"Knocker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from gate to door; big, square, two-story 'frame' house, painted white and porticoed like a Grecian temple—with this difference, that the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals were a pathetic sham, being made of white pine, and painted; iron knocker; brass door knob—discolored, for lack of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of planed boards; opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen—in some instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; mahogany center- table; lamp on it, with green-paper ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... those which they had left in the morning. There is a church, and a vicarage half hidden away in the trees in its pretty old-fashioned garden; there are two or three small red-bricked dissenting chapels, and the doctor's house, with a bright brass knocker and plate on the door. There are no other buildings above the common average of mining villages; and it needs not the high chimneys, and engine-houses with winding gear, dotting the surrounding country, to notify the fact that Stokebridge is a ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... on the steps outside of his big white front door, which had a brass knocker and knob that Mary had polished until the paint had worn away around them. Mr. Denner's house was of rough brick, laid with great waste of mortar, so that it looked as though covered with many small white seams. Some ivy grew about the western windows of the library, but on ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... no nominations. In the end, Daniel Ullman, a reputable 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 ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... arch by constant clippings, a gravel path ascended between the box edges of once trim raspberry, strawberry, and vegetable plots, towards the front door. This was in colour an ancient and bleached green that could be rubbed off with the finger, and it bore a small long-featured brass knocker covered with verdigris in its crevices. For some years before this eve of demolition the homestead had degenerated, and been divided into two tenements to serve as cottages for farm labourers; but in its prime it had indisputable ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... (whom he had galvanized into an affected liveliness by alarming remarks on her apparent preoccupation), there fell upon his ear the sound of a loud knocking at the door. Dinner had been served in a small room at the back of the house, and the President could not command a view of the knocker without going out on to the veranda, which ran all round the house, and walking round to the front. When the knock was heard, the ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... domain is of polished mahogany, set between lights of antique verte Italian glass, and bearing an ancient brass knocker. From the reception-room, with its walls of green empire silk, one passes through a foyer hall, of Cordova leather hangings, to the drawing-room with its three broad windows. Opposite the entrance to this superb room is a mantel of carved ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Marcia arrayed in one of the simplest of Kate's afternoon frocks, when the brass knocker sounded through the house, startling ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... was a real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars, a door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at you as you approached through a hedge ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... had fallen in. I was out 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 ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... dealing with my hands, not knowing how ploughboys are wont to carry them. So I came round in front of the house, and gave a rat-tat on the door, while my pulse beat as loud inside of me as ever did the knocker without. The sound ran round the building, and backwards among the walks, and all was silent as before. I waited a minute, and was for knocking again, thinking there might be no one in the house, and then heard a light footstep coming along ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... terror, and this depressing sentiment has so pervaded all ranks, that it would be difficult to find an individual, however obscure or inoffensive, who deems his property, or even his existence, secure only for a moment. The sound of a bell or a knocker at the close of the evening is the signal of dismay. The inhabitants of the house regard each other with looks of fearful interrogation—all the precautions hitherto taken appear insufficient— every one recollects something yet to be secreted—a prayer-book, an unburied ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said; Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The Dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Johnson, 'those are the most wretched who exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate first the manager and then the public. Many an humble visitant have I followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the knocker with a shaking hand, and after long deliberation adventure to solicit entrance by a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and a warlike figure appeared upon the threshold, resplendent in the full light of the sun. This was D'Artagnan, who had come alone to the gate, and finding nobody to hold his stirrup, had tied his horse to the knocker and announced himself. The splendor of daylight invading the room, the murmur of all present, and, more than all, the instinct of the faithful dog, drew Mousqueton from his reverie; he raised his head, recognized the old friend ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was 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 ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... flights of stairs; he could not justly complain of the number, since he himself had sent the patient there to be high and dry and quiet. On the way up he had one of his nameless seizures of intuition, and in the dark upper hall his hand fell sharply away from the knocker and his face set whitely. There had been just one chance in a hundred that his presence was necessary; before the door opened he knew this had ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... achieve a reputation as a 'knocker,'" said the Observer, knitting his brow thoughtfully, "but, I nevertheless, aver and maintain that the national evil of this great land ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... 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 ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... vicinity of the stables. Though fast falling to decay, it had more the appearance of a decent habitation than the other huts on the plantation. Its thick plank door was ornamented with a mouldy brass knocker, and its four windows contained sashes, to which here and there clung a broken pane, the surviving relic of its better days. It was built of large unhewn logs, notched at the ends and laid one upon the other, with the bark still on. The thick, rough coat which ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... are at home when we return the visits sometimes, too, and this kind of thing happens: our gorgeous prune-and-scarlet footman condescendingly walks up their paths and thumps loudly at their well-cleaned brass knocker, and presses their electric bell. A jaunty lump of a parlor-maid in a fluster at the sight of so much grandeur says "At home" (some of them have "days"), and we are ushered into a narrow hall and so to a drawing-room. They seem always to be papered with buff-and-mustard ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... Fizpat'ic bofe waitin' for you, sah," said that obsequious darky, preceding me through the dark passage. I followed, mounted the old-fashioned wooden steps, and fell into the outstretched arms of the colonel before I could touch the knocker. ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... knocker: a feeble electric bell signalled out distress to a deserted basement: the servants were asleep ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... startled by a loud bang of the knocker on the big front door. Rarely in their remembrance had the great brass griffin's head sent that hollow booming through the hall. Since they had been living in the south wing the neighbours always came to the ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and parental load; The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last. I see it now, the same unchanging spot, The swinging gate, the little garden plot, The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still; Two, creased with age,—or what I then called age,— Life's volume open at its fiftieth page; One, a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet As the first snow-drop, which ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pound the front knocker in the name of the King. A feather in our cap when we ride him down to the Bowling Green and present him ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... be born to you in a place like this?' said the doctor. 'Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify? A little more elbow-room is all we want here. We are quiet here; we don't get badgered here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door mat till he is. Nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place. It's freedom, sir, it's freedom! I have ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Pamphleteer, gives a touching Narrative (not deficient in height of colouring) of the terrors of that night. From five in the afternoon, a great City is struck suddenly silent; except for the beating of drums, for the tramp of marching feet; and ever and anon the dread thunder of the knocker at some door, a Tricolor Commissioner with his blue Guards (black-guards!) arriving. All Streets are vacant, says Peltier; beset by Guards at each end: all Citizens are ordered to be within doors. On the River float sentinal barges, lest we escape by ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... which Mrs. Hooker and you go on refusing to give any address leads us to believe that you are dwelling peripatetically in a "Wan" with green door and brass knocker somewhere on Wormwood Scrubbs, and that "Kew" is only a blind. So you see I am obliged to inclose ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... in silence where 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 ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... that I could not wait, though time might present more than one opportunity, spurred me on. What I could do I must do now, at once. The sense that this was so being heavy upon me, I saw nothing for it but to use the knocker and gain admission, by fraud if I could, and if not, by force. Accordingly I stepped briskly across the kennel, and ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... front door, and knocked in a manner to denote with sufficient distinctiveness that the mood of the knocker was the imperative. I could see by the lights within that the inmates of the house had not retired to rest, but I had to repeat my summons before there was any response. Then I heard footsteps within, and the door opening an inch or two, a ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... forward 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, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... correspondence, accounts, and papers, that I have been obliged to delay this letter longer than I intended. My attorney hath now his leave of absence from me, to anew paint the green door, and repolish the brass knocker of his country villa. As soon as Lady Y. is sufficiently strong I propose quitting town, remaining ten days at Delaforde, and then proceeding to swim at Southampton or Lymington, having as just claim to breathe a sweeter air as ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... failing in health. As soon as I felt able to bear the horse-car journey I went out to Cambridge to see him. I had knocked once at his door, the friendly door that had so often opened to his welcome, and stood with the knocker in my hand when the door was suddenly set ajar, and a maid showed her face wet with tears. "How is Mr. Longfellow?" I palpitated, and with a burst of grief she answered, "Oh, the poor gentleman has just departed!" I turned away as if from a helpless ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... person who watched these proceedings with disfavor was a short, attenuated, bow-legged Chinaman, with a face like a grotesque brass knocker, and a taciturnity that ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... windows 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, that was plain. After a wait ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... heart-breakings and felo-de-sees. But bad as they are, they are nothing to the intolerable vexation experienced by me, (and I believe by Julia too,) on hearing a slow, loud, solemn stroke of the knocker upon the outer door. It was repeated once—twice—thrice. We heard it simultaneously—we ceased speaking simultaneously—we (to wit, Julia and I) ceased ogling each other simultaneously. The whole of us suspended our conversation in a moment—looked to the door of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... may have been intended for a smile, or a threat of the most appalling character. I have seen such legs as his on old-fashioned silver teapots; and the crook in his tail would have made it useful as a door-knocker. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... 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. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... a 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 ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... brilliancy of their colouring and are in no wise injured by these accidents. Lorenzo also made a crucifix with many figures inside the door which is in the middle of these figures, called the door of the knocker, at the request of the same Ricciardo and of the superior of the convent, and on the encircling wall he did the confirmation of the rule of St Francis by Pope Honorius, and then the martyrdom of some friars of that order, who are going ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The Dog-star rages! nay't is past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, 5 They rave, recite, and madden round ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... with long, low lattice-windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-fashioned brass knocker on the low-arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruits and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... reached Deephaven we were busy up stairs, and there was a determined blow at the knocker of the front door. I went down to see who was there, and had the pleasure of receiving our first caller. She was a prim little old woman who looked pleased and expectant, who wore a neat cap and front, and whose eyes were as bright as black beads. She wore ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... no one awake to answer the call. I slipped on my dressing-gown and slippers, and went down to the hall door. When I opened it there stood a dapper groom, with one hand pressed unflinchingly on the electric bell whilst with the other he raised a ceaseless clangour with the knocker. The instant he saw me the noise ceased; one hand went up instinctively to the brim of his hat, and the other produced a letter from his pocket. A neat brougham was opposite the door, the horses were breathing heavily as though they had come fast. ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... at least, to know one's own mind, madame! And now tell me who I shall have for my neighbor." As they moved toward the head of the stairs, he indicated the second door on the landing—the door innocent of name, bell, or knocker. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... old cook was very particular about them; he had a warm love and affection for his cook-house. In fair weather, he spread the skirt of an old jacket before the door, by way of a mat; and screwed a small ring-bolt into the door for a knocker; and wrote his name, "Mr. Thompson," over it, with ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... in my hand, so I carefully pushed it back, and tried a large brass knocker instead, a massive affair that looked as though it had once been part of a shipwreck. I knocked once, I knocked twice, I knocked thrice, and then the door opened and I ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... 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 ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... 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 ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... So that it may safely be taken to mean that the consultant will shortly be going to see a friend who has had an operation; this fact is borne out by the short dotted line beyond, leading to the door knocker, under which is written the ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... knocker on the door and a slot opened for a quick check of his identity. The door opened wide and Technician Martin Gunther ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... of the sunken and well-nigh toppling chimney. The moon flooding the roof showed up all these imperfections with pitiless insistence, and the torn edges of the green paper shades that half concealed the rooms within were plainly to be seen, as well as the dismantled knocker which hung by one nail to the old cracked door. The vision of Knapp with his ear laid against this door added to the forlorn and sinister aspect of the scene, and gave to the constable, who remembered the brothers in their palmy days when they were the life and pride of the town, a by no ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... out in a large carriage-house and walked over to the front door. It was a true type, with sunburst window over the door, and a wonderful old knocker on the front panel of the door. A narrow high window at each side had diamond panes in them. There was a dear little hood over the doorway that someone called a "rain-shed." And on each side of the "stoop" which was reached by three steps, was a ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... listening intently, the 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 ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... 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 as ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... Stanton went crunching up the snowy path to the door, knocked resonantly with a slim, much worn old brass knocker, and was admitted promptly and hospitably by "Mrs. Meredith" herself—Molly's grandmother evidently, and such a darling little grandmother, small, like Molly; quick, like Molly; even young, like Molly, she appeared to be. Simple, sincere, and oh, so comfortable—like the fine ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... was fenced all round by an ill-trimmed hedge of hawthorn, and the only break in the hedge was made by the un-painted wooden gate which led by a brick-paved walk to the three brick steps before the door. The door stood open when Rachel reached it, and the knocker being set high up and out of reach, she tapped upon the wood-work with the handle of her sunshade. This summons eliciting no response, she repeated it; but by-and-by the opening of a door within the house let out upon her the sound of Sennacherib's ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... walking very slowly. She had scarcely done so before a loud ring, followed by a rat-tat on the knocker of the front door, was heard ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... the memorable year of our first visit to the Forest of Arden, Rosalind and I were planning a return to that enchanting place, and in the glow of the fire on the hearth were picturing to ourselves the delights that would be ours again, when the clang of the knocker suddenly recalled us from our dreams. Hospitably inclined, as I trust and believe we are, at that moment an interruption seemed like an intrusion. But our momentary annoyance was speedily dispelled when the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the regulations of a great city, and stopped precisely at the door of No. 6. It was a matter of honour with him to arrive thus. Not for a million would he have walked the machine up the alley. He got off, sounded a peremptory call on the horn, and tattooed with the knocker. No answer came. An apprehension visited him. By the last post on the previous night he had received a special invitation to breakfast from Marguerite. Never had he been kept waiting at the door. He knocked again. Then he heard a voice from the ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... windows and were broken and moss-grown. There was a big flat stone for the doorstep, a room on one side with two windows, and on the other only one. The hall door was divided in the middle, the upper part open. There was a queer brass knocker on this, and the lower part fastened with an old-fashioned latch. The little courtyard looked tidy, and there was a great row of sweet clover along the fence, but now and then the goats ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... nobody was out except a dog or two and the snow kept falling, falling, still in as persistent a fashion as if it had not been doing the same thing for six hours already. I found the shop shut up and the door locked. I looked everywhere for a bell or knocker of some description. There was neither, so I began to thump as hard as I could with my feet against the door. In a minute or two I heard Delle Josephine coming. Perhaps I had alarmed the poor soul. She did look troubled on opening the door ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... the rocks gave notice to individuals they favoured of undiscovered copper, but these favoured ones were mostly children who chanced to wander up Snowdon by themselves. She had, she said, not only heard but seen these Knockers. They were thick-set dwarfs, as broad as they were long. One Knocker, an elderly female, had often played with her on the hills. Knockers' Llyn, indeed, was very much on Winifred's mind. When a golden cloud, like the one on which she was singing her song at the time I first saw her, shone over a person's head at Knockers' Llyn, it was ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... with his palm, merely for the sake of hearing a noise. There was no answering sound, so, after a moment's hesitation, he walked to the door,—which stood ajar,—purposing to call in the aid of bell and knocker. Neither of these civilized appliances was to be found. While debating whether to use his voice or to enter and use his eyes, the note of the hoopoe fell on his ear. An instant after came an answering note, deeper, sweeter, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... give them three or four smart raps with a hammer. In improves the tone of the thing, for business purposes, more than you can imagine. This done, you have only to stroll along, with the mill on your back, until you see tanbark in the street, and a knocker wrapped up in buckskin. Then you stop and grind; looking as if you meant to stop and grind till doomsday. Presently a window opens, and somebody pitches you a sixpence, with a request to "Hush up and go on," etc. I am aware that some grinders have actually afforded ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... upon the step, as though about to enter; then, with a sudden change, he turned and began to hurry away; halted a second time, as if in painful indecision; and lastly, with a violent gesture, wheeled about, returned straight to the door, and rapped upon the knocker. He was almost immediately ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the bad actor, the long hair of the poet, the Salvation bonnet, the blue shirt of the Socialist: against all these, and a hundred examples of the swagger of unreflecting life, did a little brass knocker in Gray's Inn warn me the other evening. I had knocked as no one should who is not a postman, with somewhat of a flourish. I had plainly said, in its metallic reverberations, that I was somebody. As I left my friends, I felt the knocker looking at me, and ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... windows, apparently created out of a barn or granary and an old farm-house, was encircled by a high wall enclosing also a muddy courtyard, and a garden destined to supply the fraternity merely with the necessary herbs and seeds on which the meagre-fed brethren were nourished. We lifted the heavy knocker of a rude door surmounted by a crucifix, and a lay-brother, resembling him represented in the Opera of the Duenna, answered our modest knocking. An order from "the family" was demanded; and for want of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... ridiculous," said Mr. Batchgrew, truly. "Am I to stand here all day?" And raised his hand to the knocker. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... and knocked at the door of a red brick house—door green—brass knocker. Captain Gregory Jones was a tall man; he wore a blue coat without skirts; he had high cheek bones, small eyes, and his whole appearance was eloquent of what is generally termed the bluff honesty of the seaman. Captain Gregory seemed somewhat disconcerted at seeing his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... 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
... evening at four o'clock he presented himself at the lordly hall-door of Mr. Hethbridge. Since first he had raised his hand to this knocker, fingering his letter of introduction to the East India director, Seymour Michael had learnt many things, but the knowledge was not yet his that indiscriminate untruths are apt to fly home ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... building rising black and grim against the darkening sky; he had almost laid his hand upon the knocker, intending to make known his presence and his peril, and demand admittance and speech with Master Robert Catesby, when forth from the shadows of the porch stepped a tall dark figure, and he felt a shiver ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... garden and lawn were kept in good order, but no one belonging to the house ever frequented it. Had any stranger driven up to the front door, he might have hammered away with the narrow knocker—there was no bell—for half an hour before making any one hear, and then probably it would have been by the accident of the servant going by the passage, and not by dint of noise. The household lived in the back part of the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... 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 the dialect of the ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... resembling 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 ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... horizon, and in the distance a dense grove, which proved to be the park about the house. The coming of the carriage was a signal to a swarm of small black urchins to scramble, grinning and delighted, to the wide lawn. There was no need to sound the great knocker; no need to explain, when Rosalind, hurrying to the door, saw Olympia emerging from the vehicle. They had not seen each other in four years, but they were in ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... by the clerk had neither bell, knocker, nor porter. Charles knocked loudly at the shutters with his hands. A policeman happened to pass by. Then he was frightened, and ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... gate was closed, but he tried it and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even fools ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... pulpit at its farther end, with a precentor's desk beneath it, and the usual deep gallery supported on metal pillars running round three of its four sides. The manse, its door adorned with a decent brass knocker, stood next to the church, on the side farthest from the street. It gave one a pleasant surprise on entering it to find that only its back windows looked out on the dim little "square." In front it commanded a fine view of the river, here ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... too, that he was not easily induced to abandon a resolution he had once taken. True, he did not often make one, but this time he seemed to be carrying out a very definite plan. The best thing was to submit, and await the result of his attempt. We went up three steps, and felt for the knocker. "Here it is," said B., and he lifted it and knocked hard. What a dismal sound it made in that sleeping town! I felt as though we had just committed an act of sacrilege. We listened, and heard, through the door, the noise of chairs ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... using the bell or knocker, Jetson was surprised to hear him give three raps on the door with his stick. There was no answer, and Jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused, crossed to the other corner, from where he could command a ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Outside the house, also, wonderful things have come to pass; the rocking doorstep is at rest, and its fellow has been adjusted to a proper level; ever-greens have taken the place of the old never- greens; knocker and door handle are not ashamed to show their native brass; the missing rails have returned to their duty in the ranks. The whole establishment, including its master, has emerged out of a state of foggy dilapidation. ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... find the old house was an easy matter, for almost everyone in town was familiar with its locality, and towards the close of the afternoon he found himself upon its broad steps applying vigorous strokes to the ponderous brass knocker, and half hoping the summons would be answered by Maggie herself. But it was not, and in the bent, white-haired woman who came with measured footsteps we recognize old Hagar, who spent much of her time at the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... he went to the window, and climbing up the curtains, got outside and looked down. There, in the moonlight, he saw an ordinary sized man on horseback, directing about a dozen black slaves, who had hold of a long rope, which they had tied to the knocker of Tur-il-i-ra's door. They were all pulling away at it as hard as they could (and a mighty pounding they made too), when the Giant put his head out of his window, and asked what ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... 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
... of the tiles lay cracked upon the ground beneath the eaves just as they had fallen. No hand had touched them; the hand of man indeed had touched nothing. Bevis, whose eyes were everywhere, saw all these things in a minute. "Why," said he, "there's the knocker; it has tumbled down." It had dropped from the door as the screws rusted; the door itself was propped up with a log of wood. But one thing only appeared to have been attended to, and that was the wall ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... each with its brass plate and little front garden, are English streets between Neuilly and the Champs-Elysees while all behind the apse of Saint-Sulpice, the Rue Feron, the Rue Cassette, lying peaceably in the shadow of its great towers, roughly paved, their doors each with its knocker, seem lifted out of some provincial and religious town—Tours or Orleans, for example—in the district of the cathedral or the palace, where the great over-hanging trees in the gardens rock themselves to the sound of the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... of the knocker, ever rising in insistence, with a chorus of laughter and encouraging comments from the spectators. Sir Charles flushed with anger. There must be some ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on its window and door frames. Hinges a yard long on the gates; over the gates a semi-circular grating of iron bars an inch in diameter; in one of these gates a wicket, and on the wicket a heavy, battered, highly burnished brass knocker. A short-legged, big-bodied, and very black slave to usher one through the wicket into a large, wide, paved corridor, where from the middle joist overhead hung a great iron lantern. Big double doors at the far end, standing open, flanked with diamond-paned side-lights of colored ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... style, so as to give a better idea of his manner than you gather from his own performances, let us see the prodigious insanity developed in the imitators of Shakspeare. Never, till I saw the brass knocker on the door of the Vizier's palace in Timor the Tartar, painted, you told me, by Wilkins of the Yorkshire Stingo, did I know how you produced your marvellous effects on the door of Billy Button, the tailor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... perpetrate another solo on the knocker, I rushed out and opened the door myself, just as Mrs Nash, with her face scarlet and her sleeves tucked up above the elbows, also appeared ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... led to a hooded entrance, and ascending the two stone steps, the Chancellor lifted the mailed glove which did duty as a knocker. Twice he brought it down on the oak panel underneath, and the sound of metal smiting against wood went echoing through the house, with an effect of ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... had witnessed her approach, for she stood quite a long time at the door, not able to reach the knocker or find the bell. She rapped with her knuckles; but they grew sore and produced no result, for the sound did not reach beyond the door-mat, or so it seemed to her, and the vast, still hall within appeared to swallow up everything. ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... of the old-fashioned brass knocker, a quaint little woman of forty opened the door and showed them into ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... that in these little country towns years ago people had to be very careful how they acted, lest they should offend some local magnate. He remembered a tradesman telling him how once he had got into great disgrace for putting a new knocker on his private side door, without first asking permission and sending round to obtain the opinion of an old gentleman. This person had nothing whatever to do with the property, but lived retired and ruled his neighbours with a rod of iron. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Lady Sannox to see her that evening and it was already half-past eight. His hand was outstretched to the bell to order the carriage when he heard the dull thud of the knocker. An instant later there was the shuffling of feet in the hall, and the sharp closing of ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... attached to it—I had only feared that the house would be shut up. There were lights in the windows, and the temperate tinkle of my bell brought a servant immediately to the door, but poor Mrs. Stormer had passed into a state in which the resonance of no earthly knocker was to be feared. A lady, in the hall, hovering behind the servant, came forward when she heard my voice. I recognised Lady Luard, but she had ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... barred. This seemed to exasperate a temper already somewhat excited by the various events and experiences of the day, and more especially by the change in Elsa's manner; at any rate he used the knocker with unnecessary energy. After a while, with much turning of keys and drawing of bolts, the door was opened, revealing Dirk, his stepfather, standing in the passage, candle in hand, while behind, as though to be ready for any emergency, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Mr. Dolph, smiling again; and they walked on in silence to Mrs. Kilmaster's door, where he struck the knocker, and a neat mulatto girl opened the narrow door. Then he patted his boy on the head and bade him good-by for the morning, and told him to be a good boy at school. He took a step or two and looked back. Young Jacob lingered on the step, as if he had a further ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... velvet, and they wanted yet a sennight's work, and I knew Mrs. Strathsay would be proud of them before the crackle of the autumn fires. The maids ran hither and yon, and the bells pealed, and the knocker clashed, and the coaches rolled away over the stone pave of the court-yard, and there was embracing and jesting and crying, when suddenly all the pleasant hubbub stood still, for Miss Dunreddin was in the hall, and her page behind her, and she beckoned me from my post aloft on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man before the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door was opened, and d'Artagnan, sword in hand, rushed into the rooms of M. Bonacieux, the door of which doubtless acted upon by ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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
... outskirts of the crowd, by a gift of sixpence, and asked her way to the farm. The little Irishman ran on before her, eager to show the generous lady how useful he could be. In less than half an hour, Iris and her maid were at the door of the farm-house. No such civilised inventions appeared as a knocker or a bell. The boy used his knuckles instead—and ran away when he heard the lock of the door turned on the inner side. He was afraid to be seen speaking to any living creature ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... must be considered to possess a high degree of historical value, and is undeniably picturesque. We catch a glimpse of the fugitive "knocking and rapping" at the grim twelfth-century knocker "to have yt opened." We see him "letten in" by "certen men that did lie alwaies in two chambers over the said north church door," and running straightway to the Galilee bell and tolling it. ("In the weste end in the north allie and over the Galleley dour there, in a ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... front veranda, if her presence were discovered there would be no disgrace attached to the apprehension. Her heart was thumping out a lively tattoo however, as she stole up to the heavy double doors and felt for the knocker. There was a light in the hall and in the room at the left of it. Miss Susanna was surely at home. Her hand closing at last upon the object of her search, she stooped and carefully set her basket on the stone ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... solve. From the testimony of several members of the American colony in Berlin, it appeared that all New York and half of Boston had heard of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, who, for three or four seasons past, had been using her really choice musicales as a species of knocker upon the portal of New York society. By this time, she had passed the portal and was disporting herself in the vestibule, with one toe resting upon the sacred threshold. Socially, she was as yet impossible; but her recitals had won the reputation of being ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... frail in appearance, it was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the oblong shape and kind which our ancestors called jaquemart, looked like a huge note of exclamation; an antiquary who examined ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... do something, too frightened to ask what it was, and feeling sure that even if he did, he should not understand what the master said, Eric ran out, went straight to Mr. Lawley's house, and after having managed by strenuous jumps to touch the knocker, informed the servant "that Mr. Lawley wanted ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... not 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
... Aunt Lois, and they crossed the street, and stopped before a quaint looking building. The massive oak door boasted a huge knocker, in the form of a frowning lion's head that held a huge ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... white. These pilasters appeared to support a kind of classic pediment, which was decorated in the middle by a large triple window in a boldly carved frame, and in each of its smaller angles by a glazed circular aperture. A large white door, furnished with a highly-polished brass knocker, presented itself to the rural-looking road, with which it was connected by a spacious pathway, paved with worn and cracked, but very clean, bricks. Behind it there were meadows and orchards, a barn and a pond; and facing ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... nothing except, perhaps, the sound of a low moaning as of a person in pain or in great mental distress. Convinced, however, from what my friend Sir Jeremy Buggam had told me, that the Grange was not empty, I raised the ponderous knocker and beat with it loudly against ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... ivory white, beautifully carved and paneled, with its mammoth brass knocker, the row of window boxes along the cornice a few feet above it, the very look of the house was an experience and an adventure to her. When she rang, the door opened almost instantly revealing Peter on the threshold ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... and happily under Mrs. Johnson's skilful hands. On the eve of the sad event she produced a reserve of black sateen, the kitchen steps and a box of tin-tacks, and decorated the house with festoons and bows of black in the best possible taste. She tied up the knocker with black crape, and put a large bow over the corner of the steel engraving of Garibaldi, and swathed the bust of Mr. Gladstone, that had belonged to the deceased, with inky swathings. She turned the two vases that had views of ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... makes it (as God makes mountains out of sunlight) a material thing. Every time he touches a material thing, in proportion as he touches it mightily he brings out inner light in it. He spiritualizes it. He abandons the glistening brass knocker—pleasing symbol to the outer sense—for a tiny knob on his porch door and a far-away tinkle in his kitchen. The brass knocker does not appeal to the spirit enough for the modern man, nor to the imagination. He wants an ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... time, certainly, there it was, and it sounded like somebody hammering on the front-door with his fists. There is no knocker to ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... were the arms of Bethune and Baliol, with various other devices, carved in stone. The door itself was studded with iron nails, and formed of black oak; an iron rasp, as it was called, was placed on it, instead of a knocker, for the purpose of summoning the attendants. [See Note 3.—Iron Rasp.] He who usually appeared at the summons was a smart lad, in a handsome livery, the son of Mrs. Martha's gardener at Mount Baliol. Now and then a servant girl, nicely but plainly dressed, and fully accoutred ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... underground railway, and emerged with accuracy at King's Cross. She had studied her geography, and she walked from thence to Islington. She knew well the name of the street and the number at which Mrs Hurtle lived. But when she reached the door she did not at first dare to stand and raise the knocker. She passed on to the end of the silent, vacant street, endeavouring to collect her thoughts, striving to find and to arrange the words with which she would commence her strange petition. And she endeavoured to dictate to herself some ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... I assured her. "A front door which does not boast a knocker or a bell must expect to be taken liberties with. But it is a great surprise to see you here. I had no idea that any one was at Rowchester, or expected there, except Lord Blenavon. ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Prison as being the place "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 tipsy medical practitioner of the Marshalsea comforts Mr. Dorrit in his affliction by saying: ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... gentle, flattering tone, and Miss Emily was flattered; but she soon saw that she had gained nothing by the whole breeze, except a little kind of dread, which made her inwardly resolve never to touch the knocker of his fortress again. But she entered into her brother's scheme with the facile alacrity with which she usually seconded any schemes of ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... saint of his 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 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 ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... had so kindly directed her, and went to the house of Hugh Price. This house, next to the home of Governor Berkeley, was the most elegant mansion in Virginia. On the front door was a large brass knocker, common at the time, and, seizing it, the young girl struck the door. It was opened by a negro woman whose red turban and rich dress indicated that she was the household servant of an aristocratic family. The stranger ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... into its walls, especially round the interior court, in which the staircase is very noble. Its door, opening on the quay, is the only one in Venice entirely uninjured; retaining its wooden valve richly sculptured, its wicket for examination of the stranger demanding admittance, and its quaint knocker in ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... knocker began to show signs of life: his visitors were physicians. His lectures on "Diagnosis" were well known to them; and one after another found him out. They were polite, kind, even friendly; but here it ended: these gentlemen, of course, did ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... possession, after a lapse of years, and many changes, a portion of Sir Thomas More's property had passed. This Howard had skill in the distilling of herbs and perfumes, which his descendant carries on to this day. We lifted the heavy brass knocker, and were admitted into the "old clock-house." The interior shows evident marks of extreme age, the flooring being ridgy and seamed, bearing their marks with a discontented creaking, like the secret murmurs of a faded beauty against her wrinkles! On the counter stood a few frost-bitten geraniums, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the last of his domain, His only comfort and his only care To prune his vines, and plant the fig and pear; His only forester and only guest His falcon, faithful to him, when the rest, Whose willing hands had found so light of yore The brazen knocker of his palace door. Had now no strength to lift the wooden latch, That entrance gave beneath a roof of thatch. Companion of his solitary ways, Purveyor of his feasts on holidays, On him this melancholy man bestowed ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to the Peri ceased after the first quarter of a minute. That lady, we read, took her expulsion lying down. Fenn was more vigorous. He seized the knocker, and banged lustily on the door. He had given up all hope of getting back the cap. All he wanted was to get the doorkeeper out into the open again, when he would proceed to show him, to the best ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... of his class and generation in this great city of London, who no longer believe in red velvet chairs, and know that groups of modern Italian marble are 'vieux jeu,' Soames Forsyte inhabited a house which did what it could. It owned a copper door knocker of individual design, windows which had been altered to open outwards, hanging flower boxes filled with fuchsias, and at the back (a great feature) a little court tiled with jade-green tiles, and surrounded ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... make it, and brown with the weather. In the twilight he could see that. 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. ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... squeeze him so hard he has to grunt. Then he'll probably do his best to pick my eyes out, if I pretend to be asleep, or experiment with the end of my nose, to see why it doesn't lift up like a door-knocker. Then he'll snuggle down in the crook of my arm, perfectly still except for the wriggling of his toes against my hip, and croon there with happiness and contentment, like a ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... suggested to me by the following anecdote, related to me several years ago by a beloved friend. An idle old lady, living in a narrow street, had passed so much of her time in watching the affairs of her neighbors, that she at length acquired the power of distinguishing the sound of every knocker within hearing. It happened that she fell ill and was for several days confined to her bed. Unable to observe in person what was going on without, she stationed her maid at the window, as a substitute, for the performance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... the roadside. A large bell was being tolled awkwardly when 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 ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... brokenly. His spirit was crushed. He saw in his mind's eye the frowning portals of a convict settlement, and heard the boom of a giant knocker reverberating through gaunt aisles ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... one known in the olden times. The belcher (what a name! ) supplies its place, together with the bird's eye, or the colours of some black or white boxer. An accomplished man was the delight of all companies in former times. An out and outer, one up to every thing, down as a nail or the knocker of Newgate, a trump, or a Trojan, now carry the mode of praise; one that can patter flash, floor a charley, mill a coal-heaver, come coachey in prime style, up to every rig and row in town, and down to every move ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was merely a door cut in the fence, allowing no glimpse of what was within, and instead of immediately opening it, Mr. Dingley rapped upon it with the iron knocker, whose lion head had been wont to snarl at me years ago. I heard a sharp clicking as of something being unlocked, and the gate opened. But after we were inside I got an uncanny shock, for excepting ourselves there was not a soul to ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... way to the front door, and, after answering Harry's inquiries as to dogs, by saying that no one else need be afraid, as they (the dogs) always bit him (Karl), he raised an antiquated brass knocker, and gave two or three taps, which seemed to echo through an immense number of empty rooms. "Take care," said Harry, "or you'll frighten Miss Mary into something or other." "There's no fear of that," replied Karl; "she's not so nervous as you." Harry was proceeding to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... land of froom men he was the froomest. He had the very genius of fanaticism. On the Sabbath he spoke nothing but Hebrew whatever the inconvenience and however numerous the misunderstandings, and if he perchance paid a visit he would not perform the "work" of lifting the knocker. Of course he had his handkerchief girt round his waist to save him from carrying it, but this compromise being general was not characteristic of Karlkammer any more than his habit of wearing two gigantic sets of phylacteries ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... do? Heard about you some," said the colonel, shaking hands with him. "Quite a knocker, I believe. Well, you rather look like it. Used to do some myself. Been up north, so the ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... married life, was it possible that he had doubted his wife—and that at the instigation of a stranger whose name even was unknown to him? "If she was to step out in the balcony, and see me down here," he thought, "what a fool I should look!" He felt half-inclined, at the moment when he lifted the knocker of the door, to put it back again quietly, and return to London. No! it was too late. The maid-servant was hanging up her birdcage in the area of the house; the maid-servant ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... fifteen minutes of midnight the strange trio passed up the graveled walk leading to the Martin mansion. The front door had a ponderous old-fashioned knocker, and ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... in the middle of the vestibule are double or folding doors, more or less ornate with bronze, ivory, and other work, and generally bearing a large ring or handle to serve either as a knocker or to pull the door to. Above them is a bronze grating or fretwork for further adornment and to admit light and air. Some householders, more superstitious or conventional than the rest, affected an inscription, such as "Let no evil enter ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... hid. And a strong Accusation being laid against a Person belonging to the Church, and full Proof made, that he had been singularly Industrious in the Execution of that horrid Piece of Barbarity on the Hill, his Lordship commanded him to be hang'd up at the Knocker ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... at one angle of the building, as if it were in hiding from dangerous visitors, and wished to keep itself a secret—a noble door for all that—old oak, and studded with great square-headed iron nails, and so thick that the sharp iron knocker struck upon it with a muffled sound, and the visitor rung a clanging bell that dangled in a corner among the ivy, lest the noise of the knocking should ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... drawing-room were all pulled down. And it seemed to him, too, that there was about the house an air of unwonted desolation, which, as the minutes passed, certainly became intensified in his mind. Once more he sounded the huge knocker; and yet again: this time so vigorously that the door shook. His sense of calamity had grown till it was a presentiment. Yet his heart rose as, after a long five minutes, there came the sounds of fumbling key and grating lock; and then the door swung open before ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter |
