"Postern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... war broke out afresh. Stephen laid siege to Oxford, and pressed it so closely that once more Maud took to flight. It was midwinter. The ground was covered with snow. Dressing herself from head to foot in white, and accompanied by three knights similarly attired, she slipped out of a postern in the hope of being unseen against the whiteness of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... speak to him; his soul comes out into the vestibule to answer you, and returns,—and the gates are shut; therein you cannot enter. You were discussing the state of the country; but, when you ceased, he opened a postern-gate, went down a bank, and launched on a sea over whose waters you have no boat to sail, no star to guide. You have loved and reverenced him. He has been your concrete of truth and nobleness. Unwittingly you touch a secret spring, and a Blue-Beard Chamber stands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... among all these," he said, "they might make their sport of us both, so that we might lose time. Let us see whether the little garden postern ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... native language, conducted Waverley out by a passage different from that through which he had entered the apartment. At a distance he heard the hall of the Chief still resounding with the clang of bagpipes and the high applause of his guests. Having gained the open air by a postern door, they walked a little way up the wild, bleak, and narrow valley in which the house was situated, following the course of the stream that winded through it. In a spot, about a quarter of a mile from the castle, two brooks, which formed the little river, had their junction. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the talents that were lost are being found again, gathered in humility from this stone floor; where poor-making riches are banished from the postern, and rich-making poverty streameth in as light from the grated window; where care vexeth not now the labourer emptied of his gold, and calumny's black tooth no longer gnaws the heart-strings ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... associations of Loches, we left the castle enclosure and from without the walls we had a fine view of the massive dungeons, the Chateau Royal, with the beautiful tower of Agnes Sorel, and the charming terrace beside it. Through many crooked, winding lanes and postern doors M. La Tour conducted us by the gate of the Cordeliers, with its odd fifteenth century turrets, to a neat little garden cafe. Here we refreshed ourselves with tea and some very dainty little cakes that are a specialite de la maison, while Walter gracefully mounted his hobby, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... opinion of all the citizens was that the citadel had been (15) betrayed, (30) having been captured in broad daylight by a very small number of the enemy, and those unprovided with scaling ladders, and admitted by a postern gate, (15 a) and much wearied by a ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... a postern in the hall, close beside the great doorway and opening on the corridor. Ulysses had put the swineherd to guard it, and now the boldest of the suitors said to the rest, "Could not some of us force a passage there and raise the ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... had turned round and gone on our way I observed that there was some one sitting on the stile which led out on the road nearly opposite the postern gate in our park wall and supposed it to be some one resting there who would rise ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... to retreat, and in a moment we were standing in the street. It would not have surprised me if he had celebrated his freedom by some noisy extravagance there; but he refrained, and contented himself—while Maignan locked the postern behind us—with cocking his hat and lugging forward his sword, and assuming an air of whimsical recklessness, as if an adventure ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... through the postern-gate into the gardens of The Sanctuary. Sir Timothy led the way ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... being dissatisfied with the honesty of Licentiate Don Alvaro de Mesa y Lugo, their associate, who as the senior auditor presided over them—was to admit Licentiate Geronimo de Legaspi into the assembly hall by a secret postern. He had been removed from office a long time before by act of the said Don Alonso Fajardo, a measure taken in virtue of your Majesty's decree which was sent, to take his residencia; this was confirmed by all the Audiencia. Although it was advisable ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... surface. Henceforth he knows he loves, and because his love has been slow to develop itself it is not necessarily sluggish or deficient when once it is come. But Englishmen are rarely heroic lovers except in their novels. There is generally a little bypath of caution, a postern gate of mercantile foresight, by which they can slip quietly out at the right moment and forget all about ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... astounded Hubert cannot; And if power to speak he had, 90 All are daunted, all the household Smitten to the heart, and sad. 'Tis Sir Eustace; if it be Living Man, it must be he! Thus Hubert thought in his dismay, And by a Postern-gate he slunk away. ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... frock coat, buff belt, and a sort of a turban that he always wore on his head, somewhat resembling a bishop's mitre: he drew his hand thrice across my face, and I withdrew as he continued to urge me. My hall door and postern gate were both strongly guarded, and there were sundry armed people within, searching the closets; but all of them made way for me, and lifted their caps as I passed by them. Only one superior officer accosted me, asking if I had seen the culprit. I knew not what answer to make, but chanced ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... to the enemy's camp, in order to convey a letter from her mistress to Abdurachman. The intrepid Annis commenced her task in the night: she avoided passing the sentinels and wardens of the castle, but found her way to a postern gate, scarcely known to any but herself. She arrived at Abdurachman's tent; the captain was conversing with his friends about what the general intended to do on the morrow. Annis desired to speak with him in private, to which he consented. She then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... which I had heard the king announce his resolution quickly diminished on cooler reflection. It stood in particular at a very low ebb as I waited, an hour later, at the little north postern of the Castle, and, cowering within the shelter of the arch to escape the wind, debated whether his Majesty's energy would sustain him to the point of action, or whether he might not, in one of those fits of treacherous vacillation which had again and again marred his plans, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... say, enflam'd by the Devil; when I see Towns, Parties, Factions and Rabbles of People visibly possess'd; 'tis enough to me that the great Master of the Devils has said to him, GO; there's no need to enquire which Way he finds open, or at what postern Gate he gets in; as to his appearing, 'tis plain he often gets in without appearing, and therefore the Question about his appearing still remains a Doubt, and is not ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... of the courtyard stood uninjured, but the postern door had been battered in. Another body of natives, armed with spears and bows and arrows, were standing round the entrance; and a good many of the people of the neighborhood, roused by the sudden tumult, were standing at the doors. These looked ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... when the Mamelukes rose from the damsels' bosoms and the blackamoor slave dismounted from the Queen's breast; the men resumed their disguises and all, except the negro who swarmed up the tree, entered the palace and closed the postern door as before. Now, when Shah Zaman saw this conduct of his sister in law he said in himself, "By Allah, my calamity is lighter than this! My brother is a greater King among the kings than I am, yet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Masrur the eunuch, the Sworder of his vengeance; and when they came, he changed his habit and disguised himself, whilst Ja'afar and Ishak and Masrur and al-Fazl[FN136] and Yunus[FN137] (who were also present) did the like. Then he went out, he and they, by the postern, to the Tigris and taking boat fared on till they came to near Al Taf,[FN138] when they landed and walked till they came to the gate of the high street. Here there met them an old man, handsome in his hoariness and of a venerable bearing and a dignified, agreeable of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... about it none of that stir and liveliness one expects to see about the houses of the great. No visitors passed in or out, and the big iron gates were shut, as if none were looked for. Of a truth, the persons who visited Monsieur these days preferred to slip in by the postern after nightfall, as if there had never been a time when they were proud to be ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... been torn by inward troubles. It is not good that a man should batter day and night at the gate of heaven. Sometimes he can do nothing else, and then nothing else is worth doing; but the very noise of the siege will sometimes drown the still small voice that calls from the open postern. There is a door wide to the jewelled wall not far from any one of us, even when he least ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... unchallenged by any one, we crossed among the guards; and Nixon tapped thrice at a small postern door in a huge ancient building, which was straight before us. It opened, and we entered without my perceiving by whom we were admitted. A few dark and narrow passages at length conveyed us into an immense Gothic hall, the magnificence ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... smiling, in robes of light! Yet as in a vision I seem to see them leaning from a window, in a blank castle-wall rising from a misty abyss, scanning a little stairway that rises out of the clinging fog, built up through the rocks and ending in a postern gate in the castle-wall. Upon that stairway, one by one emerging from the mist, seem to stagger and climb the figures of men, entering in, one by one, and the three, with smiles and arms interlaced, are watching eagerly. Cannot I climb the stair? Perhaps even now ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... realm should go to wrack. And that same night, the night of the new year, By reason of the bitterness and grief That vext his mother, all before his time Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born Deliver'd at a secret postern-gate To Merlin, to be holden far apart Until his hour should come; because the lords Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child Piecemeal among them, had they known; for each But sought to rule for his own self and ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... without hurting her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants will tell you there that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where she lay, to another where the bed's head of the chamber stood close to a privy postern door, where they in the night came and stifled her in her bed, bruised her head very much broke her neck, and at length flung her down stairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a mischance, and so have blinded their villainy. But behold ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... forwarding the execution, if not at that very time, binding her husband to the gallows, filling all the air with a confused buzz—and the coming of the men to seize and secure her—she sprang forward out of a postern, and, with the rapid step of flying despair, endeavoured to get beyond the dreadful sounds which haunted her ear. In her flight—the consequence of the spur of frenzy, as much as of a wish to lessen pain which was insufferable—she came to the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... you," he said, "by this outrage? Know ye not that this is the Monastery of St. John, and that it is sacrilege to lay a hand of violence even against its postern? Begone," he said, "or we'll lodge a complaint before ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... that your two hands might have clipped her; and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tiptoe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet and ankles, so white was the maiden. She came to the postern-gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right clear, and so wandered she till she came to the tower where her lover lay. The tower was ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... around, and saw Nicolas following, his eyes wide with alarm. "Stay where you are, and not a word to anybody," I ordered, and closed the gate after me. My adversary led the way across a neglected garden, and out through a postern in a large wall, to where there was a thicker growth of trees. We passed among these to a little open space near the river, from which it was partly veiled by a tangled mass of bushes. The unworn state of the green ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... hot to pace the keep; To climb the turret is too steep; My lord the Earl is dozing deep, His noonday dinner over: The postern warder is asleep (Perhaps they've bribed him not to peep): And so from out the gate they creep; And ...
— English Satires • Various
... looked, in vain, and then I turned to the window, thinking that, as better was not to be, I might dive thence into the moat, and take my chance of escape by the stairs on the further side. But the window was heavily barred. Yet again, if I went forth by the door, and lurked on the postern stair, there was Robin Lindsay's dirk to reckon with, when he came, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... was but one entrance to the castle from the town. It was known as the Postern, though it had a portcullis and a drawbridge spanning the moat. To the Postern the duke took his way, as we could see at intervals by looking down cross streets. Yolanda did not follow him. She held her course down a narrow street flanked by overhanging eaves. Looking down this ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew, "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through. Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... size. The ancient city-wall is known to have been of Roman substructure, although surmounted by work of later date. It had many turrets or towers, and seven double-gates, supposed to have been Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and the Tower Postern-gate; and the streets now named from those gates will serve to mark out the included area. Roman London may be said to lie about sixteen feet below our London, over all this area; about two feet being the debris of the Roman buildings, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... "No postern will you find in yonder walls," De Bury answered. "A secret exit runs beneath the moat known only to ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... of Charlemaign the king, The three-and-thirtieth year, or thereabout, Young Eginardus, bred about the court, (Left mother-naked at a postern-door,) Had thence by slow degrees ascended up,— First page, then pensioner, lastly the king's knight And secretary; yet held these steps for nought, Save as they led him to the Princess' feet, Eldest and loveliest of the regal three, Most gracious, too, and liable to love: For Bertha ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... the roofs of Madrid at night, scarcely did more for his friend than was here done for us in the bright sunshine and open air. The keys that were to be made use of in this journey, to gain us a passage through many a tower, stair, and postern, were in the hands of the authorities, whose subordinates we never failed to coax into ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the child immediately, put it in a basket, hid it under his cloak, and went with his prey to find the marquis; they conferred together for some time, after which the house steward passed by a postern gate into the moat, thence to a terrace by which he reached a bridge leading into the park. This park had twelve gates, and he had the keys of all. He mounted a blood horse which he had left waiting behind a wall, and started off at full gallop. The same day he passed through the village ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... upon them when suddenly Mike, whose devotion seemed of the briefest, sprang to his legs, and with a spirit of levity but little in accordance with his late proceedings, commenced a series of kicking, rapping, and knocking at a small oak postern sufficient to have aroused a whole convent from their cells. "House there! Good people within!"—bang, bang, bang; but the echoes alone responded to his call, and the sounds died away at length in the distant streets, leaving all as ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... disappointment at finding Elizabeth-Jane to be none of his, and himself a childless man, had left an emotional void in Henchard that he unconsciously craved to fill. In this frame of mind, though without strong feeling, he had strolled up the alley and into High-Place Hall by the postern at which Elizabeth had so nearly encountered him. He had gone on thence into the court, and inquired of a man whom he saw unpacking china from a crate if Miss Le Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the name under which he had known Lucetta—or ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... discharged, and the three gentlemen were not long in discovering the small door, which was a sort of postern in a lane between two garden walls. It still wanted ten or fifteen minutes of the appointed time; the rain fell heavily, and the adventurers sheltered themselves below some pendant ivy, and spoke in low tones of the ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dismounted, and leaving the animals in charge of the shopkeeper of Tafelberg, Barney and Butzow hastened toward a small postern-gate which swung, groaning, upon a single rusted hinge. Each felt that there was no time for caution or stratagem. Instead all depended upon the very boldness and rashness of their attack, and so as they came through into the courtyard the two ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hied him to the castle, and as he neared the little postern in the western walls, a burst of boisterous song reached his ears from the guardroom. Taking up a stone from the ground he was about to knock three loud knocks, when the door was opened from within, and a tall man with a thick plaid over his broad ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... is a castellated stone structure partly covered with ivy, standing about a hundred yards south of the Cathedral, and is not now utilized in any way. There is only one room, approached by a winding staircase or "postern stair." The Gate was formerly used as a school for choristers, until the new building of the Choir School was opened in Minor Canon Row ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... in the lock of the postern-door, and Quinton Edge entered the sunken way. Fangs heard the noise, hesitated a moment, then tossed her black muzzle in the air and bounded forward to meet her master. Constans wiped away the sweat that was blinding his eyes and waited. Quinton Edge, with the hound by his ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... crossed the courtyard. After they had passed the postern, Honey-Bee again asked where ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... passage must be found. Make to the city by the postern gate, I'll either force my victory, or fate; A glorious death in arms I'll rather prove, Than stay to perish ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... tiny postern gate at the bottom of the tower where Wolfgar had told him she would appear. The barrage was gone; and in a moment she came—a white figure appearing there amid the smoke that ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... at last—what he was waiting for. There was a slight click of the latch from the old postern door in the wall, and the low murmur of voices—a man's, pleading and passionate, and a woman's, half gay, half mocking. Then the door opened and shut, and a tall fair lady walked leisurely up ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and keeps her chamber," was the invariable reply of the dogged functionaries to the entreaties of the agonized mother. And at length, so furious was he at her perpetual calls at his gate, that the angry Lord of Barbazure himself, who chanced to be at the postern, armed a cross-bow, and let fly an arblast at the crupper of the lady's palfrey, whereon she fled finally, screaming, and in terror. "I will aim at the rider next time!" howled the ferocious baron, "and not ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to guess how thoroughly Popinot had picketed the house, in co-operation with Roddy's murderer, by way of provision against mischance; but the adventurer was satisfied that, in his proper guise as himself, he needed only to open that postern door at the street end of the passage, to feel a knife slip in between his ribs—most probably in his back, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... among them who were suffering from blows and from trampling hoofs, and other injuries they had received; but as they ran they recovered their well-trained formation, and with their leader dashed two and two through the narrow postern gate and along the darkened road for full a couple of hundred yards, before the stern command rang ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... that he could expect from these officers, he speeded, under the friendly shadow, toward the other side of the citadel, and arrived just as the guard approached to relieve the sentinels of the northern postern. He laid himself close to the ground, and happily overheard the word of the night, as it was given to the new watch. This ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... He, by some postern of influence, got into some dry ditch of the Treasury, and there, as in an old castle-moat, began to be at home, and move, gently and after his seniors, as the young ducks follow the old ones. And at every waddle he ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... &c., we passed through the yard, and piercing the postern gate, unexpectedly came upon a most animated scene. A green glade that ran up to the foot of the hill, was covered with the preparations for the approaching festivities—wood was splitting, fires lighting, ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... the little postern of the Castle. Gerhardt rapped at the door, and after two or three repetitions, it ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... King of England, there was a mighty and noble duke in Cornwall, named the Duke of Tintagil, that held long war against him. And the duke's wife was called a right fair lady, and a passing wise, and Igraine was her name. And the duke, issuing out of the castle at a postern to distress the king's host, was slain. Then all the barons, by one assent, prayed the king of accord between the Lady Igraine and himself. And the king gave them leave, for fain would he have accorded with her; and they were married in a morning ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... upwards of four centuries of newness. Even now, however, a few of the old, dismantled houses (including perhaps, the mysterious 31) may be seen from the Strand peeping over the iron roof of the skating rink which has displaced the picturesque hall, the pension-room and the garden. The postern gate, too, in Houghton Street still remains, though the arch is bricked up inside. Passing it lately, I made the rough sketch which appears on next page, and which shows all that is left of this pleasant ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... war was begun, in one of the briskest skirmishes, so it was, that a company of the Lord Will-be-will's men sallied out at the sally-port, or postern of the town, and fell in upon the rear of Captain Boanerges' men, where these three fellows happened to be, so they took them prisoners, and away they carried them into the town; where they had not lain long in durance, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... baskets, into the Nun's-pool, and then swept round under the ivied walls, with their fantastic turrets and gables, and little loopholed windows, peering out over the stream, as it hurried down over the shallows to join the race below the mill. A postern door in the walls opened on an ornamental wooden bridge across the weir-head—a favourite haunt of all fishers and sketchers who were admitted to the dragon-guarded Elysium of Whitford Priors. Thither Lancelot went, congratulating himself, strange to say, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... they should not leave." "They would return to-morrow, but now they must go; before the sun set—good-by, good-by." "You shall not go," cried Rudolph, seizing hold of Solanum and Farinacea, who struggled hard to evade him, while their companions swiftly passed them, and vanished through a little postern gate he had never seen before, into the forest beyond. "Why should you want to go? Do you not love me?" said Rudolph, as the two struggled yet more earnestly to escape his grasp. "I assure you we have hearts, but we cannot now stay," was ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... for the garrison. Many smartly dressed soldiers, with passes earned by good behavior, went out to find amusement in the city. Visitors, some of them tourists from America, made the rounds under the guidance of old soldiers. The sergeant followed such a group of sight-seers through a postern behind the armory and out onto the cliff. There he lounged under a fir-tree above St. Margaret's Well and smoked a dandified cigar, while Bobby explored the promenade and scraped acquaintance with ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... for the care—to say nothing of the treatment—of the inmates, it was decided to build another hospital. The City granted a piece of land on the north side of London Wall, extending from Moor Gate, seven hundred and forty feet, to a postern opposite Winchester Street, and in breadth eighty feet—the whole length of what is now the south side of Finsbury Circus. At the present time the corner of London Wall and Finsbury Pavement, Albion Hall, and the houses to the east, mark ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... lone, for her lord who was far away. For the children who gather'd round her and the home that she loved so well, And the deathless fame of a woman's name whom nothing but love could quell. Who, when the men would have yielded, with her own sweet lily hand, Led them straight from the postern gate, and drove the foe from the land. There's many a little homestead that is cosy and sung to-day, Because of a woman who stood in the door and ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... porter of Algate, and the several porters of Bisshopesgate, Crepulgate, Aldrichesgate, Neugate, Ludgate, Bridge Gate, and the [1]Postern,—were sworn before the Mayor and Recorder, on the Monday next after the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle [24 August], in the 49th year etc., that they will well and trustily keep the Gates and Postern aforesaid, each in his own office and bailiwick; and will not allow ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope
... entire solitude; as the greater part of them, having feasted in the towers, were either asleep from the effects of wine, or else, half asleep, were still drinking. A few of them, however, they surprised in their beds, and put to the sword. They began then to break open a postern gate near the Hexapylos, which required great force; and a signal was given from the wall by sounding a trumpet, as had been agreed upon. After this, the attack was carried on in every quarter, not secretly, but by open force; for they had now reached Epipolae, a place ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... swore it should be as he had said. Three days later, a prince was born, and, with pomp and ceremony, was christened by the name of Arthur; but immediately thereafter, the King commanded that the child should be carried to the postern-gate, there to be given to the old man who would ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... fair hands, of Lavradi. Quinola does to know Lavradi. Does the soul know the body? You may unite the soul, Quinola, to the body, Lavradi, all the more easily because this morning Quinola was at the postern of your garden, with the friends of the dawn who ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... person he was guided to a postern-gate, through which he entered the body of the Castle, and penetrating through many private passages and staircases, he at length was introduced into a small cabinet, or parlour, in which was much rich furniture, some bearing the royal cipher displayed, but all confused ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... some of them ruinous and some restored, and looked picturesque enough except for the ancient castle which has been turned into a modern house by its latest purchaser, who has tried with more zeal than judgment to copy the style of the older portions. Through the postern by which we had left the town a number of workmen from the iron-works straggled, grimy and weary; in their modern dress and employment marking a contrast with their surroundings. Muggia Nuova first appears in history in 1235. ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... to wait long. Then, or thenabouts, a cavalier coming by the mountain road will tie his horse to a tree beyond the bridge that spans the ravine. He will cross the bridge and walk to yonder window hard by the postern." ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Now the single postern stair of the castle was shut at the foot, where it opened out upon the hall of the guard by a sparred iron gate, the key of which was put into Sholto's charge. The night closed early upon the castle-ful of wearied folk. The marshals of the camps caused the lights ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... himself, Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. And that same night, the night of the new year, By reason of the bitterness and grief That vext his mother, all before his time Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born Delivered at a secret postern-gate To Merlin, to be holden far apart Until his hour should come; because the lords Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child Piecemeal among them, had they known; for each But sought to rule for his own ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... again in the west, and I have hope of your release. Ope the west postern ere sunrise. Till then God ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... he defended himself, pointing his engines of war with his own hands from the heights of the chateau walls, engines otherwise far more murderous than his pontifical bolts. At last forced to flee, he left the city by a postern, after having ruined a hundred houses and killed four thousand Avignonese, and fled to Spain, where the King of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... spring, the cutting of the dunes by the company of sappers, and the capture. But instead, it was all distant and dry. A "Good-night" such as one might have thrown at a dog—no, he would not throw the word at Whitefoot. For even as she passed the postern window, looking out she saw Stair crossing the court in the direction of the barn, side by side with Whitefoot. The dog's eyes were raised to those of his master in a kind of adoration, and his tail waved triumphantly. As Stair bent to stroke the dog's head, Patsy became conscious of a strange ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the postern Heard not the whisper low; He is dreaming of the banks of the Shannon As he walks on his beat to and fro, Of the starry eyes in Green Erin That were dim when he marched away, And a tear down his bronzed cheek courses, 'T is the first for many ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... the postern, and arrived on the crest of the bluff overlooking the Prescott road just as a horseman turned up the height. The news that the La Paz courier had arrived spread rapidly through the quarters, and every man not on ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... foregrounds for the Cathedral towers. In Pound Lane the wall continues in a furtive and rather desultory fashion until it ends at the West Gate. Opposite Lady Wootton's Green there still remain indications of a narrow postern, which is generally accepted as that through which Queen Bertha was wont to pass on her way to her devotions at St. Martin's Church. This, however, presupposes that the portion of the wall immediately surrounding this particular point is Roman or very Early Saxon, and ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... led the way to a postern where, passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior defense, which communicated with the open ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Of lovers and winds and streams, And the face of a thousand sorrows At the postern gate ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... postern in the small round tower beside the gateway, knowing that when she came out under the portcullis, the funeral train would be just reaching the other end of the bridge. The little vaulted room in the lower story of the tower was not four ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... four-fold buckler on his arm, he fix'd A casque whose crest wav'd awful o'er his brows On his illustrious head, and fill'd his gripe With two stout spears, well-headed both, with brass. There was a certain postern in the wall[103] At the gate-side, the customary pass 140 Into a narrow street, but barr'd secure. Ulysses bade his faithful swine-herd watch That egress, station'd near it, for it own'd One sole approach; then Agelaues loud Exhorting all the suitors, thus exclaim'd. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the people say: "He was a man who ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... rough plaster, he saw a crowd assembled, and soldiers' and custom-house officers' uniforms, mingled with the shabby, dirty blouses of barracks-loafers. The old man instinctively approached. A customs officer, seated on the stone step below a round postern with iron bars, was talking with many gestures, as if he were ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... hot to pace the keep; To climb the turret is too steep; My lord the earl is dozing deep, His noonday dinner over: The postern-warder is asleep (Perhaps they've bribed him not to peep): And so from out the gate they creep, And cross the fields ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... nor do they see any use in flight, for they see no place where they could find refuge should they betake themselves to flight, being completely surrounded by the water and their enemies. So they spend no more time in talk, but arm and equip themselves and make a sally by an old postern gate [220] toward the north-west, that being the side where they thought the camp would least expect attack. In serried ranks they sallied forth, and divided their force into five companies, each ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... gazing from the casement saw him; and her husband raising his head saw her; so she saluted him and he saluted her, both being like to fly for joy. Presently Quoth she, "Up and come in to me by the private postern, for now the Accursed is not here;" and she gave orders to the slave-girl who went down and opened for him. Then Alaeddin passed through it and was met by his wife, when they embraced and exchanged kisses with all delight until they wept ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Chester. It was destroyed in 1768, and the present gate erected by Earl Grosvenor. The custody of the Water-gate belonged to the Earls of Derby. It also was destroyed, and the present arch erected in 1788. A new North Gate was built in 1809 by Robert, Earl Grosvenor. The principal postern-gates were Cale Yard Gate, made by the abbot and convent in the reign of Edward I as a passage to their kitchen garden; New-gate, formerly Woolfield or Wolf-gate, repaired in 1608, also called Pepper-gate;[7] and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... known. But neither did anyone know what had become of all the sentinels. The thought of this ran in his head so much, after the wine was out of it, that he searched about everywhere for a way of escape, and finally, at eleven o'clock, he found a little postern in the steeple which was not locked, and out at this he crept, ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... when the moon is turning all the sea silver. The churchyard is very old, and has no monuments of importance: only green headstones bent sideways and sunk to their neck and shoulders in the earth. A postern gate, with a flight of stone steps, opens from Kilbride Lane. Here every night you may see the ghost of Cody the murderer, climbing those steps with a rigid burden hanging ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... all over the front. It stood at right angles to the wall and to the lane, and there was a long grass-garden in front of it, with walls all round and herbaceous borders under the walls; and from the high postern door in the outer wall opening to the lane a wide flagged path went all the way in front of the house to the door in the inner wall that led into the kitchen garden and the orchard. Further down the lane were the doors of the courtyard at the back of the house where ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... brief description of the town. It is surrounded by a wall twelve feet thick, and a mile and a quarter in length, having twenty-seven towers and battlements. One of them is called Llewellyn's. It is entered by five gates, three principal, and one postern; and another has been formed to admit a suspension-bridge across the river, similar to that constructed by Mr Telford across the Menai Straits. Mr Stephenson also designed the tubular bridge through which the Holyhead railway passes. The town contains ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... was then a castle, protected, probably, by battlements and mantlets and turreted walls, and with its keep and its drawbridge, its postern and its fosse—simple works of defence that were armed for retaliation, with catapult and mangonel, the canon raye of the period, besides arquebuse and other hand weapons wielded, no doubt, by mighty men at arms, mail-clad and helmeted, who knew how to give and take with the best ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... great gate of Malepartus; examines it with his nose; goes on to a postern; examines that also, and then another, and another; while I perceive afar, projecting from every cave's mouth, the red and green end of a new fir-faggot. Ah, Reinecke! fallen is thy conceit, and ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... overtake him. As he reached the door, anxious to assure himself that he was not mistaken, he turned round and his eye at once caught the face of Sybil. He started, he trembled; she was not two yards distant, she evidently recognised him; he held open the swinging postern of the Abbey that she might pass, which she did and then stopped on the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Come, come, come!" Shutting his eyes he seemed to be in a state of intense expectation. Tears filled Mrs. Woodford's eyes. The Doctor moved forward, but no sooner did the boy become conscious of human presence than he started up, and fled wildly towards a postern door, but no sooner had he disappeared in the shadow than there was a cry and ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... child, glides to the tapestried wall, and vanishes through it, into the Chamber of the Crown Prince, a babe of fourteen days. She returns carrying another unconscious infant form, she places it in the hands of the ruffian Sauerbeck, she disappears. The miscreant speeds with the child through a postern into the park, you hear the trample of four horses, and the roll of the carriage on the road. Next day there is silence in the palace, broken but by the shrieks of a bereaved though Royal (or at least Grand Ducal) mother. Her babe lies ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... Tristram let the fellow go, and he ran off with great speed and so away to the postern of the castle and entered in and ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... buildings of the castle—a huge old pile, partly castellated, and partly resembling an ecclesiastical building, on the other two sides, the enclosure was a high embattled wall. Crossing the alleys of the garden to another part of the building, where a postern door opened behind a large massive buttress, overgrown with ivy, Hayraddin looked back, and waved his hand in a signal of an exulting farewell to his follower, who saw that in effect the postern door was opened by Marthon, and that the vile Bohemian ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... her hand, As one that had a boon to crave; She stole across the ruined land Where lay the dead without a grave, And to Achilles' hand she gave Her gift, the secret postern's key. "To-morrow let me be thy slave!" Moaned ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... occasion the bearer selected was Shahzada Taimus, a Prince of the Sadozai dynasty, but a plain trooper in the ranks of the Guides' cavalry. The two preceding letters had been sent, one by the hand of an old pensioner of the Guides, slipped through an unguarded postern, but not seen again and supposed to be killed; and the second by a Hindu, who was indeed killed before the eyes of the garrison in his brave ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... ladders were too short; the rescuers broke into a postern door. Scrope told this to his Government on the day after the deed, ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... right, since just before sunset a postern gate was opened and a man, holding a white flag above his head, was seen swimming across the moat. He scrambled out on the farther side, shook himself like a dog, and advanced slowly to where Bolle and ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... in your place, Mynheer John," the young girl timidly continued, "I should leave by the postern, which leads into a deserted by-lane, whilst all the people are waiting in the High Street to see you come out by the principal entrance. From there I should try to reach the gate by which you ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the peasants, becoming enamored of Lutheranism, rose in the peasant war of 1525! How darkly, too, must they have painted the fanatical bauer Barthlmae Duregger of St. Peter's in the Ahrnthal, who, after being taken prisoner, escaped near their postern gate to circulate threats of fire and murder throughout the neighborhood, vowing to reduce Bruneck to ashes! Reappearing with a band of twelve poachers and twenty-six laborers, and accompanied by Peter Baszler of Antholz, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... Fitzoswald; "it is Danfield himself!" whereupon the young gentleman did ward off the blow aimed at him by the marquess, and passed on. All this I saw ere I gave up hopes of getting out by the gate; but seeing this was hopeless, I pursued my way back again, with intent to get out by one of the postern windows, and hurry homeward across the fields; and having opened a window near unto the buttery, I hung by my hands, and then shutting my eyes and commending my soul to Heaven, I let go, and dropt safely down upon the greensward. But ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... now in the city of Agra, and desires to gain his way into the fort. He has with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother Dost Akbar, who knows his secret. Dost Akbar has promised this night to lead him to a side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his purpose. Here he will come presently, and here he will find Mahomet Singh and myself awaiting him. The place is lonely, and none shall know of his coming. The world shall know of the merchant Achmet no more, but the great treasure of the ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Precinct had three gates: one on the north, one on the east—leading to the Bridge, i.e., the jetty where the state barges and the boats lay—and a postern leading into the Abbey. Westminster was at first a large rural manor belonging to the Abbey before the erection ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... street of Warkworth leads straight up to the postern gate of the castle, and many stirring sights have the successive inhabitants of the little village looked upon, as the fortunes of the owners of the castle waxed and waned throughout the many centuries in which the lords of Warkworth played a ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... him, through a postern, into the garden; and there on a wide lawn, out of earshot of any possible listeners, the Bishop and the Knight walked up and down in ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... street leading to the postern or gate, called Standish-gate. In those days it was not, as now, a wide and free thoroughfare for man and beast. At the accustomed fairs, toll is, to this time, demanded on all cattle changing owners at the several outlets, where formerly stood four gates; to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to Apollo pray For leave to build—the poets way. His prayer was granted, for the God Consented with the usual nod. After hard throes of many a day Van was delivered of a play, Which in due time brought forth a house, Just as the mountain did the mouse. One story high, one postern door, And one small chamber on a floor, Born like a phoenix from the flame: But neither bulk nor shape the same; As animals of largest size Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies; A type of modern wit and style, The rubbish of an ancient pile; So chemists boast they ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... through with this job." He turned thoughtfully toward the big windows on the south of the room, and mused aloud: "That's the way through the two long rooms to the postern gate. Umm." ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... till it is luminous. Such gatherings as would attract notice had to be avoided, and what meetings were held had to be in private houses and with shut doors, through which entrance was not easy. Mary's 'door' had a 'gate' in it, and only that smaller postern, which admitted but one at a time, was opened to visitors, and that after scrutiny. But though assemblies were restricted, communications were kept up, and by underground ways information of events important to the community spread ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... upon my view at eight o'clock. The little servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company, and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective view of the Aged ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... castle were three passages—one a postern, with an iron gate, on the east side over a private bridge into the park, where there were arbours, pleasant walks, and trees planted for profit and delight. Another passage was on the west side, leading to a dungeon, and forth on to the mere, now filled up with mire and weeds. But the largest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... venerable postern in the blackened wall of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, near by, which is now the oldest building in the city, being erected some fifty years before the Chateau. It leads by a narrow lane to the gardens ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... banker,—for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,—was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,—where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... (morning) 125; evolution. title-page; head, heading; van &c (front) 234; caption, fatihah^. entrance, entry; inlet, orifice, mouth, chops, lips, porch, portal, portico, propylon^, door; gate, gateway; postern, wicket, threshold, vestibule; propylaeum^; skirts, border &c (edge) 231. first stage, first blush, first glance, first impression, first sight. rudiments, elements, outlines, grammar, alphabet, ABC. V. begin, start, commence; conceive, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... most extraordinary weather,' I said. My teeth chattered like Barbou's. It was all I could do to keep myself steady. No one made any reply; but Lecamus said, 'Have the goodness to open the little postern for foot-passengers: M. le Maire wishes to ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... that the castle of Carlisle, wherein the prisoner was kept, was surprisable, he employed some trusty persons to take a view of the postern gate, and measure the height of the wall, which he meant to scale by ladders, and, if those failed, to break through the wall with some iron instruments, and force the gates. This done, so closely as he could, he drew together some two hundred horse, assigning the place of meeting at the tower ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Marguerite the night after the brigade had moved. Of course I was riding without a light. I rounded Hell's Own Corner carefully, very frightened of the noise my engine was making. A little farther on I dismounted and stumbled to the postern-gate of a farm. I opened it and went in. A sentry challenged me in a whisper and handed me over to an orderly, who led me over the black bodies of men sleeping to a lean-to where the General sat with a sheltered light, talking to his staff. He was tired and anxious. I delivered ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged have the better." "Saint George strike for us!" said the knight; "do the false yeomen give way?" "No," exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly; the Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax; the thundering blows which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of the battle; stones and beams are hailed down on the brave champion; he regards them no more than if they ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... year is gay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated. Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the house has the lockjaw. There are two doors, and to each a single chipped and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on a line ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... not seek to detain his guest and promised bride—but, with great courtesy, he showed her the way down the stairs of the lawn, and so through the postern into the park, and he watched her slender form trip off towards the gate which was opposite the Inn, her last words ringing in his ears in answer to his ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... Golden Fleece. Moreover, as to getting in by the window, a man would first have to get access to the walled garden below, which Pignaver regarded as another impossibility, for the wall was high, he himself kept the key of the postern that opened on the canal, and the gardener entered through ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... his bosom, and in a few seconds he had passed the postern, closing and locking it behind him. Five minutes' hard running and he was free of the stockade and at the summit of a hill that commanded the scene which he had just left. The conflagration was progressing with astonishing rapidity; already the Great House itself was in flames, and dark figures ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... calling upon Zeus? The thing is even as I say. I cannot stop them any longer from lusting after the men. They are all for deserting. The first I caught was slipping out by the postern gate near the cave of Pan; another was letting herself down by a rope and pulley; a third was busy preparing her escape; while a fourth, perched on a bird's back, was just taking wing for Orsilochus' house,[444] when I ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... Ratcliffe, "he calls me—Miss Vere, return home, and leave unbolted the postern-door of the garden; to that which opens on the back-stairs ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... last to quit the fields and the out-buildings. When he reached the postern in the palisadoes, he stopped to call to those above him, in order to learn if any yet lingered without the wooden barriers. The answer being in the negative, he entered, and drawing-to the small but heavy gate, he secured it with bar, bolt, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the wall, and from the parapets a storm of musketry fire was poured upon them. When they reached the ditch they found the drawbridge destroyed, but crossed in single file upon the beams on which it rested. The gate was of course closed, but a small postern-door beside it was open, and through this the mutineers added a heavy fire to that which streamed from above. The sappers laid their bags against the gate, and slipped down into the ditch to allow the firing party to do their work. ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... on a charge of sheep-stealing, or that the Serjeant had gone down 'special' in our cause to York? Very well, but doubtless they had their fees. 'Oh, but Cicero could not receive fees by law.' Certainly not by law; but by custom many did receive them at dusk through some postern gate in the shape of a huge cheese, or a guinea-pig. And, if the 'special retainer' from Popilius Laenas is somewhat of the doubtfullest, so is the 'pleading' on ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... top of these steps," replied the guide. "Then we shall have to reach a postern in the wall of the grounds. ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... work they passed by a palace of considerable extent, surrounded by grounds which were entered on that side by a small postern gate. "I would give a good deal to know if that ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... court, and then you will precede me. Keep to the right till you pass the first sentries; then you will find yourself in a garden, in the centre of which is a tank. Fill, or make show of filling, your jar. Then the long dark passage which, you will see on the left will conduct you to a postern gate of the palace; there will be a guard ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... to your care: all must be hazarded to convey them with the utmost speed to France." Lauzun then gave his hand to the queen to lead her away, and, followed by the two nurses with the child, they crossed the Great Gallery, and descended by a back staircase and a postern gate to Privy Gardens. At the garden gate a coach was waiting, the queen entered with Lauzun, the nurses, and her child, who slept the whole time, St. Victor mounted by the coachman, and they drove to the "Horse Ferry" at Westminster, where a boat was ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... more courage and resolution than anyone else. With a musket in his hand, and in the face of the enemy, he reconnoitered the place, and observed every accessible approach to the house, and with a few colliers, under cover of a cart-load of hay, which they pushed on before them, came up to the postern-door of the kitchen. Here with his own hand he fired several pistol-shots, to make it ignite, but from the state of the weather, which was damp and heavy, and from the constant down-pour of rain on the previous day, this attempt proved quite unsuccessful. With men so expert at the ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... in less than an hour slew the guards, seized three gates, and sent a message to Echama Naique telling him to come at once and seize the fortress. But Jaga Raya was the more expeditious; he returned with all his forces, entered by a postern gate, of the existence of which Iteobleza had not been warned, and put to death the captain and his ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... With another oath as fearful From the fierce and sullen keeper; And the creaking bars fly backward With a mighty clash of vengeance. Then the brazen gate is opened, And the poor deluded victim Thrust into the pit of horrors, All amid the foulsome vapors. Flies the postern close behind him, Back the bolts and bars are driven, Creaking with their heavy burden; And a motley throng surround him, Railing, scoffing, and abusing; Each devising of some evil To annoy, or taunt, or torture. ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... happened to stand centinel in the second watch, the moon shining very bright, he observed two armed Indians in their plumes of feathers, passing over the ditch on a tree that lay across instead of a bridge. These men came to a postern which they entered without asking leave, on which Silvestre gave one of them a cut on the forehead, on which he immediately fled. The other Indian, without waiting for his wounded companion, got into ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Sebastopol which must have cost a good half-hour's engineering, and the terrible Bytes Gridley besieging the fortress with hostile manifestations of the most singular character. He was actually discharging a large sugar-plum at the postern gate, which having been left unclosed, the missile would certainly have reached one of the garrison, when he paused as the door opened, and the great round spectacles and four wide, staring infants' eyes were levelled ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. |
