"Portcullis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gatehouse - the enormous doors were shut and barred. There was a window in a little room at the bottom of the round turret up which the stair wound, rather larger than the other windows, and looking through it they saw that the drawbridge was up and the portcullis down; the moat looked very wide and deep. Opposite the great door that led to the moat was another great door, with a little door in it. The children went through this, and found themselves in a big paved courtyard, with the great grey walls of the castle ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... wedge 4,500 people in there on a warm day, and then watch the perspiration trickle out through the clapboards on the outside. On the closing afternoon, during the matinee performance, the building was struck by lightning and a hole knocked out of the Corinthian duplex that surmounts the oblique portcullis on the off side. The reader will see at once the location ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... made, and, when a volume was borrowed, he put the dummy in its place on the shelf, inscribing it with the name of the borrower. He also defended his shelves with locked brazen wires. "Tutus clausus ero" ("I shall be safe if shut up"), his anagram, was his motto, under a portcullis. Borrowers, of course, are nearly the worst enemies of books, always careless, and very apt to lose one volume out of a set. Housemaids are seldom bibliophiles. Their favourite plan is to dust the books in the owner's absence, and then rearrange them on fancy principles, mostly upside ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... two sides the rock fell away almost sheer from the castle walls, whilst on the other two a deep moat had been dug, which was fed by small mountain rivulets that never ran dry; and the entrance was commanded by a drawbridge, whose frowning portcullis was kept by a grim warder looking fully equal to the ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... we had reached the great gate, part of the foemen had already entered Rome, and we had them in our rear. The castellan had ordered the portcullis to be lowered, in order to do which they cleared a little space, and this enabled us four to get inside. On the instant that I entered, the captain Palone de' Medici claimed me as being of the papal ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... portcullis of the castle; the wardour and men-at-arms are there to receive him with full honors, though he comes privately, without his armor or his followers: he wears the civil but costly dress of the period, with no other weapon than ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... houses alike are evidently built with a view to defence from within. If you take a country walk anywhere in Normandy you find that the gardens of the country houses have massive gates and high walls, the front door is like a portcullis, and the window shutters are barricades. The smallest cottages have great doors and window shutters, and if there is a garden, it is two to one that the wall is a real wall. And not only in the country districts, but in the towns, pre-eminently ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... broke forth; "And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hopest thou hence unscathed to go? No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no! Up draw-bridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall." Lord Marmion turned,—well was his need, And dashed the rowels in his steed, Like arrow through the archway sprung; The ponderous grate behind him rung: To pass there was such scanty room, The bars, descending, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the forts — Grimeston in front closely guarded by the Spanish captain — it was seen by the assailants that Redhead had kept his word: the drawbridge across the moat was down and the portcullis was up. Within the fort Lord Willoughby, Vere, and two thousand men were waiting for them. When about fifty had crossed the drawbridge the portcullis was suddenly let fall and the drawbridge hauled up. ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... laughed in derision. Rinaldo remained in the den all night, and next day was taken to a place where a portcullis was lifted up, and the monster rushed forth. He was a mixture of hog and serpent, larger than an ox, and not to be looked at without horror. He had eyes like a traitor, the hands of a man, but clawed, a beard dabbled with blood, a ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... perhaps, above all, Nuernberg, represented the high-water mark of mediaeval civilization as regards town life. On entering the burg, should it have happened to be in time of peace and in daylight, the stranger would clear the drawbridge and the portcullis without much challenge; passing along streets lined with the houses and shops of the burghers, in whose open frontages the master and his apprentices and gesellen plied their trades, discussing eagerly over their work the politics of the town, and at this period probably the theological ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... imposing portal admitted the visitor to a small tower occupied by the guards, through which the real entrance was approached. This stood in the thickness of the outer wall, and was protected by another pair of gates and a portcullis, just inside which was the porter's lodge. On the ground-floor the soldiers were lodged; on the midmost were the state and family apartments, while the uppermost accommodated the household servants and attendants. A special tower ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... but on or, that illegitimacy should be denoted by a lozenge, and widowhood by a bend, the new science would be just as good as the old science, because both the new and the old would be good for nothing. The mummery of Portcullis and Rouge Dragon, as it has no other value than that which caprice has assigned to it, may well submit to any laws which caprice may impose on it. But it is not so with that great imitative art, to the power ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not easily be injured, and could take aim from the top of their turrets, or from their loophole windows. The gates had absolute little castles of their own, a moat flowed round the walls full of water, and only capable of being crossed by a drawbridge, behind which the portcullis, a grating armed beneath with spikes, was always ready to drop from the archway of the gate and close up the entrance. The only chance of taking a fortress by direct attack was to fill up the moat with earth and faggots, and then ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... himself heard? He knew that her family and her immediate friends—Mr. Langhope, the Gaineses, Mrs. Ansell and Mr. Tredegar—far from being means of communication, were so many sentinels ready to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis at his approach. They were all in league to stifle the incipient feelings he had roused in Bessy, to push her back into the deadening routine of her former life, and the only voice that might conceivably speak for him was ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... I reached the gates, we found that Cecil and Lord Rutland were holding a consultation through the parley-window. The portcullis was still down, and the gates were closed; but soon the portcullis was raised, a postern was opened from within, and Sir William entered the castle with two ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... gazed upon the King, her heart grew hot within her, and she resolved that, come what might, she would have him for her own, to dwell with her always and fulfil all her behests. And so she bade lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis, and sallying forth accompanied by her maidens, she gave King Arthur courteous salutation, and prayed him that he would rest within her castle that day, for that she had a petition to make to him; and Arthur, doubting nothing of her good faith, ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... outer gateways of both her colleges, therefore, we see the great antelopes of the Beauforts supporting the arms of Lady Margaret, with her emblem, the daisy, forming a background. Sprinkled freely over the buildings, too, are the Tudor rose and the Beaufort portcullis. ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... Tower, the killing his Grace the Lord General, Sir John Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, and Sir Richard Brown; and then to have declared for an equal division of lands, &c. The better to effect this hellish design, the City was to have been fired, and the portcullis let down to keep out all assistance; and the Horse Guards to have been surprised in the inns where they were quartered, several ostlers having been gained for that purpose. The Tower was accordingly viewed, and its surprise ordered by boats over the moat, and from thence ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... to the archway was suspended a portcullis of wrought-iron bars. This was the real barrier, for, even if the attacking party succeeded in battering down the outer gate, they would find themselves cooped up in the passageway and exposed to missiles discharged both through the grating and from trap-doors in the vaulted ceiling. A well-conceived ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... ocean. The upper is separated from the lower town by a stone wall, which has the form of a horn-work. Through this wall is a gate, [115] which has a guard; the guard-room is opposite the gate, and by means of a portcullis defends the entrance. For the convenience of foot-passengers there is a door [116] near the gate, with wooden stairs, by ascending which you reach the upper town. On the right of the gate is a building which resembles a chapel, [117] and serves for the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... and strongly barred. The black and massive arch of the gateway yawned between two huge square towers; and from a yet higher but slender tower on the inner side, the flag gave the "White Bear and Ragged Staff" to the smoky air. Still, under the portal as he entered, hung the grate of the portcullis, and the square court which he saw before him swarmed with the more immediate retainers of the earl, in scarlet jackets, wrought with their chieftain's cognizance. A man of gigantic girth and stature, who ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pledging their lands and pawning their plate to fit out men-at-arms so that they might join the grand armies of Christendom and win renown in the Holy Wars. The Count Luigi raised money, like the rest, and one mild September morning, armed with battle-ax, portcullis and thundering culverin, he rode through the greaves and bucklers of his donjon-keep with as gallant a troop of Christian bandits as ever stepped in Italy. He had his sword, Excalibur, with him. His beautiful countess and her young daughter waved him a tearful adieu ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... night; that refectory, upon which the architect had bestowed the air, the beauty, and the rose window of a cathedral; that elegant chapel of the Virgin; that monumental dormitory; those vast gardens; that portcullis; that drawbridge; that envelope of battlements which notched to the eye the verdure of the surrounding meadows; those courtyards, where gleamed men at arms, intermingled with golden copes;—the whole grouped and clustered about three lofty spires, with round arches, well ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the year B.C. 562, when serving at the siege of a place called Peh-yang [4], a party of the assailants made their way in at a gate which had purposely been left open, and no sooner were they inside than the portcullis was dropped. Heh was just entering; and catching the massive structure with both his hands, he gradually by dint of main strength raised it and held it up, till his friends had made their escape. Thus much on the ancestry of the sage. Doubtless he could trace his descent in the way which ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... that he knew of the region, from hearsay and from personal experience. The supposed masked road, the actual rocky ascent covered with felled timber, an abatis, as the colonel called it, the access by water, and the portcullis at the narrows, were objects of great interest to the old soldier. He enquired as to the extent of the means of transportation, the probable numbers of the available force, and other particulars; and, when the weary Squire ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... to Charlotte, and found, to my surprise, that she had had the same joys and encountered the same disappointments in this delectable country. She, too, had walked up that road and flattened her nose against that portcullis; and she pointed out something that I had overlooked—to wit, that if you rowed off in a boat to the curly ship, and got hold of a rope, and clambered aboard of her, and swarmed up the mast, and got into the crow's-nest, you could just ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... circumspectly, insidiously, a bit apologetically, pianissimo; there must be no flaunting of unusual ideas, no bold prancing of an unaccustomed personality. Above all, it must be done without exciting fear, lest the portcullis fall and the whole enterprise go to pot. Above all, the manner of a Jenkins must be got ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... that when moving among them he trod on unseen flowers. They loved to hear and to tell of the grand and beautiful things at that fairy palace, the Castle,—a noble old edifice, with massive towers, a moat, a lofty gateway, and an ancient drawbridge and portcullis, which stood high in the midst ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... expression very anxious and weary. When he remembered the old banker, it was with no self-reproach that he himself was now doing what, in the banker's case, he had held up to Abel's scorn. It was only to remember that the wary old man had shut down the portcullis of the bank vaults, and that loans were getting to be almost impossible. His face darkened. He swore a sharp ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... the brown stone above and between the Turkish houses. The Castelli of to-day is the principal street of this quarter, running through its centre, and guarded by the gates whose arches remain, valueless and without portcullis, but showing in their present state how strong a defence was needed to assure the patricians in their slumbers against any importunate attempts of their malcontent subjects and fellow-townsmen to clear off the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... is an equally manifest need of a new type of University, something other than a happy fastness for those precociously brilliant creatures—creatures whose brilliance is too often the hectic indication of a constitutional unsoundness of mind—who can "get in" before the portcullis of the nineteenth birthday falls. These new educational elements may either grow slowly through the steady and painful pressure of remorseless facts, or, as the effort to evoke the New Republic becomes more conscious and deliberate, they may be rapidly brought into ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Philippa:—"I don't believe you want it to"—a construction denounced, we believe, by sensitive grammarians. The Earl let it pass, replying:—"I do not wish it to die a violent death." Her ladyship dropped the portcullis of her mind against a crowd of useless reflections. One was, whether her own relation with this young man's father had died a violent death; and, if so, was she any the worse? The rest were a motley crowd, with "might have been!" tattooed upon their brows and woven ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... monseigneur," said the Chancellor Olivier, the Cardinal de Tournon, and Birago, who were stationed outside of the portcullis. ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... end of the door of the old stable, there was formerly a gate which had a portcullis into the castle; it is half built up and boarded over on the stable side, large enough to hold a horse at hack and manger. People that don't know the place imagine it may be much easier dug through than any other part of the wall, so as to make a convenient passage into the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Priscilla. In one of these, the stone corbel, with the hole for the pivot to work in, remains in its place; the lower stone, with the corresponding hole, has been moved, but is lying on the floor in an adjoining chapel. Another door has been made to slide up and down like a portcullis or a modern sash-window, as we see by the groove remaining on both sides. This is close to a luminaria, or well for admitting light and air, and it seems quite possible that it really was a window, or that the upper part was made to slide ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the party drove over a narrow bridge across a half-filled moat, and under the arch of a massive crenellated tower whose unguarded gates stood wide open. A hundred years ago they would have found the portcullis drawn, and, being women, if they had attempted to force an entrance would have been excommunicated, for until the suppression no woman's foot was allowed across this threshold. The tower was built as a protection against bandits, and the grated windows which give it a sinister look to-day lighted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... following the northern base of the pillars, we find a very beautiful alabaster monument (11), with the effigy of Sir John Cheyney (died 1509) clad in military garb, and wearing the collar of SS. with the portcullis badge of Henry VII. suspended therefrom. Sir John Cheyney was the standard-bearer of Henry of Richmond at Bosworth Field. To quote from Hall's "Chronicle"—"King Richard set on so sharply at the first brount that he ouerthrew th'erle's standard ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... glee, And all our trumpets blow; And, from the platform, spare ye not To fire a noble salvo-shot: Lord Marmion waits below!" Then to the castle's lower ward Sped forty yeomen tall, The iron-studded gates unbarred, Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard, The lofty palisade unsparred, And ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... portions to the massive ruins from which they had been borrowed or taken. Still, enough had been left to show that the place had once been a mansion of considerable pretensions. The old gateway, with its portcullis and drawbridge, was still standing, while the moat which surrounded the entire building indicated that it had been originally of very capacious dimensions. The roof and most of the walls had long since disappeared; trees grew in the centre, and ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... There is certainly nothing in its plan or in its appearance to show that the engineers who designed it were acquainted even with the art of fortification as developed in the seventeenth century by Vauban. It is simply an old feudal castle, with moat, drawbridge, and portcullis, built after the model of medieval strongholds before heavy siege-ordnance came into general use. The idea that it could have done any serious damage to Admiral Sampson's fleet seems absolutely ludicrous when one has explored the ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... undertakes the task. He has a tough battle with the knight who answers the challenge, but wounds him mortally; and when the knight flies to his neighbouring castle, is so hard on his heels that the portcullis actually drops on his horse's haunches just behind the saddle, and cuts the beast in two. Ywain is thus left between the portcullis and the (by this time shut) door—a position all the more awkward that the knight himself ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... usefulness, also that his own self-respect and dignity must be carefully preserved; and he wrote to the Assembly of Massachusetts to say that it would be impossible for him longer to act as its agent. From that time he never attended the levee of a minister. The portcullis had dropped; the days of his service ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... of the building very closely, for, observing his hesitation, the two guards prodded him vindictively with the points of their knives, and pushed him before them through the massive stone gateway, which was protected by a strong portcullis at either end, as well as an iron double door between, strong enough to turn rifle bullets. Frobisher now realised that even if he had succeeded in sinking all the junks and reaching the gate of the fort his difficulties would only have ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... destroy a collection so curious, and the manufacture of which was now lost to science. We replied altogether, with much indignation, that a man who attempted the deed would be no better than an assassin, and might, without reference to an impartial advocate, be hanged from one of the portcullis' spikes below. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... with black velvet, trunk-hose of scarlet, rosettes in my slashed shoes, and a flat hat with a border of the red and white roses of York and Lancaster in satin ribbon,—these made up my costume. There were forty of us in the Tower, mounting guard with drawn swords at the portcullis gate and at the entrances to the lodgings of such as were in hold, and otherwise attending upon unfortunate noblemen and gentlemen who were in trouble. On state occasions, when taking prisoners by water from the Tower to Westminster, and in preceding the Lieutenant to the outward ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... rest; Thy turrets sound to warder's tread no more; Beneath their brow the dove hath hung her nest; High on thy beams the harmless falchion shines; No stormy trumpet wakes thy deep repose; Past are the days that, on the serried lines Around thy walls, saw the portcullis close. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... little explanation, but a few are hard to understand. On the roof may be seen the three lions of England, a cross between four martlets, three crowns each pierced by an arrow, and another design. The smaller designs include four-leaved flowers, Tudor roses, fleurs-de-lys, the portcullis, some undescribable creatures, crossed keys, crossed swords, crossed crosiers, crosses, crowns, crowns pierced with arrows, crowned female heads, an eagle, the head of the Baptist in a charger, an angel, mitres, three feathers rising from a crown, S. Andrew's cross, and perhaps others. There are ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... 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 steps in width across, from door to door; but it was almost dark, and there the Lady Goda stopped ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... affront to the King, and, leaping from his enormous black charger, he approached the portcullis and with his hand tore the ponderous thing from its sockets and broke ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... along the ridge, fronting the North as though still looking, albeit with a seemingly languid interest, for the coming of the Scots who were such inveterate foes of its successive lords. The principal entrance, however, the Barbican, faces southwards to the town, and here the massive gateway, with portcullis complete, and crowned by quaint life-size figures of warriors in various attitudes of defence, conveys the impression that the huge giant is still alert and on guard. The history of Alnwick is the history of the castle and its lords, from the ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... purposes of a moat. I crossed the bridge, and entered an imposing courtyard. Within this quadrangle the same silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the windows that overlooked it. I paused, at a loss how to proceed, and I leaned against a buttress of the portcullis, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... means of which I am enabled to pour molten lead upon the head of the casual visitor. These things chime in with my peculiar humour, and I do not grudge to pay for them. I am proud of my battlements and of the circular uncovered sewer which girds me round. I am proud of my portcullis and donjon and keep. There is but one thing wanting to round off the mediaevalism of my abode, and to render it symmetrically and completely antique. Goresthorpe Grange is not ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... bridge sank into its appointed place, and at the same moment the portcullis was heard to wind up with a grating sound. The little troop entered the courtyard through the gateway ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... slopes of the cliffs. The other side was defended by three stone walls laid out in zigzag shape, with salient and reentrant angles (demi-lunes), like an old-fashioned rail fence, with many doors, each closed by stone portcullis, in each wall. Within the walls was a citadel of three tall towers. The whole ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... churches they studied fortresses—those of Domfront and Falaise. They admired under the gate the grooves of the portcullis, and, having reached the top, they first saw all the country around them, then the roofs of the houses in the town, the streets intersecting one another, the carts on the square, the women at the washhouse. The wall ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... envious devil has ruined us yet more: The fort's revolted to the emperor; The gates are opened, the portcullis drawn, And deluges of armies from the town Come pouring in: I heard the mighty flaw, When first it broke; the crowding ensigns saw, Which choked the passage; and, what least I feared, The waving arms of Aureng-Zebe appeared, Displayed with your Morat's: In either's flag the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... my home these three years; but they beside me saw not the rambling expanse of my leisurely log mansion. They noted not the overhanging gables, the lattices of native wood. To them, yonder lay a castle in a foreign land. Here was moat and wall, then a portcullis, and gratings warded these narrow portals against fire of musketoon. My pet swallows' nest, demure above my door, to them offered the aspect of a culverin's mouth; and, as now, I made my customary approach-call, by which I heralded my return from any excursion on the stream of ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... The arch overhead is most elaborately carved and decorated with the same badges which we see on the bronze gates, and all over the inside of the chapel. Chief amongst these are the Tudor rose, the flower of York and Lancaster alike, and the portcullis, which was the emblem of Henry's maternal relations, the Beauforts, who traced their descent from John of Gaunt. This badge, originally a castle protected by a portcullis, was a symbol of Henry's undisputed ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... Duke, stiffly and as though rebuking her impetuosity, "stepped rather aside than forward, and welcomed her with his grandest smile." The sick tall yellow Duchess, his mother, stood like a north wind in the background; the rusty portcullis went up with a shriek, and, like a sky ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... step which we took worthy of a diplomatist, we finally stood upon the drawbridge of the castle. Here the savage customs of the rude days in which it was built immediately impress the beholder. Traces remain of the ponderous iron portcullis, heavy wooden bars, arrow-holes, and slits in the masonry for the pouring of boiling water or oil upon adverse knight or lordly freebooter. A steep path leads through two great entrance-gates into the large inner court, which is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... the top of the wall formed broad level platforms, which in case of a siege were generally kept strongly guarded. Facing the east, and commanding a view of the river and adjacent country, stood the barbacan gate and drawbridge, which latter was further defended by strong oaken doors and an iron portcullis, forming the great gate of the castle wall, and the principal entrance into the fortress. Two towers of immense strength, united by a narrow, dimly-lighted passage, guarded this gate, and on these ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... encounter and behold him in his bodily shape. Anon, he and the hermit buried the good knight Sir Perin, and rode on with the damsel till they came to a great castle, whereinto they were about to enter. But when Sir Balin had passed through the gateway, the portcullis fell behind him suddenly, leaving the damsel on the outer side, with men around her, drawing their swords ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... interested in the little gray town of Langeais, which is charmingly situated on the right bank of the Loire, as in the chateau itself, whose facade is gloomy and austere, a true mediaeval fortress, "with moat, drawbridge, and portcullis still in working order," as Walter expresses it. As we stood on the stone steps at the entrance between the great frowning towers waiting for the portcullis to be raised, we felt as if we might be in a Scott or Dumas novel, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... town of Crecy, still surrounded by its moat, where the tiny little houses stand in gardens with their backs on the moat, each with its tiny footbridge, that pulls up, just to remind you that it was once a royal city, with drawbridge and portcullis, a city in which kings used to stay, and in which Jeanne d'Arc slept one night on her way back from crowning her king at Rheims: a city that once boasted ninety-nine towers. Half a dozen of these towers still stand. ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... about twenty years ago, it was in its original state, with oak panels and a richly ornamented ceiling. The chimney-piece was supported by columns of the Ionic and Corinthian order, and decorated with the cognizances of the rose and portcullis, and the arms of France and England quartered, with the garter and the royal supporters. Underneath was this motto, "Sola salus ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... which is thus described: Serpent biting his tail, coiled twice round the wrist of a hand issuing from the clouds and holding a wand from which springs two laurel branches, and which is surmounted by a portcullis (the Westminster Arms); in the last coil of the serpent the word "Prudentia." Equally distinct is the mark of Felix Kingston, or Kyngston, who printed a very large number of books from 1597 to 1640; in this device we ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... semi-barbaric pomp, Albert made arrangements to leave his castle to engage in the perilous holy war against the Saracens, from which few ever returned. A few years were employed in the necessary preparations. At the sound of the bugle the portcullis was raised, the drawbridge spanned the moat, and Albert, at the head of thirty steel-clad warriors, with nodding plumes, and banners unfurled, emerged from the castle, and proceeded to the neighboring convent of Mari. His wife, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... oak and chestnut, and in the most thickly wooded and wildest part of the country, may be found, crouching within a ravine, a little ruined chateau. The dilapidated turrets would not catch your eye until you were about a hundred yards from the principal portcullis. The venerable trees around and the scattered rocks above, bury it in everlasting obscurity; and you would experience the greatest difficulty, even in broad daylight, in crossing the deserted path leading to it, without stumbling against the gnarled trunks and rubbish that bar every step. The name ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... later, the picture had become somewhat more sombre. M. Edouard Dangin writes: "Paris has become a veritable city of war. At seven o'clock in the morning, before all the gates of the city, the guard is under arms, the drum beats aux champs, the portcullis is lowered. It is the opening of the gates. At eight o'clock, in all the quarters of the city, the rappel is beaten, all the citizen soldiers who are to relieve the guard on the ramparts and on the minor posts are called to arms. Others are called out for the drill; ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... Here was his dream, there was disappointment, here that flaming discovery, there this sudden terror—nothing had changed for him, the Moor, St. Arthe Church, St. Dreot Woods, the high white gates and mysterious hidden park of Portcullis House—all were as though it had been yesterday that he had last seen them. Polchester had dwindled before his giant growth. Here the moor, the woods, the roads had grown, and it ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... buildings everything was made subordinate to strength and security. They were surrounded by a high stone wall and deep ditch, generally filled with water. The entrance to them was over a drawbridge through an archway protected by an iron grating, or portcullis, which could be raised and lowered at pleasure. The Tower of London, Rochester Castle, Norwich Castle, Castle Rising, Richmond Castle, Carisbrooke Keep, New Castle on the Tyne, and Tintagel Hold were built by ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... used the Beaufort arms as above ensigned, with a coronet of roses and fleur-de-lis, out of which issues an eagle, displayed or; and this device of coat and crest is used by the College. The arms on the gate are surrounded by badges, the Portcullis of the Beauforts, the Tudor, or Union, rose, each surmounted by a crown. Besides these we have daisies (marguerites), the badge of the Lady Margaret, and some flowers, which are not so easily identified. Certain vestments ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... Amidon could perceive, now, that the drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, and all the bars and shutters of the castle in place. Moreover, in the outer darkness in which he moved, he imagined there roamed lions and wolves and ravening beasts—and he with no guide but Judge Blodgett, who stands there in the lobby, so ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... call it the World-Chimaera, blowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk under their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets: they have made a white flag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the Portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge: a porthole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone-Ditch; plank resting on parapet, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... savings, and so were equally fair game to the royal plunderer. He lies in the south-west corner of the crypt, and his monument, which has suffered considerably at the hands of the Puritans, bears the Tudor portcullis and the archbishop's rebus, a hawk or mort standing ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... return where she had been. She went up to them very closely, for she was curious to see the place through which she had come in her sleep,—as a traveller goes back to see the city gate, with its bridge and portcullis, through which he has passed by night. The gate was very great, of a wonderful, curious architecture, having strange, delicate arches and canopies above. Some parts of them seemed cut very clean and clear; but the outlines were all softened with a sort of mist and shadow, so that it looked ...
— A Little Pilgrim - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... Vicomte was a Protestant; of ancient family and limited means. Where the living scions of the noble stock held their land, and went forth over their acres from under the ancestral portcullis, was more than even Mrs. Rowe had been able, with all her penetrating power in scandal, to ascertain. But the young nobleman was Mr. Mohun's friend—and that was enough. There had been reverses in the family. Losses fall upon the noblest lines; and supposing the Count de Gars in the ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... openings in the copse beyond they could see the gray walls rising up ahead. It was an impressive spectacle. The westering sun shone on the tower that had been made to look like some old-time type English masonry, famous in history, with its portcullis, drawbridge, and surrounding watery ditch known as ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... ground-level, before we got to the cutting on the mountain wall, and it must have been under ground-level for many centuries. They dug deep down, to make the tomb, and then covered up the entrance with earth. When Corkran got to his portcullis, he thought he'd reached the reward of his labours. Well—so he had—the punishment. Here's the heap of stone he used as a fulcrum for his lever. The heap tumbled when he was on the other side, and the slab of rock came down to trap him. We'll have to build up his fulcrum ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... bridge upon arches spans this peculiar ditch, the communication depending upon a double drawbridge and portcullis. Immediately facing the entrance outside the fortress is an old Turkish churchyard, through and above which the closed masonry aqueduct is conducted into the town. Following the course of the aqueduct along a straight line of sandy heights which somewhat resemble a massive railway embankment, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... got up opposite the mighty rock, which sparkled all over with crystals, he found a narrow bridge, defended by gates and portcullis and towers with loopholes. But the gates stood wide open, and were dropping from their great hinges; the portcullis was eaten away with rust, and clung to the grooves evidently immovable; while the loopholed towers had neither floor nor roof, and their ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... who followed the concluding verse with a universal roaring chorus, which went off into a storm of laughter, in which Father Roach made an absurd attempt to join. But it was only a gunpowder glare, swallowed in an instant in darkness, and down came the black portcullis of his scowl with a chop, while clearing his voice, and directing his red face and vicious little eyes straight on simple Dan Loftus he said, rising very erect and square ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... horse's head and fled. Owain pursued him, and followed close upon him, although he was not near enough to strike him with his sword. Then Owain descried a vast and resplendent castle; and they came to the castle gate. The black knight was allowed to enter, but the portcullis was let fall upon Owain, and it struck his horse behind the saddle, and cut him in two, and carried away the rowels of the spurs that were upon Owain's heels. And the portcullis descended to the floor. And the rowels of the spurs and part of the horse were without, ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... was an open space of grass, with other grey avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: "If I wait long enough, the guardian will turn up ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... height of pseudo-Gothic, with a formidable keep-looking tower at each corner, but the fortification below consisting of glass; the sham cloister, likewise glass windows, for drawing-room, music-room, and conservatory; and jutting out far in advance, a great embattled gateway, with a sham portcullis, and doors fit ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wood, when, all of a sudden, the horse stopped at the door of a great house; and, but that he knew the place was ten miles off, my father would have thought he was at Redgauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer courtyard, through the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons. They lap off, and my ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... ourselves consequences which are wholly evil and harmful. Torpid consciences, hungry hearts, stormy wills, tyrannous desires, vain hopes and not vain fears come to be, by slow degrees, the tortures of the man who drops the portcullis and lifts the bridge against the entrance of Jesus. There are hells enough on earth if ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... ancient times, before the Wars of the Roses, a baron, or even a yeoman, would surround his residence with a moat to be crossed only by a drawbridge, and instead of the convenient door of modern times, he would have a portcullis, which he would raise or let fall to admit a friend, or exclude a foe. A visitor, too, would have instead of gaining immediate access, to sound a horn at an outer gate, and hold parley with a warder upon a lofty tower, before ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... showed itself in its full force. The weakness of the Crown and the strife of political factions for supremacy left the nobles masters of the field; and the white rose of the House of York, the red rose of the House of Lancaster, the portcullis of the Beauforts, the pied bull of the Nevilles, the bear and ragged staff which Warwick borrowed from the Beauchamps, were seen on hundreds of breasts in ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... Cairncarque. There was a castle indeed!—something to call a castle!—with its huge square tower at every corner, and its still huger two towers in the middle of its front, its moat, and the causeway where once had been its drawbridge!—Yes! there were the spikes of the portcullis, sticking down from the top of the gateway, like the long upper teeth of a giant or ogre! That was a real castle—such as he had read of in books, such as he had ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... its feet, where is made a very capital sparkling wine, not at all inferior to champagne. There is also there an odd chateau, designed, it is believed, by Marshal Vauban, on the plan of a mimic fortress, with bastions, curtains, glacis, portcullis, and loopholes. It is now the residence of the owner of the great vineyards where the S. Peray ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... back of the desk, I concluded that there must be some accessible space behind; and found, indeed, that they were formed in a separate framework, which admitted of the whole being pulled out in one piece. Behind, I found a sort of flexible portcullis of small bars of wood laid close together horizontally. After long search, and trying many ways to move it, I discovered at last a scarcely projecting point of steel on one side. I pressed this repeatedly and hard with the point of an old tool that was lying near, till at length it yielded inwards; ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... into the narrow way and soon accomplished the ascent. Passing under a portcullis as mediaeval as that of any Rhenish castle, they stopped in an ancient, stone-flagged courtyard. On every side, thronging about them, they met the vengeful, scowling eyes of men in a frenzy of fear and hate, while a growling murmur of resentment greeted their ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... further. I saw a narrow bridge across the chasm, while what I had first thought to be rugged piles of rock took the form of grim battlements and towers, rising so straight from the edge of the rock that I had thought them a part of it. Across the bridge frowned an angry portcullis. As the place stood, it looked as if one man could hold it against a thousand, so unapproachable did it seem. On our side the bridge, on the mainland, was a large courtyard or barrack, with an outer wall and moat round it, of itself no easy place to carry; and when, beyond that, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... the pallium. It is St. George who rides full tilt at the dragon in the rude sculptures on the portal of the Romanesque Cathedral hard by; it is the same warrior-saint who, in his gleaming armour, looks down from the painted fresco above the portcullis of the castle drawbridge. And all the masters who worked for the Este dukes, whether they were men of native or foreign birth—Vittore Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini, Cosimo Tura and Dosso Dossi—took ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... chateau! not a moment to lose!" she cried, and seizing Lecour by the arm hurried him into the passage which communicated between the new mansion on land and the ancient one in the lake, while Dominique followed. Half-way across was a decayed wooden door, which once had done duty as a gate behind the portcullis. They shut and bolted this with all speed, and then turned to look round them. The crash of the main door falling and the shout of the mob which followed, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... Bid the varlets lower the draw-bridge and raise the portcullis. Order pasties and souse-fish and a butt of malmsey; see the great hall is properly decored for my Lord Bishop of Carisbury, who will take his ambigue and bait his steeds at ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... on a third principle, still more adverse to the living economy of the age. They were formed, Sir, on the principle of purveyance and receipt in kind. In former days, when the household was vast, and the supply scanty and precarious, the royal purveyors, sallying forth from under the Gothic portcullis to purchase provision with power and prerogative instead of money, brought home the plunder of an hundred markets, and all that could be seized from a flying and hiding country, and deposited their spoil in an hundred caverns, with each its keeper. There, every commodity, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... cold provision, when his ears were suddenly assailed by a tremendous alarum, and sallying forth, and looking from his castle wall, he perceived a large party of armed men on the other side of the moat, who were calling on the warder in the king's name to lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis, which had both been secured by Matilda's order. The baron walked along the battlement till he came opposite to these unexpected visitors, who, as soon as they saw him, called out, "Lower the ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... tennis court, and a cockpit, which was situated where Downing Street now is. The park was approached by two noble gates, and until the year 1708 the Cock-pit Gate, which opened into the court where Queen Anne lived, was standing. It was surmounted with lofty towers and battlements, and had a portcullis, and many rich decorations. Westminster Gate, the other entrance, was designed by Hans Holbein, and some foreign architect doubtless erected the Cockpit Gate. The scene of the cruel diversion of cock-fighting was, however, obliterated before ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... mould the temper of the people to their own likeness? S. George, the chivalrous, is champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the Cathedral porch, so feudal in its medieval pomp. He and S. Michael are painted in fresco over the south portcullis of the Castle. His lustrous armour gleams with Giorgionesque brilliancy from Dossi's masterpiece in the Pinacoteca. That Ferrara, the only place in Italy where chivalry struck any root, should have had S. George for patron, is at any ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of the people to their own likeness? St. George, the chivalrous, is champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the cathedral porch, so feudal in its mediaeval pomp. He and St. Michael are painted in fresco over the south portcullis of the castle. His lustrous armor gleams with Giorgionesque brilliancy from Dossi's masterpiece in the Pinacoteca. That Ferrara, the only place in Italy where chivalry struck any root, should have had St. George for patron, is ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... and the portcullis were two small guard-houses, which, very carelessly, had been left empty. Kleerhagen, with his fifty followers, successfully climbed into these lurking-places, where they quietly ensconced themselves ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... doorway is left for the jaguar to enter. Above this is suspended a large plank of wood communicating with one on the ground, over which the jaguar on entering must tread, and it is so contrived that as he does so the portcullis falls and shuts him in. A live pig is fastened by a rope in the centre of the enclosure as a bait. An Indian is always on the watch at night in a tree near the spot, and the moment the jaguar is caught he gives ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... right hand voluptuous, as beseems Thy daughter and thy darling, without end. 870 Thus saying, from her side the fatal Key, Sad instrument of all our woe, she took; And towards the Gate rouling her bestial train, Forthwith the huge Portcullis high up drew, Which but her self not all the Stygian powers Could once have mov'd; then in the key-hole turns Th' intricate wards, and every Bolt and Bar Of massie Iron or sollid Rock with ease Unfast'ns: on a sudden ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... workmanship. We viewed with an inquisitive eye what remained of the Donjon: sighed, as we surveyed the ruins of the chapel—a very interesting little piece of ecclesiastical antiquity: and shuddered as we contemplated the enormous and ponderous portcullis—which had a drop of full twenty feet ... to keep out the invading foe. I was in truth delighted with this first reconnoissance of FALAISE—beneath one of the brightest and bluest skies of Normandy! and—within walls, which were justly ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the combat, Sir Ivaine followed. But he could not quite catch up with the Black Knight, although gaining on him inch by inch. By the time the castle moat was reached, Sir Ivaine was only five feet behind. The horses thundered one after the other over the bridge. The Black Knight rode under the portcullis, or sharp iron gate, which was raised. The instant he was inside, the portcullis fell, in order to shut ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... but lost not a moment. He had not made this haste for his life only: before he had risen to his knees or set foot in the gate, he had formed his plan. "The Portcullis!" he cried. "The Portcullis! Where are the chains? On this side?" Less than a week before he had stood and watched the guard as they released it and ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... gate by which Mrs Wilson had dismissed me. A flight of rude steps cut in the rock led to the portcullis, which still hung, now fixed in its place in front of the gate; for though the Hall had no external defences, it had been well fitted for the half-sieges of troublous times. A modern mansion stands, with its broad sweep up to the wide door, like ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the castle, crossed the moat by the drawbridge, passed through the arched gateway, under the portcullis, the young folks, and indeed the older ones also, gazing at it with much curiosity, and entered a spacious hall, the walls of which were hung with bows and ancient weapons, and armor such as was worn by warriors ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... the next it had plunged into the weed and was lost to sight. The ends of the grass came together spitefully behind it, weaving themselves together, knitting, as we watched, an opaque blanket. It closed over and around so that the smooth track ended abruptly, bitten by a wiry green portcullis. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... unauthenticated books, as you know, and may probably bring forward many more. Now I wish to have it in my power to place on a few copies of each a decisive mark of appropriation. I have chosen for this purpose a device borne by a champion of my name in a tournament at Stirling! It was a gate and portcullis, with the motto CLAUSUS TUTUS ERO. I have it engraved on a seal, as you may remark on the enclosure, but it is done in a most blackguard style. Now what I want is to have this same gateway and this same portcullis and this same motto of clausus tutus ero, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... country for thirty miles round. It has all the characteristics of a town of the feudal times, with high embattled and loopholed walls, numerous towers, and deep and strong gateways, under which are still to be seen the grooves of the portcullis, the warder's guard-room, and the hooks that supported the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... who had no reason to be interested in any but her own affairs just then, and was, moreover, wet through and shivering, did not notice the flag flying over the Castle—Party per pale argent and sable. It was not till the whole caravan stood within the drawbridge that she saw over the portcullis an escutcheon whereon were the redoubtable three white wicket-gates, with the legend, Entra per me. She realized then that she was being drawn into the trap-teeth of her grim enemy, and went rather grey. There was nothing for it, she must trust to her disguise. It had deceived the colliers, it ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... membrane, glossy as bridal satins. But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with a hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... of the western tower, he reined in his horse. He did not alight, but, approaching so near the wall that he could rest his foot upon an abutment, he stood up, and raised the blind of a window on the ground-floor, made in the form of a portcullis, such as is still seen on ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... hand voluptuous, as beseems Thy daughter and thy darling, without end." Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, Sad instrument of all our woe, she took; And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train, Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew, Which, but herself, not all the Stygian Powers Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns Th' intricate wards, and every bolt and bar Of massy iron or solid rock with ease Unfastens. On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, Th' infernal doors, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... in the same instant, it did it then. It leaped at the sight of this white and rose castle, with its towers and donjon and keep; it sank at the thought that he, poor old unpretentious Peter Davenant, with no social or personal passports of any kind, must force his way over drawbridge and beneath portcullis—or whatever else might be the method of entering a feudal pile—into the presence of the chatelaine whose abode here must be that of some legendary princess, and bend her to his will. Stray memories came to him of Siegfrieds and Prince Charmings, with a natural gift for this sort ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... society dined in, a little Escurial in itself, was most appropriately fitted up: the doors, wainscoting, and roof of good old English oak, ornamented with gridirons as thick as Henry VII's Chapel with the portcullis of the founder. The society's badge was a gridiron, which was engraved upon the rings, glass, and the forks and spoons. At the end of the dining-room was an enormous grating in the form of a gridiron, through which the fire was seen and the steaks handed from the kitchen. ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... Suns had appendages of the heraldic design which was then called "the king's beast," which with Edward IV. was the white lion of March, and with Richard III. the white boar. When Henry VII. resumed the Lancastrian Collar of Esses, he added to it the portcullis of Beaufort. In the former Lancastrian regions it had no pendant, except a plain or jewelled ring, usually of the trefoil form. All the pendant badges which I have enumerated belong to secular heraldry, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... middle, or during the latter half, of the sixteenth century, but the highly finished and intricate marqueterie and carving would seem to prove that Italian or German craftsmen had executed the work. It should be carefully examined as a very interesting specimen. The Tudor arms, the rose and portcullis, are inlaid on the stand. The arched panels in the folding doors, and at the ends of the cabinet are in high relief, representing battle scenes, and bear some resemblance to Holbein's style. The general arrangement of the design reminds one of a Roman triumphal arch. The woods employed are ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... solid as the best yew hedge. I marvel at thee. A knight might have spoken it, under favour. They stopped her at Warwick—to see what? two old towers that don't match, {105a} and a portcullis that (people say) opens only upon fast-days. Charlecote Hall, I could have told her sweet Highness, was built by those Lucys who came over with Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror, with cross and scallop-shell ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... between the jumbled rocks, beyond the reach of wind and weather. They were of great variety, large, small, wide, narrow; all ready to move into. They were the conies' castles, ready refuges from enemies, their devious passages as effective as drawbridge or portcullis. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... to return from the donjon, than D'Artagnan placed himself in ambuscade close to the Rue de Petit-Musc, so as to see every one who might leave the gates of the Bastile. After he had spent an hour on the look-out from the "Golden Portcullis," under the pent-house of which he could keep himself a little in the shade, D'Artagnan observed a soldier leave the Bastile. This was, indeed, the surest indication he could possibly have wished for, as every jailer or warder has certain days, and even certain hours, for leaving ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... there isn't a castle at Menouville," he said. "I know there is, although I've never been there, and I never heard of the place before. When we arrive the drawbridge will be down and the portcullis up. All the men-at-arms will have burnished their armor brightly and will wait respectfully in parallel rows to welcome us as we pass between. His Grace, the Duke of Light Heart, in a suit of red velvet will be standing on the steps, and Her Graciousness, the Duchess, ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a handsome place, no doubt, in its gaunt, gray, prisonlike way. And, too, it had a moat and a miniature portcullis that rather tickled his boyish fancy. The furnishings, however, had an appalling grimness that took the very heart out of one. Chairs which seemed to have grown in their places for centuries crowded the corners of hallway and stairs like gigantic nightmares of their original prototypes. Monstrous ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... wonderful. Nothing was in sight, however; and after the usual sputter of gutturals which precedes any arrangement in this country, we were mounted in a high, awkward carriage, and rode to the town. Two ancient round tower and a wall first met my eye; then a drawbridge, arched passage, and portcullis. Under this passage we passed, and at our right hand was the church, where once was laid the worn form that had stood so many whirlwinds—where, in short, Luther was buried. But this we did not then know; so we drove by, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... ivy-covered ruins of the fortress which now remain, it is scarcely possible to say what was its ancient form; but it is most generally supposed to have been quadrangular, having only one entrance, a large double portcullis, at the west end of the southern front, turreted and embattled, as was the whole of the front, with a tower at its eastern end, corresponding with that on the west. This front, with its gateway and turrets, are perhaps the only ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... always gives me a sensation of old feudal times and recalls the days of my childhood when I used to sit under the sickle-pear tree at "Cherry Lawn" reading Scott's "Marmion"—"Up drawbridge, grooms—what, Warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall!" wondering what a "portcullis" was, and if I should ever see one ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... curtsy? Very well, then, make any excuses you like for me, Hilda: say I'm eccentric, say I'm deranged, say I'm a Nihilist. I will hide under the scullery table, fling myself in the moat, lock myself in the keep, let the portcullis fall on me, die any appropriate early English death,—anything rather than curtsy in a tailor-made gown; I can kneel beautifully, Hilda, if that will do: you remember my ancestors were brought up on kneeling, and yours on curtsying, and it makes ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and immediately preparations were made for the admission of the Scots. As the enraptured Edwin heard the heavy chains of the portcullis drawn up, and the massy bolts of the huge doors grating in their guards, he thought of his mother's liberty, of his father's joy, in pressing her again in his arms; and hastening to the tower where Lord Ruthven held watch over the now sleeping ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... without refreshing or doing him any good! How it could have happened was quite a mystery to me, till I returned with him to the town gate. There I saw that when I rushed in pell-mell with the flying enemy, they had dropped the portcullis (a heavy falling door, with sharp spikes at the bottom, let down suddenly to prevent the entrance of an enemy into a fortified town) unperceived by me, which had totally cut off his hind part, that still ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... hills with their long train, soldiers, ecclesiastics, women, and children, they saw a galloping band of Arabs in pursuit. The archbishop bade them turn instantly into a deserted castle they were just passing, to drop the portcullis and man the walls. That they might look as numerous as possible, he bade all the women dress themselves like men and tie their long hair beneath their chins to resemble beards. He then put helmets on their heads and lances in their hands, and thus the Arab leader saw a formidable host on ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... child when he has entered upon the war-path of getting "something to do." If legitimate means fail, then "let the portcullis fall;" the child ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... barbican the party was halted by the guard. An officer with a lantern stepped out upon the lowered portcullis. The lieutenant who had captured them ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Montrond, Hyacinth had been reared, partly in a mediaeval mansion, with a portcullis and four squat towers, near the Chateau d'Arques, and partly in Paris, where the lady had a fine house in the Marais. The sisters had never looked upon each other's faces, Angela having entered upon the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... a score of men. He raised a warning hand, which compelled the Lord Giovanni to pause; then he rasped out a brisk command to his followers. The winches creaked, and the drawbridge swung up even as with a clank and rattle of chains the portcullis fell. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... the gate from an attack by artillery, but it did not seem likely that we should be besieged by any force having guns, and I let the matter remain until the tenants should be better off and we could spend our money on such work. However, it is too late now to think of that. I suppose there is a portcullis to the gate?" ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... in a chariot, splendid in his fine robes of fur, with a gold chain about his neck. And the guards hurried to let down the portcullis for him, and with low bows bade him enter. But when Saint Berach came he wore only his gray monk's robe, all torn and tattered. He was shivering with cold, and weak from having walked so far. So they thought him a mere beggar and would not ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the old gateway—with its portcullis still ready to be dropped, if need be, and with the iron plates that sheathe it pierced with bullets—as at S. Michele, the visitor enters at once upon a terrace from which the two foregoing illustrations were taken. ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... suddenly as he was conscious of a clang of arms and a confused medley of voices, not in very peaceful tones, breaking in upon his meditations. He now perceived that the drawbridge was thronged with armed men, the portcullis drawn up, and the courtyard beyond full of ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... your sleep, Not a thought wake and creep In upon your spirit's slumber; Not a memory encumber, Nor a thievish care unbar Sleep's portcullis that no star Nor sentry hath. I'll not speak With my soul even: no, nor seek Other happiness for you When you this happy sleep sleep through. Let no least desire waver Between us, nor impatience quaver; No sudden nearness of ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... gray rocks, rising sheer and bold and bare, stood the walls and towers of Castle Drachenhausen. A great gate-way, with a heavy iron-pointed portcullis hanging suspended in the dim arch above, yawned blackly upon the bascule or falling drawbridge that spanned a chasm between the blank stone walls and the roadway that winding down the steep rocky slope to the little ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... to the barred gate of the castle, where in a little cubbyhole dark even at noonday, and black as Egypt now, the warder slept with his hand upon his keys, and his head touching the lever of the gear wherewith he drew the creaking portcullis up and rolled back the iron doors which shut the keep off from the world of the wide outer courtyard and the garrison which ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... James I. was very fond of combats between lions and dogs in presence of his court. All these animals were moved several years ago to the Zooelogical Gardens. We passed through strong gates, defended by a portcullis, and on our left we saw what the warden called the Bell Tower, and which was the prison of Bishop Fisher, who was beheaded for not acknowledging Henry VIII. to be the head of the church. I wanted to see the Traitor's Gate, and found it was on the right hand, having a communication ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... loves a lover. Besides, it is a glorious morning for a ride. Up, portcullis, down drawbridge!" waving his hand ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... their ears are glued to their doors. What ho! Somebody's at the portcullis. Probably the padre, ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... more than ever at the house. It was liker a castle. There was an arched entrance, very solid, all of brick, with the teeth even of a portcullis shewing. An old man came out of a door on our right, as our hoofs rang out; but he made no sign or salute; he took our horses' heads as we dismounted, and I heard him presently ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... furlong, the drawbridge across the moat rose slowly and creaking till it stood vertical against the fort and the very moment it settled into this warlike attitude, down rattled the portcullis at the gate, and the towers and curtains bristled with ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... sea; and they who can deal with the waves in a tempest, need not fear an undisciplined people in their fury. Your daughter shall be as dear to me as mine own; and in that faith you may prick forth—if, indeed, you will not still, like a wiser man, shut gate, down portcullis, up drawbridge, and let your archers and my crossbows man the wall, and tell the knaves you are not the fool that ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... walls. The wagon stopped at the great gate. A horn sounded from within, the gate swung open, a drawbridge fell with a hideous creaking of machinery, and we passed in, twenty or thirty feet above the snow-drifted moat. Beyond the portcullis a dim door swung open. Some sort of seneschal met us with a light and led us below the twilight arches, where beyond, I could catch glimpses of the baileys and courts and the donjon tower ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... tread, The thunder of my courser's speed, Perchance they did not hear nor heed: 390 It vexes me—for I would fain Have paid their insult back again. I paid it well in after days: There is not of that castle gate, Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, Stone—bar—moat—bridge—or barrier left; Nor of its fields a blade of grass, Save what grows on a ridge of wall, Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall; And many a time ye there might pass, 400 Nor dream that e'er the fortress was. I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the enemy within the castle, which to know, Gargantua cried out as loud as he was able, Are you there, or are you not there? If you be there, be there no more; and if you are not there, I have no more to say. But a ruffian gunner, whose charge was to attend the portcullis over the gate, let fly a cannon-ball at him, and hit him with that shot most furiously on the right temple of his head, yet did him no more hurt than if he had but cast a prune or kernel of a wine-grape at him. What is this? said Gargantua; do you throw at us grape-kernels here? ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... was, flanked by two comical little turrets, with loopholes, from which a thread-paper or Tom Thumb might have defended it. Otherwise it resembled a church porch, except for the formidable points of a sham portcullis; but there was no denying that it greatly increased the comfort of the house, with its two sets of heavy doors, and the seats on either side. The great hall door had been closed up, plastered over within, and rendered inoffensive. Towards the west there was another modern addition ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I speak of castles, not of rooks. I do not know whence came this custom of calling the most romantic piece on the board by the name of a very ordinary bird, but I, at least, will not be a party to it. I refuse to surrender the portcullis and the moat, the bastion and the well-manned towers, which were the features of every castle with which hitherto I have played, in order to take the field with allies so unromantic as a brace of rooks. You may tell me that "rook" is a corruption of this or that ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... English, now I must forgo; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony: Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue, Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips; And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now: What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death, Which robs my tongue ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... in three divisions and seated on the ground. On seeing their enemies advance they rose up and fell into their ranks. That of the Prince was the first to do so, whose archers were formed in the manner of a portcullis, or harrow, and the men-at-arms in the rear. The earls of Northampton and Arundel, who commanded the second division, had posted themselves in good order on his wing, to assist and succor the Prince if necessary. You must know that these kings, earls, barons, and lords ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Castle. An anonymous pamphleteer celebrated the victories that had been achieved by the lord deputy, giving to his work the title, 'The Overthrow of an Irish Rebel,' having for its frontispiece a tower with portcullis, and the O'Dogherty's head impaled in the central embrazure. The spirit of the narrative may be inferred from the following passage: 'As for Tyrone and Co., or Tyrconnel, they are already fled from their coverts, and I hope they will never return; and for ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... with some twenty in a clump hard behind us, rang loud on the drawbridge over the dry fosse. The bridge planks quivered strangely; we were now within the gateway, when down fell the portcullis behind us, the drawbridge, creaking, flew up, a crowd of angry faces and red crosses were pressing on us, and a blow fell on my salade, making me reel. I was held in strong arms, swords shone out above me, I stumbled on a body—it was Robin Lindsay's—I heard Randal give a curse ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... basements in whose depths of prison twilight stone steps could be seen; and on going out through the Porte Guillaume across a little humpbacked bridge, under the archway still showing the groove in which the portcullis had worked which was let down of yore to defend this side of the town, he came upon yet another arm of the river washing the feet of more houses, playing at hide and seek in the courts, musing between walls; and at once he was haunted by the recollection of another river ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... to render the proper salutes, acted as chief mourner, surrounded by weeping mourners, who made the ruins of Janina echo with their lamentations. The guns were fired at long intervals. The portcullis was raised to admit the procession, and the whole garrison, drawn up to receive it, rendered a military salute. The body, covered with matting, was laid in a grave beside that of Amina. When the grave ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... from the Tower. It was a very hot night in August—too hot to sleep—and I lay awake, chattering to Kate and Isabel, who were my bedfellows, about some grand play we meant to have the next afternoon, in the great gallery—when all at once we heard a horse come dashing up to the portcullis, past our chamber wall, and a horn crying ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... to the top of the cavern, curled there or passed out into the glen through the briers that dropped like a portcullis. The fagots crackled in the flame, the light danced, the warmth was pleasant. So was the sense of adventure and of solitude a deux. They stretched themselves beside the flame. Alexander produced from his pouch four small red-cheeked apples. They ate and talked, with ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston |
