn't got to deal with the absolute possibilities, one could always have made Kara have a safe of that character in order to make his escape in the event of danger. He might keep a rope ladder stored inside, open the back door, throw out his ladder to a friend and by some trick arrangement could detach the ladder and allow the door to ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... should say not! You can't do anything but look through the window, and I shall ask the doctor if that's safe. Now listen—dear," again the "dear" slipped through her lips unconsciously. "Listen! When you see Stefana coming, you go out the back door! I wish I'd told her to bring him in the clothes basket instead ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... shortest way to Ken's Island, and no mistake about it. For what does a man do when he sees some one in a house and the front door's slammed in his face? Why, he goes to the back door certainly, and for choice when the night's dark and the blinds are down. That's what I'm going to do this night, lads, for the sake of a bit of a girl you and I would sail far ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... over the hitching post, leaped the fence and reached the back door. The young green girl, who was all father could get when the cook left, was crying. So were Shelley and little May, although she said afterward she had a boil on her heel and there was no one to poultice it. Laddie leaned against the door casing, and it is easy enough to understand ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... upon the child, and then went to the back door, where she took down a long horn, and blew upon it ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... gardens and greenhouses and macadamized roads. And, on the whole, I expected a cross between a shooting-box and a Swiss chalet, a little nest of a home that was so small it was sure to be lovable, with a rambler-rose draping the front and a crystal spring bubbling at the back door, a little flowery island on the prairie where we could play Swiss-Family-Robinson and sally forth to shoot prairie-chicken and ruffed grouse to ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... hour passed. He could hear no noise inside the house, nor did Phil show himself at any of the windows. Pietro was disturbed by a sudden suspicion. What if, while he was watching, Phil had escaped by the back door, and was ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... muttered the detective, as he grabbed his hat, crushed it upon his head, and vanished out of the back door with a good deal more of elasticity in his step ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... turned the cows into the enclosure, where they were wont to be milked and secured for the night. Then hastening on to grandpap's house, she entered by a back door, which opened directly into the sick room, and stealing quietly up to the bedside, began softly strewing the fragrant contents of her apron, handful by handful, over and around the form of the unconscious ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... not to spend the night without food and fire, he vaulted the "snake" fence, and strode to the back door. A woman ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... them for live coals and held the match to them to light it. But the cat, not understanding this joke, sprung at his face, and spit, and scratched at him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away he ran to the back door; but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At this the robber ran back as fast ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... along by the garden wall, and round to the back of the house, and here it clattered into a cobble-stoned yard and stopped at the back door. ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... of the paper-shop, a clean, washed-out old lady, held up both averting hands at her back door, as Hogarth threw back his kefie, finger on lips; but soon, her alarm warming into welcome, she took him to a room above, to listen ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... tin bucket, that shone like burnished silver in the sunbeams, swinging on her arm, she stole out of the back door, and ran down a narrow lane, till she came to an open field, where the young corn was waving its silken tassels, and potato vines frolicking at its feet. The long, shining leaves of the young corn threw off ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... engine to shell green peas with; teeth that grew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach, tooth-ach, and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the Garden ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Zachariah? His course was a true one so far as direction was concerned. Blind instinct located the back door for him and he made a bee-line toward it regardless of all that lay between. First he encountered a tree-stump. This he succeeded in passing without the slightest deviation from the chosen route. Scrambling frantically ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... Would the bird ever return to its cage? But he thanked her. When she went away he stood on the doorstep holding the candle till she had almost reached the house. But Em was that evening in no hurry to enter, and, instead of going in at the back door, walked with lagging footsteps round the low brick wall that ran before the house. Opposite the open window of the parlour she stopped. The little room, kept carefully closed in Tant Sannie's time, was well lighted by a paraffin lamp; books and work lay strewn about it, and ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... do nicely. When I have done the trick I shall put on my great coat again and return by the back door. If necessary Costa himself will be able to swear that I did not leave the house, and that therefore I cannot have committed the assault. However, I shall put my pistols in my pocket in case of accidents, and if anybody tries ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... opened the door, the place seemed deserted, but she picked her way, among barrels and boxes, saddles and hams, to the dry-goods department in the rear. Through the open back door she could see two men in the yard, one repairing a chicken-coop, and the other standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the job. The man with the hammer and saw, she knew. He was the manager of the store. The other was a new clerk, who had ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... could have knocked me down with a feather!" she resumed. "He telephones me awhile ago and says to be outside the back door at ten to-night, because he'd something he wanted to tell me. Of course he couldn't come in and tell it me here, because he'd been fired and everything. So I goes out, and there he is. 'Hello, kid!' ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the mansion, they saw a man, in the kind of suit usually worn by a carpenter, come out of the back door and stand looking across the garden. In his hand he held ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... not waiting for her sleepy reply I go down and build the biggest, warmest, friendliest fire of the year. Then I get into my thick coat and mittens and open the back door. All around the sill, deep on the step, and all about the yard lies the drifted snow: it has transformed my wood pile into a grotesque Indian mound, and it frosts the roof of my barn like a wedding cake. I go at it lustily with my wooden shovel, clearing out ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... alike came to the back door of Schloss Rothhoefen, and there found welcome or stubborn obstacles that laughed at time and locksmiths: monstrous gates that still were strong enough to defy a mighty force. There was my great stone-paved courtyard, flanked on all sides by disintegrating buildings ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... taken, as usual, the fertile land and the running water, and have allotted land to the Indian where neither wood nor water exist, no crops will grow, no human life can be supported. I have seen the land. I have seen the Indian begging at the back door. Oh, yes, they were an "inferior race." Oh, yes, they didn't and couldn't use the land to the best advantage, couldn't build Broadway and the Union Pacific Railroad, couldn't improve real estate. If you choose to call the whole thing "manifest destiny," I am with you. I'll not dispute that what ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... or sweep of wind, and smoky smell. He ran round to the rear. Close up against the back door, quite out of the moonlight, something was piled. Forked tongues of flame were shooting out of it everywhere. He seized the chain attached to the factory-bell, and rang it rapidly. There was a window thrown up, and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... might yet feel under obligation, and that she could not bear. These things and many more so worked in the sensitive maiden that as soon as she heard Alec and his mother go to the dining-room she put on her bonnet and cloak, stole like a thief through the house to the back door, and let herself out ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... the third day after Gordon's return to Corbett's that Juanita heard a whistle while she was washing dishes after supper in the kitchen. Presently she slipped out of the back door and took the trail to the corral. A man moved forward out of ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... remained; and both were connected by canals with Bruges, which stood several miles inland. The whole formed a triple base shaped like the letter V, with Bruges at the bottom, Zeebrugge (sea-Bruges) to the right, and Ostend to the left. To close only Zeebrugge was to leave the back door open. So Ostend was raided, and smashed later on, the old Vindictive, now past her fighting days, being sunk full of concrete. From all that remained of her still above water the hero-king, Albert, was cheered into Ostend after the Armistice ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... minute was precious, and the thought of Nell facing those drunken men caused his feet fairly to spurn the grass. Reaching the main road, he tore through the dust, sprang over a ditch, leaped a fence, raced through the orchard and ran plumb into Jake and Empty standing at the back door. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... directly, in the moonlight, to choose the spot; and soon came to the resolution to build it so, that a certain back door, which added more to the cold in winter than to the convenience in summer, should be the entrance to the new chamber. The chimney was the chief difficulty; but all the materials being in the immediate neighbourhood, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... up, either in caterpillar, cocoon, or moth, at any season of the year, in almost any location. The Cecropia moth resembles the robin among birds; not alone because he is grey with red markings, but also he haunts the same localities. The robin is the bird of the eaves, the back door, the yard and orchard. Cecropia is the moth. My doorstep is not the only one they grace; my friends have found them in like places. Cecropia cocoons are attached to fences, chicken-coops, barns, houses, and all through the ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the event. Dalton pushed through the press, keeping her close in his wake. But once within the door no conventional barriers were interposed. The gloomy distance and silence attendant upon the last hours of the great were not in the way of friendly sympathy, or unfriendly intrusion, here. The back door stood wide open, and people came and went, while the children's sobs mingled with the curt, outspoken directions of the undertaker and the clatter of dishes, which some obliging neighbor was washing at the kitchen sink. The body of the murdered man lay on the bed in a small room off the ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... tea-kettle back if it were necessary. Amanda stood in the door, trembling. All at once there was a swift roll of wheels in the yard past the window. "Somebody's come!" gasped Amanda. Mrs. Field rushed to the back door, and Amanda after her. There was a buggy drawn up close to the step, and a man was trying ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... other, and sorrowfully abandoned those fragments endued with life. The two midwives (that waited upon the queens) then carefully wrapping up the still-born (?) fragments went out of the inner apartments (of the palace) by the back door and throwing away the bodies, returned in haste. A little while after, O tiger among men, a Rakshasa woman of the name of Jara living upon flesh and blood, took up the fragments that lay on a crossing. And impelled ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... side of the Canal, but the Taepings still held a strong stone fort on the opposite side, which defied all the efforts of the Imperialists. Two hundred of the Liyang corps gallantly crossed the Canal in boats, forced open the back door of the fort, and carried it at a rush. With this success all the outworks of Chanchufu were taken, and the town itself closely besieged. Gordon then proceeded to plant his batteries opposite the point he had selected for attack, but a regrettable affair happened in the night, when the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... but to restrain them by her presence: and as the evening wore away, so did the absences of the widow become more frequent. This Vanslyperken well knew, and he therefore always pressed his suit in the afternoon, and as soon as it was dark returned on board. Smallbones, who watched at the back door the movements of his master, perceived that he was refixing his sword-belt over his shoulder, and he knew this to be the signal for departure. It was now quite dark; he therefore hastened to the ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... in the unfloored hut, watching through broken chinking. There was a back door as well as a front door, hung on wooden hinges, and she had pinned the front door as she came in. The opening of the back door made Jeannette turn her head, though with little interest in the comer. It was a boy, with a streak of blood down his face and neck, and his clothes ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... had been perpetrated some time. The bed was of course deluged with blood, but there were no marks of blood in any other part of the room; so that he had been killed in his bed and by one blow, upon the throat, which had nearly divided his head from his body. The back door of the house was broken open, but there were no traces of persons having approached the door from without. His writing-desk was also broken open and the money taken out, but otherwise little or nothing had been taken away. The police upon duty ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... occupied with pleasures and had time for little else. The king, retiring every night at eleven and rising at five, had all the doors locked; so the queen, who returned early in the morning, was compelled to enter by the back door and pass through the servants' apartments. Such behavior gave plentiful material to M. de Provence, the king's brother, who remained at home and composed, for the Mercure de France, all sorts of stories, from so-called trustworthy ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... and dodged missiles and swore. Even that was becoming more and more difficult—except the swearing—because Ford developed a perfectly diabolic tendency to empty every store that contained a man, so that it became no uncommon sight to see a back door belching forth hurrying figures at the most unseasonable times. No man could lift a full glass, that night, and feel sure of drinking the contents undisturbed; whereat Sunset ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... looked quite miserable, but sounds of thumping at the back door drew her away from the parlour, and stopped any further confidences. Mavis ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... the unlighted cigar which was his Saturday night indulgence. "And if I could, the customers wouldn't. I suppose as many as a dozen women have been to me in the last few days. They say they can't afford to be watchin' the back door every time you come 'round with the groceries. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... "Out the back door!" exclaimed Lieutenant Anderson, and the four ran through the house, went down the steps three at a time, and rushed toward their horses ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... came to Benny's Place, entering through the back door. Benny met me there, and quickly shushed me into a side room. His fluorescent eyes ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... siege. There was one moment when the cannonading was greatest and the skirmishers seemed withdrawn, that Gering, furious with the delay, almost prevailed upon the cautious Walley to dash across the river and make a desperate charge up the hill, and in at the back door of the town. But Walley was, after all, a merchant and not a soldier, and would not do it. Gering fretted on his chain, sure that Iberville was with the guns against the ships, and would return to harass his New Englanders soon. That evening ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the end of the upper house, I saw a young woman just coming out of the back door. I had spoken to her in the summer. She recognised me at once, and waved to me. She was carrying a pail, wearing a white apron that was longer than her preposterously short skirt, and she had on the cotton ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence
... Nest turned pale, and hurried inside, and stammering, "Oom Jan, there are some people at the door," woke up his brother and both decamped out of the back door. Steenkamp's brother-in-law, however, whom I will call Roux, soon made his appearance and bowing cringingly, ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... rapping loudly on the back door. The sound seemed to rouse the inmates at once, for, with considerable thumping and fumbling, somebody shuffled ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... same bin which served as Hippocrene to Judge Blackstone when he wrote his 'Commentaries')—these make up the legal element of the 'Cheese.' Sharp attorneys in practice are not popular there. There is a legend that a process-server once came in at a back door to serve a writ; but being detected by a waiter, was skilfully edged by that wary retainer into Wine Bottle Court, right past the person on whom he was desirous to inflict the 'Victoria, by the grace, &c.' Once in the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... front door and then look after her. It was impossible not to have heard the front door open; one hinge was rusty and it emitted a dismal squeak every time the door opened. But if she had gone out of the back door the others would have seen her and would not have said that she was upstairs in her room. That was the point which made Sahwah doubt her own memory. Veronica had not left the house; she must have gone right upstairs. And she must have said something ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... "There 'pon the back door-step was a woman!—an' pretty well as gashly as the man. She was just a 'natomy of a woman, wi' the lines of her ribs showin' under the gown, an' a hot red spot 'pon either cheek-bone, where the skin was stretched tight as a drum. ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... absorb the military mind at this day. The debate among them is but as to the best utilization of the old arrow-theory. The oblong projectile, that goes singing on its winding way, is common to them all. Slipped in at the back door or rammed home at the front, delicately stirred up by the insinuating needle and its titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off by the snappish percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful messenger, and goes on its appointed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... up in the arms av a big fat priest. All I wanted was to get away clear. So I tak him by his greasy throat an' shut the speech out av him, 'Out!' sez I. 'Which way, ye fat heathen?'—'Oh!' sez he. 'Man,' sez I. 'White man, soldier man, common soldier man. Where in the name av confusion is the back door?' The women in the temple were still on their faces, an' a young priest was holdin' out ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... of water thar's a bucket in the porch," said Fletcher, as he opened the back door and reached out into the moonlight. "Wait thar a second and I'll ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... farewell. "Say! Gee whillikins! I know what we'll do. You sneak out the back door and I'll meet you, and we'll run away and go seek-our-fortunes and we'll ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... looking for the hidden lover; but, as he could not see him, he made up his mind that Kashiku must have let him out by the back door; so he secreted one of the sandals in his sleeve as evidence, and, without seeming to suspect ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... afford this, so the Goblin stayed in the grocer's shop; and this teaches us a good deal. One evening the student came in by the back door to buy a candle and some cheese; he had no one to ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... thing we did was to get educated men for Motormen and Conductors—polite fellows, you know, who'd stop a car when you asked 'em to, and when they started wouldn't do it with such a jerk that in nine cases out of ten it was only the back door that kept the car from being yanked clean from under your feet, letting you ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... we approached Oneux, Lizzie was sick, and I was delegated to his job. I went into the town with the three other quartermaster sergeants, got them into an estaminet, bought about a dollar's worth of drinks, sneaked out the back door, and preempted the schoolhouse for C company. I also took the house next door, which was big and clean, for the officers. We were royally comfortable there, and the other companies used the stables that usually ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... in at the old, familiar boiling-house, but though work had lately been in progress there was no one there; so I went on to the back door and was about to enter, but Tom laid his ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... up in the study, and she was sure that he was writing; so when the village children stopped in on the way from school for Mandy's new-made cookies, she used her customary trick to get them away. "Tag—you're it!" she cried, and then dashed out the back door, pursued by the laughing, screaming youngsters. Mandy followed the children to the porch and stood looking after them, as the mad, little band scurried about the back yard, darted in and out amongst the trees, then up the side of the wooded ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... reach it something queer happened. With a bark and a wag of his tail, their dog Splash came rushing along. Straight down the street he trotted, and up into the pony cart he jumped, for the back door had been left open, when Bunny and ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... Aggie was creeping down the stairs. "Charlie!" she cried. Charlie threw open his coat, stuck his fingers in the armholes of his waistcoat, said in a voice of hatred, passion, and rage, "Go and pawn yourself!" and then swaggered out at the back door. The keeper made show of following, but John Storm called on him to stop. The man looked at the dog and obeyed. "Wot d'ye want o' me?" ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the back door, solemn, unsmiling, her hushed tones adding to the air of mystery which seemed to shroud the house. As she finished reading the note a neighbor came in the back way and Belle asked the children to wait a few minutes. They dropped down ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... was nearly gone. One Monday morning of that May, the month of new growths and of old growths with new starting-points on them, Ambrose Webb was walking to and fro across the fresh oilcloth in his short hall; the front door and the back door stood wide open, as though to indicate the receptivity of his nature in opposite directions; all the windows were wide open, as though to bring out of doors into his house: he was much more used to the former; during ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... visited the Spottswood House, with the avowed intention of hanging a Herald correspondent, who managed to escape through a back door of the building. A representative of The Tribune was summoned before the authorities at Charleston, on the charge of being a Federal spy. He was cleared of the charge, but advised to proceed North as early as possible. When he ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... favored State. Her Mohawk pathway gave her easiest access to the West and here, at her back door on the Niagara frontier, lay her path by way of the Great Lakes to the North and ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... speak or make any more movement than was necessary to pass me the letter and take the pistol, I returned the way I had come, entered by the back door, tossed the letter to Grim, and crept back again to bear a hand in case of need. Grim said nothing, but Jeremy followed me, and two minutes later the Australian and I were crouching in darkness below the veranda. This time I don't think Narayan Singh ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... and hesitated; but she decided not to send the waitress to the back door; it might be a risk. She let her ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... cat entering a strange place might have done, for if Ricardo had not Wang's miraculous gift of materializing and vanishing, rather than coming and going, he could be nearly as noiseless in his less elusive movements. He noted the back door standing just ajar; and an the time his slightly pointed ears, at the utmost stretch of watchfulness, kept in touch with the profound silence outside enveloping the absolute stillness of ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to little Massot that he was still running about on the same business, the journalist obligingly offered to pilot him. He knew the house, obtained admittance by a back door, and brought Pierre along a passage into a corner of the hall, near the very entrance of the grand drawing-room. Lofty green plants decorated this hall, and in the spot selected Pierre was virtually hidden. "Don't stir, my dear Abbe," ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... her. As I sat near Mrs. Camp, I was in a direct angle with that little door which opened against the inner wall, and in the moment while that door stood open I saw, not, as I thought might be the case, the outer world with the usual debris of a 'back door,' but an inner room, and in that room, his face toward me as he reclined, his head lifted, startled perhaps from an afternoon nap, I saw a man—a man ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Merton men and the freshman from New, who were enjoying their Christmas vacation in town, and had been dining with Maitland, were a little disappointed in the appearance of the place. They had hoped to knock mysteriously at a back door in a lane, and to be shown, after investigating through a loopholed wicket, into a narrow staircase, which, again, should open on halls of light, full of blazing wax candles and magnificent lacqueys, while a small mysterious man would point out the secret ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... a fearful draught through your front door. That's most hurtful. Better lock it at once. Would it matter if this kept your visitors off for two or three days? If someone happens to call unexpectedly—there's the back door. You had better shut this window as well, it's letting in the sunset rays only to keep the ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... and followed him out into the yard, where Miss Barbara had already preceded them. The view over the edge of the bluff was glorious and the grass in the yard was green, the flowers bright and pretty and the shadows of the tall lilac bushes by the back door of the little white house ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hain't no tellin' how fur a woman'll go when she's bein' bamboozled by a scamp—so I kind of insured ag'in' your takin' it by takin' it myself.... Er—Mr. Curtis, if I was you, I'd sort of slip out soft by the back door. Bob Allen's a-waitin' for you on the front porch.... There's ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... of irritation before this case. There was a fellow once hired my cab for an hour. Drove him all about London, and then he stopped in at a chop-house, leaving me outside. I waited and waited and waited, but he never came back. Left by the back door, you know. Clever trick, and for a while the laugh was on me; but when I got to the point where I could haunt him, I did it to the Regent's taste. I found him three years after my demise, and through the balance of his ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... walks after dark on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate provided him with an irreproachable and permanent ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that the back door was just opening, and the faint light of early dawn displayed the dark masses of the garden beyond. He is certain that nothing went out of the door. It opened, stood open for a moment, and then closed with a slam. As ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... pillars supporting the upper floor; and behind this three small rooms, and a square hall with a side entrance. The fence was down between the theater and Catholic church, next door. I stopped in the church to see Georgie, who was already at work there, came and left by the back door, and entered the ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... tenacity of life, no old yellow cat has anything on a prejudice. You may kill it with your own hands, bury it deep, and sit on the grave, and behold! the next day, it will walk in at the back door, purring. ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... some day, whatever they were, if he could only get an intelligent companion. It was evident that the little shop was no field for his activities, and the sickly woman with her face tied up, who used to look in sometimes through the back door, was no ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... up the bell and put a notice in the lighted side-window, saying, "Go to the back door," sat in the parlor, supported by his chum, Gus, while Ed played softly on the piano, hoping to lull Jack to sleep. It did soothe him, for a very sweet friendship existed between the tall youth and the lad of thirteen. Ed went ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... inverted commas) that at the back the land is ours "as far as the eye can see." It is true, too, though the eye cannot see very far. There is a "dip," you know, common enough to Triassic regions; and as you stand at the back door and look westward the sky comes down and touches our cabbages, fifty yards away. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... back door, as it were. That is to say, instead of landing at Batavia, which is the capital of Netherlands India, and presenting my letters of introduction to the Governor-General, Count van Limburg Stirum, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... hesitated, but just then another of his comrades came on the scene, and Jack led the way back to the house through a back door ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... of which would yield no flowers at all, and the other half only spindlings. This was encircled by a carriage-drive! A close row of limes, supported by more Cupressus, overhung the palings all round; a dense little shrubbery hid the back door; a weeping-ash, already tall and handsome, stood to eastward. Curiously green and snug was the scene under these conditions, rather like a forest glade; but if the space available be considered and allowance be ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... for it was not likely that even Mrs. Baxter would accept without a struggle a daughter-in-law who, five years before, had bobbed to her, wearing a pinafore, and carrying in a pair of rather large hands a basket of eggs to her back door. Then she had consented to see the girl, and the interview in the garden had left her more distressed than ever. (It was there that the aitch incident had taken place.) And so the struggle had gone on; Laurie ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... to their father. Grethel wept bitterly, and said to Hansel, "What will become of us?" "Be quiet, Grethel," said he; "do not cry, I will soon help you." And as soon as their parents had fallen asleep, he got up, put on his coat, and, unbarring the back door, slipped out. The moon shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay before the door seemed like silver pieces, they glittered so brightly. Hansel stooped down, and put as many into his pocket as it would hold, and then going back he said ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... father and brother were in the narrow entry upon which the back door of the house opened. This alley led right down to the river, where the boat was moored under the charge of the two shopmen. It would be easy to carry down any valuables and load it up, and then transport the intrepid old woman, when she ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... then we started for the Hubbards', out by our back door and through our neighbour-on-the-left's lane to avoid all observation. Miss Ponsonby was breathless with terror. She was sure every footstep she heard behind her was her father's in pursuit. She almost fainted on the spot when a belated ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Throughout German literature of the last ten years we find "to condition" almost everywhere used in place of "to cause" or "to effect." Since it is more abstract and indefinite it says less than it implies, and consequently leaves a little back door open to please those whose secret consciousness of their own incapacity inspires them with a continual fear of all definite expressions. While with other people it is merely the effect of that national tendency to immediately imitate everything ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... east parlor was open, and that a plank was raised to the window from the back yard; he then went into the parlor, but saw no trace of any person having been there. He went to the apartment of the maid-servant, and told her, and then into Mr. White's chamber by its back door, and saw that the door of his chamber, leading into the front entry, was open. On approaching the bed, he found the bed-clothes turned down, and Mr. White dead, his countenance pallid, and his night-clothes ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster |
