"Postern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw him, his face red-bronze with the sea tan, his crisp, curly head bared, his eyes alight with a terrifying welcome; and a tremor of a fear akin to ecstasy ran through her: the fear of the women of days gone by whose courage carried them to the postern or the strand, and fainted there. She could have taken no step farther—and there was no need. New strength flowed from the hand she held that was to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... said and did with the lady away! And to dance on, when we've lost the music, Always made me—and no doubt makes you—sick. Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, 800 She that kept it in constant good humour, It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, And my head's one that its spite was spent on: Thirty years are fled since that morning, And with them all my head's ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... speak to him; his soul comes out into the vestibule to answer you, and returns,—and the gates are shut; therein you can not enter. You were discussing the state of the country; but when you ceased, he opened a postern-gate, went down a bank, and launched on a sea over whose waters you have no boat to sail, no star to guide. You have loved and reverenced him. He has been your concrete of truth and nobleness. Unwittingly you touch a secret spring, and a Blue-Beard ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... take me home. Fairy mother! Come, come, come!" Shutting his eyes he seemed to be in a state of intense expectation. Tears filled Mrs. Woodford's eyes. The Doctor moved forward, but no sooner did the boy become conscious of human presence than he started up, and fled wildly towards a postern door, but no sooner had he disappeared in the shadow than there was ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the western postern and went up the Rue des Trois Piliers. The three pillars, which give its name to the street, mark the boundary between the jurisdiction of the Chapter of St. Hilaire and the town of Poitiers. They are set in the city wall, a few yards apart, and the statue on the first pillar is that ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... the ambushed army, finding that the surprise had been effective, rushed from their lurking-place with shouts and the sound of trumpets and drums, hoping thereby to increase the dismay of the garrison. Ortega at length fought his way to a postern, which he threw open, admitting the Marquis of Cadiz and a strong following, who quickly overcame all opposition, the citadel being soon in full ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... led the way to a postern where, passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior defense, which communicated with the open field ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... and of trumpets, announced the coming vengeance of the allies. Their catapults rained missiles on the town, and their men-at-arms waited impatiently for a breach to be battered in the Porte Beauvoisine. But it remained steadfastly shut, and the Duke made another brilliant sally from a postern gate with the blood-red standard waving again above his Norman knights, and swept back once more the assailing lines of Germany until the French had to bring up their reinforcements from the rear and save the field. That evening, in Otto's pavilion, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... little postern of the Castle. Gerhardt rapped at the door, and after two or three repetitions, ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... the side. But there was about it none of that stir and liveliness one expects to see about the houses of the great. No visitors passed in or out, and the big iron gates were shut, as if none were looked for. Of a truth, the persons who visited Monsieur these days preferred to slip in by the postern after nightfall, as if there had never been a time when they were proud to be seen ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... was "foughten very hardilie on both sides ane long space," was that Arran's men were driven down the side of the hill through the narrow wynds that led from the High Street towards the wall, and thence made their way out through some postern, or perhaps at the gate near the Well-house Tower, where the little well of St. Margaret now bubbles up unconsidered, and so across the Nor' Loch, by boat or ford. Bishop Beatoun, he whose conscience ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... door, anxious to assure himself that he was not mistaken, he turned round and his eye at once caught the face of Sybil. He started, he trembled; she was not two yards distant, she evidently recognised him; he held open the swinging postern of the Abbey that she might pass, which she did and then stopped on the outside, and ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Albanian Pacha. Crowds of irregular helpers and grooms, many of them totally unrecognized by Lord Altamont, some half countenanced by this or that upper servant, some doubtfully tolerated, some not tolerated, but nevertheless slipping in by postern doors when the enemy had withdrawn, made up a strange mob as regarded the human element in this establishment. And Dean Browne regularly asserted that five out of six amongst these helpers he himself could ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... only, as one may say, intellectual; it was not moral and theological. He played with it and used it as a pigment; he treated it, as the metaphysicians say, objectively. He was not discomposed, disturbed, haunted by it, in the manner of its usual and regular victims, who had not the little postern door of fancy to slip through, to the other side of the wall. It was, indeed, to his imaginative vision, the great fact of man's nature; the light element that had been mingled with his own composition always clung to this rugged prominence of moral responsibility, like the mist ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... rapidity, considering that he never moved in a straightforward direction, undulated into the open air in front of the house, described a rhomboid towards a side-buttress in the new building, near to which was a postern-door; unlocked that door from a key in his pocket, and, motioning Lionel to follow him, entered within the ribs of the stony skeleton. Lionel followed in a sort of supernatural awe, and beheld, with more substantial alarm, Mr. Fairthorn winding up an inclined plank which lie ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the house she went to look at the drawbridge, with a faint hope that she might chance upon some unexpected means of escape, but all was secure there, and a little postern, opening on the moat, which she discovered near by, was also carefully fastened, with bolts and bars strong enough to keep out an army. As these seemed to be the only means of exit from the chateau, she ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the people say: "He was a man who used to ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... the rush, Elettra nearly fell to her knees as they got in. The gate clanged behind her, and she heard the great bolts sliding into their sockets, as it was made fast. Her men had known well enough what to expect from the curiosity of the people. They opened a little postern and let in the few who carried her things, and who had been shut ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... upon a night Sir Launcelot arrived before a castle, which was rich and fair. And there was a postern that was opened toward the sea, and was open without any keeping, save two lions kept the entry; and the moon shined clear. Anon Sir Launcelot heard a voice that said, "Launcelot, enter into the castle, where thou shalt ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... they were at the edge of the stockade; and, at a signal from the chief, a little postern opened, ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... pulled down) and trampled upon by dogs, etc., as if the ground had never been consecrated. Nor do the Queen's Coll. people take any care, but rather laught at it when 'tis mentioned." In 1722 "the famous postern-gate called the Turl Gate" (a corruption for Thorold Gate) was "pulled down by one Dr. Walker, who lived by it, and pretended that it was a detriment to his house. As long ago as 1705, they had pulled down the building of Peckwater quadrangle, in Ch. Ch." Queen's also "pulled ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... the seas surrounding the coasts of these kingdoms; and from the gateways of the channels, from promontories as if from watch-towers, from estuaries of rivers as if from postern gates, from passage-ways, inlets, straits, firths, the garrison of the Isle and the crews of the ships going and returning look to the westward to judge by the varied splendours of his sunset mantle the mood of that arbitrary ruler. The end of the day is the ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... of the new wall, according to Stow, was from the Tower to Aldgate, thence to Bishopsgate, and from Bishopsgate to Aldersgate, with a postern at Cripplegate. Next came Newgate, and Ludgate was towards the Fleet—the wall ending at the Thames. The whole length was two miles and a half and 608 feet. Stow did not know that several of the gates he named—Aldgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, and Ludgate—were ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... warder, to lower the drawbridge over the moat, for their exit. Without expressing any astonishment at the strange scene thus presented to him, Conrad D'Amboise glided from his post, and favored by the shadows of the frowning battlements, gained a postern in an angle of the wall, and ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... poverty,—the impairing of their promise, the blotting out of their prospects. To such mourning children there is little comfort, but in contemplating the easier life which lies behind, and (it may be hoped) the happier one which stretches before their parents, on the other side the postern of life. If there is sunshine on the two grand reaches of their path, the shadow which lies in the midst is necessarily but a temporary gloom. To grieving parents it should be a consoling truth, that as the life is more ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... extra- ordinary mixture of seclusion and exposure. All these things form part of the castle of Loches, whose enorm- ous enceinte covers the whole of the top of the hill, and abounds in dismantled gateways, in crooked passages, in winding lanes that lead to postern doors, in long facades that look upon terraces interdicted to the visitor, who perceives with irritation that they com- mand magnificent views. These views are the property of the sub-prefect of the department, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... under the name of Achmet, is now in the city of Agra, and desires to gain his way into the fort. He has with him as travelling-companion my foster-brother Dost Akbar, who knows his secret. Dost Akbar has promised this night to lead him to a side-postern of the fort, and has chosen this one for his purpose. Here he will come presently, and here he will find Mahomet Singh and myself awaiting him. The place is lonely, and none shall know of his coming. ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... saw them guarded; And now they are come with purpose to apprehend Your mistress, fair Vittoria. We are now Beneath her roof: 'twere fit we instantly Make out by some back postern. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... small lights that winked, went and came, twinkled at all the windows, and seemed, on the sombre background of the building, like sparks running through the cinders of burnt paper. Once past the drawbridge and the postern, it was necessary, in order to gain the chapel, to traverse the first courtyard, full of coaches, of valets, of sedan-chairs, and bright with the flare of torches and the fires of the kitchens. There was the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... "A postern for her majesty!" cried the gentleman. But Bussy was no longer there to hear, he and his friends had ridden off towards ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... seldom when The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. [Knocking within. How now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste That wounds the unsisting postern with these ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... ropes. From the village the entrance to the castle is through the barbican, or outer gate, a work of gigantic strength and massive grandeur, which has been the scene of many a brave encounter. Near by is the Postern Tower, a sally-port adjacent to the "Bloody Gap" and "Hotspur's Chair." The history of this famous stronghold is practically the history of this portion of the realm, for in all the Border warfare that continued ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... of the evolving universe. Come back, then, on the long road to the rear on which Bishop Usher's old date of creation is a way station an infinitesimal distance behind us; come back until together we stand at the universe's postern gate and look out into the mystery whence all things came, where no scientific investigation can ever go, where no one knows the facts. What do you make of it? Two voices rise in answer. One calls the world "a mechanical process, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... That welcome postern open'd on a court— Say rather, grave-yard; gloomy yews begirt Its cheerless walls; ranges of headstones show'd, Each on its hoary tablature, half hid With moss, with hemlock, and with nettles rank, The sculptured leer of that hyena ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... men among them who were suffering from blows and from trampling hoofs, and other injuries they had received; but as they ran they recovered their well-trained formation, and with their leader dashed two and two through the narrow postern gate and along the darkened road for full a couple of hundred yards, before the stern command rang out for them ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... end, the gondola rounded the corner of the narrow canal skirting the garden-wall of Santa Chiara. Alarmed lest he should lose her again he passionately urged her to receive him on the morrow; and after some hesitation she consented. A moment later their prow touched the postern and the boatman gave a low call which proved him no novice at the business. Fulvia signed to Odo not to speak or move; and they sat listening intently for the opening of the gate. As soon as it was unbarred ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... mind; he was cold to the bones, and felt a dull numbing pressure on the top of his head; and yet he welcomed these symptoms, too, with an odd satisfaction; they seemed to entitle him to some sympathy. He reached the Gardens at last, but when he had turned in at the little postern door near the 'King's Arms,' he could not prevail upon himself to open the letter—he tore it half open and put it back irresolutely; he must find a seat and sit down. He struck up the hill, with the wind ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... the postern gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always in the shadows, for the moon was shining. And so she got to the dungeon where her lover, Aucassin, lay. She thrust her head through the chink, and there she heard Aucassin ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... were either asleep from the effects of wine, or else, half asleep, were still drinking. A few of them, however, they surprised in their beds, and put to the sword. They began then to break open a postern gate near the Hexapylos, which required great force; and a signal was given from the wall by sounding a trumpet, as had been agreed upon. After this, the attack was carried on in every quarter, not secretly, but by open force; ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... discharged, and the three gentlemen were not long in discovering the small door, which was a sort of postern in a lane between two garden walls. It still wanted ten or fifteen minutes of the appointed time; the rain fell heavily, and the adventurers sheltered themselves below some pendant ivy, and spoke in low tones of ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too late to retreat, and in a moment we were standing in the street. It would not have surprised me if he had celebrated his freedom by some noisy extravagance there; but he refrained, and contented himself—while Maignan locked the postern behind us—with cocking his hat and lugging forward his sword, and assuming an air of whimsical recklessness, as if an adventure were to be ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... (safe hidings in one's MARQUISAT, or vacant interlunar cave), with alternations of offence and reconcilement; what with occasional actual flights to Paris (whitherward Voltaire is always busy to keep a postern open; and of which there is frequent talk, and almost continual thought, all along), flights to be called "visits," and privately intending to be final, but never proving so,—the Voltaire-Friedrich relation, if left to itself, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Ahrnthal the peasants, becoming enamored of Lutheranism, rose in the peasant war of 1525! How darkly, too, must they have painted the fanatical bauer Barthlmae Duregger of St. Peter's in the Ahrnthal, who, after being taken prisoner, escaped near their postern gate to circulate threats of fire and murder throughout the neighborhood, vowing to reduce Bruneck to ashes! Reappearing with a band of twelve poachers and twenty-six laborers, and accompanied by Peter Baszler of Antholz, he robbed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... chapel within it, but the greater part of the building was used for a prison. Passing under it, and up Ludgate Hill, you came to the western gate of the Cathedral Close—a wide and strong one—spanning the street.[1] There were six of these gates; the second was at Paul's Alley, leading to the Postern Gate, or "Little North Door"; third, Canon's Alley; fourth, Little Gate (corner of Cheapside); fifth, St. Augustine's Gate (west end of Watling Street); and sixth, Paul's Chain. The ecclesiastical names bear their own explanation: "Ave Maria" and "Paternoster" indicated that rosaries and ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... then a castle, protected, probably, by battlements and mantlets and turreted walls, and with its keep and its drawbridge, its postern and its fosse—simple works of defence that were armed for retaliation, with catapult and mangonel, the canon raye of the period, besides arquebuse and other hand weapons wielded, no doubt, by mighty men at arms, mail-clad ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... gather'd round her and the home that she loved so well, And the deathless fame of a woman's name whom nothing but love could quell. Who, when the men would have yielded, with her own sweet lily hand, Led them straight from the postern gate, and drove the foe from the land. There's many a little homestead that is cosy and sung to-day, Because of a woman who stood in the door and kept the wolves ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... obliged to steer clear of the burning rubbish which encumbered our path. Several outlets were tried, but unsuccessfully, as the hot breezes from the fire struck against our faces, and drove us back in terrible confusion. At last a postern opening on the Moskwa was discovered, and it was through this the Emperor with his officers and guard succeeded in escaping from the Kremlin, but only to re-enter narrow streets, where the fire, inclosed ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... door—a position all the more awkward that the knight himself expires immediately after he has reached shelter. The situation is saved, however, by the guardian damsel of romance, Lunet (the Linet or Lynette of the Beaumains-Gareth story), who emerges from a postern between gate and portcullis and conveys the intruder safe to her own chamber. Here a magic bed makes him invisible: though the whole castle, including the very room, is ransacked by the dead knight's people and would-be revengers, at the bidding ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... portal, gate; postern; porch, portico. Associated words: lintel, jamb, sill, threshold, stile, panel, rail, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Go on, good Eglamour, Out at the postern by the abbey-wall: I fear I am attended by some ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... which were likewise cut smooth on the surface. The intention of these stones we could not guess, but they show that some ornament, and some more finished work, must have once existed in the inner fort. Tho both the main entrances have massive towers of stone raised on their right, there is a small postern at the opposite or west side, not more than four feet wide, which has no defenses whatever, and is a mere hole in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... too hot to pace the keep; To climb the turret is too steep; My lord the earl is dozing deep, His noonday dinner over: The postern-warder is asleep (Perhaps they've bribed him not to peep): And so from out the gate they creep, And cross ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lifted the roofs of Madrid at night, scarcely did more for his friend than was here done for us in the bright sunshine and open air. The keys that were to be made use of in this journey, to gain us a passage through many a tower, stair, and postern, were in the hands of the authorities, whose subordinates we never failed to coax into ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... had turned her face away, bolted out, like a streak of smoke, as he hugged his shoulders with his hands (from intense cold.) As luck would have it, the hour was as yet early, so that the inmates of the house had not all got out of bed; and making his escape from the postern door, he straightaway betook himself home, running ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... he knocked at the postern. At first sight of him the porter suspiciously blocked the entrance with his person, but seeing the badge upon his breast, stood at gaze, and a look of keen curiosity crossed over his face. On the visitor announcing himself as a Vaufontaine, this curiosity gave place to as keen surprise; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... gathered sufficient strength, nor have we been able to collect the twenty thousand crowns which are your price. But with the next turn of the moon in the darkest hour we will come and you will be paid your money at the small postern gate with the rowan-bush beside it.' Well, rogue, what ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this job." He turned thoughtfully toward the big windows on the south of the room, and mused aloud: "That's the way through the two long rooms to the postern ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... chamber which was once the gaol. A few steps bring us to a very magnificent gateway, leading to the Palace grounds, over which is a chamber, called the Knights' Chamber. This is of Early English date, with a fine groined roof. The gates and postern are placed at some distance from the outer archway, adding greatly to the dignity and effect of the whole composition. The delicate arcading of the sides, and the excellent clustered shafts, are good examples of the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... men ordered on this service dared to enter, commanded by Lysistratus an Olynthian. These passed through the sea wall, and without being seen went up and put to the sword the garrison of the highest post in the town, which stands on a hill, and broke open the postern on the ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... hesitated to step forward. He chose fifteen companions, all men of powerful arm and dauntless heart. In the dead of the night he led them forth from the camp, and approached the city cautiously, until he arrived at a postern-gate, which opened upon the Darro and was guarded by foot-soldiers. The guards, little thinking of such an unwonted and partial attack, were for the most part asleep. The gate was forced, and a confused and chance-medley skirmish ensued; Hernando del Pulgar stopped not to take part ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... ashore from the "Jemappes" to take off the officers, who had been dining on shore, at the postern gate known as the Ragged Staff, which had been left open for their convenience, made a mistake in the darkness, and came alongside of another landing stage, the guard of which turned out and fired a volley, which luckily ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... displaying great skill, as well as wonderful personal strength, in directing and assisting the establishment of a large mangonel, (a military engine used for casting stones,) upon a station commanding an exposed postern gate, which led from the western side of the castle down to the plain; and where a severe assault was naturally to be expected. The greater part of his armour lay beside him, but covered with his cassock to screen it from morning dew; while in his leathern doublet, with arms bare ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... love has been slow to develop itself it is not necessarily sluggish or deficient when once it is come. But Englishmen are rarely heroic lovers except in their novels. There is generally a little bypath of caution, a postern gate of mercantile foresight, by which they can slip quietly out at the right moment and forget all about the ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... themselves as conspicuous sinners, or indeed, it may be, as sinners at all. The experience of penitence and of Divine forgiveness must come to them, if it is to come at all, at a later stage. It is not by that postern that they enter upon the ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... to the Tower of London. The Tower is an ancient and very extensive castle, consisting of a great number of buildings inclosed within a high wall. It is in the lower part of London, on the bank of the Thames, with a flight of stairs leading down to the river from a great postern gate. The unhappy queen was landed at these stairs and conveyed into the castle, and shut up in a gloomy apartment, with walls of stone and windows barricaded with strong bars of iron. There were four or five gentlemen, attendants upon the queen in her palace at Greenwich, whom the king suspected, ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... kept their long debate, Coroebus stole unheeded to his band, And led a handful by a postern gate Across the plain, across the barren land Where once the happy vines were wont to stand, And 'mid the clusters once did maidens sing,— But now the plain was waste on every hand, Though here and there a flower would breathe ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... castle, they found the draw-bridge down and the postern open, so confident and unsuspecting were the Basques, and entered, cutlasses drawn and pikes forward, into the great hall. There were killed seven young men, who had barricaded themselves behind tables and would there make sport with their ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... Hell, and as I may say, enflam'd by the Devil; when I see Towns, Parties, Factions and Rabbles of People visibly possess'd; 'tis enough to me that the great Master of the Devils has said to him, GO; there's no need to enquire which Way he finds open, or at what postern Gate he gets in; as to his appearing, 'tis plain he often gets in without appearing, and therefore the Question about his appearing still remains a Doubt, and is not very easy to ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... sympathetic imagination can dwell on till it is luminous. Such gatherings as would attract notice had to be avoided, and what meetings were held had to be in private houses and with shut doors, through which entrance was not easy. Mary's 'door' had a 'gate' in it, and only that smaller postern, which admitted but one at a time, was opened to visitors, and that after scrutiny. But though assemblies were restricted, communications were kept up, and by underground ways information of events important to the community spread through its members. The consciousness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... which was mostly devoted to flowers, led through little, old-fashioned, somewhat narrow postern doors into the fruit gardens on either side. In these were the gooseberries. Here were to be found the great beds of strawberries; here, by-and-by, ripened the plums and the many sorts of apples ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... rule After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. And that same night, the night of the new year, By reason of the bitterness and grief That vext his mother, all before his time Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born Deliver'd at a secret postern-gate To Merlin, to be holden far apart Until his hour should come; because the lords Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child Piecemeal among them, had they known; for each But sought to ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... alley door, low, vaulted, narrow, solid, entirely of oak, lined on the inside with a sheet of iron and iron stays, a genuine prison postern. The blows from the butt end of the gun made the house tremble, but did not shake ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... green frock coat, buff belt, and a sort of a turban that he always wore on his head, somewhat resembling a bishop's mitre: he drew his hand thrice across my face, and I withdrew as he continued to urge me. My hall door and postern gate were both strongly guarded, and there were sundry armed people within, searching the closets; but all of them made way for me, and lifted their caps as I passed by them. Only one superior officer accosted ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... was begun, in one of the briskest skirmishes, so it was, that a company of the Lord Will-be-will's men sallied out at the sally-port, or postern of the town, and fell in upon the rear of Captain Boanerges' men, where these three fellows happened to be, so they took them prisoners, and away they carried them into the town; where they had not lain long in durance, but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Ellangowan by a postern door-way, which showed symptoms of having been once secured with the most jealous care, Brown (whom, since he has set font upon the property of his fathers, we shall hereafter call by his father's name of Bertram) wandered from one ruined apartment to another, surprised ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the honor of presiding. Almost delighted enough with her capture to forget, if not forgive, her fugitive fellow-servant Bridget, the florid and fat Aunt Peggy Muldoony hurried along as if the bag were a feather, her words flowing like a spring flood, and introduced her charge at a postern-door into her own house, as she called it. This was, in fact, a very comfortable and somewhat spacious dwelling, which stood almost distinct in the rear of the mansion in which the Hopkins family proper resided, so that there should be ample accommodations for servants, and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Matilda, "I will ask him myself, if he knows aught of Isabella; he is not worthy I should converse farther with him." She was going to open the casement, when they heard the bell ring at the postern-gate of the castle, which is on the right hand of the tower, where Matilda lay. This prevented the Princess from renewing ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... young daughter of the house steals unobserved away. She issues from her door, and her light feet fly with tremulous speed along the darkling Terrace, flecked with light from the blazing ball-room, till they reach a postern in the wall, which opens upon the void of the night outside dancing Haddon. At that postern some one is waiting eagerly for her; waiting with swift horses. That some one is young Sir John Manners, second son of the House of Rutland, and her own true love. The anxious lovers mount, and ride rapidly ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... in, after much knocking and calling, through the postern gate in the high west wall, into a mansion, the description whereof I must defer to the next chapter, seeing that the moon has already sunk into the Atlantic, and there is darkness over ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... shouts of war, rushed to the battlements. Then ensued a fight most desperate between the noble Champion of England and the black King, in which the latter would most assuredly have been slain had he not, like a recreant, turned his back and fled, among his followers, through a postern gate, which, happily for him, stood open,—proudly asserting that he would return and ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... "A little postern hidden between two buttresses and left unused since centuries ago. I did not even think of pointing it out to my tenant. It opens straight on the country, just at the verge ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... hillside, he hied him to the castle, and as he neared the little postern in the western walls, a burst of boisterous song reached his ears from the guardroom. Taking up a stone from the ground he was about to knock three loud knocks, when the door was opened from within, and a tall man with a thick plaid ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... how thoroughly Popinot had picketed the house, in co-operation with Roddy's murderer, by way of provision against mischance; but the adventurer was satisfied that, in his proper guise as himself, he needed only to open that postern door at the street end of the passage, to feel a knife slip in between his ribs—most probably in his back, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... halts at the great gate of Malepartus; examines it with his nose; goes on to a postern; examines that also, and then another, and another; while I perceive afar, projecting from every cave's mouth, the red and green end of a new fir-faggot. Ah, Reinecke! fallen is thy conceit, and fallen thy tail therewith. Thou hast worse foes to deal with than Bruin the bear, or Isegrim the wolf, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... and, having divided their band into two parties, assigned to each man his post. One band, led by Oishi Kuranosuke, was to attack the front gate, and the other, under his son Oishi Chikara, was to attack the postern of Kotsuke no Suke's house; but as Chikara was only sixteen years of age, Yoshida Chiuzayemon was appointed to act as his guardian. Further it was arranged that a drum, beaten at the order of Kuranosuke, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... breathe the free air; to speak with whom man would; to feel the heaving of the salt sea under man's boat, and to hear the clash of arms and see the chargers and the swords and the nodding plumes file out of the postern—O Perrote, Perrote!" ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... home was doubtless that in Aldgate, of which the lease to Chaucer, bearing date May, 1374, has been discovered; and to this we may fancy Chaucer walking morning and evening from the riverside, past the Postern Gate by the Tower. Already, however, in 1376, the routine of his occupations appears to have been interrupted by his engagement on some secret service under Sir John Burley; and in the following year, and in 1378, he was repeatedly abroad in the ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... Zamora, if God pleases; and if I do not as I have said, then let me be slain. And the King believed all that he said, and received him for his vassal, and did him great honour. And all that night they talked together of his secrets, and he made the King believe that he knew a postern by means of which he would put ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... night, and as the unsuspecting prince rode up the Rue Vieille du Temple behind his little escort, humming a tune and playing with his glove, a band of assassins fell upon him from the shadow of the postern La Barbette, crying "a mort, a mort" and he was hacked to death. Then issued from a neighbouring house at the sign of Our Lady, Jean sans Peur, a tall figure concealed in a red cloak, lantern in hand, who gazed at the mutilated corpse. "C'est bien," said ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... rough plaster, he saw a crowd assembled, and soldiers' and custom-house officers' uniforms, mingled with the shabby, dirty blouses of barracks-loafers. The old man instinctively approached. A customs officer, seated on the stone step below a round postern with iron bars, was talking with many gestures, as if he were acting ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... him—for under that name I then knew him; though I need scarcely tell you that he was no other than the pirate Zappa. He had, it appeared, during his former stay at our castle, secured the key of a small postern-gate, through which he and his followers had gained admittance. For a long time his arrival had been looked forward to by my deluded sister, as he had arranged the means of communicating with her before his departure; and he had persuaded ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... delicacy in her avoiding Lord Algernon that morning; not wishing, as she herself might have frankly put it, "to take stock" of his inheritance in his presence. As she passed into the garden through the low postern door, she turned to look along the stretching facade of the main building, with the high stained windows of its banqueting-hall and the state chamber where a king had slept. Even in that crisp October air, and with the green of its ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... account of what had happened. Alarmed at this information, from which he immediately concluded that the stranger was young Melvil, he forthwith quitted the chase, and returning to the castle by a private postern, ordered his horse to be kept ready saddled, in hope that his son-in-law would repeat the visit to his mother. This precaution would have been to no purpose, had Renaldo followed the advice of Farrel, who represented the danger of returning ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... Saracen pirates fell on our convent. On a sudden the darkness was full of flames and blood; but while the other nuns ran hither and thither, clinging to the Abbess's feet or shrieking on the steps of the altar, I slipped through an unwatched postern and made my way to the hills. The next day the Emperor's soldiery descended on the carousing heathen, slew them and burned their vessels on the beach; the Abbess and nuns were rescued, the convent walls rebuilt, and peace restored to the holy precincts. All this I heard ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew, "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through. Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... that would not excite inquiry if I had to lie hid in the forest a few days. I did not think flight would be so difficult a matter, but I knew that every moment spent in Mortimer's Keep was at peril of my life; and I had but just made my escape through a small postern door before I heard the alarm bell ring, the drawbridge go up, and knew that the edict had gone forth for ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... my lord Alaeddin seated at the foot of the wall." So her mistress arose hurriedly and gazing from the casement saw him; and her husband raising his head saw her; so she saluted him and he saluted her, both being like to fly for joy. Presently Quoth she, "Up and come in to me by the private postern, for now the Accursed is not here;" and she gave orders to the slave-girl who went down and opened for him. Then Alaeddin passed through it and was met by his wife, when they embraced and exchanged kisses ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... distance, while a whole army of thoughts and terrors tossed my soul. I pictured them in the power of the vengeful Eber von Wichsenstein and his fierce robber fellows; methought the covetous Bremberger had dragged them into his castle postern to exact a great ransom—nor was this the worst that might befall. If Abersfeld the wildest freebooter of all the plundering nobles far or near were to seize her? My blood ran cold as I conceived of this chance. Ann was so fair; what lord who might carry ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... order that would have looked to a stranger like disorder, but so that Anthony could lay his hand on all that he needed. From the hall, which was paved with stone, went up the stairs, very strong and broad, of massive oak; under which was a postern that gave on the garden; on the floor above was a room where Anthony slept, which again had its windows to the street boarded up, for he was a light sleeper, and the morning sounds of the awakening city ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Hall, which had a small cabinet adjoining where Freiherr Roderick von R—— used to sleep when engaged in making his astronomical observations. Between the door of this cabinet and that of a second was a postern, leading through a narrow passage immediately into the astronomical tower. But directly Daniel (that was the house-steward's name) opened this postern, the storm, blustering and howling terrifically, drove a heap ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... clearness, the moment when the "Saint Cecilia" struck on the rocks of Ossa Skerry. She thought she must have been dreaming, but again the sound was renewed. She felt confident that it was caused by heavy blows dealt against a small postern gate which led out on the front terrace overhanging the sea. From the noise, Hilda suspected that this had already partly given way, and she feared that the assailants, whoever they were, would already have ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... south east to the south west angle of the wall, were: La Tour Neuve, round and huge, washed by the Loire; three other towers on the river bank; the postern Chesneau, the only one opening on to the water and defended by a portcullis; the tower of La Croiche-Meuffroy, so called from the crook or spur which protruded from the foot of the tower into the river; two other towers washed by the Loire; La Port du Pont, with drawbridge and flanked by ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... But somehow, at length—woe to "lost causes and impossible loyalties"—Herrenhausen had wind of it; and one night, when the soldiers of the white cockade lay snoring beneath the stars, stealthily the white-faced Warden unbarred his postern—that very postern through which now Zuleika had passed on the way to her bedroom—and stealthily through it, one by one on tip-toe, came the King's foot-guards. Not many shots rang out, nor many swords clashed, in the night air, before the trick was won for law and order. Most of the rebels were ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... a man of much imagination," said the Boy, "or you wouldn't have asked such a question. How do you suppose I come every night, after all the world is barred and bolted out of your sacred Close, and the alternative lies between the porter at the postern, whom you know I ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Silvestre happened to stand centinel in the second watch, the moon shining very bright, he observed two armed Indians in their plumes of feathers, passing over the ditch on a tree that lay across instead of a bridge. These men came to a postern which they entered without asking leave, on which Silvestre gave one of them a cut on the forehead, on which he immediately fled. The other Indian, without waiting for his wounded companion, got into the canoe on the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... White Rose musters again in the west, and I have hope of your release. Ope the west postern ere sunrise. Till then God ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... back swiftly and stealthily to the spot at which the pathway terminated, and there he found an old green-painted door in a small archway in the wall. It half drooped upon its rusty hinges, and across the gap it left between its own rim and the postern, he had view enough to tell him whither his rambling footsteps had led him. He was looking at the terraced gardens in the rear of the Baroness's hotel, and whilst he looked Gertrude herself floated into sight. Some trifle of a lace mantilla was thrown over her head, and in ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... river mud and held it over his head. He shrieked: 'Hic hocus pocus,' parodying the 'Hoc corpus meum' of the Mass. The soldiers of the Duke of Norfolk were unable to reach him for the crowd. There were but ten of them, under a captain, set to guard the little postern in the side wall of the garden. Towards ten o'clock the Mayor of London came by land. He had with him all his brotherhood with their horses and armed guards in a long train. The mayor and his aldermen had entrance into the palace, but the Duke had given orders that men and ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... slender girl also in mourning, and Frances, Duchess of Suffolk [Note 3], bore her train. After them came the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Arundel, a slim comely youth unknown to the crowd, and Lord Grey de Wilton. And the minute after, from the crowd thronging the postern, Mr Ive, the High Constable (Mr Underhill's friend and neighbour at the Lime Hurst), made his way to our ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... difficult. Personally I am not a bubbling fount of gay nothings when I find myself alone with a comparative stranger. My drawbridge goes up as if by magic, my postern is closed, and I peer cautiously through the narrow slits of my turret to estimate the chances of peril. Nor was Mr Brindley offensively affable. However, we struggled into a kind of chatter. I had come to the Five Towns, on behalf ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... thumb. Then sighs of amorosity from Sally L. exhaled, And her music apparatus sympathetically wailed. "In the gloaming, O my darling!" rose that wild impassioned strain, And her eyes were fixed on his with an intensity of pain, Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at the postern gate came round, And going into session strove to magnify the sound. He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming rang and rang With the song that to his darling he impetuously sang! Then that musing youth, recalling all his soul from other scenes, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... walking between two religious of that order; and the Dominicans received him into their house. The religious of both those orders, forcing their way through the guard and overpowering its commander, who was holding Don Pedro, smuggled in the latter through a little postern gate which the said Dominican ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... unlucky being that I am?" said Sancho, "when I can't stir my knee-caps, for these boards I have bound so tight to my body won't let me. What you must do is carry me in your arms, and lay me across or set me upright in some postern, and I'll hold it either with this ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... bewitchingly lovely gardens,—going across ancient drawbridges, spanning long-unused, grass-grown moats; under little postern-gates; into rustic grottoes—they at last came to the conservatory, in which is preserved the "Warwick Vase." This is made of white ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... in shadow from the hall, my heart pounding, but my purpose very steady, and passed silently through passages and corridors where here and there lay one in besotted sleep, until at last I came out in a little court by the postern. The warders were long since guzzled to a torpor in their quarters, so there was neither let nor hindrance when I slid the bolt and welcomed in Avenging Justice in the shape of him who stood without, my old lord of Aragon, uncle and protector to my lady. We met with ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... up the drive, curiously at his ease, in a state of suspended animation, which knew no hope and feared no disappointment. Just before he reached the front door, the postern gate in the wall on his left-hand side opened, and Philippa stood there, muffled up in her fur coat, framed in the faint and shadowy moonlight against the background of seabounded space. He moved ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... courtyard stood uninjured, but the postern door had been battered in. Another body of natives, armed with spears and bows and arrows, were standing round the entrance; and a good many of the people of the neighborhood, roused by the sudden tumult, were standing at the doors. These looked on, apparently, with mere ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... sentries; then you will find yourself in a garden, in the centre of which is a tank. Fill, or make show of filling, your jar. Then the long dark passage which, you will see on the left will conduct you to a postern gate of the palace; there will be ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... postern gate, Andrej Kourbsky and two hundred men met Yediguer and 10,000 Tatars, and cut off their retreat, enclosing them in the narrow streets. They forced their Khan to take refuge in a tower, and made signs as if to capitulate. ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... top of these steps," replied the guide. "Then we shall have to reach a postern in the wall of the grounds. That is ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... just before sunset a postern gate was opened and a man, holding a white flag above his head, was seen swimming across the moat. He scrambled out on the farther side, shook himself like a dog, and advanced slowly to where Bolle ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... through a small antechamber which also gave access to the vast linen-presses. The balcony, too, had a little staircase leading down into the garden. It had always been the custom to carry the linen to and from the laundry through Maria Addolorata's cell, and through a postern gate in the garden wall, the washing being done in the town. By this plan, the annoyance was avoided of carrying the huge baskets through the whole length of the convent, to and from the main entrance, which was also much further removed from the house of Sora Nanna, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... as knight led captive, in romance, Through postern and dark passage, past grim glance Of arms; where from throned state the dame He loved, in sumptuous blushes came To ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... of her bodice as they had been two walnuts; so slim was she in the waist that your two hands might have clipped her; and the daisy flowers that brake beneath her as she went tiptoe, and that bent above her instep, seemed black against her feet and ankles, so white was the maiden. She came to the postern-gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right clear, and so wandered she till she came to the tower where her lover lay. The tower was flanked with pillars, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Once through the postern there now remained only a single palisade or stockade—a great fence constructed of iron bars and iron trellis-work, which constituted the outermost barrier between the fleeing prisoner and liberty. Once ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the young officer hastily pressed the hand of his host, and rushed for the postern that opened towards ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... place, Mynheer John," the young girl timidly continued, "I should leave by the postern, which leads into a deserted by-lane, whilst all the people are waiting in the High Street to see you come out by the principal entrance. From there I should try to reach the gate by which you intend to ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... dress she wore was stained with blood about the knees, and that there were traces of small blood-stained hands low down on the staircase walls, so that it was conjectured that she had really been at the postern-door when her husband fell and, feeling her way up to him in the darkness on her hands and knees, had been stained by his blood dripping down on her. Of course it was argued on the other side that the blood-marks ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... dunes by the company of sappers, and the capture. But instead, it was all distant and dry. A "Good-night" such as one might have thrown at a dog—no, he would not throw the word at Whitefoot. For even as she passed the postern window, looking out she saw Stair crossing the court in the direction of the barn, side by side with Whitefoot. The dog's eyes were raised to those of his master in a kind of adoration, and his tail waved triumphantly. As Stair bent to stroke the dog's head, Patsy became conscious ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... in Cripplegate Ward within the walls are Milk Street, great part of Honey Lane Market, part of Cateaton Street, Lad Lane, Aldermanbury, Love Lane, Addle Street, London Wall Street, from Little Wood Street to the postern, Philip Lane, most of Great Wood Street, Little Wood Street, part of Hart Street, Mugwell Street, part of Fell Street, part of Silver Street, the east part of Maiden Lane, and some few houses in Cheapside to the eastward ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales |
