"Turnkey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moved a couple of paces away from the door, humming a song about a coachman who loved a turnkey's daughter. Almost mad with excitement, Dick stood in the darkness of the hut with his outstretched arms shaking and quivering. He was afraid he would shout, and bit his finger-nails to help to repress ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the end. Through the windows he could see the staff, a few bending over their work, most of them reading newspapers, none of them obviously interested in anything special. Next he presented himself before the warders' turnkey, and again he was allowed to ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... was taken, put in prison, tried, and condemned to be sent to the other country for life. Two days before he was to be sent away, I got leave to see him in the prison, and in the presence of the turnkey I gave him a thin cake of gingerbread, in which there was a dainty saw which could cut through iron. I then took on wonderfully, turned my eyes inside out, fell down in a seeming fit, and was carried out of the prison. That ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Congress; especially a member of Mr. Giddings' well-known fearless determination. He was allowed to come in, bringing another person with him, but was followed into the jail by a crowd of ruffians, who compelled the turnkey to admit them into the passage, and who vented their rage in execration and threats. Mr. Giddings said that he had understood we were here in jail without counsel or friends, and that he had come to let us ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... he was fettered are still shown at York Castle, and are of prodigious weight and strength; and though the herculean robber is said to have moved in them with ease, the present turnkey was scarcely able to lift the ponderous irons. An old woman of the same city has a lock of hair, said to have been Turpin's, which she avouches her grandfather cut off from the body after the execution, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the jailer, beckoning another turnkey, "convey his lairdship to the sou-wast corner cell in the men's ward. It has the advantage of twa windows and mare sunshine than fa's to the lot o' prison cells in general. And when ye get him there relieve him o' ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... enjoy the luxury of solitude. In each ward there is a single unfettered man—always a felon—who by reason either of bribery or good conduct, is appointed to the place of watchman or spy among his fellows in crime. There is a turnkey for each ward, and these men, with the unchained felons who act as watchmen, torture new arrivals in order to force money from them, and under this ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Up to that period, the place which Aramis had held in the worthy governor's estimation was that of a prelate whom he respected and a friend to whom he owed a debt of gratitude; but now he felt himself an inferior, and that Aramis was his master. He himself lighted a lantern, summoned a turnkey, and said, returning to Aramis, "I am at your orders, monseigneur." Aramis merely nodded his head, as much as to say, "Very good"; and signed to him with his hand to lead the way. Baisemeaux advanced, and Aramis followed him. It was a calm and lovely starlit ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... poor, miserable turnkey, whose occupation shows what he was like to be, and who had just been thrusting two respectable strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered with stripes and stripped of clothing, into the inner prison, and making their feet fast in the stocks. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... had been lodged either in the Temple or La Force, and one of them, Bouvet de Lozier, who was confined in the Temple, attempted to hang himself. He made use of his cravat to effect his purpose, and had nearly succeeded, when a turnkey by chance entered and found him at the point of death. When he was recovered he acknowledged that though he had the courage to meet death, he was unable to endure the interrogatories of his trial, and that he had determined to kill himself, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... over the table and her own person. She took no notice of the disturbance made by our entrance, did not turn, did not raise her head, nor make an effort to do so, nor by any sign whatever intimate that she was conscious of our presence, until the turnkey in a respectful tone announced me. Upon that a low groan, or rather a feeble moan, showed that she had become aware of my presence, and relieved me from all apprehension of causing too sudden a shock ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... followed the turnkey and passing the entire length of the corridor paused in front ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... said of Pixley, so I say of you: "The prison yawns before you, The turnkey stalks behind!" Now will you go? Or lag, and let that functionary floor you? To change the metaphor—you seem to be Between Judge Wallace and the deep, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... to a man called the Milgan, or equivalent to our sheriff, who is the ranking officer in the state. If the criminal is sentenced to slavery, he is delivered to the Mayo, who is second in rank to the Milgan, or about like our turnkey or jailer. All sentences must be referred to the king for his approval; and all executions take place at the capital, where notice is given of the same by a public crier ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... thee, and hear what I can do! Have I all power in heaven and on earth? I will becloud the turnkey's senses; possess thyself of the keys, and bear her out with human hand. I will watch! The magic horses shall be ready, and I will bear you away. So much ...
— Faust • Goethe
... message that a man wanted to see me at the jail immediately. It was urgent. Would I come down there at once? I had a foreboding, and I went down. It was as I suspected. "No. 4" was there behind the bars. "Drunk again," said the turnkey, laconically, as he let me in. He let me see him. He wanted me to see the judge and get him out. He besought me. He wept. "It was all an accident;" he had "found some of the old boys, and they had got to talking over old times, ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... of a narrow, crooked corridor that sloped downward, the turnkey unlocked a ponderous iron door with a huge key, and one of the guards following at Bucky's heels, pushed him forward. He fell down two or three steps and came to a sprawling heap on the floor ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... to the end of the corridor, where was a massive grated door, on each side of which sat a grim fellow of a turnkey. The door was opened, and turning to the right we proceeded down another corridor, in which were many people walking about, whom I subsequently discovered to be prisoners like myself, but for political offences. At the end of this corridor, which extended the whole length ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... he asked. "That's right. Announce Arsene Lupin, grandee of Spain, his most Catholic Majesty's cousin. My lords, I follow you. Turnkey, here are twenty crowns for ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... England. I conceive I am a little more than quits. I owe you no explanation; yours has been the wrong. You, if you have studied my writing with intelligence, owe me a large debt of gratitude. And to conclude, as I have not yet finished my toilet, I imagine the courtesy of a turnkey to a prisoner would induce ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you oblige me by letting us have a short walk together?" Then turning to others who were near, he added, with a pleasant smile, "Gentlemen, I hope you are all well this morning," and putting his arm in Tournier's went to the gate. There was a guard-room and a turnkey's lodge outside. A glance through the grating of the heavy door, and the ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... began to trace The kennel edge, where wheels had worn the place. The smallcoal-man was heard with cadence deep, Till drowned in shriller notes of chimney-sweep. Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet; And Brickdust Moll had screamed through half a street; The turnkey now his flock returning sees, Duly let out at nights to steal for fees. The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands; And schoolboys lag with satchels ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... long and so soundly, that Mr Dennis began to think he might sleep on until the turnkey visited them. He was congratulating himself upon these promising appearances, and blessing his stars with much fervour, when one or two unpleasant symptoms manifested themselves: such as another motion of the arm, another sigh, a restless tossing of the head. Then, just as it seemed that ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... another. This blessed word was a "light to my feet and a lamp to my pathway." I rejoiced for the comfort it gave me; for the Lord truly talked to my soul while I read and reread this. I must say that "Little Dodds," the turnkey as I called him, was often kind to me, but he was completely the servant of Simmons ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... and shut her up in a dungeon. He was not a nice man, speaking generally, but we felt he was the man for the situation, and the house cheered him to the echo. We flattered ourselves we had got rid of her for the rest of the evening. Then some fool of a turnkey came along, and she appealed to him, through the grating, to let her out for a few minutes. The turnkey, a good ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... told her that some one—a turnkey, or some one—would have to be present at the interview; that such was always the rule in the case of condemned prisoners; but that if this third person was "obliging," he would keep out of earshot. Mr. Johnson quietly took care ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to my story, nodded his head to a doorman and I followed along the iron corridor and stood in front of a row of cells. The Turnkey looked over a hoop of keys, turned one in a door, threw it wide ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Helmsley,—"don't ye, for all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a comprehensive smile round at the company,—then taking up his hat, he put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... the music; it is in reality owing to their poetical merit. To cite only one example out of many, I do not hesitate to declare the whole series of scenes in Raoul Sire de Crequy, where the children of the drunken turnkey set the prisoner at liberty, a master-piece of theatrical painting. How much were it to be wished that the Tragedy of the French, and even their Comedy in court-dress, had but a little of this truth of circumstance, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... close on you soon. Farewell to the forest, farewell to the hill, An' farewell to the friends that will think of you still. Farewell to the pathern, the hurlin' an' wake, And farewell to the girl that would die for your sake! An' twelve sojers brought him to Maryborough jail, An' the turnkey resaved ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... he loves and to whom in theory he is devoting his career, to feel continually that he only sees them obscurely through the haze emanating from his business! Why—worse!—even when he is sitting with his wife, he and she might as well be communicating with each other across a grille against which a turnkey is standing and listening to every word said! Let him imagine how flattering for her! She might be more flattered, at any rate more thrilled, if she knew that instead of thinking about his business he was thinking ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... jailer, the magistrate turned to her and said, "The turnkey will take you to the prisoner's cell and leave you there for the night, if you desire it, but you can't have a light during the night—it is contrary to rules. My name is Colonel Townley: if I can help you in anything, ask the jailer for my address and come to me. I take some ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... my mad Irish cousin, Terrence O'Flannagan, who went out to seek his fortin in Ameriky with two shillin's and a broken knife in his pocket, and it's been said he's got into a government situation o' some sort connected with the jails—whether as captain or leftenant o' police, or turnkey, I'm not rightly sure." ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... walking leisurely down the Old Bailey, some time ago, when, as we passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating turnkey. We turned quickly round, as a matter of course, and saw two persons descending the steps. We could not help stopping and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... obdurate, and that all he could say had no effect, nor was it any way possible for Heartfree to escape being committed to Newgate, he resolved to accompany him thither; where, when they arrived, the turnkey would have confined Heartfree (he having no money) amongst the common felons; but Friendly would not permit it, and advanced every shilling he had in his pocket, to procure a room in the press-yard for his friend, which indeed, through ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... morning Mr. Trimm had made as careful a toilet as the limited means at his command permitted, and he had eaten a hearty breakfast and was ready to go, all but putting on his hat. Looking the picture of well-groomed, close-buttoned, iron-gray middle age, Mr. Trimm followed the turnkey through the long corridor and down the winding iron stairs to the warden's office. He gave no heed to the curious eyes that followed him through the barred doors of many cells; his feet rang briskly ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... A Newgate turnkey would, no doubt, recognize many old acquaintances; in the special hope of which, Bob Transit has faithfully delineated some of the most conspicuous characters, as they appeared on that occasion, lending their hearty assistance in the general scene of maddening uproar. It was past five ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of imprisonment, he now began to project a plan of escape, to which he was emboldened by the great success of several similar attempts. Greater vigilance was, indeed, resorted to in the prison, after the flight of Brigadier Mackintosh, who had knocked down the turnkey, and ran off through the streets: and all cloaks, riding-hoods, and arms, were prohibited being brought in by the visiters who came to visit the prisoners. It is amusing to hear, that a certain form of riding-hoods acquired, at this time, the name of a Nithsdale, in allusion to the escape ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... where he was kept securely for several years. One evening his jailer told him that he could never get out of this room, and that he might as well promise not to attempt such an impossible feat; but Hoeyland replied that it was the turnkey's duty to keep him in prison if he could, and his to get out if it were possible. The next day the prisoner was missing, and the means of his escape were not at first apparent; but on further examination it was found ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... "Here," said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him down—"here's somebody wants to see you—to ask you some questions, I suppose. Fagin, Fagin! Are you ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... has confuted the arguments of Scriblerus. In support of the present reading, he quotes a passage from a poem written about the same period with our author's, by the celebrated Johannes Pastor[*], intituled "An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate," wherein the gentleman declares, that rather indeed in compliance with an old custom, than to gratify any particular will of his own, he ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... my boy, I don't blame you for having doubts, and to set them at rest I'll prove that what I say is true," and the detective pounded on the bars of the cell door until the turnkey appeared. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... sure of his being good, But he happened to be in a pleasant mood, As fiends with their skins full sometimes are, (He'd been drinking with "roughs" at a Boston bar.) So what does he do but up and shout To a graybeard turnkey, "Let 'em out!" ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... bailiff, the alternative of the Fleet was too terrible to be thought of. And so we alighted after him with a shiver at the sight of the ugly, grimy face of the house, and the dirty windows all barred with double iron. In answer to a knock we were presently admitted by a turnkey to a vestibule as black as a tomb, and the heavy outer door was locked behind us. Then, as the man cursed and groped for the keyhole of the inner door, despair laid ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the sergeant, "the sick man, No. 12, has commissioned the turnkey to request you to ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... ditch." But the Governor of the Acordada had control of details, and to his hostility and spleen, late stirred by that wordy encounter with Rivas, the latter was no doubt indebted for the partiality shown him by Don Pedro's head turnkey. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... must have done, bribery and no small degree of peril to himself. My counting over, I tried the door, which swung easily as I put my hand upon it, The little corridor was dark and I could hear no sound save the snoring of a drunken soldier, committed that day for fighting, as the turnkey had told me. I found the small window, and slid the sash, and let my boots fall to the ground, then climbing through and dropping on them. It was a dark night, but I was not long in reaching the road and pacing my way to the path and river. His Lordship ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... with her," the Admiral muttered, watching him. But Lecour did not hear. The Sans-culotte President rapped on the iron door with his boot, a turnkey replied, and in a few minutes four of these men appeared with Cyrene. As soon as she saw Germain she clasped her hands to her bosom and uttered a strange cry, a cry full of wild gladness and fierce agony, such as a soul writhing in the flames of purgatory ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... unstable step and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Good cheer had opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty and a flask of wine, instead of my former fare. I ate, drank, and was invigorated; when, to add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his duty of turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar. The light, the food, the wine, set my invention to work. The staple to which my chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the villain Abbot had supposed. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... and in commending him to the hospitality of Talleyrand, at the splendid castle of Valencay, declared that his whole character could be summed up in a single word—sullen. Poor Talleyrand! he saw himself condemned to the "honorable mission" of turnkey to a dispossessed monarch whose guard of honor was a troop of eighty mounted police. By the Emperor's grace the young culprit was not to be committed to jail, for he had voluntarily surrendered himself; but Talleyrand ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... He was still there! He was on guard! He had had good reason for his terrible certainty! He had foreseen what her plan might be, and she knew he would no more let her get past him down the hall than the turnkey will ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... leg lifted up, in the attitude of making water in his shoe. He had been even so presumptuous as to explain the device with satirical inscriptions in the French language, which, when Jolter perused, his hair stood on end with affright. The very turnkey was confounded and overawed by the boldness of his behaviour, which he had never seen matched by any inhabitant of that place; and actually joined his friend in persuading him to submit to the easy demand of the minister. But our hero, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... striving,—liberty of conscience, liberty of action. What is life worth to man without these? And yet our infatuated countrymen run a great risk of losing both, if they refuse to listen to the voice of warning, and to prepare in time for the threatened danger." Just then a turnkey opened the door, and in an impudent tone of voice said, "Here's a man and a lad come to see Master Mead. There, go in and sit as long as you please, till the hour arrives when all ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... been in jail for about a week when he received a visitor. A turnkey brought her to his cell. It was Harriet Holden. She greeted him seriously but pleasantly, and then she asked the turnkey if she might ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Cornelys's—the crowd at Drury Lane to look at the body of Miss Ray, whom Parson Hackman has just pistolled—or we can peep into Newgate, where poor Mr. Rice the forger is waiting his fate and his supper. "You need not be particular about the sauce for his fowl," says one turnkey to another: "for you know he is to be hanged in the morning." "Yes," replies the second janitor, "but the chaplain sups with him, and he is a terrible fellow ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at Chagrin river in Cuyahoga county, where he found employment with a Mr. Waite, at eight dollars a month, working one year at this rate. The next two years were spent in the brick yard of A. W. Duty. Following this, he was for two years turnkey under sheriff Beebe, and then established himself in a brick yard of his own on the west side of the river. One Summer's work in this experiment gave him a start in business life, and laid the foundation, small though it was, of his ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... now between fifty and sixty years of age; is a grand officer of our Imperial Legion of Honour; has a brother who is a turnkey, and two sisters, one married to a tailor, and another to a merchant who cries dogs' and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... only the royalty is greater; for it is here, as in the miracle of loaves, the voider exceeds the bill of fare. The Pope and he ring the changes; here is the plurality of crowns to one head, join them together and there is a harmony in discord. The triple-headed turnkey of heaven with the triple-headed porter of hell. A committee-man is the relics of regal government, but, like holy relics, he outbulks the substance whereof he is a remnant. There is a score of kings in a committee, as in the relics of the cross ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... to go to the East Indies, than a man at full liberty, and having committed no crime, has to go to the turnkey at Newgate, and desire him to lock him up among the prisoners there, and starve him. Had I taken a small vessel from England, and gone directly to the island; had I loaded her, as I did the other vessel, with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... bills; in short, she is at once the embodiment and interpretation of her lodging-house, as surely as her lodging-house implies the existence of its mistress. You can no more imagine the one without the other, than you can think of a jail without a turnkey. The unwholesome corpulence of the little woman is produced by the life she leads, just as typhus fever is bred in the tainted air of a hospital. The very knitted woolen petticoat that she wears beneath a skirt made of an ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... Thecla taking off her ear-rings, gave them to the turnkey of the prison, who then opened the door to ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... condemned to be hanged. On the eve of the day fixed for the execution a turnkey enters his cell and tells him that all is safe, that he has only to slip out, that his friends are waiting in the neighbourhood with disguises, and that a passage is taken for him in an American packet. Now, it is clearly for the greatest happiness of society that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at Castle Rushen. He found her lodged in a large and light apartment (once the dining-room of the Lords of Man), indulged with every comfort, and short of nothing but her liberty. As the turnkey pulled the door behind him, Caesar lifted both hands and cried, "The Lord is my refuge and my strength; a very present help in trouble." Then he inquired if Pete had been there before him, and being answered "No," he said, "The ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... that her mother had come and had given a message of greeting. That was all she was allowed to learn. Locked up without occupation within the walls of a prison!... Everything human concentrated in the single person of the turnkey who brings the food!... The monotonousness only broken, now and then, by the call of the sentinel, who, peering through the window bars, asks,—'Prisoner, have you not done any harm to yourself?' or by the rattling of the locks and door-bolts, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... office on the occasion to which I now refer, I found but one turnkey there, and he was fast asleep. I instantly resolved to take advantage of the lucky circumstance which good fortune had thrown ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... from Africa, has spread over the whole West Indies. Dark lithe coolie prisoners, one a gentle young fellow, with soft beseeching eyes, and 'Felon' printed on the back of his shirt, are cutting it for the horses, under the guard of a mulatto turnkey, a tall, steadfast, dignified man; and between us and them are growing along the edge of the gutter, veritable pine- apples in the open air, and a low green tree just like an apple, which is a Guava; and a tall stick, thirty feet high, with a flat top of gigantic curly horse-chestnut leaves, which ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... a bit of tricolor in her hat and her cheeks were very pale—As the beautiful daughter of Sir Robert Maxwell her way was sufficiently paved with politeness as she presented her private order to see the prisoner. Her heart was beating tumultuously and the blood surged round her temples. The turnkey showed her into a small whitewashed room, opposite the cell in which Dubois spent his time and informed her that in compliance with strict orders he would have to be present during the interview, to which Cecilia bent her head in assent; ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... ... businessman. From the back of the building, the jail proper, the voice of a prisoner asking for a match floated out to the men in the room, and a few minutes later they heard the slow, exasperated steps of the turnkey as he walked over to give ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... Robinson whistled. The turnkey, whose name was Evans, looked at him with a doubtful air, as much as to say, "Shall I let that pass unpunished ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... not reply: he was leaning with his elbows on the front of the dock, his bowed face covered with his outspread hands; and the judge passed sentence of death in the accustomed form. The court then rose, and a turnkey placed his hand upon the prisoner's arm, to lead him away. Suddenly he uncovered his face, drew himself up to his full height—he was a remarkably tall man—and glared fiercely round upon the audience, like a ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... was called The Fleet. It was a gloomy building with a heavy gate, guarded by a turnkey, holding all classes, from laboring men to broken-down spendthrifts. Its filthy galleries, and low coffee-room reeked with tobacco smoke and its open court was noisy with the oaths of card-players. In some of the rooms lived men with their wives and whole ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... "It is hardly right to interrupt them. I will walk in the corridor for ten minutes or so, and then you can send the turnkey ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... as if let loose into the boundless sky. That seems an obscure image too; but we mean, in truth, the prison unto which we doom ourselves no prison is; and we have improved on that idea, for we have built our own—and are prisoner, turnkey, and jailer all in one, and 'tis noiseless as the house of sleep. Or what if we declare that Christopher North is a king in his palace, with no subjects but his own thoughts—his rule peaceful over those lights and shadows—and undisputed ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... discretion to govern her conduct, while she would risk no present security for a vague promise of advantages to come, her secret influence in Newgate made her more powerful than the hangman and the whole bench of judges. There was no turnkey who was not her devoted servitor, but it was the clerk of Newgate to whom she and her family were most deeply beholden. This was one Ralph Briscoe, as pretty a fellow as ever deserted the law for a bull-baiting. Though wizened and clerkly in appearance, he ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Monsieur Veeleeum. Take him to the east side among the political offenders," said the master-jailer to an assistant or turnkey. ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... judgeship in Botany Bay, or a bishopric in Sierra Leone, and the like. 2. He who asketh for a low situation, as a ticket-porter, curate, and the like. 3. He who asketh for any situation he can get, as Secretary to the Admiralty, policeman, revising barrister, turnkey, chaplain, mail-coach guard, and the like. 3rd. He that taketh DRINK, which may be considered as 1. He that voteth for Walker's Gooseberry, or Elector's Sparkling Champagne. 2. For sloe-juice, or Elector's fine old crusted Port. 3. He who voteth for Brett's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... me in the turnkey frill—and sometimes perhaps it lifted my spurs—why not? And at these suppers you speak of, well, they are all very gay—it is I only who have bidden them, who reap no profit. For whosoever may sit there the chair at ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... turnkey's rooms in the new gaol is to be seen an article of harness, which at first creates surprise to the mind of the beholder, who considers what animal of the brute creation exists of so diminutive a size as to admit of its use. On inquiry, it will be found to be a bridle, perfect ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... for bigamy; and that a warrant having been issued for her arrest upon that charge, the constables had arrived at the Mills for the purpose of executing it, and removing the body of the delinquent, M. M., to the custody of the turnkey; that measures would be taken on the spot to expel the persons who had followed in her train; and that Mr. Charles Nutter himself would arrive in little more than an hour, to congratulate his good wife, Sally, on the ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... here once. Sam Wilkins, a man that weighed about three hundred pounds, was the turnkey at the penitentiary. He lived in one of the finest houses in the town at that time. Nigger bands had all the music then. I have seen white organizations like the Odd Fellows and Masons follow Negro bands. Nigger orchestras played ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... looking out upon the lawn and woods behind the castle. Just outside of the bed-room, and the first object that struck your eye on approaching it from the gallery, was a picture by one of his daughters, representing the burly turnkey of Olmuetz in the act of unlocking his dungeon-door. "It is a good likeness," said the General to me, the first time that he took me to his rooms,—"a very good likeness. I remember the features well." From ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... In Humphry Clinker, in the Letter of June 11, the turnkey of Clerkenwell Prison thus speaks of a Methodist:—'I don't care if the devil had him; here has been nothing but canting and praying since the fellow entered the place. Rabbit him! the tap will be ruined—we han't sold a cask of beer nor a dozen of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... opened like magic the three immense iron doors through anterooms in charge of trusties, in prison garb of the material of blue overalls and caps shaped like a low fez. Inside, a "preso de confianza" serving as turnkey led the way along a great stone corridor to a little central patio with flowers and a central fountain babbling merrily. From this radiated fifteen other long-vaulted passages, seeming each fully ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the cloisters, my ears were caught with the sound of music and dancing. The contrast was sufficiently strong to the scene from which I had just returned; yet this was the land of contrasts. To my look of surprise, the turnkey who attended me answered "Perhaps you have forgotten that this is Decadi, and on this night we always have our masquerade. If you have not got a dress, I shall supply you; my wife is a fripier in the Antoine; she supplies all the civic fetes with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... end came. It was a terribly cold night, and the prisoners in their cells suffered intensely. Some heard low sobs in little Nellie's cell, but no attention was paid to them. The next morning the turnkey went to visit her on his morning rounds, and he found her lying stiff and cold. She had frozen to death during the night, and her wish had been granted. The little thief had gone to the bar of a judge who tempers justice with ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... you, the Intelligencer is the evildoers' nemesis. Is your conscience clear, your past unsullied as a virgin's bed, your every deed open to search? Do you know what a penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the clang of a celldoor as the turnkey slammed it behind him and left you to think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... The Turnkey, on her arrest, had told Sam that she had been brought to the Fleet, "on a Cognovit for costs," Sam imparted this news to Job Trotter, and sent him off, hot foot, to Perker in Montague Place. This outcast, was able to tell him, ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... we should look after the comfort of our prisoner.' Then stepping across the litter to where Wych Hazel stood, he went on—'You know, of course, that you stand in that relation to us, Miss Kennedy? Primrose is turnkey, and I am governor. Would you like to see the ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... and goes through the operation in the public gaze. A stolid, good-natured hind mounts the seat. The dentist examines his mouth, and finds the offending tooth. He then turns to the crowd and explains the case. He takes a little instrument that is neither forceps nor turnkey, stands upon the seat, seizes the man's nose, and jerks his head round between his knees, pulling his mouth open (there is nothing that opens the mouth quicker than a sharp upward jerk of the nose) with a rude jollity that sets the spectators in a roar. Down he goes into ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... know that I shall feel philosophic, if we are served with nothing but bread and water. However, the turnkey told us that, until we have been tried and condemned, we are at liberty to get our food from outside—certainly a mockery, in most cases, considering that we all were relieved of any money found upon us, when we arrived in Harwich. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... The turnkey soon left the cell; the bolts rattled once more, and the key grated in the lock. After walking once or twice across his cell, May took up his volume of Beranger and for an hour or more seemed completely engrossed ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... General Advertiser for January 23, 1749, "about twenty fellows arm'd with Pistols, Cutlasses, Hangers, &c. went to the Gatehouse and one of them knocking at the Door, it was no sooner open'd than they all rush'd in, and struck and desperately wounded the Turnkey, and all that oppos'd them, and in Triumph carried off the Fellow who pick'd General Sinclaire's pocket of his watch as he was going into Leicester House." Surely, cries the indignant newspaper, "this instance ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... receive the weekly reports of the intendent, physician, and gardener. Once every year these officers, and the matron, wagoner, and baker are elected. Sixteen ounces of bread and eight ounces of beef are the ration of the district pauper. The turnkey, gate-keeper, chief watchmen, and chief nurses, are selected from the inmates. The gates are closed at sunset, and the lights go out at eight P.M. all winter. The inmates wear a uniform, labelled in large letters "Work-house," ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... me, mates, but ye'll find ye can't argue with the judge," went on Thirkle in a quiet tone, keeping his eyes on the ground. "Ye'll find ye can't talk the turnkey into liberty, and it will be too late the morning the hangman opens the door ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... contributing. He again appealed to the courts, and finally called a meeting of his fellow prisoners. They resolved to break out in a body, and march to Westminster, to remonstrate with the judges. Stephen seized a turnkey, and took the keys by force; but, finding his followers unruly, was wise enough to submit. He was sent with three others to the 'New Jail.' The prisoners in the King's Bench hereupon rose, and attacked the wall with a pickaxe. Soldiers were ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... me with eyes averted, and stood before the gate of the last steel cage—the woman's end of the prison—the turnkey following slowly. Cries of "Howdy, gal! What did ye git?" wore hurled after her, but she made no answer. The ominous sound of drawn bolts and the click of a key, and the girl and baby were inside the bars of the cage. These bars, foreshortened from where I stood, looked like a row of gun-barrels ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... at the door, but it was not the turnkey. It was the butler to murmur, "Dinner, please." She went down and joined mamma and papa at the table. There were no guests except Terror and Suspense, and both of them wore smiling masks and made no visible ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... I am commander in this expedition. An iron hand falls upon the man who disobeys my slightest wish. Criminals are but men; and they will find that no ordinary turnkey watches over them. But why borrow troubles? Let us to work and build our ships, get the stores on board, and man them, and the other difficulties can then be faced. We have three ships now, Master Cartier. Set ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... La Belle Alliance of dunces down at zero, Now that the Lion's fallen, may rise again: But I will fall at least as fell my Hero; Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign; Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go, With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.[ky] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... once to the largest town," said she, "but the name of it has escaped me. I have a very bad memory for names. I was carried from the railway, with some forfeited goods, to the jail, and on arriving I made my escape, and ran into the house of the turnkey. The turnkey was speaking of his prisoners, especially of one who had uttered thoughtless words. These words had given rise to other words, and at length they were written down and registered: 'The whole affair ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... his hat and declining his coat, notwithstanding the severity of the cold, said, with a dignified gesture and a tone of command, "Let us go." The king led the way, followed rather than conducted by his escort. Descending the stairs, he met the turnkey, who had been disrespectful to him the night before, and whom the king had reproached for his insolence. Louis immediately approached the unfeeling jailer, and said to him, "Mathey, I was somewhat warm with you yesterday; ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... expressed their gratitude for the attention they had met with from the sheriff and the inferior officers. Many pressed the hands of the turnkey to their lips, others to their hearts and on their knees, prayed that God, Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary would bless him and the other jailors for their goodness. They all then fervently joined in prayer. To the astonishment ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... I LAY SLEEPING, 3abcb, 6: A prisoner in the Knoxville [Tenn.] jail dreams of his home and sweetheart, but is rudely awakened by the turnkey to hear his ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... "twenty-sivin;" Simon she called "Simmun." She said Mrs. Varden was "the mildest, amiablest, forgivingest-sperited, longest-sufferingest female in existence." Baffled in all her matrimonial hopes, she was at last appointed female turnkey to a county Bridewell, which office she held for ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... singing the "Carmagnole" in drunken, discordant tones. Keys rattled, bolts were drawn; doors were being flung open. The noise increased. Above the general din he heard the detestable voice of the turnkey. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... wrapped in his wide cloak, under which he had slung on himself the bottles and provisions he was bringing. He had prepared some loose money in his breeches pocket, and immediately produced the three coins. The turnkey was holding the lantern in such a position that it was impossible to see his face, but a grimy hand shot out into the yellow glare to take ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford |
