"Drawbridge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... castle was erected on the eastern slope of the Gaviarra, overlooking the neighbouring provinces of Spain, and he had always refused to take these thirty-three baths, for he maintained that it was cowardly on the part of a man to show any fear of the demon. His castle was fully manned; the drawbridge was never left lowered; the turrets were never left unguarded; and a wide and deep ditch surrounded the whole of his estates, which had been given him by Affonso Henriques, after the complete overthrow of the Saracens at Ourique, in ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... train of the king and queens—but still in time to be so included in it so as to save all difficulty at the gates. It was, however, very late in the evening when they reached Calais, so that darkness was coming on as they waited their turn at the drawbridge, with a cart full of scullions and pots and pans before them, and a waggon-load of tents behind. The warders in charge of the gateway had orders to count over all whom they admitted, so that no unauthorised person might enter that much-valued ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... drive of seven or eight miles, we alighted in front of Speke Hall. This house is a specimen of the old fortified houses of England, and was once fitted up with a moat and drawbridge, all in approved feudal style. It was built somewhere about the year 1500. The sometime moat was now full of smooth, green grass, and ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... keep on the forest-bound gazed: The drawbridge was down, the portcullis was raised: And true to his hope came the palfrey amain, With his only loved lady, who checked ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... afterwards everything was over. Joshua's soldiers threw down their arms, and ran or galloped to right and left, save a number of them who fled through the gates of the palace, which they had opened, and across the drawbridge into the courtyards within. After them, or, rather, mixed up with them, followed the Mountaineers, killing all whom they could find, for they were out of hand and would not listen to the commands of Maqueda and their officers, that they ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... their children—families of settlers who had come to the fertile Ohio valley to take up homes. These were provided with shelter in houses made shot-proof. Small-pox had broken out in the garrison, and a hospital was prepared under the drawbridge, where the patients in time of siege would be in no danger from musket-balls or arrows. But the best defence of Fort Pitt was the capacity of Ecuyer—brave, humorous, foresighted; a host in himself—giving courage to his men and making ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... begged admittance for charity's sake, that he might share the broken bits of the wedding feast; but he was churlishly refused by the porter, who would not be moved by any entreaties. At last Horn lost all patience, and broke open the door, and threw the porter out over the drawbridge into the moat; then, once more assuming his disguise, he made his way into the hall and sat down ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... resistance but at the quay of L'Ecole, where an outpost of lanzknechts tried to stop them; but they were cut in pieces or hurled into the river. Between five and six o'clock Henry IV., at the head of the last division, crossed the drawbridge of the New Gate. Brissac, Provost L'Huillier, the sheriffs, and several companies of burgesses advanced to meet him. The king embraced Brissac, throwing his own white scarf round his neck, and addressing him as "Marshal." "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," said ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... saw, as he passed, this fine castle of the Ogre's, had a mind to go into it. Puss, who heard the noise of his Majesty's coach running over the drawbridge, ran out and ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... down between the jumbled rocks, beyond the reach of wind and weather. They were of great variety, large, small, wide, narrow; all ready to move into. They were the conies' castles, ready refuges from enemies, their devious passages as effective as drawbridge or portcullis. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... inhabitants—the smith, the carpenter, and the general shopkeeper, who called himself, and was called by others, the merchant. There was one house which appears to have stood apart from the rest and near Wesenham Heath. It probably was encircled by a moat, and approached by a drawbridge, the bridge being drawn up at sunset. It was called the Lyng House, and had been probably built two or three generations back, and now was occupied by a person of some consideration—viz., Thomas Middleton, Archdeacon of Suffolk, and brother of William Middleton, then ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... old mansion surrounded by a marshy ditch with a drawbridge which was but seldom let down:—not all guests are good people. Under the roof were loopholes to shoot through, and to pour down boiling water or even molten lead on the enemy, should he approach. Inside the house the rooms were ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and this private dining-room where we now sat. Into the spacious gardens of the castle she would seldom wander, into our town of Mondolfo never. Not since my father's departure upon his ill-starred rebellion had she set foot across the drawbridge. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... latter, in a large and splendid mansion, not far from the Porte St. Antoine, and commanding a direct view of the Place de la Bastille, with its esplanade, drawbridge, and principal entrance, a group was collected at one of the windows, nearly overlooking the gate itself, which seemed to take the liveliest interest in the proceedings of the day, although that interest was entirely unmixed with any thing like the brutal expectation, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... him cross the drawbridge, and take the road towards Rochdale, and, after exchanging a farewell wave of the hand with him, returned to the hall and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "It is then decided, since you speak only of the method. I shall lead him through the park; only order one of your maids whom you can trust to lower, exactly at midnight, the little drawbridge which leads from your antechamber to the flower garden and leave the rest to me." Having said this he rose and without waiting for any further comment from the Princess, he left, remounted his horse and went to look for the Duc de Guise, who was waiting for ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... those old chains whose ghostly clanking arose to harass him in this hour when life seemed to be holding out a new promise, when he saw happiness beckoning, when he was dreaming of pleasant things. He leaned over the rail on the Granville Street drawbridge watching a tug pass through, seeing the dusky shape of the small vessel, hearing the ripple of the flood tide against the stone piers, and scarcely conscious of the bridge or the ship or the gray dimness of the sea, so profound was the concentration of his mind on ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... its talk with the shore. At length we descended a sharp hill, reached the last level, drove over a bridge and down the line of the stream, saw the land vanish in the sea—a wide bay; then drove over another wooden drawbridge, and along the side of a canal in which lay half-a-dozen sloops and schooners. Then came a row of pretty cottages; then a gate, and an ascent, and ere we reached the rectory, we were aware of its proximity by loud shouts, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... the sad procession went over the drawbridge, Gaston was placed in a closed and locked chair and taken to the arsenal, which was separated from the Bastille by ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... at the drawbridge eyed with glances of awed suspicion the gallant young knight who had ridden so boldly up to the walls of Saut and had bidden him lower the bridge. A few paces behind the leader was a compact little body of horsemen, all well mounted and well armed, though it was ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and as the army of Sir Thomas Wyatt passed on the Surrey side in sight of the Tower, the ordnance which was placed thereon was discharged at them. Though the guns roared loudly, however, no injury was inflicted. When they came to London Bridge they found the gates shut and the drawbridge cut down. Onward they marched therefore to Kingston, there being no other means of passing the Thames till they could reach that place. Here also the bridge was broken down; but the Queen's men being dispersed, the insurgents crossed in boats, ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... has also a positive physiognomy of its own which takes you back to ages long before his birth. The frowning donjon of the thirteenth century, the machicolated round tower, the moat with its running water, the drawbridge, the vestibule with its columns of twisted oak, even the grand salon with the stately courtiers and captains, the gracious dames and damsels of the family of Secondat gazing down from the walls, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the bee in their bonnets, John Davenport gives us a capital example of the way in which Divine "judgments" may be made to work both ways at the pleasure of the interpreter. As the crowd was going home from the hanging, a drawbridge gave way, and some lives were lost. The Quakers, of course, made the most of this lesson to the pontifices in the bearing power of timber, claiming it as a proof of God's wrath against the persecutors. This was rather hard, since none of the magistrates perished, and the popular ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... others; but I shall only state one more, as occurring to a defenceless woman. My maternal grandmother occupied at the time of that rebellion the castle of Dungulph, in the county Wexford, the family residence. It was an old stronghold regularly fortified and surrounded by a moat, with a drawbridge; and when she left it to take refuge in the fort of Duncannon, with the other gentry of the county, it was immediately taken possession of by a force of rebels from the county Kilkenny, as a most valuable place of defence, &c. They remained in possession for about a fortnight, and during that time ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... donjons of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, one being nearly a hundred and fifty feet high. The castle was raised upon a table of calcareous rock; but only the towers, a portion of the outer wall built of enormous blocks of stone, and a ruined archway marking the spot where the drawbridge once hung, remain to tell ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... common talk at Count William's court that the brave Lady of Arkell, mother of the Count Otto, had made her way, disguised, into we castle of her son, had herself lowered the drawbridge, admitted her armed retainers, overpowered and driven out her rebellious son; and that then, relenting, she had appealed to Count William to pardon the lad and to receive him at court as hostage for his own fealty. So this fling of the ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... was then practically impregnable, and twenty men could have held it against all Scotland. Around it was, and is, a roadless waste of bent and dune, from which it was severed by a narrow rib of rock jutting seawards, the ridge being cut by a cavity which was spanned by a drawbridge. Master of this inaccessible eyrie, Logan was most serviceable to the plotters of these ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... with mire and weeds. But the largest passage and most used was, and is, that towards the south and town; there being formerly a portcullis over that gate, which was made in one of the strongest towers, and a drawbridge without, defended by an half-moon of stone, about a man's height, standing in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... the drawbridge, gather some forces To Cornhill and Cheapside:—and, gentlemen, If diligence be weighed on every side, A quiet ebb will follow this ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... seem to be descending to fly with them. One of these mirrors shows Huon of Bordeaux playing at chess with the king's daughter: another represents a castle, which occupies the upper centre of the circle, and under the window is a drawbridge, across which passes a procession of mounted knights. One of these has paused, and, standing balancing himself in a most precarious way on the pommels of his saddle, is assisting a lady to descend from a window. Below are seen others, or perhaps the same lovers, in a later ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... certainly to have belonged to Gorlois when Uther was Pendragon or Head-king of Britain; it would have been a cliff-castle such as that on Pentire Head. As years passed the rock probably became more insular, and when the Norman stronghold was built it was connected with the mainland by a drawbridge. From earliest times the castle attached to the Earls of Cornwall, one of whom protected David, Prince of Wales, during his revolt against Edward I. Later it was used as a kind of prison, a Mayor of London being confined within it. ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... wall and warned the captain of the guard. At once was given the command, "Make the entrance free! Let every minstrel, every herald, every squire, prepare to receive Lord Marmion, who waits below!" The iron-studded gate was unbarred, the portcullis raised, the drawbridge dropped, and proudly across it, stepped a red roan charger, ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... and while Alan Hawke squired, the aggressive Miss Genie, Casimir Wieniawski was bending over the slightly dreamy and more romantic Miss Phenie! They distributed themselves in open order, as they strolled along toward the drawbridge of that most hospitable of old ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... requirements of modern civilization. I would illustrate my views by observing that, in ancient times, before the Wars of the Roses, a baron, or even a yeoman, would surround his residence with a moat to be crossed only by a drawbridge, and instead of the convenient door of modern times, he would have a portcullis, which he would raise or let fall to admit a friend, or exclude a foe. A visitor, too, would have instead of gaining immediate access, to sound a horn at an outer gate, and hold parley with a warder ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... had received the reports and had dismissed them. The Sixty-ninth still occupied Fort Corcoran, and one morning, after reveille, when I had just received the report, had dismissed the regiment, and was leaving, I found myself in a crowd of men crossing the drawbridge on their way to a barn close by, where they had their sinks; among them was an officer, who said: "Colonel, I am going to New York today. What can I do for you?" I answered: "How can you go to New York? I do not remember to have signed a leave ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... sincerity of the latter's aspirations that the castel was not a shock to her faith. It was neither a cheerful nor a luxurious abode, but it was as full of wonders as a box of old heirlooms or objects "willed." It had battered towers and an empty moat, a rusty drawbridge and a court paved with crooked grass-grown slabs over which the antique coach-wheels of the lady with the hooked nose seemed to awaken the echoes of the seventeenth century. Euphemia was not frightened out of her dream; she had the pleasure ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... Beaumains, being healed of his wounds, armed himself, and took his horse and spear and rode straight to the castle of Dame Lyones, for greatly he desired to see her. But when he came to the gate they closed it fast, and pulled the drawbridge up. And as he marvelled thereat, he saw the Lady Lyones standing at a window, who said, "Go thy way as yet, Sir Beaumains, for thou shalt not wholly have my love until thou be among the worthiest knights of all the world. Go, ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... take up their lodging in that inn the same evening. And as our knight-errant believed all that he saw or heard to take place in the same manner as he had read in his books, he no sooner saw the inn than he fancied it to be a castle with four turrets and pinnacles of shining silver, with a drawbridge, a deep moat, and all such things as belong to grand castles. Drawing slowly towards it, he checked Rozinante with the bridle when he was close to the inn, and rested awhile to see if any dwarf would mount on the battlements to give ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... with the digging of a huge sand castle, and suggested a rampart of stones to fortify the deep moat round it. Georgie and Estelle were delighted with the windows and doors, the gardens with shells for flowers, the drawbridge, and the paved way through the ramparts. Georgie even proposed to find some sea-anemones to place among the shells as an additional ornament, and Marjorie was in the act of explaining that it would be cruel to ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Falston, was built by a Baynton, about perhaps Henry the Fifth. Here was a noble old-fashioned house, with a mote about it and drawbridge, and strong high walles embatteled. They did consist of a layer of freestone and a layer of flints, squared or headed; two towers faced the south, one the east, the other the west end. After the garrison was gonn the mote was filled ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... name of the Trinity, Let down the drawbridge quick to me, And open doors, that I may ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... bugle-call. You, there, hasten to the gate! Throw up the portcullis and drop the drawbridge! Stir yourselves, or even now you may suffer for your master's sins! It has been a narrow ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fall the drawbridge with a mighty clatter." Mary-Clare looked majestic even in her muddy trousers as she portrayed the action. "And over the Gap will come the Princess Light-of-my-Heart with ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... the shots; and shouts were heard, and loud orders, and the sentries over the gate discharged their muskets. There was little time given them to rally, however; for Captain Kent, with four of his men, had, on leaping from the cart, made straight across the drawbridge over the moat, for the gateway, to which they attached the petards which they had brought with them. Then they ran back to the main body, who stood awaiting the explosion. In a few seconds it came, and then with a cheer the troops dashed across the drawbridge, ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... architecture resembles Gothic and Grecian manners, which naturally do give their colour to such arts as are naturally the result of them. Tyranny and gloomy suspicion are the characteristics of the one, openness and sociability strongly mark the other—when to the gay portico succeeded the sullen drawbridge, and to the lively corridor, a secret ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... shade was now so congenial with the tone of his spirits. Every feature of the edifice, distinguished by an air of heavy grandeur, appeared successively between the branches of the trees—the broad turret, the arched gate-way that led into the courts, the drawbridge, and the dry ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the contented occupant of an old yellow coach, and had been satisfied with the pace of two jaded post-horses. But, as I crossed the drawbridge and climbed the steep hill which led to the principal gateway, I found myself mounted on rapid wings, and whirling through the centuries. Not that I was rushing on in advance of the age. No,—the wings flapped ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... to do on holidays to give them a good time. There is only one thing I can see leaving a doubt of this school coming into being. It is that Lily has moments, she confessed to me, of thinking almost equally well of a castle with a moat and drawbridge and a page to walk before her carrying her prayer-book on a cushion. She's ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... stood, looking seawards, the ground sunk to the narrow isthmus supposed by Malcolm to fill a cleft formerly crossed by a drawbridge, and, beyond it, rose again to the grassy mounds in which lay so many of the old ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... only a costermonger with his donkey and a pannier of cabbage! Sister Ann, Sister Ann, what is that cloud of dust? Oh, it is only a farmer's man driving a flock of pigs from market. Sister Ann, Sister Ann, who is that splendid warrior advancing in scarlet and gold? He nears the castle, he clears the drawbridge, he lifts the ponderous hammer at the gate. Ah me, he knocks twice! 'Tis only the postman with a double letter from Northamptonshire! So it is we make false starts in life. I don't believe there is any such thing known as first love—not within man's or woman's memory. No male or female ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... number of fashionable women of very good appearance, who had left their carriages at some distance." To the hundred and twenty men of the garrison looking down from their parapets it seemed as though all Paris had come out against them. It is they, also, who lower the drawbridge an introduce the enemy: everybody has lost his head, the besieged as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely because they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... absently, all absorbed in a winding river, a moat, and a drawbridge. "Aunt Margaret won't let me have one, I know. Will they wear them on ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... five years the baby lived in the castle alone with his nurses, taking his airings on the broad terraces, which were surrounded by walls, with a moat beneath them, and only a drawbridge to connect them ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... of pursuit, the captors kept at a brisk pace, not drawing rein until the walls of a large and strong castle loomed up near the forest border. The gates flew open and the drawbridge fell at their demand, and the small cavalcade rode into the powerful stronghold, the entrance to which was immediately closed behind them. It was the castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach, Saxony, within whose strong walls the man thus mysteriously carried off was to remain hidden ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... had fallen, when the tramp of the dapple-gray steed sounded over the drawbridge, and immediately afterward the light clatter of hoofs along the road, bespoke the fleetness with which the youthful lover hastened to his bride. It was deep night when the Moor arrived at the castle of Coyn. He silently and cautiously walked his ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... closed only at night. On the seaward side of this enclosure was what may be termed the citadel, or real fortification; it was built of solid masonry, with parapets, was surrounded by a deep ditch, and was only accessible by a drawbridge, mounted with cannon on every side. Its real strength, however, could not well be perceived, as it was hidden by the high palisading which surrounded the whole establishment. After a careful survey, Philip recommended that the large peroquas with the cannon should attack by sea, while the men ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... on unseen flowers. They loved to hear and to tell of the grand and beautiful things at that fairy palace, the Castle,—a noble old edifice, with massive towers, a moat, a lofty gateway, and an ancient drawbridge and portcullis, which stood high in the midst of ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... sauntered along the ramparts, which are flanked by broad ditches—of course plentifully supplied with water; and passing over the drawbridge, by which all carriages enter the town—and which absolutely trembles as if about to sink beneath you, as the diligence rolls over it.—I made for the boulevards and tea-gardens; to which, business being well nigh over, the inhabitants of Havre flock by hundreds and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... would make it even now a substantial place of defence, according to Greek tactics. Its deep foss is cut in the solid rock, and furnished with subterranean magazines for the storage of provisions. The three piles of solid masonry on which the drawbridge rested, still stand in the centre of this ditch. The oblique grand entrance to the foss descends by a flight of well-cut steps. The rock itself over which the fort was raised is honeycombed with excavated passages for infantry and cavalry, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... had sent a messenger forward to inform the Duke of York of his capture. The consequence was that the cavalcade had no sooner crossed the first drawbridge under the great gateway of the castle, where the banner of Plantagenet was displayed, than before it were seen a goodly company, in the glittering and gorgeous ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... extraordinarily beautiful work in metal. Between them — for one set is placed at the entrance to an interior, and one at that of the exterior wall — is a fosse, forty-five feet in width. This fosse is filled with water and spanned by a drawbridge, which when lifted makes the palace nearly impregnable to anything except siege guns. As we came, one half of the wide gates were flung open, and we passed over the drawbridge and presently stood gazing up one of the most imposing, if not the most imposing, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... shape and enlarge, dotted with lamps as though pricked over with pin-holes. The fiery clock of the station, that sits up all night from year's end to year's end; the dark figures with tumbrils, and a stray coach waiting; the yellow gateway and drawbridge of the fortress just beyond, and the chiming of carillons in a wheezy fashion from the old watch-tower within, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... on east bank, meets the Hudson one mile above Sing Sing; crossed by drawbridge of the ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... wall. Between me and the wall was an open space of grass, with other grey avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: "If I wait long enough, the guardian will turn up and show me the tombs—" and I rather ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... of Arabic or Persian origin), an outwork for the defence of a gate or drawbridge; also a sort of pent-house or construction of timber to shelter warders or sentries from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the towers of Cairncarque. There was a castle indeed!—something to call a castle!—with its huge square tower at every corner, and its still huger two towers in the middle of its front, its moat, and the causeway where once had been its drawbridge!—Yes! there were the spikes of the portcullis, sticking down from the top of the gateway, like the long upper teeth of a giant or ogre! That was a real castle—such as he had read of in books, such as ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... perhaps, rather, a long-lost enemy, in a crowd. At last she stopped before a flight of steps, at the foot of which was a landing place for half a dozen little boats, employed to carry passengers between the two sides of the port, at times when the drawbridge above was closed for the passage of vessels. While she stood she was witness of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... their beds of ooze and sea-kelp. His amusement had been in the sight of the passing ships, in his daily walk along the narrow neck of shingle connecting the castle with the mainland, and in the companionship of his select attendants in the evenings, when the drawbridge was up, the guard set, the woodfires blazing indoors, and the candles lit. He had brought with him from Newport fourteen personal attendants in all, including his two gentlemen of the bedchamber, Mr. James Harrington (afterwards known as the author of Oceana) ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... reminding me of an American militia hero on training day. We looked at the fence of palisades, and stepped under the gateway leading to the government quarter. Over the gate was a small room like the drawbridge room in a castle of the middle ages. Twenty men could be lodged there to throw arrows, hot water, or Chinese perfumery on ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... to me," said Shif'less Sol lazily, "that we ain't on an islan' no longer. The Superior Powers hev built a drawbridge, ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... age. All this was done as they did appoint: only Gargantua, doubting that they could not quickly find out breeches fit for his wearing, because he knew not what fashion would best become the said orator, whether the martingale fashion of breeches, wherein is a spunghole with a drawbridge for the more easy caguing: or the fashion of the mariners, for the greater solace and comfort of his kidneys: or that of the Switzers, which keeps warm the bedondaine or belly-tabret: or round breeches with straight cannions, having in the seat ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... hundred yards in length, the greater portion was constructed on timber piles, over 500 in number, in 113 spans, driven into the sand. The navigable channel, at the Barmouth end, was crossed by an iron-work construction, of seven fixed and one opening span. The latter was of the drawbridge type, and when lifted at one end by means of large screws was carried on wheels and could be drawn back over the ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... fortress called Castel Nuovo. On the 21st of May, the mine was sprung; a passage was opened over the prostrate ramparts, and the assailants, rushing in with Gonsalvo and Navarro at their head, before the garrison had time to secure the drawbridge, applied their ladders to the walls of the castle, and succeeded in carrying the place by escalade, after a desperate struggle, in which the greater part of the French were slaughtered. An immense booty was found in the castle. The Angevin party had made it a place of deposit ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... thrown open, the drawbridge was lowered with a noise of chains and iron bars that sounded very medieval, and in the courtyard before the castle an elderly man in a gray military cloak was seen at a distance, walking slowly and leaning ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... royal palace to get the earliest and most authentic news, and after waiting some moments, passed in exchanging sad reflections, were obliged to return as they had come, since nothing that went on in the privacy of the family found its way outside—the castle was plunged in complete darkness, the drawbridge was raised as usual, and the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... returned from the Continent, where he had learnt to throw aside all prejudices about family feuds and everything eke, and he had just come over in a friendly way, to say as much to Sir Anthony, when, as he crossed the drawbridge, he stumbled over the corpse of his ancient enemy—well, the retainers had no sooner made mincemeat of him, than they perceived that Sir Anthony was lying with an open bottle in his hand, and that he ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the earliest colonies ever founded by the Romans; then the capital of the Visigothic kingdom; then of an Arab kingdom: now a dull fortified town—of a filth unspeakable, and not to be forgotten or forgiven. Stay not therein an hour, lest you take fever, or worse: but come out of the gate over the drawbridge, and stroll down the canal. Look back a moment, though, across the ditch. The whole face of the wall is a museum of Roman gods, tombs, inscriptions, bas- reliefs: the wreck of Martial's 'Pulcherrima Narbo,' the old Roman city, which was demolished by Louis XIII., to build the ugly ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... was surrounded by a moat over which there was a drawbridge. Jack set men to work to cut the bridge on both sides, nearly to the middle, and then, dressed in his magic coat, went out to meet the giant. As the giant came along, although he could not see Jack, yet he could tell that someone was ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... of the first who took to the custom of wearing beards, for, great as he was, he had a fear of the race of barbers! He built a tower in his palace, guarded by deep ditches and thick walls. It had but one drawbridge and one bay-window. There was no other opening; so that the very light of day had scarcely admittance, or the inmates a place to breathe at. In this tower he slept; and it was his wife's business to put a ladder down for him when he came in. A dog kept watch at the drawbridge; and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... half a mile together they go across the stream with their bowsprits over the land, their bows, or heads touching the very wharf; so that one may walk from ship to ship as on a floating bridge, all along by the shore-side. The quay reaching from the drawbridge almost to the south gate, is so spacious and wide, that in some places it is near one hundred yards from the houses to the wharf. In this pleasant and agreeable range of houses are some very magnificent buildings, and among the ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... The drawbridge had been let down, and the stranger was before the gate. He was a tall gallant cavalier, mounted on a black steed. His countenance was pale, but he had a beaming, romantic eye and an air of stately melancholy. The baron was a little mortified that he should have come ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... from every slit in the two-foot walls, it is probable that before two of the nearly two hundred steps had been surmounted, we would have been levelled also. Passing between once impregnable walls (where English soldiers also passed in days of yore), we crossed the now harmless-looking drawbridge and rang the bell. A woman opened the door and requested us to enter, a request which evidently met with the approbation of two diminutive youngsters, whose faces were dimpled with smiles wherever the fat would allow. Keeping along the right wall in the direction ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... saved his country," said Porthos. "The horses will be as light as if our tissues were constructed of the wind of heaven. So let us be off." And the carriage, lightened of a prisoner, who might well be—as he in fact was—very heavy in the sight of Aramis, passed across the drawbridge of the Bastile, which was ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... towers that controlled the drawbridge across the outer moat was changed at four o'clock; six men came out, under an officer, from the inner court; the words were exchanged, and the six that went off duty marched into the armoury to lay by their pikes and presently ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... know, and portly towers along the battlements. A thousand chimneys ceased smoking at the curfew-bell. There were gibbets at the gate as thick as scarecrows. In time of war, the assault swarmed against it with ladders, the arrows fell like leaves, the defenders sallied hotly over the drawbridge, each side uttered its cry as they plied their weapons. Do you know that the walls extended as far as the Commanderie? Tradition so reports. Alas! what a long way off is all this confusion—nothing left of it but my quiet words spoken in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tore it open. It was from Heinzman, and requested an immediate interview. Orde delayed only long enough to get Mr. Welton's signature, then hastened as fast as his horse could take him across the drawbridge to ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... of realism was attained by means of an imitation moat over the orchestra well. Across this was a drawbridge, which was raised and dropped at fitting intervals, and the drop curtain was made to represent a massive castle door. There was a banquet chamber, with faultless reproductions of mediaeval grandeur and wonder. Stained glass windows ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... most curious village. Ojeda could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes. Twenty large cone-shaped houses were built on piles driven into the bottom of the lake, which in that part was clear and shallow. Each house had its drawbridge, and communicated with its neighbors and with the shore by means of canoes gliding along the water-ways between the piles. The interpreters said it was ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... gateway and drawbridge across the moat were destroyed; the huge blocks of masonry were tossed about, were playthings in the hands of the mighty force of high explosives which flung them there. These scenes I carefully filmed, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... hastened towards the fortress, when one of those chances which Heaven bestows on men of strong will caused Grimaud suddenly to perceive the carriage, which was entering by the great gate of the drawbridge. This was the moment that D'Artagnan was, as we have seen, returning from his visit to the king. In vain was it that Raoul urged on his horse in order to join the carriage, and to see whom it contained. The horses had already gained the other side of the great gate, which ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of Chillon stands on the very margin of the lake, just in the edge of the water. Indeed, the foundations on which it stands form a little island, which is separated by a narrow channel from the shore. This channel is crossed by a drawbridge. It is possible, however, that it may be in some measure artificial. The island may have originally been a small rocky point, and it may have been made an island by the cutting of a ditch between ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... again, but with extraordinary kindness from my Lady, who looks upon me like one of her own family and interest. So thence, my wife and people by the highway, and I walked over the park with Mr. Shepley, and through the grove, which is mighty pretty, as is imaginable, and so over their drawbridge to Nun's Bridge, and so to my father's, and there sat and drank, and talked a little, and then parted. And he being gone, and what company there was, my father and I, with a dark lantern; it being now night, into the garden with my wife, and there went about our great work to dig ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... broad shoulders the beautiful palace and garden-terrace of Elisabeth, wife of the Pfalzgraf Frederick. In the rear are older palaces and towers, forming a vast, irregular quadrangle;—Rodolph's ancientcastle, with its Gothic gloriette and fantastic gables; the Giant's Tower, guarding the drawbridge over the moat; the Rent Tower, with the linden-trees growing on its summit, and the magnificent Rittersaal of Otho-Henry, Count Palatine of the Rhine and grand seneschal of the Holy Roman Empire. From the gardens behind the castle, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... cheek the flush of rage O'ercame the ashen hue of age. Fierce he broke forth,—"And dar'st thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall? And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go? No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no! Up drawbridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! Let the portcullis fall." Lord Marmion turned,—well was his need,— And dashed the rowels in his steed, Like arrow through the archway sprung; The ponderous gate behind him rung: To pass there was such scanty ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... hastened down the stairs to the courtyard, followed by Francois and Philip, and received her two unexpected visitors as they rode across the drawbridge. ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... I set out alone to explore the strange place, and with much difficulty and some apprehension—for I did not know how the natives were disposed—ascended a steep rocky path, at the summit of which a wooden drawbridge leads over a deep abyss to the gate of the city. This bridge is the only access to Yezdi-Ghazt, which is, so ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... vases—brings home more clearly than any textbook the real meaning of the Roman Empire, whose citizens lived like this in a foggy island at the uttermost edge of its world. The Norman castle, with moat and drawbridge, gatehouse and bailey and keep, arrow slits instead of windows, is more eloquent than a hundred chronicles of the perils of life in the twelfth century; not thus dwelt the private gentleman in the days of Rome. The country manor-house ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... the south, by another bridge, with the Irish town on the county of Limerick side. The Thomond Bridge was defended by a strong fort and some field works on the Clare side, and on the city side by a drawbridge, flanked by towers and the city walls. The bridge was ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... part of the castle stands, while on the mainland another portion is built. We were now standing at the bottom of a chasm looking up two hundred feet or more to the castle walls, which were originally joined by a drawbridge. The castle was anciently called Dunchine, or the Fort of the Chasm. A zigzag path enabled us to gain the summit of the cliffs. The entrance to the castle was through a gateway, a ruined archway which still stands. Passing through it, we entered a court, called King ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... ditch thus formed a stockade of sharp pointed stakes. Within the court, the well, 300 feet deep, was dug, and round it would have been the buildings needed by the Bishop, his household and guards, much crowded together. The entrance would have been a drawbridge, across the great ditch, which on this side was not less than 60 feet wide and perhaps 25 deep, and through a great gateway between two high square towers which must have stood where now there is a slope leading down from the inner court, into the southern one. This slope is probably ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moat and drawbridge have, indeed, been transferred from the actual world to that of fiction, history, and art, except where preserved as memorials of antiquity; but the civil importance which from the dawn of civilization attached to the bridge is as patent to-day as when a Roman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... engines at Toledo was 2 minutes and 28 seconds, and at 7.04.07 the train was sliding out of the yards again. Coming out of Toledo the railway runs over a drawbridge; and boats on the river below have right of way. But not on such an occasion as this; for there, waiting patiently, lay a tug tied up to a pier of the bridge, with her tow swinging ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... access to the first quadrangle which was lined with shops and the houses of the personnel of the prison: then came a second gate, with entrances for carriages and for foot passengers, each with its drawbridge. Beyond these a second quadrangle was entered, to the right of which stood the Governor's house and an armoury. Another double portal to the left gave entrance across the old fosse once fed by the waters of the Seine, to the prison fortress itself, with its eight tall ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... the Great Harry, crank and tall, Whose picture was hanging on the wall, With bows and stern raised high in air, And balconies hanging here and there, And signal lanterns and flags afloat, And eight round towers, like those that frown From some old castle, looking down Upon the drawbridge and the moat, And he said, with a smile, "Our ship, I wis, Shall be of another form ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... Franconia, Munich, Augsburg, Regensburg, and perhaps, above all, Nuernberg, represented the high-water mark of mediaeval civilization as regards town life. On entering the burg, should it have happened to be in time of peace and in daylight, the stranger would clear the drawbridge and the portcullis without much challenge; passing along streets lined with the houses and shops of the burghers, in whose open frontages the master and his apprentices and gesellen plied their trades, discussing eagerly over their ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... to the ground before the magic cap. Up above, on the ramparts of Milianah, the head of the Arab Department, who was out for an airing with his wife, hearing these unusual noises, and seeing the weapons gleam between the branches, fancied there was a revolt, and ordered the drawbridge to be raised, the general alarm to be sounded, and the whole town put under a state of siege. A capital commencement ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... the Tennessee by the railroad bridge; but before all the Confederate troops had succeeded in crossing Leadbetter caused to be exploded two hundred pounds of powder, with a view of blowing up the east span of the bridge. The explosion did not do the work, hence the drawbridge at the east end was fired, to complete its destruction.( 9) But few captures were made. Leadbetter also abandoned his camp east of the river, and was forced to abandon two guns placed in position on the east bank. One of the Andrews raiders of the 33d Ohio, who, to save himself ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the Pont la Guillotiere, we were led to remark the probable antiquity of its construction. The centre still retains the drawbridge; and the whole fabric appears to have been widened, when wheel carriages came into fashion, with a supplementary parallel slice, riveted on to it by iron bolts. This expedient rather reminded me of a story which I had heard in my infancy, of a ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... by a moat, thirty feet deep and twenty wide, over which lay a drawbridge. Jack set men to work, to cut the bridge on both sides, near the middle; and then dressing himself in his invisible coat, went against the Giant with his sword of sharpness. As he came close to him, though the Giant could not see him, yet he ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... drawbridge!" cried the count. "Curses on it!" he added, "I had forgotten that drawbridge and portcullis, every means of ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... going through their various parts on what was once the drawbridge in front of the portcullis, near the old watchtower on the stairway that was originally an inclined way, by which artillery was hauled ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... its green hill was a fit centre of the closely mingled life of the rulers and their people. Rebuilt on its ancient rude foundations under the reign of Pierre de Savoy, it possessed the great towers and sentinel tourelles, the moat, drawbridge, courtyards, terrace and arsenal of the time, but in its enchanting situation, its intimate, inviting charm, it quite uniquely expressed the sense and love of beauty of ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... fast-day fare. Although it had proved (as described in our earlier tale) incapable of a prolonged defence, yet its situation was quite such as to protect the priory from any sudden violence on the part of the "merrie men" or nightly marauders, and when the drawbridge was up, the gateway closed, the good brethren slept none the less soundly for feeling ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... Mr. Macaulay, the minister who published an account of St. Kilda, and by his direction visited Calder Castle, from which Macbeth drew his second title. It has been formerly a place of strength. The drawbridge is still to be seen, but the moat is now dry. The tower is very ancient: Its walls are of great thickness, arched on the top with stone, and surrounded with battlements. The rest of the house is later, though ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... was sitting on the drawbridge of the main gate of Fort Amara, with his hands in his pockets and his pipe, bowl down, in his mouth. Learoyd was lying at full length on the turf of the glacis, kicking his heels in the air, and I came round the corner and ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... build engines of war and to prepare for the assault. Godfrey, Raymond, and Tancred constructed three movable towers, each higher than the city wall. Godfrey's had three platforms, and on the topmost one a drawbridge to be ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... of undressed stone, and without any pretensions to architectural beauty. Beyond this was the entrance to the citadel. This place was on the crest of the hill, and was surrounded by a dry ditch and a wall. A drawbridge led across the ditch to the gate. On reaching this place the party had to stop, and the priest sent in his name to the governor or commandant. After waiting some time, a message came to admit them. Thereupon they all passed through, and ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... quick savage glance at the pocket of the giant, S.T. MATE, and then, without a word, he proudly crossed the drawbridge. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... up to a plateau on which stood a gaunt, grey, turreted castle, the very picture of the sea-robbers' home that it had been in the days of Oscarovitch's not very remote ancestors. Up this road and into the outer gate across the lowered drawbridge the sleeping-sack and the insensible man within were borne. Through the keep-yard it was taken into the Castle and up to a large room in the eastern turret, comfortably furnished, and containing a bed almost as luxurious as that in which Prince Zastrow had lain down to sleep the ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... for writing bad English, and secondly for daring to 'damn with faint praise' the loyal, generous, joyous, chivalrous, religious soldier, Frederick, Baron de la Motte-Fouque, and prince of romance. When the latter presents himself for admission my castle needs short siege. The drawbridge falls before the summons; and when I see him cross my threshold with his lovely and noble children, Ondine and Sintram, I should be almost too happy, if I were not afraid of his being affronted by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... (early days of 1414); makes his appearance before Quitzow's strong house of Friesack, walls fourteen feet thick: "You, Dietrich von Quitzow, are you prepared to live as a peaceable subject henceforth? to do homage to the laws and me?" "Never!" answered Quitzow, and pulled up his drawbridge. Whereupon Heavy Peg opened upon him, Heavy Peg and other guns; and, in some eight-and-forty hours, shook Quitzow's impregnable Friesack about his ears. This was in the month of February, 1414, day not given: Friesack was the name of the impregnable ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... marched those gleaming phalanxes, and the rattle of their bony tread echoed through the silent air as they pressed grimly on. They passed through the city and clomb the wall, and marched along the great roadway that was made upon the wall, till at length they once more reached the drawbridge. Then, as the sun was sinking, they returned again towards their sepulchre, and luridly his light shone in the sockets of their empty eyes, throwing gigantic shadows of their bones, that stretched away, and crept and crept ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Don't let that worthless candle-dealer's children leave the house till their time is up. If you wish to visit your father in the watch-tower there will be no difficulty. I'll tell the warder. Only the drawbridge will be raised after sunset. You can provide for his bodily needs, too, Els. We cannot release him yet; the law must ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of playing "I-spy" through Kenilworth Castle with Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Mary Ann Evans and a youth I used to know in boyhood by the name of Bill Hursey. We chased each other across the drawbridge, through the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. Finally Shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... of yesterday had painted the hills for me, and the northwest wind cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roads just in time to meet the Claremont baker and buy my dinner loaf of him. And when my walk was nearly done, I came out on the low bridge at Sewell's, which is a drawbridge, just before they raised it for a passing boat, instead of the moment after. Because I was all right I felt myself and called myself "The Child of Good Fortune." Dear reader, in a world made by a loving Father, we are all of us children of good fortune, if we only ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... the surface again at Dyckman Street and continues by viaduct over Naegle Avenue, Amsterdam Avenue, and Broadway to Bailey Avenue, at the Kingsbridge station of the New York & Putnam Railroad, crossing the Harlem Ship Canal on a double-deck drawbridge. The length of this route is 13.50 miles, of which about 2 miles are ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... The drawbridge is soon let down, and the gates opened wide to receive the knight. Many noble ones hasten to bid him welcome (ll. 773-825). They take away his helmet, sword, and shield, and many a proud one presses forward to do him honour. They bring him into the hall, where a fire was brightly ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... I lost no time in crossing the drawbridge and entering the long low archway which, passing under the rampart, communicates with the town. Beneath this archway paced with measured tread, tall red-coated sentinels with shouldered guns. There was no stopping, no sauntering in these men. There ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... The drawbridge was yet down, for a small party of men-at-arms had just been admitted, and across it rushed boy, and horse, and dog before the warder had time to wind his horn: the horse and rider unharmed, but ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... feeling comes over us directly we leave the highroad and make our way down the sloped passage and across the drawbridge over the moat, past the massive gates and under the echoing tunnel that leads through the mighty walls. Within we see the parapets on which in bygone days the cannon thundered at the foe. We pass on into the great spaces of the Fort; and ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... course, with a few companions, towards it. As Adair and Higson led on the main body, the garrison gave way, some hurrying off to conceal themselves in the chambers from which they had just before emerged, while others made for a gate in the rear of the fort leading to the drawbridge, which was, however, up. Before they could lower it, Adair, with most of his men, was upon them, when, with a loud voice, he ordered them not to touch the chains unless they wished to ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... detached itself from the embankments and the stones which have fallen from the battlements, have a wide, deep curve, like hatred and pride; and the portal, with its strong, slightly arched ogive, and its two bays that raise the drawbridge, looks like a great helmet ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... trumpets blow; And, from the platform, spare ye not To fire a noble salvo-shot: Lord Marmion waits below!" Then to the castle's lower ward Sped forty yeomen tall, The iron-studded gates unbarred, Raised the portcullis' ponderous guard, The lofty palisade unsparred, And let the drawbridge fall. ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... orders, to the Castle of l'Escarpe, a name which sufficiently indicates its situation. This fortress, perched on very high rocks, has precipices for its trenches; it is reached on all sides by steep and dangerous paths; and, like every ancient castle, its principal gate has a drawbridge over a wide moat. The commandant of this prison, delighted to have charge of a man of family whose manners were most agreeable, who expressed himself well, and seemed highly educated, received the Chevalier as a godsend; he offered him the freedom ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Lady Ursula's brother in Kittery. A drawbridge to the house, which was raised every evening, and lowered in the morning, for the laborers and the family to pass out. They kept thirty cows, a hundred sheep, and several horses. The house spacious,—one room large enough to ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... law tried to interfere, Devil Anse built a drawbridge to span the creek beside which his house stood, stationed a bevy of armed Hatfields around his place, and ruled his clan like a ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... thought it advisable to seek admission, though rather doubtful whether the Swiss gendarme might not deem it a sin to let us into the castle on Sunday. But he very readily admitted us under his covered drawbridge, and called an old man from within the fortress to show us whatever was to be seen. This latter personage was a staid, rather grim, and Calvinistic-looking old worthy; but he received us without scruple, and forthwith proceeded to usher us into ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that falcon he heard the portcullis of the castle lifted, with a great noise, and the drawbridge let fall, and therewith there came a lady riding out of the castle very rapidly upon a white mule, and she rode toward where Sir Launcelot watched the falcon upon the tree. When that lady had come nigh to Sir Launcelot, she cried out to him: "Sir Knight, didst thou see ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... and another who heard her, Captain Beekman, now gave pursuit to the robbers, who had already got beyond the main guard. Word was instantly shouted to the warder of the drawbridge to stop the villains, but Blood was equal to this emergency; coolly advancing, he discharged his pistol at the man, who instantly fell. The thieves then crossed the bridge, passed through the outward gate, and made for the street close by, where their ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... Castle of Dunbar, as all folk know, is a strong Castle, standing as it doth well out to sea, on a mass of solid rock, and connected with the mainland only by one narrow strip of land, which is defended by a drawbridge and portcullis, and walls of solid masonry. Its other sides need no defence, for the wild waters of the Northern Sea beat about them with such fury that it is only at certain times of the tide that even peaceful boatmen can find a safe landing. Indeed, 'tis one of the strongest fortresses ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson |
