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More "Knocker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmothers. The front door was never opened except on marriages, funerals, new year's days, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, curiously wrought, sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes of a lion's head, and was daily burnished with such religious zeal, that it was oft-times worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... bushes with a keen remembrance of how they were laden with odors in June. He wondered if the tansy still grew under the sitting-room window, and if the lilies-of-the-valley flourished on the north side of the house as of old. Then he knocked with the quaint old black knocker, and with the sound came back the present and the thought that he had before him an interview which might be neither pleasant ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... casting firm; and, for farther originality and Christianity's sake, the caduceus of Mercury; and to adorn the front of the pedestals towards the river, being now wholly at our wit's end, we can think of nothing better than to borrow the door-knocker which—again for the last fifty years—has disturbed and decorated two or three millions of London street-doors; and magnifying the marvellous device of it, a lion's head with a ring in its mouth (still borrowed from the Greek), we complete the embankment with a row of heads and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... he'd be in Pleasant Street; and later he dressed with the most meticulous care. A growing doubt seized him as he mounted the outside steps of the Ammidons' impressive house; but he crushed it down and firmly rapped with the polished knocker ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that in these little country towns years ago people had to be very careful how they acted, lest they should offend some local magnate. He remembered a tradesman telling him how once he had got into great disgrace for putting a new knocker on his private side door, without first asking permission and sending round to obtain the opinion of an old gentleman. This person had nothing whatever to do with the property, but lived retired and ruled his neighbours with a ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Knock and Knocker are both Kentish names, and there is a reef off Margate known as the Kentish Knock. We have the plural Knox (cf. Bax, Settlements and Enclosures, Chapter XIII). Knott is sometimes for Cnut, or Canute, which generally becomes Nutt. Both have got ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... receiving the visitor on the threshold, was a creature rather desired than definitely possessed; so that Basil Ransom found Miss Chancellor's house-door gaping wide (as he had seen it the night before), and destitute even of a knocker or a bell-handle. From where he stood in the porch he could see the whole of the little sitting-room on the left of the hall—see that it stretched straight through to the back windows; that it was garnished with photographs of foreign works of art, pinned upon the walls, and ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... room was a front one, he went to the window, and climbing up the curtains, got outside and looked down. There, in the moonlight, he saw an ordinary sized man on horseback, directing about a dozen black slaves, who had hold of a long rope, which they had tied to the knocker of Tur-il-i-ra's door. They were all pulling away at it as hard as they could (and a mighty pounding they made too), when the Giant put his head out of his window, and asked ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... more welcome to a pair of sinking wanderers I am sure. Wet to the skin, bedrabbled with mud, exhausted with breasting the gale, we stood for a moment under the porch to regain our breath, then with her characteristic energy she lifted the knocker and struck a smart blow on ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... lower part of the house opened upon the piazza, and from the second story ruffled white curtains fluttered to the breeze. As the shield-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck's stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool grass. It wasn't a house to be hurried, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... knocker on the door and a slot opened for a quick check of his identity. The door opened wide and Technician Martin Gunther ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... understand by very wide-awake sentries with bayonets, policemen, and enthusiastic special constables. But at last we reached the consulate and laid siege. One man pressed the electric button, kicked the door, and pounded with the knocker, others hurled pebbles at the upper windows, and the fifth stood in the road and sang: "Oh, say, can you see, by the ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... accounts, and papers, that I have been obliged to delay this letter longer than I intended. My attorney hath now his leave of absence from me, to anew paint the green door, and repolish the brass knocker of his country villa. As soon as Lady Y. is sufficiently strong I propose quitting town, remaining ten days at Delaforde, and then proceeding to swim at Southampton or Lymington, having as just claim to breathe a sweeter air ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Church, and there hid. And a strong Accusation being laid against a Person belonging to the Church, and full Proof made, that he had been singularly Industrious in the Execution of that horrid Piece of Barbarity on the Hill, his Lordship commanded him to be hang'd up at the Knocker ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... the Doctor's door, She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap; The Doctor at the casement shows His glimmering eyes that peep and doze! 250 And one hand rubs his ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... three months for that job. But it was worth it!" he reflected. "Only," he added, "the old woman might have had the knocker to keep away from the lush while I was in quod.... But wot's all this ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... sat down on the steps outside of his big white front door, which had a brass knocker and knob that Mary had polished until the paint had worn away around them. Mr. Denner's house was of rough brick, laid with great waste of mortar, so that it looked as though covered with many small white seams. Some ivy grew about the western windows of the library, but on the north ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... fair guest (whom he had galvanized into an affected liveliness by alarming remarks on her apparent preoccupation), there fell upon his ear the sound of a loud knocking at the door. Dinner had been served in a small room at the back of the house, and the President could not command a view of the knocker without going out on to the veranda, which ran all round the house, and walking round to the front. When the knock was heard, the ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... breath in his face. He could see the firelight flickering upon the kitchen wall of the Barnard house as he drew near. He came up into the yard and caught a glimpse of a fair head in the ruddy glow. There was a knocker on the door; he raised it gingerly and let it fall. It made but a slight clatter, but a woman's shadow moved immediately across the yard outside, and Barnabas heard the inner door open. He threw open the outer one himself, and Charlotte stood there smiling, and softly decorous. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... skilful hands. On the eve of the sad event she produced a reserve of black sateen, the kitchen steps and a box of tin-tacks, and decorated the house with festoons and bows of black in the best possible taste. She tied up the knocker with black crape, and put a large bow over the corner of the steel engraving of Garibaldi, and swathed the bust of Mr. Gladstone, that had belonged to the deceased, with inky swathings. She turned the two vases that had views of Tivoli and the Bay ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... curious look at her they both obeyed; and a little later, when the knocker sounded through the house, they sat silently above, not daring to move, and heard their aunt open the door, heard Dr. Bowman's slow, scholarly voice and Julia Cloud's even tones, back and forth for a little while, and then heard the front door open and shut again, and slow steps go ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... to be patted. He arose from the blanket and accepted my overtures with an expression which may have been intended for a smile, or a threat of the most appalling character. I have seen such legs as his on old-fashioned silver teapots; and the crook in his tail would have made it useful as a door-knocker. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... member of the party whose influence he thought might help him—notably the two men, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien, at whom he now sneers, as he fondly believes, in the safe seclusion of an anonymous letter of an English newspaper. During the period of probation his hand was incessant on Mr. Dillon's door-knocker. The most earnest supplications were not spared. All in vain. Either his character or his ability failed to satisfy the Irish leader, and his claim was summarily rejected. Since then his wounded vanity has found vent in spiteful ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... as there are no further signs of illness or misfortune. So that it may safely be taken to mean that the consultant will shortly be going to see a friend who has had an operation; this fact is borne out by the short dotted line beyond, leading to the door knocker, under which is written the ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... Snow-drops and crocuses were up in one secluded nook; a plump maltese cat sat purring in the porch; and a dignified old dog came marching down the walk to escort the stranger in. With a brightening face Christie went up the path, and tapped at the quaint knocker, hoping that the face she was about to see would be in keeping with ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even including—which ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... few seconds, however, came a modest knock on the room-door, and Mrs. Lake, wiping her hands, proceeded to admit the knocker. She was a smartly dressed woman, who bore such a mass of laces and finery, with a white woollen shawl spread over it, apparently with the purpose of smothering any living thing there might chance to be beneath, as, in Mrs. Lake's experienced eyes, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... rainy, windy, November night. Brown and Bim were alone together—temporarily. Suddenly, above the howling of the wind sounded sharply the clap of the old knocker on the door. Brown laid down his book—reluctantly, for he was human. A woman's figure, clad from head to foot in furs, sprang from the car at the curb, ran across the sidewalk, and in at ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... scarcely say, was not so left to himself as to permit his clerical character to be divined by means of a white tie. He came in, as was natural among country neighbours, without thinking of any bell or knocker on the easily opened door, and was about to peep into the drawing-room with "Anybody in?" upon his smiling lips, when he saw a gentleman approaching, picking up his hat as he advanced. Mr. Hudson paused a moment in uncertainty. "Mr. Compton, I am sure," he said, holding out both ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... morning, full fig, calls a cab, and proceeds in state to our embassy, gives what Cooper calls a lord's beat of six thund'rin' raps of the knocker, presents the legation ticket, and was admitted to where ambassador was. He is a very pretty man all up his shirt, and he talks pretty, and smiles pretty, and bows pretty, and he has got the whitest hand ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... his courage failed him and instead of knocking he ran away some twenty paces. He returned to the door a second time and laid hold of the knocker, and, trembling, gave a ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... that make a knocker,[hx] Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker; Mouth that marks the envious Scorner, With a Scorpion in each corner Curling up his tail to sting you,[hy] In the place that most may wring you; Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy, Carcase stolen from some mummy, Bowels—(but they were ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... flame sprang to David's cheek. He rushed at the door, and while with one hand he banged away at the old knocker, he thumped with the other, kicking lustily the while at the panels, till Louie, almost forgetting her pains in the fierce excitement of the moment, thought he would kick them in. In the intervals of his blows, David could hear voices inside in ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no pupils were expected so soon, and but few of the teachers had returned. There was no one to see the imposing arrival of the little Freshman except the butler, who had been drawn to the front window by the sound of wheels. It devolved on him to answer the knocker this afternoon. In the general confusion of house-cleaning the man who attended the door had been sent up stairs ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... sat down abruptly on the pavement. Tuppence and Jane took to their heels. The house they sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind them. Their breath was coming in choking gasps as they reached Sir James's door. Tuppence seized the bell and Jane the knocker. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... to ask what it was, and feeling sure that even if he did, he should not make out what the master meant, Eric ran out, went straight to Mr Lawley's house, and, after having managed by strenuous jumps to touch the knocker, informed the servant "that Mr ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... they should perpetrate another solo on the knocker, I rushed out and opened the door myself, just as Mrs Nash, with her face scarlet and her sleeves tucked up above the elbows, also appeared ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... was never opened, except for marriages, funerals, New Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously wrought,—sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a lion's head,—and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions taken for ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the University might not enter without invitation. And his experience had been that students paid small respect to uniforms or to age. In truth, he passed the building twice before he could summon courage to touch the great brass knocker. And the arrogance of its clamor, when at last he rapped, startled him again. But here at least he need not ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... grim old visage, indicating some incongruous familiarity with the manners of the great world. He came to a halt in front of the house, and, after quizzing it for a moment, went up the steps and beat a fashionable tattoo with the knocker. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Business in "Knocker's Hole" must have been brisker in 1811 than it has been of late years. Old Salem people will ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... dismissed the cab, and, retiring into the shadow of the dark, narrow alley, kept an eye on the gate of Inner Temple Lane. In about twenty minutes we observed our friend approaching on the south side of Fleet Street. He halted at the gate, plied the knocker, and after a brief parley with the night-porter vanished through the wicket. We waited yet five minutes more, and then, having given him time to get clear of the entrance, ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... of the city flourished. On the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... really old thing that we had seen since our arrival in England. We came up first to a low, arched, stone door, and knocked with a great old-fashioned knocker; this brought no answer but a treble and bass duet from a couple of dogs inside; so we opened the door, and saw a square court, paved with round stones, and a dark, solitary yew tree in the centre. Here in England, I think, they have vegetable creations made on purpose ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... about the dreadful Fanny Bolton mystery, regarding which she had never breathed a word to her son, though it was present in her mind always, and occasioned her inexpressible anxiety and disquiet. She had caused the brass knocker to be screwed off the inner door of the chambers, where upon the postman's startling double rap would, as she justly argued, disturb the rest of her patient, and she did not allow him to see any letter which arrived, whether from bootmakers who importuned him, or hatters who had ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... window on each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, stood ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... by a beloved friend:—An idle old lady, living in a narrow street, had passed so much of her time in watching the affairs of her neighbours, that she, at length, acquired the power of distinguishing the sound of every knocker within hearing. It happened that she fell ill, and was, for several days, confined to her bed. Unable to observe in person what was going on without, she stationed her maid at the window, as a substitute for the performance of that duty. But Betty soon grew weary of the occupation: she ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... and I was the parson, and Godfather Gilpin was the old gentleman who sits in the big pew with the knocker, and goes to sleep (because he wanted to go to sleep), and the books were the congregation. They were all big, but some of them were fat, and some of them were thin, like real people—not like the Goldonis, which were ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... house of Banker White and stood in the darkness by the front door. On the door hung a heavy brass knocker, an innovation introduced into the village by Helen White's mother, who had also organized a women's club for the study of poetry. Seth raised the knocker and let it fall. Its heavy clatter sounded like a report from distant guns. "How awkward and foolish I am," he thought. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... force of habit past the kitchen windows to the side door. That was where they had quarreled mostly. He had a kind of sentiment about that side door. He paused a moment to hide his traveling-bag under the grapevine that shaded the porch, and as he raised his hand to grasp the knocker the blood rushed to his face and his heart leaped into his throat. Huldah stood near the window winding the old clock. In her right hand was a "Farmer's Almanac." How well he knew the yellow cover! and how like to the Huldah of seventeen was the Huldah of thirty-six! It ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Student to force his path! The darkness, his quick step, his downcast head, favoured his escape through the unhallowed throng, and he now stood opposite the door of a small and narrow house. A ponderous knocker adorned the door, which seemed of uncommon strength, being thickly studded with large nails. He knocked twice before his summons was answered, and then a voice from within, cried, "Who's there? ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... darted up the steps and inserted a large, fat, wet hand between the raised knocker and its bed. It was the sublime gesture of a martyr, and her large brown eyes gazed submissively, yet firmly, at Mr. Batchgrew with the look of a martyr. She had nothing to gain by the defiance of a great man, but she could not permit her honoured employer to be wakened. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... know), and swarms of little children chatter and play about the cobblestones, while women throng the countless dens and cubbyholes, until you fly for shelter into one of the numerous curiosity shops and buy a fifteenth-century door-knocker manufactured expressly for your visit. Past the Place St. Vivien and the Church, the Eau de Robec still continues; and, as the Rue du Pont a Dame Renaude opens on your left, there is a good house at the corner of the opposite street. Further on to the left a great building with overhanging ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... ringing the bell!" cried Sam, and mounting the dilapidated piazza he raised the ancient knocker of the door and used it vigorously. Then came a crash and the youngest Rover felt the piazza bottom ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... The doctor orders me absolute quiet, and if you came I should have the knocker going all day, and Fanny's lovers would never be out of the house," answered the Baroness, who was quite weary of Lady ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the house the hammering of the brass knocker sounded loudly. Stuart Farquaharson in his room and Conscience in hers, both heard it, with a sense of astonishment. The man opened his door and hurried to the stairhead, where he found Conscience, arrived in advance ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... dim or dimmer memories of husbands lost off the Banks, or elsewhere at sea—who came in to get his meals and make his bed, and then had instructions to leave. It was in one of her prevailing absences that I arrived with my bag, and I had to hammer a long time with the knocker on the open door before Alderling came clacking down the stairs in his slippers from the top of the house, and gave me his somewhat defiant greeting. I could almost have said that he did not recognize me at the first bleared glance, and his inability, ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... one of six, undistinguished in size, or shape, or colour; but noticed in the daytime by all passers-by for its spotless cleanliness of lintel and doorstep, window and window frame. The very bricks seemed as though they came in for the daily scrubbing which brightened handle, knocker, all ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in the distribution of her gifts! Not only had this black-hearted knocker on floors a pleasant voice, but, in addition, a pleasing exterior. He was slightly dishevelled at the moment, and his hair stood up in a disordered mop; but in spite of these drawbacks, he was quite passably good-looking. Annette admitted ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... He was industrious; more than that, he tried with all his might to exercise his best judgment, and no one could say that he was careless; yet everyone around the office admitted that he was unlucky. He was one of those persons who always have slivers on their doors, or tar on the knocker, when opportunity comes their way; so his stay in the office was marked by a series of seismic disturbances in the paper that came from under his desk, and yet he was in no way ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... but an indifferent bad ploughboy when walking, and found a difficulty in dealing with my hands, not knowing how ploughboys are wont to carry them. So I came round in front of the house, and gave a rat-tat on the door, while my pulse beat as loud inside of me as ever did the knocker without. The sound ran round the building, and backwards among the walks, and all was silent as before. I waited a minute, and was for knocking again, thinking there might be no one in the house, and then ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... was the light of Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury. In the brown monotony of the street it stood out splendid, conspicuous. Its door and half its front were painted a beautiful, a remarkable pea-green, while its door knob and door-knocker were of polished brass. Mrs. Downey's boarding-house knew nothing of concealment or disguise. Every evening, at the hour of seven, through its ground-floor window it offered to the world a scene of stupefying brilliance. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... which opened wide in welcome but the other day, The knocker basks in calm repose—conscious "the family's away." I scan the windows—half in hope I may some friendly face detect— To meet their blank brown-papered stare, depressing as the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... and sometimes I don't, Mas' Don. That stoutish chap seemed to smell a rat, and that smiling door-knocker fellow was all on the spy; but I don't think he heared anything, and I'm sure he didn't see. Now, then, can you tell me whether they're ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... you generally find an inferior dauber magnify the peculiarities of a great man's style, so as to give a better idea of his manner than you gather from his own performances, let us see the prodigious insanity developed in the imitators of Shakspeare. Never, till I saw the brass knocker on the door of the Vizier's palace in Timor the Tartar, painted, you told me, by Wilkins of the Yorkshire Stingo, did I know how you produced your marvellous effects on the door of Billy Button, the tailor of Brentford. The Vizier's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... throb to her heart. But after some half or three- quarters of an hour had passed away, a sudden knock at the door found both mother and daughter asleep; it had to be repeated once or twice before the knocker could gain attention. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... your consciousness from the superficial to the fundamental, an unselfish loving attention; all this has been rewarded by the gradual broadening and deepening of your perceptions, by an initiation into the movements of a larger life, You have been a knocker, a seeker, an asker: have beat upon the Cloud of Unknowing "with a sharp dart of longing love." A perpetual effort of the will has characterised your inner development. Your contemplation, in fact, as the specialists would say, ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... wuddent be gude for our souls if the parson shud cum out to investigate." Chuckling away into the silent street they disappeared, while Laurence Shafton stalked angrily up the little path and pounded loudly on the quaint knocker of ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... suppose, but it would be hard luck to take them from people who live in houses like these. I don't know, though. Here's one with an extra story. Stop, Bunny; if you don't stop I'll hold on to the railings! This is a good house; look at the knocker and the electric bell. They've had that put in. There's some money here, my rabbit! I dare bet there's a silver-table in the drawing-room; and the windows are wide open. Electric ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... clean-shaven, old-fashioned gentleman, and a local historian of note, who had often broken a lance with such controversial guardians of tradition as Sidney S. Rider and Thomas W. Bicknell. He lived with one man-servant in a Georgian homestead with knocker and iron-railed steps, balanced eerily on the steep ascent of North Court Street beside the ancient brick court and colony house where his grandfather—a cousin of that celebrated privateersman, Captain Whipple, ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... however agreeable, and if that is the case, Miss Mapp during the next day or two had more enjoyment than the announcement of fifty engagements could have given her, so constantly (when from the garden-room she heard the sound of the knocker on her front door) did she spring up in certainty that this was Susan, which it never was. But however enjoyable it all might be, she appeared to herself at least to be suffering tortures of suspense, through which by degrees an idea, painful and revolting in the extreme, yet strangely exhilarating, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden; there are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's house, with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door. There are no other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear, dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that Stokebridge is a ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... the month of September, We find neither riches nor rank; In vain we look out for a member To give us a nod or a frank. Each knocker in silence reposes, In every mansion you find One dirty old woman who dozes, Or peeps ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... Larkyns, and a throng of their acquaintances were sitting in Mr. Bouncer's rooms, on the evening of November 5, when a knock at the oak was heard; and as Mr. Bouncer roared out, "Come in!" the knocker entered. Opening the door, and striking into an attitude, he exclaimed in a theatrical ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... appellation until within the last two months previous to my making his acquaintance, when Mr Turnbull sent out his cards, George Turnbull, Esquire. The history of Captain Turnbull was as follows:—He had, with his twin brother, been hung up at the knocker, and afterwards had been educated at the Foundling Hospital; they had both been apprenticed to the sea; grown up thorough-bred, capital, seamen in the Greenland fishery; rose to be mates then captains; had been ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his journey with his wife and children in the sociable, and he passes an ordinary brick house on the road with an ordinary little garden in the front, we will say, and quite an ordinary knocker to the door, and as many sashed windows as you please, quite common and square, and tiles, windows, chimney-pots, quite like others; or suppose, in driving over such and such a common, he sees an ordinary tree, and an ordinary donkey browsing under it, if you like—wife ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on the shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr. George awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window like a sentry and looks in every time he passes, apparently revolving something ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Moor, the sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle from the outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae's he saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the road-litter, so little did they believe in human aggression at ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the worst knocker that ever queered a camp. If we'd a knowed you was comin'," turning to Mr. Dill, "we'd a put him in a tunnel with ten days' ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... into whose possession, after a lapse of years, and many changes, a portion of Sir Thomas More's property had passed. This Howard had skill in the distilling of herbs and perfumes, which his descendant carries on to this day. We lifted the heavy brass knocker, and were admitted into the "old clock-house." The interior shows evident marks of extreme age, the flooring being ridgy and seamed, bearing their marks with a discontented creaking, like the secret murmurs of a faded beauty against her wrinkles! On the counter stood ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... who had so kindly directed her, and went to the house of Hugh Price. This house, next to the home of Governor Berkeley, was the most elegant mansion in Virginia. On the front door was a large brass knocker, common at the time, and, seizing it, the young girl struck the door. It was opened by a negro woman whose red turban and rich dress indicated that she was the household servant of an aristocratic family. The stranger asked for Rebecca ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... always appeared a female figure, clad in a gray cloak and an old-fashioned black bonnet. The apparition would remain there until dawn, always knocking, knocking upon the stone. The inhabitants of the house nearby became so used to 'Nelly the Knocker,' as she was called, that they paid no attention whatever to her, did not fear her in the least, and would even stop to examine her queer garments. Finally, however, two young men of the family decided to solve the mystery, so they blasted ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... time in this mental search, he dropped again into his chair, and adjusting the lamp, pulled his books toward him to devote his mind to their contents. As the light flared up he caught the sound of a step upon the gravel outside, and then a heavy tread upon the porch. An instant later his knocker sounded. Doctor Cavendish gave a sigh—he had hoped to have one night at home—and rose ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... out, but Shepherd remembering one Mr. Martin, a watchmaker near the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street, he prevailed upon his companion to go thither, and screwing a gimlet fast into the post of the door, they then tied the knocker thereto with a spring, and then boldly breaking the windows, they snatched three watches before a boy that was in the shop could open the door, and so marched clear off, Shepherd having the impudence, upon this occasion, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... "You knocker! You knocker!" he cried. "That's a fine college spirit, ain't it? You're a fine lot of students, I don't think. Now shut up, every one of you, or I'll fire you out of the cage.... And right here at the start you knockers take this ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... from the horse the bridegroom sprung; The latchless gate behind him swung. The knocker of that startled door, Struck as it never was before, Brought the whole household pale with fright; And there, with blushes on his cheek, So bashful he could hardly speak, The ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... knocking on the rocks gave notice to individuals they favoured of undiscovered copper, but these favoured ones were mostly children who chanced to wander up Snowdon by themselves. She had, she said, not only heard but seen these Knockers. They were thick-set dwarfs, as broad as they were long. One Knocker, an elderly female, had often played with her on the hills. Knockers' Llyn, indeed, was very much on Winifred's mind. When a golden cloud, like the one on which she was singing her song at the time I first ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... watched these proceedings with disfavor was a short, attenuated, bow-legged Chinaman, with a face like a grotesque brass knocker, and a taciturnity that ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low-arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruits and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... to the great doorway through an avenue of beeches and knocked timidly on the wrought-iron knocker, for I had never been to such a big house in my life before, and I felt that I made but a sorry figure, splashed as I was with ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... breaks against you and the crowd forgets to cheer When the Anvil Chorus echoes with the essence of a jeer; When the knockers start their panning in the knocker's nimble way With a rap for all your errors and a josh upon your play— There is one quick answer ready that will nail them on the wing; There is one reply forthcoming that will wipe away the sting; There is one elastic come-back that will hold them, as it should— ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... accuracy at King's Cross. She had studied her geography, and she walked from thence to Islington. She knew well the name of the street and the number at which Mrs Hurtle lived. But when she reached the door she did not at first dare to stand and raise the knocker. She passed on to the end of the silent, vacant street, endeavouring to collect her thoughts, striving to find and to arrange the words with which she would commence her strange petition. And she endeavoured to dictate to herself some ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... cabbage, peas, beans and sweets galore, plum pudding, custard, jelly, fruit tarts, bread and cheese and as much beer or lemonade as they liked to pay for, the drinks being an extra; and afterwards the waiters brought in cups of coffee for those who desired it. Everything was up to the knocker, and although they were somewhat bewildered by the multitude of knives and forks, they all, with one or two exceptions, rose to the occasion and enjoyed themselves famously. The excellent decorum observed being marred only ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... was an easy matter, for almost everyone in town was familiar with its locality, and towards the close of the afternoon he found himself upon its broad steps applying vigorous strokes to the ponderous brass knocker, and half hoping the summons would be answered by Maggie herself. But it was not, and in the bent, white-haired woman who came with measured footsteps we recognize old Hagar, who spent much of her time at the house, and who came ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... great knocker on the temple door.) I will not stir Till word be come by this good messenger If Thoas be within ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... Higbee domain is of polished mahogany, set between lights of antique verte Italian glass, and bearing an ancient brass knocker. From the reception-room, with its walls of green empire silk, one passes through a foyer hall, of Cordova leather hangings, to the drawing-room with its three broad windows. Opposite the entrance to this superb room is a mantel of carved Caen stone, faced ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... order to march, and they started for the forest. The next day they came in sight of the Giant's Castle. Strong-arm, leaving his brothers in a wood close by, strode boldly up to the entrance, and seized the knocker. The door was opened by a funny little boy with a large head, ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim
... He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion, built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose threshold General Washington had stood more than once. His father admitted him directly into a ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... his head and listened then, before stooping to take up the poker and scatter the grey patch of ashes that still showed letters and words; for he appeared to have suddenly awakened to the fact that the thundering of the knocker was still going ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... told herself, as her feet touched the bottom step of the front veranda, if her presence were discovered there would be no disgrace attached to the apprehension. Her heart was thumping out a lively tattoo however, as she stole up to the heavy double doors and felt for the knocker. There was a light in the hall and in the room at the left of it. Miss Susanna was surely at home. Her hand closing at last upon the object of her search, she stooped and carefully set her basket on the stone threshold. Applying her young strength to the knocker, ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... reflections, when he was aroused from his state of languor and but half wakefulness by a knock at the door. Feeling tired, he did not get up to open for the visitor, but in the old fashioned style, requested the knocker to ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... art of knocker-designing that I flatter myself I have been of most service. By the elevation of my chin, and the assistance of a long wig, I can present an excellent resemblance of a lion, with this great advantage over the real animal—I can vary the expression according ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... leaves like babies' hands. She had a momentary desire to stay, to wander round the hill and look with untired eyes at the familiar scene; but she passed on under the tyranny of tea. The Malletts were always in time for meals and the meals were exquisite, like the polish on the old brass door-knocker, like the furniture in the white panelled hall, like the beautiful old mahogany in the drawing-room, the old china, the ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... door is a fine (so-called) sanctuary knocker; the door is quite unworthy of the knocker. Under the tower is some good late Jacobean panelling. In the chancel are two squints, four each side, arranged venetian-blind fashion. Several of the tombs are worth inspecting—viz. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... minutes past ten that February morning he had ascended the broken steps of the old grey mansion, a little curious, perhaps, but, as he would have told you, "ready for anything." There being no bell, he had raised and let fall the great knocker, and then stood still in the sunshine looking placidly about him. The desolation of the park left him unmoved. Money, judiciously expended, could rectify that. And the house seemed sound enough. They knew how to build in the old days. Colonel Winchester was probably using only one ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... the old swaying stage-coach,—looking out, as he passed, upon the parsonage, with its quaintly panelled door, and its diamond lights, of which he long kept the image in his mind. That brazen knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beating,—beating as if his brain lay ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... pipe, and only waits to be sure he is through, to open the door to the knocker. By the time she does so he has found the key and passed through the dormer door that gives on the leads. The paralysed man has not moved. Moreover, he cannot see the short ladder that leads to the exit. It is on his ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... he heard the knocker rap on his street-door. For a moment he had an instinct to run to the window and see who was there; but he put it aside; there was scarcely time to hide the ashes; and it was best too to give no hint of anxiety. He lifted the package of burnt ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... KNOCKER. A peculiar and fetid species of West Indian cockroach, so called on account of the knocking noise they make in ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... lamp which much resembled a fat rag doll. The queer object was shaking with strange contortions in the place where the hall-bell should have hung. "I play him one good trick, ain't it?" she added. "Mit a towel I tie up the bell-knocker—zo!" She illustrated with her flour-dusted hands. "Den I wrap him round like one sore foot. Hoffentlich, nopody vill vake him up ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... as one feels them on first returning to it; that marvellous smallness both of houses and scenery, so that a ploughman in the valley has his head on a level with the tops of all the hills in the neighborhood; and a house is organized into complete establishment,—parlor, kitchen, and all, with a knocker to its door, and a garret window to its roof, and a bow to its second story,[3] on a scale of twelve feet wide by fifteen high, so that three such at least would go into the granary of an ordinary Swiss cottage: ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... past, The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last. I see it now, the same unchanging spot, The swinging gate, the little garden plot, The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still; Two, creased with age,—or what I then called age,— Life's volume open at its fiftieth page; ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... no door-bell at The Maples, but a polished brass knocker announced the arrival of any visitor; and it seemed to the worried Widow Sprigg as if that "plaguey knocker had done nothin' but whack the hull endurin' time sence Moses got hurt. I wonder who 'tis ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... effort she seized the knocker, and listened with newly awakened hope to the tapping sound which rang clear ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... scarcely returned to my newspaper again, when the knocker of our door was again agitated, and the Colonel ran back, looking very ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from gate to door; big, square, two-story 'frame' house, painted white and porticoed like a Grecian temple—with this difference, that the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals were a pathetic sham, being made of white pine, and painted; iron knocker; brass door knob—discolored, for lack of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of planed boards; opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen—in some instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; mahogany center- table; lamp on ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... one heed the horseman who was urging his weary horse through the village to the castle. At last the knocker outside the gate was heard, the strokes sounded impatient, and loud voices resounded in the court-yard and on the stairs. Anton opened the door; an armed man, dripping with wet and stained ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the conversation, when there was a quick step on the stairs. Nobody heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just as she had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, and when he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... Mrs. Hooker and you go on refusing to give any address leads us to believe that you are dwelling peripatetically in a "Wan" with green door and brass knocker somewhere on Wormwood Scrubbs, and that "Kew" is only a blind. So you see I am obliged to inclose Mrs. Hooker's ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... in a fuller sense than I had attached to it—I had only feared that the house would be shut up. There were lights in the windows, and the temperate tinkle of my bell brought a servant immediately to the door, but poor Mrs. Stormer had passed into a state in which the resonance of no earthly knocker was to be feared. A lady, in the hall, hovering behind the servant, came forward when she heard my voice. I recognised Lady Luard, but she had ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... fragrance, lines their drawers with cedar, serves tea carefully drawn, at a certain hour, banishes dust, nails the carpets to the floors in every corner of the house, brushes the cellar walls, polishes the knocker of the front door, oils the springs of the carriage,—in short, makes matter a nutritive and downy pulp, clean and shining, in the midst of which the soul expires of enjoyment and the frightful monotony of comfort ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... so, it was as though she had been illuminated, as when light is put in the hollow of a pumpkin. Then said she, 'This is well! this is a fair beginning! Now look, for thy fortune will of a surety follow. Call me now sweet bride, and knocker at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is succeeded by an habitual terror, and this depressing sentiment has so pervaded all ranks, that it would be difficult to find an individual, however obscure or inoffensive, who deems his property, or even his existence, secure only for a moment. The sound of a bell or a knocker at the close of the evening is the signal of dismay. The inhabitants of the house regard each other with looks of fearful interrogation—all the precautions hitherto taken appear insufficient— every one recollects something yet to be secreted—a prayer-book, an ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... cold rain was already beginning to fall, and the wind was gustily hurrying round the corners of the streets and rattling the loose tin upon the housetops. A very few minutes elapsed between my three raps with the old-fashioned brass knocker and the appearance of the neat-looking servant who opened the door. But I may as well use the brief opportunity to tell you that Uncle Joseph was not my uncle at all, and that my habit of calling him so had grown out of a long intimacy with certain nephews and nieces who were very dear to the old ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... falling, falling, still in as persistent a fashion as if it had not been doing the same thing for six hours already. I found the shop shut up and the door locked. I looked everywhere for a bell or knocker of some description. There was neither, so I began to thump as hard as I could with my feet against the door. In a minute or two I heard Delle Josephine coming. Perhaps I had alarmed the poor soul. She did look troubled on opening the door and ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... entered the gate and followed a hedge-lined path that rose gradually to the house; it might be a joke after all; but Hood's manner was reassuring. He swung his stick and praised the landscape, and when they reached the veranda banged the knocker noisily. A capped and aproned maid opened ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... earnest as he was! Why should not God hear the voice of William, or Robert, Sarah or Edith? He is no respecter of persons. Is it not written over the door of mercy, "Knock, and it shall be opened?" Aye, and the knocker is so low a child's hand may reach it. St. James tells us that Elijah was "a man of like passions." He was a human being like you and me, but he had faith in God. Why should we not believe in God as much as the prophet did? Is He not God yet? Have any of these sceptics removed Him ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... was twisted into an exaggerated "door-knocker," at the top of which, with all the appearance of a very fly-away toque, was perched one of the frilled pink shades which covered the electric lights; a piece of Eastern drapery was folded scarf-like round her shoulders. Perk by name and Perk by nature did she appear as she minced ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... pushing, and prying With that key; And there is no denying that Mr. Spruggins rapped out an oath or two, Rub-a-dub-dubbing them out to a real snare-drum roll. But the door opened at last, And Mr. Spruggins blew through it into his own hall And slammed the door to so hard That the knocker banged five times before it stopped. Mr. Spruggins struck a light and lit a candle, And all the time the moon winked at him through the window. "Why couldn't you find the keyhole, Spruggins?" Taunted the wind. "I can ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... the horse the bridegroom sprung; The latchless gate behind him swung; The knocker of that startled door, Struck as it never was before, Brought the whole household pale with fright; And there, with blushes on his cheek, So bashful he could hardly speak, The farmer met their wondering ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... shelter of a thickly leaved oak tree, secured him, and then holding up her saturated skirt with one hand and holding on her cap with the other, she went up some moldering stone steps to an old stone portico and, seizing the heavy iron knocker of a great black oak double door, she knocked loudly enough to ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... ahead—in the rare recurrence through the hum of the vast criticising crowd of a word of technical judgment or sober artistic criticism—it was easy to recognize the same spirit that confuses morality with chair-legs, that finds a knocker more "sincere" and "right" than a door-bell, that insists as upon a vital necessity that the heads of all nails should be visible and that all lines should be straight, and would as soon have a shadow on its conscience ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... no one had witnessed her approach, for she stood quite a long time at the door, not able to reach the knocker or find the bell. She rapped with her knuckles; but they grew sore and produced no result, for the sound did not reach beyond the door-mat, or so it seemed to her, and the vast, still hall within appeared to swallow up everything. Guard lay down at last ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... kind, with round towers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more windows than Aladdin's palace. The entrance doors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the day is past; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... retained their old manners and even their old dress. The other day Mrs. White, Horton's mother-in-law, had a violent sick headache, and, as we are all very fond of the kind old lady, we were trying to keep things as quiet as possible down-stairs. Suddenly there came a bang! bang! bang! at the knocker; and then in an instant another rattling series of knocks, as if a tethered donkey were trying to kick in the panel. After all our efforts for silence it was exasperating. I rushed to the door to find a seedy looking person just raising his hand ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... of humanity fulfilled? I could not have completed my third snore when there came a furious ringing at the street-door bell, and then an impatient thumping at the knocker, which awakened me at once. In a minute afterward, and while I was still rubbing my eyes, my wife thrust in my face a note, from my old friend, Doctor ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... iron knocker on the door, which had once been painted green but had no colour left now. The sound reverberated through the building, but the door did not open when they tried it. The woman was probably among the berries, and the children with her. The hungry ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... forward towards the centre of the room. And out of the boom and thunder of the storm there suddenly came a wild clatter of horses' feet, and a heavy gate was heard to fall back upon its fastening. An instant later there was a mad tugging at the front door bell, and an insaner clatter at the knocker. Jervase himself rushed to answer this sudden and unexpected summons, and opening the door unguardedly, was blown back into the hall, from the walls of which every hanging picture and every garment were swept by the incoming blast, like ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day, by importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and detainers were lodged merely at the gate." There is a similar passage in "Little Dorrit," where the tipsy medical practitioner of the Marshalsea comforts Mr. Dorrit in his affliction by saying: "We ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... room, walking very slowly. She had scarcely done so before a loud ring, followed by a rat-tat on the knocker of the front door, was heard through ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... stopped up by a rusty old gate—my gate. The rusty old gate has a bell to correspond, which you ring as long as you like, and which nobody answers, as it has no connection whatever with the house. But there is a rusty old knocker, too— very loose, so that it slides round when you touch it—and if you learn the trick of it, and knock long enough, somebody comes. The brave Courier comes, and gives you admittance. You walk into a seedy little garden, all wild and weedy, from which the vineyard opens; cross it, enter ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Miss Wilson, and Gertrude. We have been watching the storm, and there is some one knocking at the—" A tremendous battery with the knocker, followed by a sound, confused by the gale, as of a man ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Valerie, and stepping out into the hall, they carefully closed the door, then ran softly along to Vera's door, and tapped upon the panel with a hat-pin for a knocker. The door opened and they were only too glad to have it close behind them. Yet a bit longer they waited before lighting up, and while they waited, they sat upon the bed and ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... astonished Mr. Carvel's guests, and which he alone could cook. The coach still stands in the stables where Harvey left it, a lumbering relic of those lumbering times when methinks there was more of goodwill and less of haste in the world. The great brass knocker, once resplendent from Scipio's careful hand, no longer fantastically reflects the guest as he beats his tattoo, and Mr. Peale's portrait of my grandfather is gone from the dining-room wall, adorning, as you know, our ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... been recurring since the world was made, and had been misunderstood from the beginning. He used the simplest means. His experiment was in a different way daily performed for him by nature. He was philosophically daring, indifferently a tinker with nature's terrific machinery; a knocker at the door of an august temple that men were never known to have entered; a mortal who smiled in the face of inscrutable and awful mystery, and who defied the lightning in a sense not merely moral. [Footnote: Professor Richmann, of St. ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... in breadth. The place was buried under layers of mystery. It was silent, it was dark with the blackness of darkness; it was like an unholy sepulchre that gave forth no sound, though we beat upon its sodden door with its rusted knocker until a dog howled dismally on the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... I felt I couldnt afford to risk giving offense and so at fouroclock promptly I was in Georgetown, using the knocker of a door looking like all the other doors on both ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... only one known in the olden times. The belcher (what a name! ) supplies its place, together with the bird's eye, or the colours of some black or white boxer. An accomplished man was the delight of all companies in former times. An out and outer, one up to every thing, down as a nail or the knocker of Newgate, a trump, or a Trojan, now carry the mode of praise; one that can patter flash, floor a charley, mill a coal-heaver, come coachey in prime style, up to every rig and row in town, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... arms of Bethune and Baliol, with various other devices, carved in stone. The door itself was studded with iron nails, and formed of black oak; an iron rasp, as it was called, was placed on it, instead of a knocker, for the purpose of summoning the attendants. [See Note 3.—Iron Rasp.] He who usually appeared at the summons was a smart lad, in a handsome livery, the son of Mrs. Martha's gardener at Mount Baliol. Now and ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... could not wait, though time might present more than one opportunity, spurred me on. What I could do I must do now, at once. The sense that this was so being heavy upon me, I saw nothing for it but to use the knocker and gain admission, by fraud if I could, and if not, by force. Accordingly I stepped briskly across the kennel, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... good cider—but I can't drink it in peace till I know what's behind those devilish hedges. I always remember poor Larose and Vieux-Chapeau rolling down the ditch at La Pelerine. I shall recollect Larose's queue to the end of my days; it went hammering down like the knocker of a front door." ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... a one, yore, pluralized, distingue, ruination, complected, mayhap, burglarized, mal de mer, tuckered, grind, near, suicided, callate, cracker-jack, erst, railroaded, chic, down town, deceased (verb), a rig, swipe, spake, on a toot, knocker, peradventure, guess, prof, classy, booze, per se, cute, biz, bug-house, swell, opry, rep, photo, cinch, corker, in cahoot, pants, fess up, exam, bike, incog, zoo, secondhanded, getable, outclassed, gents, mucker, galoot, dub, up against it, on tick, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... Narrative (not deficient in height of colouring) of the terrors of that night. From five in the afternoon, a great City is struck suddenly silent; except for the beating of drums, for the tramp of marching feet; and ever and anon the dread thunder of the knocker at some door, a Tricolor Commissioner with his blue Guards (black-guards!) arriving. All Streets are vacant, says Peltier; beset by Guards at each end: all Citizens are ordered to be within doors. On the River float sentinal barges, lest we escape by water: the Barriers hermetically closed. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... mortal height, or seemed so to the terrified eyes which saw them. They reached the mantel-shelf where the sign-board hung, then a black-draped long arm was seen to rise and make a motion, as if plying a knocker. Then the whole company passed out of sight, as if through the wall, and the room was as before. Mrs. Townsend was shaking in a nervous chill, Adrianna was almost fainting, Cordelia was in hysterics. David Townsend stood glaring in a curious way at the sign of the Blue Leopard. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... WORLD WITH THOUGHT WAVES: The dire curse of this world is idleness. Some are working too hard, while a vast multitude idly look on. Don't be a looker, be a doer. Don't be a knocker, be a booster. Idleness is a sin: "The wages of sin is death." That is why people who stop working soon die off. "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." He can't eat long. He loses his appetite, spoils his digestion, gets heart failure. When ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... misfortune. So that it may safely be taken to mean that the consultant will shortly be going to see a friend who has had an operation; this fact is borne out by the short dotted line beyond, leading to the door knocker, under which ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... dub, and a softy, and a knocker," he said good- humoredly. "What's she know about such things, anyway? I tell you it is good, and healthy, too,"—this last as an afterthought. "Look at me. I tell you I have to live clean to be in condition like this. I live cleaner than she does, or her old man, ...
— The Game • Jack London
... hope in her heart that kindled color in her pale cheeks and light in her weary eyes, sped away to the Spragues. There was no tremor in the hand that raised the dragon-headed knocker, nor hesitancy in the voice that bade the servant say that "Miss Boone requested a few moments' conversation with ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... over the meal one warm September morning, as if loth to make further exertion in the growing heat, the Sound of a knocker was heard, and a moment later the coloured maid ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... entered Green Street, and came to the house of the kind lady who had furnished her and many others with work; raised the knocker, and gave one humble knock at the door. She had never been at the house before, but she had sometimes had to go to other genteel houses where she had been met with incivility ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... universal test of an able housewife—a character which formed the utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmothers. The front door was never opened except on marriages, funerals, new year's days, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, curiously wrought, sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes of a lion's head, and was daily burnished with such religious zeal, that it was oft-times worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... is safe," says Frank, trembling, and his honest eyes filling with tears, "a silver statue to Our Lady!" He was going to rattle at the great iron knocker on the oak gate; but Esmond stopped his kinsman's hand. He had his own fears, his own hopes, his own despairs and griefs, too: but he spoke not a word of these to his companion, or showed any ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long time on the panels of the front door—she could not reach the knocker—she walked round to the back of the house, and knocked there. But still there was no answer. Then she tried the side door. By this time her knuckles were sore, and, as she found she could turn the handle, she opened ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... A quaint brass knocker which gentlemen—long since dust—had approached wearing laced three-cornered hats, velvet short-clothes, and silver buckles, and upon which they had rapped announcement of their social claims, still hung on the rest from which they had lifted it. It was not often used ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... The heavy knocker fell again and again and again. Between the knocking there was a sound like the roaring of lions. Husband and wife stared at one another with white faces. Firmin picked up his gun with trembling hands, and the movement seemed to set his teeth ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... and door frames. Hinges a yard long on the gates; over the gates a semi-circular grating of iron bars an inch in diameter; in one of these gates a wicket, and on the wicket a heavy, battered, highly burnished brass knocker. A short-legged, big-bodied, and very black slave to usher one through the wicket into a large, wide, paved corridor, where from the middle joist overhead hung a great iron lantern. Big double doors ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... to a hooded entrance, and ascending the two stone steps, the Chancellor lifted the mailed glove which did duty as a knocker. Twice he brought it down on the oak panel underneath, and the sound of metal smiting against wood went echoing through the house, with an effect ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... heavy knocker on the door and a slot opened for a quick check of his identity. The door opened wide and Technician ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... favoured ones were mostly children who chanced to wander up Snowdon by themselves. She had, she said, not only heard but seen these Knockers. They were thick-set dwarfs, as broad as they were long. One Knocker, an elderly female, had often played with her on the hills. Knockers' Llyn, indeed, was very much on Winifred's mind. When a golden cloud, like the one on which she was singing her song at the time I first saw her, shone over a person's head at Knockers' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... often been told in Mr. Ray's family. "One summer morning, a loud rap with the knocker at the front door arrested the attention and the door being opened, a man entered, who after asking, 'Does the Rev. Mr. Ray live here?' and receiving an affirmative answer, whistled as a signal to attract the notice of his comrades, then cried out, 'Come on, boys!' and forthwith fourteen men in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... least) retained their old manners and even their old dress. The other day Mrs. White, Horton's mother-in-law, had a violent sick headache, and, as we are all very fond of the kind old lady, we were trying to keep things as quiet as possible down-stairs. Suddenly there came a bang! bang! bang! at the knocker; and then in an instant another rattling series of knocks, as if a tethered donkey were trying to kick in the panel. After all our efforts for silence it was exasperating. I rushed to the door to find a seedy looking person just ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... "Weren't some of the popes—of course, not our present man, or his predecessor, but some of the old popes—not exactly... you know... up to the knocker?" ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... your voice if you are as much in earnest as he was! Why should not God hear the voice of William, or Robert, Sarah or Edith? He is no respecter of persons. Is it not written over the door of mercy, "Knock, and it shall be opened?" Aye, and the knocker is so low a child's hand may reach it. St. James tells us that Elijah was "a man of like passions." He was a human being like you and me, but he had faith in God. Why should we not believe in God as much as the prophet did? Is He not God yet? Have any of these sceptics ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... to remain near the boat with Rockets, while I proceeded alone to the house. If I was well received I was to summon him. My heart beat pretty fast as I approached the door. It did not occur to me till my hand was actually on the knocker that it was nearly midnight, and that in all probability the family would be in bed. However, I knocked with tolerable distinctness, and then waited the result. I saw lights gleaming at the windows, and before long a voice in negro ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... no slim, black-clad figure moved among the wilderness of neglected flowers. Virginia tethered her mare, ascended the two or three stone steps, and struck the mailed glove of iron which formed the knocker on the oak of the door. Its echoes went reverberating through wide, empty spaces, and for some moments she stood trembling at her audacity. She said to herself that she could not knock again. If no one answered the last summons she would take it as a sign that she ought not to have come, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... with the heavy iron knocker of the house-door drowned his words. A strange voice ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... whitewashed cottage with a small leaded casement window on each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... lawn were kept in good order, but no one belonging to the house ever frequented it. Had any stranger driven up to the front door, he might have hammered away with the narrow knocker—there was no bell—for half an hour before making any one hear, and then probably it would have been by the accident of the servant going by the passage, and not by dint of noise. The household lived in the back part of the house. There was a parlour well furnished, sweet with flowers placed there ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... I thundered on the knocker until it opened, and brushing past the pallid Clegg, bade him order ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... if it came in answer to her poignant wish for some untoward happening, there was a quick double knock at the front door of the Blanchard's dwelling, and a sharp whirring ring at the push-bell below the knocker. The sounds seemed to go violently through and through the little house in rapid waves of ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... muscles toughened and quickened by the active, strenuous river work, will set out to "take the town apart." For a time he leaves rack and ruin, black eyes and broken teeth behind him, until he meets a more redoubtable "knocker" and is pounded and kicked into unconsciousness. Organized gangs go from house to house forcing the peaceful inmates to drink from their bottles. Others take possession of certain sections of the street and resist "a l'outrance" ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... have reached you a Swastika door-knocker, which I hope may fit in with the new house and the new name. It was made by a village-smith; and you will see that it has my initials, to which I hope you will add yours, that ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... had hardly gotten over their wonder and bewilderment, when they heard sleighbells, and a loud "Whoa—whoa—you old reindeer, whoa when I tell you!" Then there was a stamping on the porch and the old brass knocker was lifted—it fell—"clack, clack"; the door opened, and in ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... out in a large carriage-house and walked over to the front door. It was a true type, with sunburst window over the door, and a wonderful old knocker on the front panel of the door. A narrow high window at each side had diamond panes in them. There was a dear little hood over the doorway that someone called a "rain-shed." And on each side of the "stoop" which was reached by three steps, was a high-backed wooden seat, with funny low arms ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... far in arrears of private business, which pressed upon me in the various items of correspondence, accounts, and papers, that I have been obliged to delay this letter longer than I intended. My attorney hath now his leave of absence from me, to anew paint the green door, and repolish the brass knocker of his country villa. As soon as Lady Y. is sufficiently strong I propose quitting town, remaining ten days at Delaforde, and then proceeding to swim at Southampton or Lymington, having as just claim to breathe a sweeter air as the ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... and leaving the knocker, began to pull violently at the door bell, when the other parrot, who had not before spoken, exclaimed, 'Go ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... lights visible anywhere, and only for the big, shapeless mass of something in front of me, which the driver had said was the hotel, I should have fancied that I had been set down by the roadside. I was wet to the skin and in no amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or knocker, or even a door, I belabored the side of the house with my heavy walking-stick. In a minute or two I saw a light flickering somewhere aloft, then I heard the sound of a window opening, followed by an exclamation of disgust as a blast of wind extinguished the candle which had given me an ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Aunt Lois, and they crossed the street, and stopped before a quaint looking building. The massive oak door boasted a huge knocker, in the form of a frowning lion's head that held a huge ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... feeling shy, but then she had never seen so many strangers before. They went up the steps, upon the shaded porch,—where two little girls were sitting in a hammock reading, and looked as if they were birds in a nest,—-and rang the bell. Aunt Emma raised the great knocker upon the front ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... bell or knocker, Jetson was surprised to hear him give three raps on the door with his stick. There was no answer, and Jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused, crossed to the other corner, from where he could command a better ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... curiously at the old red-brick house, with its picturesque gables and mullioned windows, and then, as he deposited Fay on the stone seat inside the porch, and was just raising his hand to the knocker, the door opened, and a very tall man in clerical dress appeared suddenly on the threshold. Erle's hand fell to his side, and he and Fay exchanged puzzled glances; it must be Mr. Ferrers, they thought, and of course he did not ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man before the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door was opened, and d'Artagnan, sword in hand, rushed into the rooms of M. Bonacieux, the door of which doubtless acted upon by ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... oak, brown, shrunken, and split in many places; though frail in appearance, it was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the oblong shape and kind which our ancestors called jaquemart, looked like a huge note of exclamation; an antiquary who examined it attentively might have found ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door of this house, except that it was very large; also, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also, that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London. And yet Scrooge, having his key in the lock of ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... fifteen minutes of midnight the strange trio passed up the graveled walk leading to the Martin mansion. The front door had a ponderous old-fashioned knocker, and Bart plied it ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... lady and her complaisance. I was not any better satisfied than he, but being calmer I tried to quiet him; and at last, unable longer to restrain his impatience, the prince sprang out of the carriage, and I followed; but, just as his hand was on the knocker of the door, the Emperor came out. It was then already broad daylight, and the Prince informed him of our anxiety, and the reflections we had made upon his rashness. "What childishness!" said his Majesty; "what is there to fear? Wherever ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Dutch. New York gets her Santa Claus, her doughnuts, crullers, cookies, and many of her odors, from the Dutch. The New York matron ran to fine linen and a polished door-knocker, while the New England housewife spun linsey-woolsey and knit "yarn mittens" for ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... which Mrs. Hooker and you go on refusing to give any address leads us to believe that you are dwelling peripatetically in a "Wan" with green door and brass knocker somewhere on Wormwood Scrubbs, and that "Kew" is only a blind. So you see I am obliged to inclose ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... standing in the dark, and when I stepped upon the porch I heard some one walking heavily and slowly up and down the library. On the door was a brass knocker, and when I raised it and let it fall, the foot-steps came hastily to the door. A hanging lamp was burning in the hall, and I saw that the old General himself had ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... and Phoebe was praised for never even looking frightened, then again for her organ of locality and the skilful pilotage with which she unerringly and unhesitatingly found the way through the Whittingtonian labyrinths; and as the disgusted tiger pealed at the knocker of Turnagain Corner, she was told she would be a useful guide in the South African bush. 'At home,' was the welcome reply, and in another second her arms were round Robert's neck. There was a thorough brotherly greeting between ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my long-handled "knocker," I used to be sent forth in the April meadows to beat up and scatter the fall droppings of the cows —the Juno's cushions as Irving named them—I was in much more congenial employment. Had I known the game of golf in those days I should probably ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... so high it was merely a door cut in the fence, allowing no glimpse of what was within, and instead of immediately opening it, Mr. Dingley rapped upon it with the iron knocker, whose lion head had been wont to snarl at me years ago. I heard a sharp clicking as of something being unlocked, and the gate opened. But after we were inside I got an uncanny shock, for excepting ourselves there was not a soul to ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... rang four times at Dr Chartley's door-bell, and rapped as many at the great grinning knocker tied in flannel, before he heard the chain put up and the lock shot back, to display the smudgy unwholesome countenance of Elizabeth Gundry, who always blinked like a night-bird when forced to leave her ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... thickly leaved oak tree, secured him, and then holding up her saturated skirt with one hand and holding on her cap with the other, she went up some moldering stone steps to an old stone portico and, seizing the heavy iron knocker of a great black oak double door, she knocked loudly enough to awaken ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Ignacio Chavez had allowed the dangling rope to slip from his hands so that the Captain rested quiet in the starshine. Roderick and Florence were coming in through the wide patio door; Norton was just saying that Florrie had promised to play something for him when the front door knocker announced another visitor. Florence made a little disdainful face as though she guessed who it was; Engle ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... much longer than the head; broad, acutely pointed; nasal apparatus very complicated; the lower leaf very large, concealing the upper lip like a door knocker; the upper leaf like a graduated spire; ears transversely striate; a rather large semi-circular lobe at base of ear; fur long, dense, soft, and lax, slightly curled or woolly black with a silvery grizzle, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... itself to its very narrowest and, diving under a printing-office shows itself in Shoe Lane. The houses in these trenches were not by any means of the worst kind. In the aforesaid expansion they were even genteel, or at any rate aspired to be so, and each had its own brass knocker and kept its front-door shut with decent sobriety and reticence. On the top floor of one of these tenements lodged Jean Caillaud and Pauline. They had three rooms between them; one was Jean's bedchamber, one Pauline's, and one was workroom and ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... silent. I bent my ear to listen, but could hear nothing except, perhaps, the sound of a low moaning as of a person in pain or in great mental distress. Convinced, however, from what my friend Sir Jeremy Buggam had told me, that the Grange was not empty, I raised the ponderous knocker and beat with ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... on the knocker, and its fall startled me as the clatter echoed far down the street and seemed ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... Beelzebub sat, With his imps and his devils around, When the thundering knocker of Hell's outer grate Rang a peal so terrifick and loud on the gate, That ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... an old house with stone chimney, (on which an old date stands coarsely cut,) and with front door divided down its middle, with a huge brazen knocker upon its right half,—with two St. Luke's crosses in its lower panels, and two diamond-shaped "lights" above. Hereabout the street widens into what seems a common; and not far below, sitting squarely and authoritatively in the middle of the common, is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars, a door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at you as you approached through a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... perpetrate another solo on the knocker, I rushed out and opened the door myself, just as Mrs Nash, with her face scarlet and her sleeves tucked up above the elbows, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... be the last to object. But he knew it was a baseless castle while he built it, for Mr Graham would assuredly provide for himself, if it were by breaking stones on the road and saying the Lord's Prayer. It all fell to pieces just as he lifted his hand to Miss Horn's knocker. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... home later, I was in a fright having laid in bed cooling down, and thinking of possible consequences; heard the street-door knocker, got out of bed, and in my night-shirt went half way downstairs listening. To my relief, I heard Charlotte in answer to my mother's enquiry, say I had come home about an hour before, and had gone to bed unwell. My mother came to my room, saying ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... affected liveliness by alarming remarks on her apparent preoccupation), there fell upon his ear the sound of a loud knocking at the door. Dinner had been served in a small room at the back of the house, and the President could not command a view of the knocker without going out on to the veranda, which ran all round the house, and walking round to the front. When the knock was heard, ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... good John! fatigued, I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... Gluck, "that my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I'm sure, when they have such a nice piece of mutton as this, it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them." Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up. "It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... that even with our 361,000, or practically 362,000, population, there are, by the last census, almost a score of larger cities in the United States. But, gentlemen, if by the next census we do not stand at least tenth, then I'll be the first to request any knocker to remove my shirt and to eat the same, with the compliments of G. F. Babbitt, Esquire! It may be true that New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia will continue to keep ahead of us in size. But aside from these ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... town, in the month of September, We find neither riches nor rank; In vain we look out for a member To give us a nod or a frank. Each knocker in silence reposes, In every mansion you find One dirty old woman who dozes, Or peeps ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... the pillar sharply with his palm, merely for the sake of hearing a noise. There was no answering sound, so, after a moment's hesitation, he walked to the door,—which stood ajar,—purposing to call in the aid of bell and knocker. Neither of these civilized appliances was to be found. While debating whether to use his voice or to enter and use his eyes, the note of the hoopoe fell on his ear. An instant after came an answering note, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... scarcely believe his ears when he heard the sound of the old brass knocker on the front door resound ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... morning in late November Katrine clapped the knocker of this old house with fear in her heart, for her future hung on the word of the great teacher who lived here, Josef, whose genius, generosity, and brutal frankness were the talk of the musical world. A Brittany peasant woman opened the door with no salutation ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... True. But how would it be to hang up our stockings again this evening—now that we know he knows we are here? I would suggest tied on to the door-knocker, to save him the trouble of coming ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... steep; the wind blustered; and gusty squalls at intervals threatened to upset both horse and rider into the abyss. However the well-trained horses overcame all difficulties; at length the head of the troop reached the castle; and the foremost dragoon seizing a vast iron knocker struck the steel-plated gate so powerfully, that the echo on a more quiet night would have startled all the deer in the adjacent park for ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... sir," said the woman hastily just as there was a little rat-tat at the brass knocker of the outer door, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... monkeys were all dead and buried, and the little old man and woman lived all alone-ty-donty. It had bright green blinds, bright red sides, a bright blue door, and bright yellow steps. On the bright blue door there was a bright brass knocker, which was polished up at such a rate that you could see your face in it, looking as l-o-n-g as anything; and underneath that was a bright brass door plate, with the old showman's name, "Timmy Timmens," on it, which was also polished up until ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... made no effort to solve. From the testimony of several members of the American colony in Berlin, it appeared that all New York and half of Boston had heard of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, who, for three or four seasons past, had been using her really choice musicales as a species of knocker upon the portal of New York society. By this time, she had passed the portal and was disporting herself in the vestibule, with one toe resting upon the sacred threshold. Socially, she was as yet impossible; ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... like babies' hands. She had a momentary desire to stay, to wander round the hill and look with untired eyes at the familiar scene; but she passed on under the tyranny of tea. The Malletts were always in time for meals and the meals were exquisite, like the polish on the old brass door-knocker, like the furniture in the white panelled hall, like the beautiful old mahogany in the drawing-room, the old china, the glass bowls full ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... polypus[obs3], fungus, fungosity[obs3], exostosis[obs3], bleb, blister, blain[obs3]; boil &c. (disease) 655; airbubble[obs3], blob, papule, verruca. [convex body parts on chest] papilla, nipple, teat, tit [vulgar], titty [vulgar], boob [vulgar], knocker[vulgar], pap, breast, dug, mammilla[obs3]. [prominent convexity on the face] proboscis, nose, neb, beak, snout, nozzle, schnoz[coll]. peg, button, stud, ridge, rib, jutty, trunnion, snag. cupola, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... be gained by standing there in the drenching storm, I moved onward, taking the way to Mrs. Wallingford's dwelling. I had scarcely touched the knocker when the door was opened, and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work—Master Porbus, sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de' Medici took Rubens ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... by the giant trees that arched above it. A dog's bark sounded snappily from a kennel, but he paid no heed. He went up the broad white walk, climbed the steps to the square front porch, and lifted the great brass knocker. When he let it fall, the sound echoed through the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... and picking stone was drudgery, and haying and harvesting I liked best when they were a good way off; picking up potatoes worried me, but gathering apples suited my hands and my fancy better, and knocking "Juno's cushions" in the spring meadows with my long-handled knocker, about the time the first swallow was heard laughing overhead, was real fun. I always wanted some element of play in my work; buckling down to any sort of routine always galled me, and does yet. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... you come to an archway, imperfectly stopped up by a rusty old gate—my gate. The rusty old gate has a bell to correspond, which you ring as long as you like, and which nobody answers, as it has no connection whatever with the house. But there is a rusty old knocker, too— very loose, so that it slides round when you touch it—and if you learn the trick of it, and knock long enough, somebody comes. The brave Courier comes, and gives you admittance. You walk into a seedy little garden, all wild and weedy, from which the vineyard opens; cross it, enter ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... matter, for almost everyone in town was familiar with its locality, and towards the close of the afternoon he found himself upon its broad steps applying vigorous strokes to the ponderous brass knocker, and half hoping the summons would be answered by Maggie herself. But it was not, and in the bent, white-haired woman who came with measured footsteps we recognize old Hagar, who spent much of her time at the house, and who came to the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... he had touched the knocker the door was opened by a little old woman, plainly dressed, but neat and tidy: and when the Prince told her who he was, and what he wanted, she answered him with a good-humored smile, very different from the frown of stern Necessity: "Every one can have food in ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... sound of a rifle butt against the door which struck them dumb. Muffled by the thick wood, the voice of the knocker yet came clearly: "Open in the name of ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... grounds. Inspector Seldon and Flack passed rapidly through the grounds and reached the front door of the mansion. There was nobody about; the place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground-floor windows. Inspector Seldon knocked loudly at the front door with the big, old-fashioned brass knocker, and rang the bell. He listened intently for a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Seldon bent down with his ear at the keyhole. Then the inspector ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... the clang of the knocker sounded through the house. Charlotte took off her apron and started to answer it, but her mother caught her and pinned up a stray lock of hair. "I 'most wish you had put on your ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the doctor, dwelling on the famous and striking syllables. 'Your uncle is the typical instance of the man who has never been ill in his life. He walks up a little slope or up some steps to a friend's house, and just as he is lifting his hand to the knocker, he has a convulsion and falls down unconscious. That's Bright's disease. Never been ill in his life! Not so far as he knew! Not so far as he knew! Nearly all you Myatts had weak kidneys. Do you remember ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... age, and even by the moonlight one might see, from the form of his clothes, that he was dressed with fastidious care. The walls and verandah, of his house, which were of wood, glistened almost as brightly with white paint as the knocker and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... at last!" struck in Ailsa excitedly, as the door-bell and knocker clashed and the butler's swift footsteps went along the hall. "Now we shall know, Mr. Cleek—oh, now we ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... short wire, and for the rest of the drive lay back in the cab with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. Our driver pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... inquired the way all uncapped most respectfully, and replied with much courtesy; but when the hotel of the English ambassador had been pointed out to him, he hardly believed it, so foul and squalid was the street, where a large nail-studded door occupied a wide archway. Here was a heavy iron knocker, to which Osbert applied himself. A little door was at once opened by a large, powerful John Bull of a porter, whose looks expanded into friendly welcome when he heard the English tongue of the visitor. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... note across, wondering what would be said while I was gone, and knowing why Sir John wanted his son to go as well as he did, and Miss Virginia too, poor thing. The knocker seemed to make the house opposite echo very strangely, as I thumped; but when the door was opened in a few minutes, everything in the hall seemed very proper and prim, while the maid who came looked as stiff and ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... Canterbury behind us forever, we came again into the voiceless streets, past a "very old house bulging out over the road, ... quite spotless in its cleanliness, the old-fashioned brass knocker on the low, arched door ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkling like a star," the very house, perhaps, "with angles and corners and carvings and mouldings," where David Copperfield ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and Jane took to their heels. The house they sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind them. Their breath was coming in choking gasps as they reached Sir James's door. Tuppence seized the bell and Jane the knocker. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... a gleam of recognition, on here a post, and there a garden fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here again an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the door-step. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and that ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the rest did, and not taking up more than his fair share of the conversation, when there was a quick step on the stairs. Nobody heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just as she had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, and when he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go over and ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... Mitford's own description. 'The Cross is not a borough, thank Heaven, either rotten or independent. The inhabitants are quiet, peaceable people who would not think of visiting us, even if we had a knocker to knock at. Our residence is a cottage' (she is writing to her correspondent, Sir William Elford), 'no, not a cottage, it does not deserve the name—a messuage or tenement such as a little farmer ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... very slowly. She had scarcely done so before a loud ring, followed by a rat-tat on the knocker of the front door, was ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... jigging at Northampton with that old harlotry Major Compton? Peggy Trevor told me, she had sent you a mandate to go thither. Shall I tell you how I found Peggy, that is, not Peggy, but her sister Muscovy? I went, found a bandage upon the knocker, an old woman and child in the hall, and a black boy at the door. Lord! thinks I, this can't be Mrs. Boscawen's. However, Pompey let me up; above were fires blazing, and a good old gentlewoman, whose occupation easily spoke itself to be midwifery. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte's hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge's knocker, and presently found myself ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had found a knocker and was making the night hideous. But there was no response save the wind that blew sodden leaves derisively in our faces. Once Hotchkiss declared he heard a window-sash lifted, but renewed violence with the knocker produced ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... kiverlids wove and counterpanes worked, sheets and piller-cases all made to your hand. Nothing to do, but step right into Mrs. Scott's shoes. Cow in the barn and pig in the sty, cellar all banked up, and knocker on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... Mrs. Knocker came into Dunkirk for a night's rest while I was staying there. She had been out all the previous day in a storm of wind and rain driving an ambulance. It was heavy with wounded, and shells were dropping ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... season seemed to haunt the spot. Snow-drops and crocuses were up in one secluded nook; a plump maltese cat sat purring in the porch; and a dignified old dog came marching down the walk to escort the stranger in. With a brightening face Christie went up the path, and tapped at the quaint knocker, hoping that the face she was about to see would be in keeping ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... again. He did not envy the responsibility of a president in war time, whether the president of a country already established or of one yet tentative. He hurried home, and it was his mother herself who responded to the sound of the knocker—his mother, quiet, smiling and undemonstrative as of old, but with an endless tenderness for him in the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... errand was so impersonal a one as bearing somebody else's note, without enquiring whether the friend was in, and being instantly admitted if she was, and as a matter of fact, Georgie caught a glimpse, when the knocker was answered (Mrs Quantock did not have a bell at all), through the open door of the hall, of Mrs Quantock standing in the middle of the lawn on one leg. Naturally, therefore, he ran out into the garden without any further formality. She looked like a little round fat stork, whose ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... upon Dame Giovanna. We on our part would remember the fable of the Sack and the Ass and laugh; while Ann slipped off to her garret chamber when the Magister was coming; and she could never fail to know of it, for no son of man ever smote so feebly as he with the knocker on the door plate. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... were the hopes of humanity fulfilled? I could not have completed my third snore when there came a furious ringing at the street-door bell, and then an impatient thumping at the knocker, which awakened me at once. In a minute afterward, and while I was still rubbing my eyes, my wife thrust in my face a note, from my old friend, Doctor Ponnonner. It ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... him. He had only to knock. But in proportion as he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose all, with all in his grasp, to fail upon the threshold, was a thing which bore no looking at; and it was with a nervous hand and eyes cast fearfully behind him that he plied the heavy iron knocker ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... again searching something—a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... end of a steep and narrow street. When she arrived about at the middle of it, she heard strange noises, a funeral knell. "It must be for some one else," thought she; and she pulled the knocker violently. ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... said she gruffly, as she opened the door; "don't you think better break de door down at once-rapping as if you was guine to tear off de knocker—is dat de way, gal, you comes to quality's houses? You lived here long nuff to larn better dan dat—and dis is twice I've been to de door in de last half-hour—if any one else comes dere they may stay ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... through the gate, went up the walk, and lifted the knocker on the front door. A moment, and a servant appeared and ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... half an hour, perhaps, in reaching the Waldheim. As he turned in at the gate he noticed a sledge, with a dozen people following it, coming toward him. It was a singularly silent party. Peter, with his hand on the door-knocker, watched ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the steps, tottering now with age and disuse, and Virginia playfully raised the big brass knocker, brown now, that Scipio had been wont to polish until it shone. Stephen took from his pocket the clumsy key that General Carvel had given him, and turned it in the rusty lock. The door swung open, and Virginia stood in the hall of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... living in the upper part of a house in the Gower Street region. That first home in London I remember chiefly by its fine brass knocker, which mother kept beautifully bright, and by its being the place to which I was sent my first part! Bound in green American cloth, it looked to me more marvelous than the most priceless book has ever looked since! I was so proud ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... perfectly. Ten years previous she had cooked for Jacob Welse, and served him in one fashion or another ever since; and when on a dreary January morning she opened the front door in response to the deep-tongued knocker, even her stolid presence was shaken as she recognized the visitor. Not that the average man or woman would have so recognized. But How-ha's faculties of observing and remembering details had been developed in a hard school where death dealt ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... windy, November night. Brown and Bim were alone together—temporarily. Suddenly, above the howling of the wind sounded sharply the clap of the old knocker on the door. Brown laid down his book—reluctantly, for he was human. A woman's figure, clad from head to foot in furs, sprang from the car at the curb, ran across the sidewalk, and in ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
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