"Latch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girls! Passel o' girls!" screamed the parrot, as we lifted the latch and walked up the little bricked pathway, bordered with lady-slippers and prince's feather, to the porch, which was half ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... he stepped to unlatch it, and she passed out without saying good-by. When she was gone, he slipped the latch, and sat down with his hands gripping the table before him. As he sat there, he looked across the years and saw some of the havoc he had made. There was no shirking anything that he saw. A footfall passing the door made him start as if he feared to be caught in some guilty act. Yet he knew the door ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Practically the use of the post-office is in her own hands. And, as this spirit of self-conduct has grown up, the morals and habits of our young ladies have certainly not deteriorated. In America they carry latch-keys, and walk about with young gentlemen as young gentlemen walk about with each other. In America the young ladies are as well-behaved as with us,—as well-behaved as they are in some Continental countries in which they are still watched ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... upon the step the new-comer stopped; then, as if decided, she walked on—very lightly as she drew near the sleeper. Passing round him, she went to the gate, slid the wicket latch easily to one side, and put her hand in the opening. One of the broad boards in the left valve swung ajar without noise. She put the basket through, and was about to follow, when, yielding to curiosity, she lingered to have one ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Lifting the latch, I entered, and observed that Mrs Willis was seated by the window, looking wistfully out. Being rather deaf, she had not heard ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Arab closed, but did not latch, the door behind him; and standing still he spoke in the deep voice that was slightly muffled by the thin band of woollen stuff over the lower part ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... oft, beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... with light stuff and opened draughts. Raven noted, in the keen way his mind had taken up, of snatching at each least bit of safety for the woman, that the tea kettle was boiling. She would be chilled. She would need hot water. And suddenly he felt the blood in his face. There was a hand at the latch of the side door. Tenney, too, heard it. He threw back into the box the stick of wood he had selected and made three strides to the entry. Again he called, in ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Phoebe and Mrs. Buchanan had retired down the hall, and up the stairway, Caroline Darrah still knelt by the major's chair. They were both silent and the major held her hand in his. They neither of them heard the latch key and in a moment Andrew Sevier stood across the firelight ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... his feet at last, hearing footsteps outside upon the stairs. Then he settled back again, drawing near to the chimney-wall, so that he should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there was the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke invaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended oil- lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there was a slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... but Beale had turned the latch and opened the door wide. Standing in the entrance was a girl whom he had no difficulty in recognizing as Hilda Glaum, sometime desk companion of Oliva Cresswell. His back was to the light and ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... with its bordering of high privet hedges. Stuart ran out as the sound of the receding car reached his ears. By the time that he had reached the front of the house the street was vacant from end to end. He walked up the steps to the front door, which he unfastened with his latch-key. As he entered the hall, Mrs. M'Gregor ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... but the back door slammin'," replied the other. "I must ha' forgot to latch it. The wind's ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... quietly drew forward the yellow hair over the forehead again, replaced the hat, and rose to his feet. Charles and I glanced apprehensively at Ralph, but he had not stirred. As we looked, a hurried step came across the yard, a hand raised the latch of the door, and some one entered abruptly. It was Carr. For one moment he stood in the door-way, for one moment his eyes rested horror-struck on the dead woman, then darted at us, from us to the inspector, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... hearts, filled with the love of Jesus, poured forth His praise every day, but especially on the Sabbath, which they kept with great care. Their hospitality was munificent: they entertained angelic strangers. The latch-string was on the outside, and many a Covenanter, driven by storms, or hunted by dragoons, found a welcome here. They came wearied with journeying, wasted with hunger, weakened with sickness, and worried with trouble, and found rest, ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... the latch and six men crashed their way through the door. John Brown led the assault. He held a dim lantern in his hand which he lifted above his head, as he surveyed the room. He kept ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... down the long corridor the two field commanders tramped evenly abreast as if neither would give the other the advantage of an inch of precedence. In the sitting-room of the private suite the senator snapped the latch on the door, and pressed the wall-button for the electric lights. McVickar dragged a chair over to one of the windows commanding a view of the busy street, and dropping solidly into it, like a man bracing himself for a ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... the latch move, slow, slow: I looked up, and seeing the door half-open, rose and slid softly in. Behind it stood, not the woman I had befriended, but the muffled woman of the desert. Without a word she led me a ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his head ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... a closed door, in front of which he paused; and, as he did so, the broad leaves began to open of themselves, without creak or sound of lock or latch, or touch of foot or finger. The singularity was lost in the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... that finding in one of the Farringford lanes a lovely little green gate opening into one of the "groves of pine," I did just try the latch. The door opened, and it looked all so still and shaded, whispery and ferny, so exactly as if Tennyson might any minute come pacing down between the tall trees, as if the "Talking Oak" was sure to stand just round a sun-lighted corner of the wood, that, incited ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... and snapped the latch on the office door. "I shan't permit it," he said passionately. "Girl, you don't seem to realize what this means to me. I want you—and ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... said the other. "It shall never be said, whilst I am bailiff of Southampton, that any waster, riever, draw-latch or murtherer came scathless away from me and my posse. Leave that rogue lying. Now stretch out in line, my merry ones, with arrow on string, and I shall show you such sport as only the King can give. You on the left, Howett, and Thomas of Redbridge upon the right. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the great and gracious Augusta, Dion stood aside respectfully to allow her to pass, then he followed her to the door of the inner room and held aside the heavy curtain, whilst she put her hand upon the latch. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the part I had not before examined. How I could have passed it I could not account for, unless I had been prevented reaching it by the chests piled up in front, and which I had displaced. As I was extending my arms my hands touched what felt like a wooden latch. There was no doubt about it; it was the latch of a door. I lifted it up and pulled it towards me. The door opened, but all was dark within the recess. I felt sure that it must be the entrance to the vault. I was ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... president, which I bet yer the most that Mr. Wilson said when he was visiting England last Christmas was that he told the King, senior, if he was ever in Washington to be sure and look him up, or to not to fail to let him know if he was ever in Washington, or that the latch-string was always out at the White House, or any one of the hundreds of things that ordinarily the most inhospitable person in the world is perfectly safe in saying without any one taking him ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... as he sat sleeplessly rocking himself to and fro, he involuntarily exclaimed, wringing his hands, "Lost, lost, lost!" Wolfe heard what to him was an imperative command; he rose, and stood at the door, and whined. Mechanically his master rose, lifted the latch, and again exclaimed in passionate tones those magic words, that sent the faithful messenger forth into the dark forest path. Once on the trail he never left it, but with an instinct incomprehensible as it was powerful, he continued to track the woods, lingering long on spots where the ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... against one wall, and two rows of flower-pots stood in the corner near where the window opened into the lane, but there was no sign of occupation. Mr. Buxton went across, threw the window open and looked out. There was a steel cap three or four feet below, and a pike-head; and at the sound of the latch a bearded face ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... was on the latch, when a deep, muffled murmur from the depths admonished her, "Personal vanity . . . that's what's at the bottom of all that you are telling yourself. It is a vain woman speaking, and fearing a wound ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... top of it, the laird turned to the right, and lifted the latch—all the doors were latched—of a dark-looking door. It screaked dismally as it opened. He entered and undid a shutter, letting an abiding flash of the ever young light of the summer day into the ancient room. It was long since Cosmo had been ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... she placed her hand on the latch of the door, when he felt at that gesture that he was to lose her, that he should never have her again, he shouted. He forgot everything. There remained in him only the dazed feeling of a great misfortune accomplished, of an irreparable calamity. ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... to me, too; so that there shall with pleasure All the handsomest people in town and the finest assemble, As they on Sundays do now in the house of our neighbor." Here Hermann Softly pressed on the latch, and so went out from ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... turned the key and caught hold of the latch of the door. Then, with something that sounded like the growl of a wild animal, Hardwick pounced ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... hear Barney Donahoe pulling our latch-string that November night when we first heard of the great Thanksgiving dinner that was being collected in ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the garden-gate. It did help him, and ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... the back door, and lifted the latch. His grandmother stopped with a bowl of gruel in her hand, and said, "O, Horace!" that was all; but she could say no more for tears. She set down the bowl, and went up to him, trying to speak; but the words trembled on ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... similarity in the motives of these two stories makes comparison easy. Each starts with the seduction of a young girl; and each is mainly concerned with her subsequent adventures. From the beginning the advantage of probability is with the younger novelist. Mr. Moore's "William Latch" is a thoroughly natural figure, and remains a natural figure to the end of the book: an uneducated man and full of failings, but a man always, and therefore to be forgiven by the reader only a little less ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the last a burning iron, and he could make almost any machine that he was wont to work with. With his sharp axe he could not only cut the logs for his cabin and notch them down, but he could make a close-fitting door and supply it with wooden hinges and a neat latch. From the roots of an oak or ash he could fashion his hames and sled runners; he could make an axle-tree for his wagon, a rake, a flax brake, a barrow, a scythe-snath, a grain cradle a pitchfork, a loom, a reel, a washboard, a stool, a chair, a table, a bedstead, ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... chair. For a moment the riverman stared at the back of David's head, and in that moment he was fighting to keep back what wanted to come from his lips in words. He turned before David faced him again, and did not pause until he stood at the cabin door with his hand at the latch. There he ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... and did well for himself and for his family and completed a lawful life without debt or crime. The greatest poet sees and admits these economies as he sees the economies of food and sleep, but has higher notions of prudence than to think he gives much when he gives a few slight attentions at the latch of the gate. The premises of the prudence of life are not the hospitality of it or the ripeness and harvest of it. Beyond the independence of a little sum laid aside for burial-money, and of a few clapboards around and ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... open at this intimation—"with a palmer's benison," continued the stranger, advancing towards the wan embers that yet flickered on the hearth. Had Giles awaited the finishing of this sentence ere the latch was loosened, some other and more hospitable roof had enjoyed the benefit of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... get some yarn to knit up, for she 'd used all our own wool. It was getting dark, and I had just brought in another log, and hung the kettle on the crane. The log hadn't taken fire yet, and there was only a light glimmer, from the coals, on the ceiling. I heard the back-door-latch click, and thought it was mother, and commenced humming in the middle of a tune, as if I'd been humming the rest and had just reached that part; but the figure standing there was a sight too ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... the courtyard. The bloodhound started from its quarters and began to growl, but he silenced it with a word, and the creature came up and licked his hand. He crossed the court with quick and noiseless footsteps, lifted the latch of the sacristy and pushed through into ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... devouring herself," he exclaimed, "the door of the house I inhabit has remained open day and night." The interior of Sutherland was at the time of my visit in a similar condition. The door of my uncle's cottage, unfurnished with lock or bar, opened, like that of the hermit in the ballad, with a latch; but, unlike that of the hermit, it was not because there were no stores within to demand the care of the master, but because at that comparatively recent period the crime of theft was unknown ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... there was a detached building that she thought must be the chateau She entered—it was if the doors at her approach had opened wide of their own accord. A large straight staircase led up to the corridor. Emma raised the latch of a door, and suddenly at the end of the room she saw a man sleeping. It was Rodolphe. ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... wakefulness again; Rose had ceased to repeat her Psalms aloud, but was still at her needlework; another doze, another waking. There was some hope of Rose now, for she was kneeling down to say her prayers. Lucy thought they lasted very long, and at her next waking she was just in time to hear the latch of the door closing, and find herself left in darkness. Rose was not in bed, did not answer when she called. Oh, she must be gone to take Walter's coat back to his room. But surely she might have done that in one moment; and how long she was staying! ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a latch, denotes you will meet urgent appeals for aid, to which you will respond unkindly. To see a broken latch, foretells disagreements with your dearest friend. Sickness is also foretold in ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... den, we hear foot on de outside, An' some wan is place it hees han' on de latch, Dat's Isidore Goulay, las' fall on de Brul He's tak' it firs' prize on de ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... Court House, S.C., a tavern-keeper, by the name of Samuel Davis, procured the conviction and execution of his own slave, for stealing a cake of gingerbread from a grog shop. The slave raised the latch of the back door, and took the cake, doing no other injury. The shop keeper, whose name was Charles Gordon, was willing to forgive him, but his master procured his conviction and execution by hanging. The slave had but one arm; and an order on the state treasury by the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... gleamed from a few huts along the level island. At the meanest hut of all they stopped, and heard within a baby's cry, to which there was no response. The preacher staggered back with apprehension. The Jew raised the latch and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... hand on the latch of the Wilsons' door, to still her beating heart, and listened to the hushed quiet within. She opened the door softly; there sat Mrs. Wilson in the old rocking-chair, with one sick death-like boy lying on her knee, crying without let or pause, but softly, gently, as ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... but approaching the house, began to test such windows as he could reach. He finally broke in a pane and released the latch; after that, entrance ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... were on the corridor there also, and fresh paint and paper were on the walls. A few yards from the elevator he stopped at a door and opened it with a latch-key, beaming with inordinate delight. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... feet I have held in my hand, O hands at my heart to catch, How should they know the road to go, And how should they lift the latch?" ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... this house is not safe at all; and, if Monseigneur will permit me, I will go on and tell the locksmith to come and put the old bolts in the door again. I say, than a door which opens by a latch on the outside to the first comer, nothing could be more horrible; and then Monseigneur has the habit of always saying: 'Come in,' even at midnight. But, my goodness, there is no need ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... drew the wooden latch by which the door was fastened on the inside; at that time, it was still the only lock known in most of the houses in our village. The bridegroom's party invaded the bride's dwelling, but not without a combat; for the boys stationed inside the house, and ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... shadows and the dull glow of the smouldering twigs, I sometimes think I hear the tapping I have learnt to listen for, and I start from my seat, and softly open the door and look out. But only the Night stands there. Then I close-to the latch, and she—the living woman—asks me in her purring voice what sound I heard, hiding a smile as she stoops low over her work, and I answer lightly, and, moving towards her, put my arm about her, feeling her softness and her suppleness, and wondering, supposing ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... ask what "suspended" was. It sounded rather painful. But at this instant there was the rattle of a latch key at the door, and Mr. Merrill ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Beth but a child? On the other side of the pile it was almost dark. She could see something, however, when she stood up, which looked like a mark on the whitewash, and on running her hand over it she discovered it to be a narrow door flush with the wall. There was no handle or latch to it, but there was a key which had rusted in the keyhole and was not to be turned. The door was not locked, however, and Beth pushed it open, and found herself in a charming little room with a fireplace at one end of it, and opposite, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... knocked gently, and it was on their grave and watchful faces that a tall, clean-shaven, very solemn-looking man gazed in astonishment as he opened the door, and started back. He went white to the lips and his hand fell trembling from the latch as Mitchington strode in and the ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... The latch rose unsteadily, and Henrietta, with frozen tears on her cheeks, and an unintelligible expression of wretchedness and rage, appeared. After an instant of amazement, he sprang to her and clasped her in his arms, and she, against her will, and protesting ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... few days ago,—I'm thinking it was Sunday,—the bird let himself out of his cage. The latch broke, do you see, and he could push the door open with his claw. I came into the room, and there he was stalking up and down the floor with a knowing look. I soon found how he got out of the cage and I fixed the latch so he can't do it again. ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... The ceiling was of slabs from the old government sawmill at St. Anthony Falls. The door was made of boards, split from a tree with an axe, and had wooden hinges and fastenings and was locked by pulling in the latch-string. The single window was the gift of the kind-hearted Major Taliaferro, the United States Indian agent at Fort Snelling. The cash cost of the whole was one shilling, New York currency, for nails, used about ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... the great metropolis. He is generally ready to go out into the world at a very tender age. Our system of society offers him every facility in his downward career. When but a child he has his own latch-key; he can come and go when he pleases; he attends parties, balls, dancing-school, the theatre and other evening amusements as regularly and independently as his elders, and is rarely called upon by "the Governor," as ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... surprise visits.—He does not always wait to be invited; but sometimes, when we lie sleeping with wakeful hearts, we hear His gentle voice calling to us, "Arise, My love, and come away." Then as we lift the door-latch, our hand drops with the sweet-smelling myrrh which betrays His presence. How often when we have been losing ground, getting lukewarm and worldly, we have suddenly been made aware of His reviving presence, and He has said, I come. He comes, as the wood-anemones ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... another voice said. "It is easy enough to put the door on the latch and turn out of the crib, leaving it empty, but what about the girl in the white dress? I ain't very scrupulous as a rule, but it seems rather cruel to leave the poor kid behind and she not more than ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... world! It is too much,' he says, 'it is too much too much. You lower a noble pursuit,' he says, 'and I must respectfully but firmly request you to be on your way. I'll try to forgive you,' he says, 'but at this moment your mere presence offends me. On your way out,' he says, 'kindly latch the gate behind you—the chickens might stray off. Chickens,' he says, 'is not exciting for steady company,' he says, 'but in comparison with some humans I've met lately, chickens ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... the kitten chased it, 'whoo-oo'—the faintest sound in the keyhole. I looked up, and saw the feathers on a sparrow's breast ruffled for an instant. It was quiet for some time; after a while it came again with heavier purpose. The folded shutters shook; the latch of the kitchen door rattled as if some one were lifting it and dropped it; indefinite noises came from upstairs: there was a hand in the house moving everything. Another pause. The kitten was curled up on the window-ledge outside ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Signore did not seem to mind it; he placed one foot on the sill of the safety-door, tucked his short riding-whip under his arm, pulled the latch with one hand, forced one knee in the slightly opened door, and sprang into the cage. Click! went the iron door as it found its lock. Bang! went the Signore's revolver, as he drove the snarling, roaring lot into the corner of the cage. The smoke from his revolver drifted out through ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... night the iron latch of my door was twined off, and the wood hacked in order to shoot back the lock, which nobody will think was with an intention to rob my family. My housedog, who made a huge noise within doors, was sufficiently punished for his want of politics and moderation, for the next ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "This was a widdy's house. She was a well-doin' body." "Here was a snug place. See, there's the remains of a stone porch that they built to break off the wind." "That was Jamie Doherty's, he that died on the road-side after he was evicted. You see, nobody dare lift the latch or open the door to any of the poor creatures ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... carried a forked willow-twig between gill and gill-cover. Nor was this all; the fish was fresh-caught, for the gills had not puffed out, nor the supple body stiffened. Every little wavelet rippled its slim and limber length; and a thread of blood trailed from the throat-latch out over the surface ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... sit here awhile, and watch; Listening, hoping, for one hand groping In deep shadow to find the latch.' ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... the latch on the depot door was pressed down. I don't think I left it that way. A pail by the back door in which I had thrown some scraps which I was saving for the chickens was tipped over. I think some of the meat rinds were gone. ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... I lifted the latch, and the heavy door opened inward. Cautiously, I stared through the portal. Inside was blackness and silence; somewhere, in the far distance, I could see two or three tiny pin-pricks ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... place behind the counter; his game leg shuffling behind him as he moved. In it likewise there was an interruption from without; the subdued clatter of a horse's feet on the packed earth of the street, the straining of leather, as the man, its rider, alighted, a moment later the click of the door latch as the same man, a stranger if they had noticed, entered and halted abruptly at what he saw. But those within did not notice. Silent as the night without, forgetful for the moment of even Pete Sweeney, they were staring at those two actors ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... come unto the chamber door, That shuts him from the heaven of his thought, Which with a yielding latch, and with no more, Hath barr'd him from the blessed thing he sought. So from himself impiety hath wrought, That for his prey to pray he doth begin, As if the heavens should countenance ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... way the pair passed into a sombre court, closed at the end by a door of wood with rusty latch, which creaks and objects as one seeks to lift it. Once within, and the door closed, the place has no reminder of the Paris just without. On the contrary, it might be a bit from the beggars' quarter in a village of Syria or Palestine, for here is only a line of flat-roofed huts, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... twenty-four to six per cent., and are floating four per cent. bonds. We have learned that one Northern immigrant is worth fifty foreigners, and have smoothed the path to southward, wiped out the place where Mason and Dixon's line used to be, and hung our latch-string out, to you and yours. We have reached the point that marks perfect harmony in every household, when the husband confesses that the pies which his wife cooks are as good as those his mother used to bake; and ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... have the medicine in a minute or two," I said to the coachman; and, as I let myself in with my latch-key, my mind came back swiftly from the general circumstances of the case to the very critical condition of the patient. Already I was regretting that I had not taken more energetic measures to rouse him and restore his flagging vitality; for it would be a terrible ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... continue to believe in her. It was more than could be expected; no one but Padre Antonio was capable of that. Just then she heard the sound of footsteps on the walk outside the wall and a moment later, the click of the latch on the gate as it swung open. She thought it must be Padre Antonio come back again, and she turned to meet him. A faint, suppressed cry escaped her, for there, just inside the gate, ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the cabin, the dugout and the three cedar trees in whose shade he had made the discovery that he could not regard Lahoma as a little girl. It seemed that the cabin door trembled—was Lahoma's hand upon the latch? And when she opened the door, what expression would flash upon that face he remembered so well? Would she be as glad as Willock and Bill Atkins, when she recognized him? Even one half ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the knob, so that the latch clicked. "Get drunk. Be the drunken sot you expect me to be. Go to that vulgar place which I must not mention in your presence. Let ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... imposing height and came to him where he stood, his hand on the latch. Her eyes brimmed. In the one glance he had of her, he thought such extremity of gratitude might, in another instant, break in ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... latch, and he entered. There sat his mother by the fire, and in her arms lay the ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... she tried the latch. Somewhat to her surprise the door did open, and then to the astonishment of both girls they found themselves in ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... talk, and thus could be heard with strange distinctness a sound outside the door—the sound of a child's voice, a child's hands. "Open, open; let me in!" piped the little voice from low down, lower than the handle, and the latch rattled as though a tiptoe child reached up to it, and soft small knocks were struck. One near the door sprang up and opened it. "No one is here," he said. Tyr lifted his head and gave utterance to a howl, ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... the closed window they were muffled and scarcely recognizable. I entered the house. A gardener's wife, half speechless with amazement, showed me the steps leading up to the attic. I stood before a low, badly fitting door, knocked, received no answer, finally raised the latch and entered. I found myself in a quite large, but otherwise extremely wretched chamber, the wall of which on all sides followed the outlines of the pointed roof. Close by the door was a dirty bed in loathsome disorder, surrounded by all signs of neglect; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... It seemes like a Dreame, (I have done noughte but dreame of late, I think,) my going along the matted Passage, and hearing Voices in my Father's Chamber, just as my Hand was on the Latch; and my withdrawing my Hand, and going softlie away, though I never paused at disturbing him before; and, after I had beene a full Houre in the Stille Room, turning over ever soe manie Trays full of dried Herbs and Flower-leaves, hearing him come forthe and call, "Moll, deare Moll, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... the youth's chamber. As she reached the door, a feminine scruple came over her. A young girl seeking the apartment of a man at midnight—she shrunk back with a new feeling. But the dread necessity drove her on, and with cautious hand undoing the latch securing the door by thrusting her hand through an interstice between the logs—wondering at the same time at the incautious manner in which, at such a period and place, the youth had provided for his sleeping hours—she stood tremblingly ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... floor, he heard the sound of low singing in a woman's voice. He stopped at once and listened. It was the air of a Lutheran hymn he had frequently heard in Holland. Without hesitation he knocked at the door, and lifting the latch entered. A woman and girl were sitting at work inside; they looked up in surprise at seeing ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... Henrietta's latch-key sounded in the lock of the front door, and Phil rose to go, knowing the situation would all have to be explained to her. No, there was nothing he could do, they assured him. Nothing anybody could do. And promising to come around before train-time next ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... none too husky. John Bard, he tried the latch, soft, but the thing was locked, and when he pulled there was ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... Cash was just returning to the cabin from the Blind Ledge claim. He met Bud almost at the doorstep, just as Bud was fumbling with the latch, trying to open the door without moving Lovin Child in his arms. Cash may or may not have been astonished. Certainly he did not betray by more than one quick glance that he was interested in Bud's return or in the mysterious burden he bore. He stepped ahead ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... struck by the difference between a bishop at work and a bishop at play. The chief impression I got of my uncle was of a man most strenuously at labour; if he wanted to lecture me he never had time to do it, and nearly the first thing he said was that I was to do exactly as I liked, and he gave me a latch-key so that I might feel that I was a bother to nobody. He was so extraordinarily kind and simple that I wondered how on earth it was that I had really hated him at one time, for I had hated him quite honestly, and I came to the conclusion ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... down the road they came to some rude stone steps and a wicket. The old gentleman lifted the wooden latch and found the gate unlocked. Followed by Mary Louise, he entered the vineyard and discovered a narrow, well-beaten path leading up ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... couthy smell from the woods, and at sight of the squares of light in his home, weariness departs from a Drumtochty man. Carmichael used to say that a glimpse of Archie Moncur sitting with his sisters before the fire as he passed, and the wild turmoil of his dogs within the manse as the latch of the garden gate clicked, and the flood of light pouring out from the open door on the garden, where every branch was feathered with snow, and to come into his study, where the fire of pine logs was reflected from the familiar titles of his loved books, gave him ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... Fyne accepted eagerly in his own and his wife's name. A moment after I heard the click of the gate-latch and then in an ecstasy of barking from his demonstrative dog his serious head went past my window on the other side of the hedge, its troubled gaze fixed forward, and the mind inside obviously employed in earnest speculation of an intricate nature. One at least of his wife's girl-friends ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... somewhere!" cried Walter excitedly; and, lifting the roughly constructed wooden latch, he pushed the door open, disclosing ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... pleaded the girl bringing the boots from the entry way. "There is so little time, my cousin. To-morrow I will come to thee at Sally's, and then we can have a long talk. Now thee must act. Sukey may come in at any time. Or Tom. Oh!" in a despairing tone as the latch of the door leading into the main building clicked its warning. "'Tis too ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... Catherine Seyton flashed like a hunted doe, making the best use of those pretty legs which had attracted the commendation even of the reflective and cautious Adam Woodcock. She hastened towards a large door in the centre of the lower front of the court, pulled the bobbin till the latch flew up, and ensconced herself in the ancient mansion. But, if she fled like a doe, Roland Graeme followed with the speed and ardour of a youthful stag-hound, loosed for the first time on his prey. He kept her in view in spite of her efforts; ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... went out. Handing in his key at the porter's lodge he found the porter's wife half clasped in the arms of a gallant. The poor woman was so flustered that it was five minutes before she could open the latch. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... West Lynne, for I had left it almost as long as she had—the time slipped on past the hour. When Afy found that out she hurried me off, and I had barely got outside the gate when a cab drove up, and Thorn alighted from it, and let himself in with a latch-key. That ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was not so strict about her own manners. She would often surprise us by walking into our rooms without stopping to rap, or even to say mew; for she could open any door in the house by raising the latch ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... light inside, the fitful, leaping glow of fire flames. The men stumbled through drifts to the door, McRae in the lead. The Scotchman found the latch and flung open the door. The ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... instant, with feverish animation and impotent apprehension, five writhing fingers leaped from their futile search, like scotched reptiles, into the opposite pocket and withdrew the two useless keys with which he fastened his abortive latch ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... grew out of the dusk of the road, and the gate latch clicked, and a familiar form, erect and sturdy, came up the path. Duncan arose with a sensation of comfort at the sight of his friend. Andrew Johnstone never went down to the village without dropping in for a few minutes at ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... brambles. By all these wounds of foot, and head, and heart, I beg you to let Me in. Oh, I have been here a great while, and the night is getting darker. I am faint with hunger. I am dying to get in. Oh, lift the latch—shove back the bolt! Won't you let Me in? Won't you? 'Behold, I stand ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... whose gentle hand was at the latch, Before the door had given her to his eyes; And from her chamber-window he would catch Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; 20 And constant as her vespers would he watch, Because her face was turn'd to the same skies; And with ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... latch clicked. From the road Henry Holmes called a last good-night, and Tim and I were alone. We sat in silence, watching through the window the old man's lantern as he swung away toward home. Then the light disappeared and without all was black. ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... iron latch was at that late hour as unexpected and startling as a thunder-clap. Madame Levaille put down a bottle she held above a liqueur glass; the players turned their heads; the whispered quarrel ceased; only the singer, after darting a glance at the door, went on humming with a ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... flight of sagging, rickety stairs. At the height of a man's head an old brass dial was nailed to the gray boards. Roughly lettered in lampblack beneath it were the words, "Clocks Mended." They climbed the shaky stairs to a landing, supported by long braces, and whereon was a broad door, with latch and keyhole ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... any one, and even without approaching the principal entrance, lifted the latch of a side door, and led the way into a large room, where a faggot was blazing on the hearth, and arrangements made for a ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... back under the chair. His whole salvation depended upon his putting the notes back under the chair on the landing!... An affair of two seconds!... With due caution he opened the door. And simultaneously, at the very selfsame instant, he most distinctly heard the click of the latch of his aunt's bedroom door, next his own! Now, in a horrible quandary, trembling and perspiring, he felt completely nonplussed. He pushed his own door to, but without quite closing it, for fear of a noise; and edged away from it ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... sometimes seven stories in height and contains over a thousand rooms. In some instances it is built of adobe—blocks of mud mixed with straw and dried in the sun, and in others, of stone covered with mud cement. The entrance is by means of a ladder, and when that is pulled up the latch-string ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... opened the door with her latch-key, and with an apology he stepped in front of the pair ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... of mountain-willers, and, after driving a big railroad-spike into the door-casing, over the latch, he said the senate and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... latch and flings the door wide open. GILES disguised as a poor and bent old man, comes painfully into ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... hear more; but, lifting the latch, quietly pushes open the gate, and passes out into the road. Then following the negro, who flits like a shadow before him, the two are soon standing among some bushes that form a strip of thicket ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... gallant hopes,... and are ye sunk to this? For in life's road though thorns abundant grow, There still are joys poor Poll can never know; Joys which the gay companions of her prime Sip, as they drift along the stream of time; At eve to hear beside their tranquil home The lifted latch, that speaks the lover come: That love matur'd, next playful on the knee To press the velvet lip of infancy; To stay the tottering step, the features trace;... Inestimable sweets of ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... view The old home to journey to: Where the Mother is, and where Her sweet welcome waits us there. How we'll click the latch that locks In the pinks and hollyhocks, And leap up the path once more Where she waits us at the door; How we'll greet the dear old smile ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... storming expedition on a Tuesday night, about nine o'clock; we had a latch-key, so we could come home when we pleased. Rectus carried the rope, and I had the grapnel, wrapped in its cotton wool. We put newspapers around these things, and made pretty respectable packages of them. We did not go down the sea-wall, but walked around ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... drowning. He then pulled open the parlor door, but it was not very long before the quern had filled the parlor also, and it was just in the very nick of time that the man put his hand down into the broth and got hold of the latch, and when he had got the door open, he was soon out of the parlor, you may be sure. He rushed out, and the herrings and the broth came pouring out after him, like a stream, down ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... my den,' said Wilson. 'No; this way, by the back'; and he showed Darnell another ingenious arrangement at the side door whereby a violent high-toned bell was set pealing in the house if one did but touch the latch. Indeed, Wilson handled it so briskly that the bell rang a wild alarm, and the servant, who was trying on her mistress's things in the bedroom, jumped madly to the window and then danced a hysteric dance. There was plaster ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... and there was no room for any window in front, except the one right above the door, peering out from under the heavy thatch. There is no one to answer if we knock, so we push our fingers through the door and lift the wooden latch. My father, who goes with us almost every Sunday, has to stoop his head in climbing the narrow stair, and of course the little lad of six and his sisters stoop their heads too; there are four of the girls and one ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... bit of waiting the latch clicked and the door opened. The door was opened by Mr. Cloyster himself. He was in evening dress and hysterics. I thought I had heard a rummy sound from the other side of the door. Couldn't account for it at the time. Must have been ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... waited silently while his friend discharged the cabman, and let him in with his latch-key into the bright, spacious hall. Then, after glancing into the empty drawing-room, Lightmark preceded him up the thick carpeted stairs, on which their footsteps scarcely sounded, and stopped at the door of Eve's boudoir, through which ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore |
