"Knocker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these. Under the high portico the door was open, but the house within was dark. My father paused, and the hand he held to mine trembled. Then he stepped across the threshold, and raising the big polished knocker that hung on the panel, let it drop. The sound reverberated through the house, and then stillness. And then, from within, a shuffling sound, and an old negro came to the door. For an instant he stood staring through the dusk, and broke into ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was installed there, beneath a now merely ornamental knocker in grotesque gargoyle form. I pressed it, peering through the iron latticework at the stately court. The answer was prompt. Down the steps of the hotel came a white-headed majordomo, gorgeously arrayed, and so pictorial that he might ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... the temple is seen in Fig. 236, the dense mountain verdure rising above and beyond it. And then too, within the temple, as the peasant men and women came before the shrine and grasped the long depending rope knocker, with the heavy knot in front of the great gong, swinging it to strike three rings, announcing their presence before their God, then kneeling to offer prayers, one could not fail to realize the deep sincerity and faith expressed ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... in the lower part of the house opened upon the piazza, and from the second story ruffled white curtains fluttered to the breeze. As the shield-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck's stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool grass. It wasn't a house to be hurried, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... the note across, wondering what would be said while I was gone, and knowing why Sir John wanted his son to go as well as he did, and Miss Virginia too, poor thing. The knocker seemed to make the house opposite echo very strangely, as I thumped; but when the door was opened in a few minutes, everything in the hall seemed very proper and prim, while the maid who came looked as stiff and ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... wait in the cab, and Dolly applied herself to the door-knocker. A servant came, a ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... between thirty and forty years of age, and even by the moonlight one might see, from the form of his clothes, that he was dressed with fastidious care. The walls and verandah, of his house, which were of wood, glistened almost as brightly with white paint as the knocker and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle from the outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae's he saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the road-litter, so little did they believe in human aggression at ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to remark sotto voce to Mr. Flexible Shanks, "it is so jolly refreshing to take a rise out of old Giglamps!" when a knock at the oak was heard; and, as Mr. Bouncer roared out, "Come in!" the knocker entered. He was rather dressy in his style of costume, and wore his long dark hair parted in the middle. Opening the door, and striking into an attitude, he exclaimed in a theatrical tone and manner: "Scene, Mr. Bouncer's rooms in Brazenface: in the centre a table, at ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... invited Dr. Hansombody; yet that he expected him is no less certain than that, while he spoke, Dr. Hansombody was actually lifting the knocker of the front door. ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion, built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose threshold General Washington had stood more than once. His father admitted him directly into a prim, wainscoted room with a square-angled stairway in the corner leading ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... month of September, We find neither riches nor rank; In vain we look out for a member To give us a nod or a frank. Each knocker in silence reposes, In every mansion you find One dirty old woman who dozes, Or peeps through ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... was to do something, too frightened to ask what it was, and feeling sure that even if he did, he should not make out what the master meant, Eric ran out, went straight to Mr Lawley's house, and, after having managed by strenuous jumps to touch the knocker, informed the servant "that ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... rounds, met me at the corner of Killigrew Street and directed me to the alley in which the captain's lodgings lay. The alley was dark, but a little within the entrance my eyes caught the glimmer of a highly polished brass door-knocker, and upon this ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... knock or pound? A loose pillow block box is a good "knocker." The pillow block is a box next crank or disc wheel. This box is usually fitted with set bolts and jam nuts. You must also be careful not to set this up too tight, remembering always that a box when too tight begins to heat and this expands the journal, causing greater ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... swiftness darted up the steps and inserted a large, fat, wet hand between the raised knocker and its bed. It was the sublime gesture of a martyr, and her large brown eyes gazed submissively, yet firmly, at Mr. Batchgrew with the look of a martyr. She had nothing to gain by the defiance of a great man, but she could not permit her honoured ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... a rifle butt against the door which struck them dumb. Muffled by the thick wood, the voice of the knocker yet came clearly: "Open in the name of ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... the affirmative, the young man went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work—Master Porbus, sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de' ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... of it before the second came. Then I laughed. I'm a heavy sleeper, you know. [He spoke as if I knew his weakness.] My mother bought me an alarm-clock last birthday. 'Perhaps you'll be down for breakfast now,' she said. But a shell is better—as a knocker-up. I didn't stop ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... and when we had 300l., we always vowed we would marry. "Ah!" thought I, "if I could but go to Somersetshire now, I might boldly walk up to old Smith's door" (he was her grandfather, and a half-pay lieutenant of the navy), "I might knock at the knocker and see my beloved Mary in the parlour, and not be obliged to sneak behind hayricks on the look-out for her, or pelt stones ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... either, for its last dress of paint had grown old long ago. It stood close by the road, and the trees of the wood seemed to throng it round on every side. Ellen mounted the few steps that led to the front door, and knocked; but as she could only just reach the high knocker, she was not likely to alarm anybody with the noise she made. After a great many little faint raps, which, if anybody heard them, might easily have been mistaken for the attacks of some rat's teeth upon the wainscot, Ellen ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... I suddenly realized with what atmosphere of mystical suggestion is the mere act of knocking surrounded—knocking at a door—both for him who knocks, wondering what shall be revealed on opening, and for him who stands within, waiting for the summons of the knocker. I only know that I hesitated a lot before making up my mind to knock a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... but then she had never seen so many strangers before. They went up the steps, upon the shaded porch,—where two little girls were sitting in a hammock reading, and looked as if they were birds in a nest,—-and rang the bell. Aunt Emma raised the great knocker upon the front door ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... liquor stung them. Then they left us to our pipes; but before the smoke was fairly started, there came the gallop of a horse up the roadway past the kitchen garden, and a moment later the great brass knocker was plied by a vigorous hand. We sat in mute expectancy, and presently old Pompey thrust in ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... not hesitate. He approached the great mansion. The double folding-door of massive oak, studded with large nails, was of the kind that leads one to expect that behind it there is a stout armoury of bolts and locks. An iron knocker was attached to it. He raised the knocker with some difficulty, for his benumbed hands were stumps rather than ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... your superior, however it may be expressed. Loyalty means that you are for your organization and its officers and noncommissioned officers—not against them; that you always extend your most earnest and hearty support to those in authority. No soldier is a loyal soldier who is a knocker or a grumbler or a shirker. Just one man of this class in a company breeds discontent and dissatisfaction among many others. You should, therefore, not only guard against doing such things yourself but should discourage such actions ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... a large brick building, with no windows towards the street, and tall walls rising up till they overtopped the neighboring houses, stood two men, about an hour after night had fallen, waiting for admittance. The great large iron bar which formed the knocker of the door, had descended twice with a heavy thump, but yet no one appeared in answer to the summons. It was again in the hand of Mr. Shanks and ready to descend, when the rattling of keys was heard inside; bolts were withdrawn and bars cast down, and one half of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... vain attempt to conceal his disappointment, smoked on for some time in silence. The blue seas disappeared, and he saw instead the brass knocker of ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... friend of ours, sir. I'm sorry you were disturbed. Would you like the knocker taken off to-morrow? Bunting'll be pleased to do it if you don't like to hear ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... finally. The driver adjusted his register and settled back to wait. Then Chase mounted the steps and lifted the knocker with trembling fingers. He was dizzy with ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... in a large carriage-house and walked over to the front door. It was a true type, with sunburst window over the door, and a wonderful old knocker on the front panel of the door. A narrow high window at each side had diamond panes in them. There was a dear little hood over the doorway that someone called a "rain-shed." And on each side of the "stoop" which was reached by three ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... another interesting feature of the scene which would have puzzled any but those well acquainted with the manners and customs of dolls. A fourteenth rag baby, with a china head, hung by her neck from the rusty knocker in the middle of the door. A sprig of white and one of purple lilac nodded over her, a dress of yellow calico, richly trimmed with red flannel scallops, shrouded her slender form, a garland of small flowers crowned her glossy curls, and a pair of blue ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the oblong shape and kind which our ancestors called jaquemart, looked like a huge note of exclamation; an antiquary who examined it attentively might have found indications ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... No bell; no knocker. The workmen had not reached that part of their improvements yet. But the door was open; and a very neatly furnished parlor at the left of the hall seemed to say, "Come right in, please;" and in ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... and I had just made up my mind that I would not complain about Shock, when there was a loud thump of the knocker, and directly after I heard the door open, a heavy step in the passage, the door closed, and then the sound of old Brownsmith wiping his shoes on ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... the Captain dropped the brass knocker to the Elder's front door with a heavy thud. A ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... than the head; broad, acutely pointed; nasal apparatus very complicated; the lower leaf very large, concealing the upper lip like a door knocker; the upper leaf like a graduated spire; ears transversely striate; a rather large semi-circular lobe at base of ear; fur long, dense, soft, and lax, slightly curled or woolly black with a silvery grizzle, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... New York lawyer of mediocre ability, received the nomination for governor. The great overmastering passion of Ullman was a desire for office. For many years he had been a persistent and unsuccessful knocker at the door of city, county and state Whig conventions, and when the Know-Nothings appeared he turned to them to back his ambition. Possibly they knew that his parents were foreign-born, but the mystery surrounding his own birthplace became a comical feature of the canvass. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... elegantly trimmed with spangles, tinfoil, and red-tape. Bodice and underdress of sky-blue velveteen, trimmed with bouffants and noeuds of bell-pulls. Stomacher a muffin. Head-dress a bird's nest, with a bird of paradise, over a rich brass knocker en ferroniere. This splendid costume, by Madame Crinoline, of Regent Street, was the ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ringing of bells. The whole world was not asleep, then, and she could link her anxious heart to human concerns once more. After a time she rose, stepped over to the building, set the basket of fruit on the ground, and knocked with the knocker at the gate. It was a long while before the door-keeper appeared and gruffly demanded what she wanted. "I must speak to Bastide Grammont," she declared. The man made a face as if a demented person had waylaid him, growled in a threatening ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Mitford's own description. 'The Cross is not a borough, thank Heaven, either rotten or independent. The inhabitants are quiet, peaceable people who would not think of visiting us, even if we had a knocker to knock at. Our residence is a cottage' (she is writing to her correspondent, Sir William Elford), 'no, not a cottage, it does not deserve the name—a messuage or tenement such as a little farmer who had made 1400 pounds might retire to when he left off business to live on his means. It consists ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... deepest devotion; Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment! Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended, And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps, Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron; Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village, Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music. But, among all who came, young Gabriel only was welcome; Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was standing at the door of Paulina's town-house, and let the knocker fall heavily on the door. The steward opened to him and asked him what he wanted. He asked to speak with dame Paulina, but she was not at home. Then he asked after Arsinoe, the daughter of Keraunus, who had found a home with the rich ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as milk, with a great white moon above the treetops. It made like mother-of-pearl the small grey house with pointed windows occupied, this December, by Stonewall Jackson. A clock in the hall was striking nine as Cleave lifted the knocker. An old negro came to the door. "Good-evening, Jim. Will you ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... so saucy to him that, forgetting his admiration, he declared he would like to serve her as the Indians had done a scolding woman in South America. They attacked her house during the absence of her husband, cut out her tongue, and nailed it to the door, by way of knocker; and he thought that all women who could not keep a civil tongue in their head should be served in ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... followed a hedge-lined path that rose gradually to the house; it might be a joke after all; but Hood's manner was reassuring. He swung his stick and praised the landscape, and when they reached the veranda banged the knocker noisily. A capped and aproned maid ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... climbed up, not without difficulty. He sat astride on the wall for an instant, and then disappeared among the dark foliage of the trees. Maria Remedios ran desperately toward the Calle del Condestable, and, seizing the knocker of the front door, knocked—knocked three times with ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... stop for him, you know. You will have to hold the horse. I sha'n't be long," and reining up to the gate of the rectory Sam plunged into the snow, and wading to the door, gave a tremendous peal upon the brass knocker. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... hastily by one of the parlor windows. Concluding that the men were off to the war, and that the lady was the only person left at home, he turned up the sandy path and rode to the front porch, where he dismounted, and used the heavy brass knocker attached to the ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... the Sculptor Girl's doorplate. It took me a full minute to get the courage to tap her gargoyle knocker because I was so awestricken at remembering that she was the girl who won the Ambrose Medal and the Pendleton Prize and goodness only knows how much ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... knocker!" he cried. "That's a fine college spirit, ain't it? You're a fine lot of students, I don't think. Now shut up, every one of you, or I'll fire you out of the cage.... And right here at the start you knockers take this from me—I'll find more than ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... old manners and even their old dress. The other day Mrs. White, Horton's mother-in-law, had a violent sick headache, and, as we are all very fond of the kind old lady, we were trying to keep things as quiet as possible down-stairs. Suddenly there came a bang! bang! bang! at the knocker; and then in an instant another rattling series of knocks, as if a tethered donkey were trying to kick in the panel. After all our efforts for silence it was exasperating. I rushed to the door to find a seedy looking person just raising his hand to commence a fresh bombardment. "What on ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... responsibility of a president in war time, whether the president of a country already established or of one yet tentative. He hurried home, and it was his mother herself who responded to the sound of the knocker—his mother, quiet, smiling and undemonstrative as of old, but with an endless tenderness for him in the depths of ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... ten that February morning he had ascended the broken steps of the old grey mansion, a little curious, perhaps, but, as he would have told you, "ready for anything." There being no bell, he had raised and let fall the great knocker, and then stood still in the sunshine looking placidly about him. The desolation of the park left him unmoved. Money, judiciously expended, could rectify that. And the house seemed sound enough. They knew ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... boards that had barred the windows, and white curtains fluttered in their stead. Green box-trees guarded each side of the white door, whose brass knocker shone in proof of the care ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... had not seen the last of him. The midday dinner was not over when the large brass knocker on Mr Lambert's door thundered against it, and took Sam to open it in hot haste. He returned quickly ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... notice to individuals they favoured of undiscovered copper, but these favoured ones were mostly children who chanced to wander up Snowdon by themselves. She had, she said, not only heard but seen these Knockers. They were thick-set dwarfs, as broad as they were long. One Knocker, an elderly female, had often played with her on the hills. Knockers' Llyn, indeed, was very much on Winifred's mind. When a golden cloud, like the one on which she was singing her song at the time I first saw her, shone over a person's head at Knockers' Llyn, it was a sign of good fortune. She was ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... when the Old Maid passed beneath the porch of the deserted mansion, ascended the moss-covered steps, lifted the iron knocker, and gave three raps. The people could only conjecture, that some old remembrance, troubling her bewildered brain, had impelled the poor woman hither to visit the friends of her youth; all gone from their home, long since and forever, unless their ghosts still haunted it,—fit company for ...
— The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fast, as such tidings always do, and Aunt Plenty was constantly employed in answering inquiries, for her knocker kept up a steady tattoo for several days. All sorts of people came: gentlefolk and paupers, children with anxious little faces, old people full of sympathy, pretty girls sobbing as they went away, and young men who relieved their feelings by swearing ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... door was decorated with a large, bronze knocker of curious design. A tap of the falling hammer on its metallic plate, brought to the threshold a jet-black maid-servant wearing a gaudy turban. She ushered the visitors into a spacious drawing-room and took their cards and a note from ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... London, we will follow Captain Bream, who, one fine morning, walked up to Mrs Dotropy's mansion at the west end, and applied the knocker vigorously. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mrs. Knocker came into Dunkirk for a night's rest while I was staying there. She had been out all the previous day in a storm of wind and rain driving an ambulance. It was heavy with wounded, and shells were dropping very near. She—the most ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... rising to leave when a loud rat-tat at the knocker made Sylvia's heart leap in expectation; and the next moment Jack came into the room in his most ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Mrs. Hooker and you go on refusing to give any address leads us to believe that you are dwelling peripatetically in a "Wan" with green door and brass knocker somewhere on Wormwood Scrubbs, and that "Kew" is only a blind. So you see I am obliged to inclose Mrs. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... on the pavement. Tuppence and Jane took to their heels. The house they sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind them. Their breath was coming in choking gasps as they reached Sir James's door. Tuppence seized the bell and Jane the knocker. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... at this, and while I fell upon the footman, Phil staggered the captain with a blow. As Falconer turned with an exclamation, to see by whom he was attacked, Madge tore herself from his relaxed hold, ran to the house door, and set the knocker going at its loudest. A second blow from Philip sent the captain reeling against his coach wheel. I, meanwhile, had drawn the footman from the maid; who now joined her mistress and continued shrieking at the top of her voice. The fellow, seeing his master momentarily in a daze, and being alarmed ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... beautiful it sounded rumbling away over the country in the morning. When she had finished struggling with her long thick hair and put the hairpins into the solid coil on the top of her head and tied the stout doubled door-knocker plait at her neck, she put on the rose-madder blouse. The mirror was lower and twice as large as the one in the garret, larger than the one she had shared with Harriett. "How jolly I look," she thought, "jolly and big somehow. Mother ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... was her duty to inform the physician, and the apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics, that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state, and that they were to act accordingly. She had the street laid knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with Mr. Bowls's plate. She insisted that the Doctor should call twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every two hours. When anybody entered the room, she uttered a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the door—for there was really no bell, but a ponderous, old-fashioned, wrought-iron knocker. So deliciously mediaeval! The late Graf von Lebenstein had recently died, we knew; and his son, the present Count, a young man of means, having inherited from his mother's family a still more ancient and splendid schloss in the Salzburg district, desired to sell this outlying estate in order ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... deaconess, I have said already that the fact of her being a lady, and the possessor of a heart, constituted the only ground of hope that I could have in reference to her. This I felt to be insecure enough when I held the knocker in my hand, and remembered all at once the many little tales that I had heard, every one of which went far to prove that ladies may be ladies without the generous weakness of their sex,—and carry hearts about with them as easily as they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... triviality of the promise, I had no objection to his not working for me, and no objection to his feeding his family, thus first-handed, though very little breast of the game wild goose comes to the board of such as he.... I was on the way to the forge of a workman. I wanted a knocker for an oaken door; and I wanted it just so. Moreover, I knew the man who would make it ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... her, and her large bonnet trembling excessively, walked up and down in a measured tread and very stately manner surveying the caravan from time to time with an air of calm delight and deriving particular gratification from the red panels and brass knocker. When she had taken this gentle exercise for some time, she sat down upon the steps and called 'George,' whereupon a man in a carter's frock, who had been so shrouded in a hedge up to this time as to see everything that passed without being seen himself, parted the twigs that ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... one of the headlights and found his way to the door of the cottage next to the smithy. There was neither bell nor knocker, but he thundered at the panel with right good will, until he heard a stir in a chamber above. Finally a blind opened a little way and a sleepy voice ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... passed the captain, touched my hat, and began to muster my men. Unconscious of any offence, I stole a look at my commander, but met with no good-humoured glance in return. He had screwed up his little yellow physiognomy into the shape of an ill-conditioned and battered face on a brass knocker. He had his usual afternoon wine-flush upon him; but a feeling of vindictiveness had placed his feelings of incipient intoxication under ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment! Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended, And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her foot-steps, Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron; Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village, Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music. But among all who came young Gabriel only ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... from stairs to door. She read the labels, for her good-bye to the hated name of Warwick:—why ever adopted! Emma might well have questioned why! Women are guilty of such unreasoning acts! But this was the close to that chapter. The hour of six went by. Between six and seven came a sound of knocker and bell at the street-door. Danvers rushed into the sitting-room to announce that it was Mr. Redworth. Before a word could be mustered, Redworth was in the room. He said: 'You must come ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... if it came in answer to her poignant wish for some untoward happening, there was a quick double knock at the front door of the Blanchard's dwelling, and a sharp whirring ring at the push-bell below the knocker. The sounds seemed to go violently through and through the little house in ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... driving to Casa 47, in a wide street opposite the public gardens. The Baron dismisses the coachman, telling him to come back in a couple of hours, and I drop the iron knocker on the massive door. A native servant draws the bolts, and our interpreter asks for "Senora Baldwin." We follow the picturesque little maid through a tiled vestibule into a starlight patio. The usual ground veranda encloses this fragrant court, the ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... tarts, bread and cheese and as much beer or lemonade as they liked to pay for, the drinks being an extra; and afterwards the waiters brought in cups of coffee for those who desired it. Everything was up to the knocker, and although they were somewhat bewildered by the multitude of knives and forks, they all, with one or two exceptions, rose to the occasion and enjoyed themselves famously. The excellent decorum observed being marred only by one or two regrettable incidents. The first of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... trees the outlines of a low square house. And as they drew nearer, walking stealthily, they stared in amazement. For, unlike its neighbors in the village below, this house was as white as fresh white paint could make it, at the windows hung crisply white curtains, a brass knocker dignified its broad door. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... affairs to form their own opinions concerning them. After that visit of the Colonel and his son to Newcome, Ethel was constantly away with her grandmother. The Colonel went to see his pretty little favourite at Brighton, and once, twice, thrice, Lady Kew's door was denied to him. The knocker of that door could not be more fierce than the old lady's countenance, when Newcome met her in her chariot driving on the cliff. Once, forming the loveliest of a charming Amazonian squadron, led by Mr. Whiskin, the riding-master, when the Colonel encountered ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tottering now with age and disuse, and Virginia playfully raised the big brass knocker, brown now, that Scipio had been wont to polish until it shone. Stephen took from his pocket the clumsy key that General Carvel had given him, and turned it in the rusty lock. The door swung open, and Virginia stood in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... no knocker: a feeble electric bell signalled out distress to a deserted basement: the servants were asleep upon ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... unpeopled, he would go up to one of these dwellings, lift the heavy knocker of the low postern, and timidly rap. The songs and merriment would instantly cease. There would be audible behind the wall nothing excepting low, dull flutterings as in a ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... be gained by standing there in the drenching storm, I moved onward, taking the way to Mrs. Wallingford's dwelling. I had scarcely touched the knocker when the door was opened, and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... a ray of sun was never allowed to penetrate, was thrown open and dusted, and its mouldy air made sweet with a bouquet of pot-roses placed on the old-fashioned bureau. Kitty was busy all the forenoon washing off the sidewalk and sand-papering the great brass knocker on our front-door; and Miss Abigail was up to her ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... could scarcely believe his ears when he heard the sound of the old brass knocker on the front door ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... somebody else came to the door below—a foot-fall light as a roe's. There was a hurried tapping upon the panel, as if with the impatient tips of fingers whose owner thought not whether a knocker were there or no. Without a pause, and possibly guided by the stray beam of light on the landing, the newcomer ascended the staircase as the first had done. Grace was sufficiently visible, and the lady, for a lady it ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... share of the conversation, when there was a quick step on the stairs. Nobody heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just as she had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, and when he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go over and ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... haying and harvesting I liked best when they were a good way off; picking up potatoes worried me, but gathering apples suited my hands and my fancy better, and knocking "Juno's cushions" in the spring meadows with my long-handled knocker, about the time the first swallow was heard laughing overhead, was real fun. I always wanted some element of play in my work; buckling down to any sort of routine always galled me, and does yet. The work must be a kind of adventure, and permit ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... be for many years to come. One going from and coming back to that house would never need to forecast or doubt. He would find what he left, and leave what he found. The veiled lady, Chance, would never lift her hand to the knocker ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... hoarsely, "I couldn't do it. I went straight back, same as you saw me start—now don't say a word till you've heard the end o't!—I went straight back, and up to door without once looking back. There was a nice brass knocker to the door (I never denied the woman had some good qualities); so I fixed my eyes hard on it and said to myself, if there's peace to be found in this world—which was a Bible text that came into my head—the heart that is humble, which is the case with me, may look for it here. And ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... address, telling the post-mistress at Cranford that his name was MR Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic innovations; he would have the house door stand open in summer and shut in winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. The closed fist or the knob of a stick did this office for him if he found the door locked. He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating his voice. He spoke ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... immediately to the hall-door, and gave such a single rap with the knocker, as brought more than Kitty to ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... woman hastily just as there was a little rat-tat at the brass knocker of the outer door, which ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... north side of the attic of a big office building in the heart of the city's traffic. "We want to be in the midst of trade, but above it," Moss explained to those who wondered at his choice of location. "Sculpture, as I see it, is a part of architecture. I'm not above modelling a door-knocker if they'll only let me do it my way. Sculpture was a part of life in the old days, and we don't want to make it a thing too 'precious' now. I want to get close to the business men, not to avoid them. I like ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the great humorist and Mark Twain promptly sat down and wrote Mrs. Frazer that she must be a guest also at Stormfield, his Redding estate. So it came about that the one-time little Laura Hawkins found herself lifting the knocker at the beautiful country home of Mark Twain ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... dear old elms, with the golden and amber sunset still glowing between their dark boughs; where every quiet, snug, old wooden house, with its gables and old-fashioned green or white front-door with a brass or bronze knocker, and almost every shop and sign even, seemed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... knock again. I did so, and then discovered for the first time that the knocker had been newly painted, and the paint had come off on my gloves—which were, ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... a groan the surgeon went on, and in a few minutes more the party gained the piazza, and Jack was using the big knocker on the door lustily. ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... lips moved in silent prayer; then ascending the terrace, she crossed the stone pavement, walked up the stops and slowly advanced to the threshold. The dark mahogany door was so glossy, that she dimly saw her own image on its polished panels, as she lifted and let fall the heavy silver knocker, in the middle of an oval silver plate, around the edges of which were raised the square letters of the name "Darrington." The clanging sound startled a peacock, strutting among the verbena beds, and his shrill scream was answered ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "where, for the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day, by importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and detainers were lodged merely at the gate." There is a similar passage in "Little Dorrit," where the ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... she caught even as she spoke a rat-tat-tat of the knocker, which struck her as a ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... were pleased to take a severely practical turn: "I'm not in the least free," she answered cheerfully. "I believe you need something to strengthen you, Eunice. I haven't seen you so out of spirits for a great while. Free! why I'm tied to this house as if I were the knocker on the front door; and I certainly have a great deal of care. I put the utmost confidence in Priscilla, but those nieces of hers would be going wherever they chose, from garret to cellar, before I was ten miles away from Dunport. I have let the cook go away for a week, and Phoebe and Priscilla ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... black, round-topped mountain, far away; but which she soon discovered to be close to her, and to be a hollow place so great that she could not tell what it was hollowed out of. Staring at it, she found that it was a doorway; and going nearer and staring harder, she saw the door, far in, with a knocker of iron upon it, a great many yards above her head, and as large as the anchor of a big ship. Now, nobody had ever been unkind to Tricksey-Wee, and therefore she was not afraid of anybody. For Buffy-Bob's box on the ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... he spoke, there came a double knock at the house door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up—more like a ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... and she must make some petition that the door might be opened for her. She had come all the way from Nuremberg to this spot, thinking it possible that in this spot alone she might receive succour; and now she stood there, fearing to raise the knocker on the door. She was a lamb indeed, whose fleece had been shorn very close; and the shearing had been done all in the sacred name of religion! It had been thought necessary that the vile desires of her human heart should be crushed within her bosom, and the crushing had brought ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... I arrived. It was 11 o'clock A.M. I found the front door thrown wide open, with every indication of its being entered by all comers without the least ceremony—not even that of wiping the shoes. There was neither door-bell nor knocker, scraper nor mat; and the floor of the lobby seemed but slightly acquainted with the broom,—to say nothing of the scrubbing-brush. It looked like the floor of a corn or provision warehouse. I had no alternative but to venture ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... farther he came suddenly upon the house, standing amid the grove of elms, dwarfed by the giant trees that arched above it. A dog's bark sounded snappily from a kennel, but he paid no heed. He went up the broad white walk, climbed the steps to the square front porch, and lifted the great brass knocker. When he let it fall, the sound echoed ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... years, and many changes, a portion of Sir Thomas More's property had passed. This Howard had skill in the distilling of herbs and perfumes, which his descendant carries on to this day. We lifted the heavy brass knocker, and were admitted into the "old clock-house." The interior shows evident marks of extreme age, the flooring being ridgy and seamed, bearing their marks with a discontented creaking, like the secret murmurs ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... arm Robert walked along Hanover Street to Doctor Warren's house[17]. It was a wooden building standing end to the road. Entering a small yard, he rattled the knocker on the door. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the ponderous knocker upon Sylvester's door, he remembered vividly the only other occasion upon which he had visited those chambers. With the member for Mallow, too, indiscreet busybody that he was, had he not a reckoning to settle? The choice of him as an instrument of his punishment, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... justified in a fuller sense than I had attached to it—I had only feared that the house would be shut up. There were lights in the windows, and the temperate tinkle of my bell brought a servant immediately to the door, but poor Mrs. Stormer had passed into a state in which the resonance of no earthly knocker was to be feared. A lady, in the hall, hovering behind the servant, came forward when she heard my voice. I recognised Lady Luard, but she had mistaken me for ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... large house of a dirty, faded appearance; the cobwebbed windows blocked up; the door with a broken knocker and a sad want of paint. It is evidently the ci-devant residence of a Birmingham manufacturer of the old school, before the suburbs of Edgbaston and Handsworth sprang up, now turned into a warehouse or receptacle for lumber. As to ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... and stiffest of collars. Mr. Hudson, I need scarcely say, was not so left to himself as to permit his clerical character to be divined by means of a white tie. He came in, as was natural among country neighbours, without thinking of any bell or knocker on the easily opened door, and was about to peep into the drawing-room with "Anybody in?" upon his smiling lips, when he saw a gentleman approaching, picking up his hat as he advanced. Mr. Hudson paused a moment in uncertainty. "Mr. Compton, I am sure," he said, holding out both of his plump ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... door was never opened, except for marriages, funerals, New Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously wrought,—sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a lion's head,—and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... which I had first seen them, I noticed that where the knocker should have been there was nothing but a few bent nails and a splintered panel. After former experiences my suspicion scarce needed this confirmation: without doubt these were our Shrewsbury Mohocks, out for a night's ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... prowl around wharfs. So we were given to understand by very wide-awake sentries with bayonets, policemen, and enthusiastic special constables. But at last we reached the consulate and laid siege. One man pressed the electric button, kicked the door, and pounded with the knocker, others hurled pebbles at the upper windows, and the fifth stood in the road and sang: "Oh, say, can you see, ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... Terrier at break of day, because his lordship made one at the minister's between eight and nine o'clock. When we came to Mr. Cringer's door, Strap, to give me all instance of his politeness, ran to the knocker, which he employed so loud and so long, that he alarmed the whole street; and a window opening in the second story of the next house, a vessel was discharged upon him so successfully, that the poor barber was wet to the skin, while ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... early in the afternoon. Christopherson must have watched for my coming: before I could raise the knocker the door flew open, and his face gleamed such a greeting as astonished me. He grasped ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... left, of two side-streets, the typical streets of the East End: long lines of low houses,—two storeys always, or two storeys and a basement,—all of the same yellowish brick, all begrimed by the same smoke, every door-knocker of the same pattern, every window-blind hung in the same way, and the same corner "public" on either side, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... him for a fortnight, and then I received a most extraordinary letter from Box Hamilton, a fellow clubman of mine and Wilbraham's. Had I heard, he said, that poor old Wilbraham had gone right off his "knocker"? Nobody knew exactly what had happened, but suddenly one day at lunch time Wilbraham had turned up at Grey's (the club to which our own club was a visitor during its cleaning), had harangued every ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Winthrop thought nothing of it; he was used to it; his own house at home was brown and bare; but alas! this looked very little like his own house at home. There wasn't penthouse enough to keep the rain from the knocker. He knocked. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... placed on their appearance together, returning from the garden at an advanced hour of the night; but her innocence pleaded with him to be silent. He only said, "You forget that we all sleep at the top of our old castle. There is no knocker to the door, and no bell that rings upstairs. Come to the summer-house. In an hour or two more we shall see ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... asleep at the mayor's when the two Bertauds rapped the heavy knocker of the door. After a moment, a servant, half asleep, appeared at one of the ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... as he had touched the knocker the door was opened by a little old woman, plainly dressed, but neat and tidy: and when the Prince told her who he was, and what he wanted, she answered him with a good-humored smile, very different from the frown of stern Necessity: "Every ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... at the Hall door was prodigious, and, with a laudable desire, doubtless, of saving time, the moment one was done amusing himself with the ponderous knocker, another seized it; so that until the door was flung open by some of the bewildered and terrified men, there was no cessation whatever of the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... at the door of the cottage and of the castle. He stalks up the front-garden and the steep steps of the semi-detached villa, and plies the ornamental knocker so imperiously that the panels of imitation stained glass quiver in the thin front-door. Even the family that occupies the topmost story of a building without a lift is on his ghastly visiting-list. He rattles his fleshless knuckles against the door ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... they stopped before a rather mean-looking house with jalousie blinds to every window; a flight of steps before the green street-door; a shining white ornament on the rails on either side like a petrified pineapple, polished; a little oblong plate of the same material over the knocker whereon the name of 'Pawkins' was engraved; and four accidental pigs looking down ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... through the snowy streets. The question now in his mind was whether or no he should make his resentment plain to Ludwell Cary. At long intervals, three or four times in the winter, perhaps, it was the latter's custom to lift the knocker of Rand's door, and to sit for an hour in Jacqueline's drawing-room. Sometimes Rand was there, sometimes not; Cary's coming had grown to be a habit of the house, quiet, ordered, and urbane as all its habits were. Its master now determined, after ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... his way by sheer force of habit past the kitchen windows to the side door. That was where they had quarreled mostly. He had a kind of sentiment about that side door. He paused a moment to hide his traveling-bag under the grapevine that shaded the porch, and as he raised his hand to grasp the knocker the blood rushed to his face and his heart leaped into his throat. Huldah stood near the window winding the old clock. In her right hand was a "Farmer's Almanac." How well he knew the yellow cover! and how like to the Huldah of ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... make a knocker,[hx] Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker; Mouth that marks the envious Scorner, With a Scorpion in each corner Curling up his tail to sting you,[hy] In the place that most may wring you; Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy, Carcase stolen from some mummy, Bowels—(but they were forgotten, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... cabriolet was dashing down Regent-street, twisting through the Quadrant, whirling along Pall Mall, until it finally entered Cleveland-row, and stopped before a newly painted, newly pointed, and exceedingly compact mansion, the long brass knocker of whose dark green door sounded beneath the practised touch of his lordship's tiger. Even the tawny Holstein horse, with the white flowing mane, seemed conscious of the locality, and stopped before the accustomed resting-place in the most natural manner imaginable. A tall serving-man, well-powdered, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... knocked at the door of the house in Wimpole Street in which Henrietta Stackpole occupied furnished lodgings. He had hardly removed his hand from the knocker when the door was opened and Miss Stackpole herself stood before him. She had on her hat and jacket; she was on the point of going out. "Oh, good-morning," he said, "I was in hopes I should ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... care the mirrors glistened and the brasses shone; the very knocker on the great front entrance looked brighter whenever she passed by. And all this time, as Martha grew from childhood into woman-hood, there was someone who watched, unknown to ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... Miss May Edgerton to reside six months in the old brick house had it not been inhabited by her grandmother before her, and been built by her great-grandfather. As it was, she had a real affection for the antiquated place, with its curiously-carved door-knocker, its oaken staircase, and broad chimneys with their heavy franklins. She was a sweet, wild, restless little butterfly, with beauty enough to make her the heroine of the most extravagant romance, and good ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... four times at Dr Chartley's door-bell, and rapped as many at the great grinning knocker tied in flannel, before he heard the chain put up and the lock shot back, to display the smudgy unwholesome countenance of Elizabeth Gundry, who always blinked like a night-bird when forced to ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... July 8, 1841, the celebrated pack of Knocker Boys met at the Cavendish, in Jermyn Street. These animals, which have acquired for themselves a celebrity as undying as that of Tom and Jerry, are of a fine powerful breed, and in excellent condition. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various |
