"Keyhole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Here he had to flash his light for a second. Immediately before him a pair of doors gave on the big room. They stood open. There were two more doors, one on each hand, both closed. Evan put out his light. As he did so a tiny ray of light became visible through the keyhole of ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... [29] for the difficulty a man feels, when he finds himself gravelled for conversation with his mistress; so he merely scratched his head, and thought hard to find what he'd say next. I doubt whether the conviction, which was then strong on his mind, that Meg was listening at the keyhole to every word that passed, at all assisted him in the operation. At last, some Muse came to his aid, and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... to herself she rose, glided noiselessly through the hall, entered a small closet built in the thickness of the wall, and, bending to the keyhole of a narrow door, listened with a half-smile on her lips at the trespass she was committing. A murmur of voices met her ear. Her husband spoke oftenest, and suddenly some word of his dashed the smile from her face as if with a blow. She started, shrank, and shivered, bending ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... he kept coming nearer and nearer to the individual I lurking at the keyhole of every story. Only he had to go home, else how was his ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... arose as soon as the door closed behind the constable, and stuffed a piece of damp sponge into the keyhole; he then returned and took ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... was maddening,—but it was true. Patty was locked in a room and could not get out. She hadn't heard a key turn, but it must have done so. Peeping in the keyhole, she could see that the key was in the lock, ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... decisive reply. Ingolby pressed a bell, and, in an instant, Jim Beadle was in the room. He had evidently been at the keyhole. "Jim," he said, "show the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stay here. It would spoil everything if she caught us. Let us go outside and close the door again, and watch through the keyhole; then, if we see her coming, ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... at the door with her ear to the keyhole. She heard the servant pass her, heard the door open, and Lon's voice asking for Mr. Shellington. Then she slid back to Flukey, trembling from head ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... pain. Then why so ghastly pale? And why, moreover, Septimius, did you listen so earnestly for any sound in Aunt Keziah's chamber? Why did you creep on tiptoe, once, twice, three times, up to the old woman's chamber, and put your ear to the keyhole, and listen breathlessly? Well; it must have been that he was subconscious that he was trying a bold experiment, and that he had taken this poor old woman to be the medium of it, in the hope, of course, that it would turn out well; yet with other views than her interest ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... gently this time; then, with a thoughtful air, he began to play with the door handle, turning it first one way, then the other, so as to make sure the door was only bolted. After this, with a great deal of puffing and blowing, he stooped down to look through the keyhole, but the key was in the lock, and turned in such a way that one could not see through. Standing up on the other side of the door, Raskolnikoff still held the hatchet in his hands. He was almost in a state of delirium ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long, slender hand-vise, with a very powerful grip and a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than, when the key was in the lock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into Simon's glass—having ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... left a soup-bone to simmer on the stove while we went away to morning recitations, and when we reached home, smoke was leaking from every keyhole. The room was solid with the remains of our bone. It took six months to get the horrid smell of charred beef out of our wardrobe. The girls all sniffed and wondered ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the keyhole, surprised to discover that the table had been moved. He could see, too, that the matting had been cast aside, revealing the trap-door. That house had long been the abode of thieves. Bonnemain himself had lived in those same rooms for six years, and he had had the secret exit constructed. ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... also had stooped to the keyhole. "It can't be. Yet that voice! My boy, my boy. But how in the world did ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... appearing again in a few minutes to announce that he had obeyed instructions and the lady had not answered. "But," he added, "one would say that an all little light came through the keyhole." ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... eye, always a mischievous wight, For prying out something not good, Avow'd that he peep'd through the keyhole that night; And clearly discern'd, by a glow-worm's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... other circumstances that kept up the impression produced by these two singular facts I have just mentioned. There was a dark storeroom, on looking through the keyhole of which, I could dimly see a heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed things, which seemed to me to have rushed in there, frightened, and in their fright to have huddled together and climbed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... treasures which have arrived so mysteriously, read the directions concerning them, and then we'll see what we'll see," and she began to read: "Take the camera into a perfectly dark closet, where no ray of light can penetrate (even covering the keyhole), and then place within it one of the sensitive plates, being careful not to expose the unused plates. Your camera is now ready to take the picture, etc." "That is all very simple, I'm sure, and if the taking proves as ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... air moving across the surface of the earth, which as it passes along bends the tops of the trees, beats against the houses, pushes the ships along by their sails, turns the windmill, carries off the smoke from cities, whistles through the keyhole, and moans as it rushes down the valley. What makes the air restless? why should it not lie still ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... off abruptly, he passed down the dim hallway to the door of the club-rooms. He raised the axe and was about to smash the lock when he espied a key in the keyhole. The door was not locked. Lane set down the axe and noiselessly turned the knob and peeped in. The first room was dark, but the door on the opposite side was ajar, and through it Lane saw the larger lighted room and the shiny floor. Moving figures ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... punishment" to our servants, it being left entirely to individual taste to decide what "slight" shall be, and my neighbour really seems to enjoy using this privilege, judging from the way she talks about it. I would give much to be able to peep through a keyhole and see the dauntless little lady, terrible in her wrath and dignity, standing on tiptoe to box the ears of some great strapping girl big enough ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... did not reflect the admiration frankly displayed upon the faces of the two other women. That satin slip seemed to have a moral quality, an immoral character. It made her feel naked—no, as if she were naked and being peeped at through a crack or keyhole. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... we found that Carlo had nearly gnawed his way through the bed-room door, and was growling horribly at the boots and the chambermaid through the keyhole. Charming dog! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... hundred times, and carry it to any given point where you wish to place the receiver. Originally this device was invented for the aid of the deaf, but I see no reason why it should not be used to aid the law. One needn't eavesdrop at the keyhole with this little instrument about. Inside that box there is nothing but a series of plugs from which wires, much finer than a thread, are stretched taut. Yet a fly walking near it will make a noise as loud as a draft-horse. If the microphone ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... Mrs. Presty was at the door, listening. The men's voices were loud: they were talking politics. She peeped through the keyhole; the smokers had, beyond all doubt, been left to themselves. If the house had not been full of guests, Mrs. Presty would now have raised an alarm. As things were, the fear of a possible scandal which the family might have reason to regret forced her to act with caution. In the suggestive retirement ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... her room!" she cried, pointing an accusing finger at the white-faced and shaking Amy. "I peeped through the keyhole, and it was a candle burning on her table. She said she ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... "boots" walked straight to "No. twenty-three," and commenced a vigorous rattling and hammering at the door, but the only answer he received was "All right!" uttered in a very faint and drowsy tone. Five minutes later, "boots" approached the door, placing his ear at the keyhole, and detecting no other sound than a most unearthly snore, he unceremoniously entered the room, and laying his brawny hands upon the prostrate form of the sleeper, shook him violently and long. This attack was replied to by a testy observation that he "knew all about ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... you in these arms of mine? Has Finette been found again? Do you remember our conversation when we went out with her in leash—when you, little rogue, said you would have "given me the mitten" had not God taken pity on me and permitted me at least a peep through the keyhole of His door of mercy! That came into my mind when I was reading I Cor. vii. 13 ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... 'To the keyhole let's creep, "There can be no harm just in one little peep! "We are women—besides, there are none to behold us! "If he wished us to leave it, he shouldn't have ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sartin of what I suspicioned. The cabin was locked, but not with the key. THAT was in the keyhole. The door was ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... however, to part from her in anger; so, after having attempted to look through the, keyhole of the door, and applied his eye in vain to the window, ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... good are locks and bars and bolts when they say a ghost can ooze itself in through a keyhole even? But then don't get an idea in your head, Billy, we're going to be bothered by anything except rats. That's the only kind of spooks you'll find in such a place as this. And after we've had our supper I hope you'll all accompany me while I take some ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... Devoid of principle, idle as a scholar, morose and sullen in his manners, he was, in every respect, a true specimen of the whole class of mischief-makers, wherever they are to be found. His mischief consisted, as usual, in such exploits as stopping up the keyhole of the door, upsetting the teacher's inkstand, or fixing something to his desk to make a noise ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... him. While she was making her little toilet, she heard her mother's voice in the room. This was unlucky; she must pass through that room to go out. She sat down and fretted at this delay. And then, as the baroness appeared to be very animated, Rose went to the keyhole, and listened. Their mother was telling Josephine how she had questioned Rose, and how Rose had told her an untruth, and how she had made that young lady write to Edouard, etc.; in short, the very thing Rose ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... him, Adam Adams tried the door and found it locked. More interested than ever, the detective, just avoiding Mrs. Morse, who was passing through the hallway, slipped Into the adjoining room, and finding, as he had imagined, a door between the two, applied his eye to the keyhole. ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... on the dirty staircase so he mounted slowly up till he stood in front of his own door. Slowly, like one making an effort that was almost painful to him he searched for his key and drew it out. His hand shook as he inserted the key into the keyhole. He tried to steady his hand, but he could not control its furtive and perpetual movement. When the door was open he struck a match, and lit a candle that stood on a chair in the dingy and narrow lobby. Then he turned round wearily to shut the door. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... that clothing in his closet," announced Andy, after peering through the keyhole in the door. "He's partly undressed, so I guess he'll go ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... dip in the sugar-bin!" Said the Rolling-pin to the Pudding-stick, "We'll eat and we'll stuff till we make ourselves sick." Off they set with a fine bold stride, That brought them soon to the sugar-bin's side. "Oh! how shall we reach that keyhole high? We might as well try to storm ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... old age had become a great eavesdropper; his ear and eye took turns at the keyhole that night, for he tells things that were not intended for outside hearers. He heard the girl sobbing, and the old man saying, "But you must go now. You cannot stay with me safely or decently, much ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... morning when he saw the blood-stains. He groaned piteously as he walked about the room, and then followed the spots out to the front gate. On seeing that they continued beyond this, he came back with a most dejected and helpless look. Mrs. Potter saw him go into his room, and, by looking through the keyhole of the connecting door, she was enabled to see that he was engaged in washing out the spots on the floor and bed clothes. He did not appear at the breakfast table, but his wife told Mrs. Potter that he had had another severe attack of bleeding during the night, and that ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... your own honour and conscience, but the keyhole is a more trustworthy medium than ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of her trade she disliked children, because the rude ones of the neighborhood called her names through her keyhole and mimicked her bent back ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... knob or ring by way of handle, but close to the edge, and about half-way between top and bottom, I distinguished a diminutive keyhole, outlined with shining metal. I let the curtain drop again, though lingeringly. It could be only a cupboard, or a particularly secure wine cellar, perhaps, behind this dwarfish door, yet had I discovered it in a house not English, ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... the keyhole. It could not have been the wind, by the way, for there was no wind that night. Something else than the wind whistled in at the keyhole, sighed through into the room as much like a long-drawn breath as anything, and fell with a slight ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... could do it myself, if allowed," the good Prior said. Often Leonardo would stand with folded arms and survey the work for an hour at a time and not lift a brush; the Prior had seen it all through the keyhole! ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... have war intelligence to communicate, it is best to believe that every person has ears, and that every door has a keyhole. I learn from this letter that the Scotian sailed from Glasgow, and the Arran from Leith. The agent is of the opinion that both these steamers are fitted out by the same owners, who have formed a company, apparently to furnish the South with gunboats ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Joe, for a moment, looked up at the baronet's face, as though he wanted but the slightest encouragement to disobey the doctor's orders; but not seeing it, he slowly retired, and placed himself, of course, at the keyhole. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... a few minutes, Aaron retired to the workshop in the cellar of the barn. He planed and sanded boards of a native lumber very like to tulipwood. Into the headboard of the cradle he was making, he keyhole-sawed the same sort of broad Dutch heart that had marked his own cradle, and the cradles of all his family back to the days in the Rhineland, before they'd ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... Philip had known would happen, did happen. The great wall held fast, the rope held fast, the dragon held fast. It was the key that gave way. With an echoing grinding rusty sound like a goods train shunting on a siding, the key was drawn from the keyhole in the dragon's side and left still fast to its rope like an anchor ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... at the young librarian, who was leaning upon the counter in a tense, keyhole position, with his private ear turned somewhat ostentatiously towards the ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... "At the—keyhole?" She was proceeding warily now; her mind, as in a game of hide-and-seek, was on tiptoe, in expectation of discovering me at ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... night to support Beale, and when I try to get into my own house his infernal dog barks at me. Upon my Sam it's hard!" He brooded for a moment on the injustice of things. "Here, let me get to the keyhole. I'll reason with ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... your own; never daring to ask for the common things a man cares for. You see, women are mostly too jealous and small to understand a doctor's demands. They usually raise hell sooner or later. I had a friend whose wife used to look through the keyhole of his consulting-room door. A patient tripped over her once and it nearly cost my friend his practice. Doctors are only half human anyway, and women can't go halves ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... up and beat dis game befo' yo' bust yo' britches. (He wags his finger to indicate moves, scratches his head, but doesn't move. Several men enter and group around the players. All offer suggestions. One says, "you got him Cliffert. He's locked up just as tight as a keyhole". Another: "Aw, man he kin break out!" Another: "Yeah, but it'll cost him plenty to git out of ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston
... the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1884, pp. 24-39) I find a Nicobar story which relates how Tiomberombi received a magic mirror from a snake whose enemy he had killed. Its slaves obeyed all his orders if he only put the key into the keyhole, but he was not allowed to open the mirror, as he was too weak to face the spirits openly. He dwelt on an island, but when a hostile fleet came against him, the gunners could not hit it, as the island became invisible. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... with this precaution. After aimlessly moving chairs about for a few minutes, and prowling up and down the room, he paused and listened. What he heard induced him to stuff his pocket-handkerchief into the keyhole, and to lay the hearth-rug across the considerable chink which, as is usual, admitted a healthy draught under the bottom of the door. Then the Honorable Mr. Cranley drew down the blinds, and unpacked his various purchases. He set them out on the table in order—the oranges, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... the doors, now closed, came the heavy breathing of sleepers who had gone to their beds on rising from the table. A faint laugh was heard from one room, while a slender thread of light filtered through the keyhole of the old lady who was still busy with her dolls, cutting out the gauze dresses with squeaking scissors. A child was crying on the next floor, and the smell from the sinks was worse than ever and seemed something tangible amid this silent darkness. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... up. 'The truth is, those fellows can now afford to buy right and left, corrupt every soul alive! There must have been a spy at the keyhole. I'm pretty certain—I could swear it was not breathed to any ear but mine; and there it is this ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the books of the establishment in a safe, which, if it was similar to the one in Park Lane, I was prepared to open with the false keys in my possession or to take an impression of the keyhole and trust to my anarchist friend for the rest. But to my amazement I discovered all the papers pertaining to the concern in a desk which was not even locked. The books, three in number, were the ordinary day book, journal, and ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the keyhole, outside which she waited and listened. It was long before he would reply, and when he did it was to say sternly at her from within: 'I am ashamed of you! It will ruin me! A miserable boor! a churl! a clown! It will degrade me in the eyes of all ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... were taken from the bed and hung over the door, that no ray of light from the room might be visible in the hall, through either crack or keyhole. ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... to the itinerancy, not matrimony. And that was my "obituary" if I had only known it. For after that, if I was not dead to the world, I only saw it through the keyhole of the Methodist Discipline, or lifted and transfigured by William's sermons—a straight and narrow path that led from the church door to ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... was extremely diligent in everything that her son desired, went immediately to the king. Furibon, being impatient to know what would be resolved, followed her; but stopped at the door, and laid his ear to the keyhole, putting his hair aside that he might the better hear what was said. At the same time, Leander entered the court-hall of the palace with his red cap upon his head, and perceiving Furibon listening at ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... sound of feet was audible upon the stairs, and then the light of a candle shone through the keyhole of the door. There was a good deal of unchaining and unbolting, and ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... you say someding?" said Carl, his voice sounding like the piping noise of the wind through a keyhole. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... of my proximity to the box, I inserted in the keyhole a small morsel of wax which for some minutes past I had been warming in my hand. This done, I laid my hat down on the lid, noting with great exactness as I did so just where its rim lay in reference to the various squares and scrolls with which ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... she went on. "You should not have sent me here by chance, and against my wish. You made me do it: don't complain. You were sure that I had but to appear, and M. de Tregars would fall at my feet. I appeared, and—you saw the effect through the keyhole, didn't you?" ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... the language, or any one in this land a word of yours. Practically, you are alone in the world with me. Even your wretched little dog is not here to snarl. His curiosity took him outside, and he cannot get back through the keyhole of the door, small as he is. Presently the Consul will be at this house. I had meant to go to his had it not been for the accident, but I will send for him. He is my very good friend. He ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in his dreams at night, the wild despairing glare in the eyes of the dying pirate as the flash of the pistol glanced upon the glazing eyeballs for an instant; but he had no time to think about such things now. Stooping down and applying his mouth to the keyhole he said, loud enough to ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... reformed temperance lecturer. I went to his shop to get shaved, but he was absent. I could smell hair oil through the keyhole, but the Colonel was not in his slab-inlaid emporium. He had been preparing another lecture on temperance, and was at that moment studying the habits of his adversary at a neighboring gin palace. I sat down on the steps and devoured the beautiful landscape till he came. Then I sat down in the chair, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Sheer chance may have decreed selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam's first night in the room; whether or no, it was not in character that, having established this precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the coat-draped chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... sound of footsteps had completely died away, he softly raised his head, opened his eyes, and moved towards the door, rather slowly it is true, but without seeming to feel any ill-effects from his accident on the previous day. He stood still for a few seconds with his ear at the keyhole, then, raising himself, with a strange expression of triumph on his face, he passed his hand over his forehead, and, for the first time since the guards had ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... curiously—flowed. Easily, naturally, almost automatically, it poured softly forth, and the Irishman at once understood why he had first mistaken it for an echo of wind from distant hills. The imagery was entirely accurate. For it was precisely the singing cry that wind makes in a keyhole, in a chimney, or passing idly over the sweep of grassy hills. Exactly thus had he often listened to it swishing through the crannies of high rocks, tuneless yet searching. In it, too, there lay some accent of a ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... to soothe her troubled spirit. So she made a phantom, like in form and in feature to Iphthime, a sister of Penelope, who lived with her husband in distant Pherae. And the phantom came to the house of Penelope, and entering her chamber by the keyhole, stood by her bedside and spake to her thus: "Sorrow not at all, nor vex thy soul for the sake of Telemachus. The gods love thy son, and ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... had retired to his study with Jenny Jones, as hath been seen, Mrs Bridget, with the good housekeeper, had betaken themselves to a post next adjoining to the said study; whence, through the conveyance of a keyhole, they sucked in at their ears the instructive lecture delivered by Mr Allworthy, together with the answers of Jenny, and indeed every other particular which passed ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Last night on my way home from work I heerd the young feller was back—he got in just as we was knockin' off for the day; an' this mornin' just as you cut loose, Zeb, I'll be danged if he didn't show up in front o' the office door, fumblin' for the keyhole. Yes, sirree! That boy gets in at six o'clock last night an' turns to on his paw's job when the whistle ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... and found his mother still watching the rapid movements of her ivory knitting-needles. The Reindeer was a well-built house, solid and old-fashioned, and listeners lurking in the long passages had small chance of reaping much reward for their pains unless they found a friendly keyhole. ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... wasted no words about it. She had no time to fool away, she let it be known. Whatever she did had to be done with pitiless directness. Often her council was delivered through a crack in the door or even given through the door itself; and there were instances when it was shouted through the keyhole. But no matter where the words came from they were always helpful and friendly and the neighbors came to understand the manner accompanying them and ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... mouth at the keyhole, "who took 'em? Your mother? Why? But she can't keep you in that way. Never mind. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... business. I passed her without a word and heard behind me the door of the studio close with an unexpected crash. It strikes me now that under the circumstances I might have without shame gone back to listen at the keyhole. But truth to say the association of events was not so clear in my mind as it may be to the reader of this story. Neither were the exact connections of persons present to my mind. And, besides, one doesn't listen at a keyhole but in pursuance of some plan; unless one ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... that?' reflected Gideon. 'It seems entirely irresponsible.' And drawing near, he gingerly demolished it. 'A key,' he thought. 'Why that? And why so conspicuously placed?' He made the circuit of the instrument, and perceived the keyhole at the back. 'Aha! this is what the key is for,' said he. 'They wanted me to look inside. Stranger and stranger.' And with that he turned the key and ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a resourceful mind. Very gently she put her hand inside the door and abstracted the key, which, with equal caution, she fitted into the keyhole on the outside; then, quickly shutting the door, she locked it, and ran away before Flossie had even discovered that anybody Was there. The latter naturally noticed the slight noise and turned round, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... one of the witnesses so slaughtered. The practical good sense of Cromwell is worth noting, the English understanding struggling against Judaic trammels. Williams gives us another peep through the keyhole of the past: "It pleased the Lord to call me for some time & with some persons to practice the Hebrew, the Greeke, Latine, French & Dutch. The secretarie of the Councell (Mr Milton) for my Dutch I read him, read me many more languages. Grammar rules begin ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... opened his door noiselessly, went out upon the landing, and saw a thin streak of light under Father Goriot's door. Eugene feared that his neighbor had been taken ill; he went over and looked through the keyhole; the old man was busily engaged in an occupation so singular and so suspicious that Rastignac thought he was only doing a piece of necessary service to society to watch the self-styled ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... soft whistle answered to his own; somewhere in the room it sounded; there was no mistaking it, though the exact direction was difficult to tell, for while Tim said it was through the keyhole, Judy declared positively that it came from the door of the big, broken cupboard opposite. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... imitator Hawkesworth was is shewn by the following passage in the Carter and Talbot Corresp., ii. 109:—'I discern Mr. Johnson through all the papers that are not marked A, as evidently as if I saw him through the keyhole with the pen ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... dagger: She descends the staircase of the Eastern Tower; and crosses the great Hall! On that night the Porter always leaves the Gates of the Castle open, out of respect to the Apparition: Not that this is thought by any means necessary, since She could easily whip through the Keyhole if She chose it; But merely out of politeness, and to prevent her from making her exit in a way so derogatory to the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... every angle, even going down on his knees to see the position of the legs beneath the table. He then walked round the room and examined everything with minute attention, particularly the key of the door, which Sir James had replaced in its position on the inside. The keyhole on both sides of the door came ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... he went instead to spend a post-graduate year at Belfast, and read for a Master's degree—this in spite of the fact that he was worn out with the strain of eighteen hours' work a day, and used to see authors creeping in through the keyhole and wake in the night to find illuminated letters dancing a ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... him through the intervening rooms to the servants' entrance. They passed Brooks in the rear hall. He bowed stiffly to Braddock. Brooks had been listening at a keyhole. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... get hold of it yet, Gogol," he said in a fatherly way. "When once they have heard us talking nonsense on that balcony they will not care where we go afterwards. If we had come here first, we should have had the whole staff at the keyhole. You don't seem to ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... After some moments, light foot-steps approached the door, and the voice of Sinang said through the keyhole: ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... proceeded to state that the papal nuncio in Spain had been much troubled in mind upon the subject, and had sent for him. "I went," said Perez, "and after he, had closed the door, and looked through the keyhole to see that there were no listeners, he informed me that he had received intelligence from the Pope as to the demands made by Don John upon his Holiness for bulls, briefs, and money to assist him in his English scheme, and that eighty ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... necessary—the faithful Slipslop attending near at hand: to say the truth, she had conceived a suspicion at her last interview with her mistress, and had waited ever since in the antechamber, having carefully applied her ears to the keyhole during the whole time that the preceding conversation passed between Joseph ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... much worse than they kin do. Maybe, he ain't a scamp of the biggest wethers. His rascality ain't to be measured. Why, he kin walk through a man's pockets, jest as the devil goes through a crack or a keyhole, and the money will naterally stick to him, jest as ef he was made of gum turpentine. His very face is a sort of kining [coining] machine. His look says dollars and cents; and its always your dollars and cents, and he kines them out of your hands ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... attempts had been made to account for the light or get rid of it by changing the position of candles or bright objects in the outer room; and Henderson had shut himself into the bedroom with it; but there he still only saw the hazy light—though all was otherwise pitch dark, except the keyhole and the small gray patch of sky at the top of the window-shutters. 'You saw nothing else?' said Griff. 'I thought I heard you break out as Clarence did, just before my ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wonder and longing. It was a small green door, scarcely higher than her head. A grown person could not have passed through without stooping almost double. It was very narrow, too, and no one who was not slender could have squeezed through it. In this door there was a little black keyhole, with no key in it, but it was always locked. Letitia knew that her Aunt Peggy kept the key in some very safe place, but she would never show it to her, nor ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... condition that God has invented and arbitrarily imposed. The necessity of it is lodged deep in the very nature of the case. Air cannot get to the lungs of a mouse in an air-pump. Light cannot come into a room where all the shutters are up and the keyhole stopped. If a man chooses to perch himself on some little stool of his own, with glass legs to it, and to take away his hand from the conductor, no electricity will come to him. If I choose to lock my lips, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... in dirt and in gloom, To peep at the door of the wonderful room Such stories are told about, none of them true!— The keyhole itself has no ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... stood with his wife before the locked gate, there rose from behind it a snarling, nasal, somewhat mocking voice. "Starry—don't groan so much. Take the keys from Oxheady's coat pockets, or else go stick your nose in the keyhole, and so unlock the gate. The people have been standing and waiting a long time." "People!" cried the anxious voice of the man called Nose Star, "I thought there was only one! I beg you, Fool—dear Jaekel Fool—look out and see who ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and round the keyhole did a shaky, unsteady hand guide the wandering key. It scratched above, it dug at the door beneath, while the low indistinct murmur of one repeated word reached me within. At last, in sheer pity, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... nodded. Isaac was either a mind reader or he must have been listening at the keyhole when he poured out ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you," said Cashel. She gave him the key, and he seized one of the bars of the gate with his left hand, and stooped as though he wanted to look into the keyhole. Yet he opened ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... as soon as possible, and, after assuring myself that my neighbor was still absent, carefully inserted my second nosegay into her keyhole, and rushed from the house as though I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Tabitha pressed her ear to the keyhole to catch the rest of this interesting conversation, but as she listened, her face paled and a rebellious look came into ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... be shaken in her resolve, and leaving the study room a little before one o'clock she settled herself in Helen Richard's cupboard to watch. Fortunately for Judith's plan Helen was in the Infirmary with a sore throat and through the keyhole of her cupboard Judith had a ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... I went with her to the communicating door, cautiously listened, then looked through the keyhole. The silence within was oppressive, but the flickering bougie warned me that I must make an effort, and without allowing myself time to think I hastily turned the key ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... for some token by which I might be governed. I put my ear to the keyhole, and at length heard a voice, but not that of my companion, exclaim, somewhat above a whisper, "Smiling cherub! safe and sound, I see. Would to God my experiment may succeed, and that thou mayest find a mother where I have found a wife!" There he stopped. He appeared to kiss ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... He sat motionless, still listening, for another hour, two; then he rose and, opening the outer door stealthily, stopped, with craned head, still listening. The silence was unbroken, and with noiseless tread, he passed along the corridor to his father's door and, with his ear to the keyhole, listened again. He could hear his father's steady, long-drawn breathing, the breathing of a man in a ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... closed, she was terribly frightened. She put the white kitten down and sprang on top of the trunk and scratched with all her might, but scratching did no good. Then she jumped down and reached up to the keyhole, but that was too small for even a mouse to pass through, and the poor mother ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... worked well . . . . life was all right, wasn't it? One would have thought he had no reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him. . . . The poor fellow fell a victim to his habits of observation. On one occasion, when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had a brain), and died. And here, under this tombstone, lies a man who from his cradle detested verses and epigrams. . . . As though to ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... supports them on his back, which lengthens or shortens according to the number of witches he is desirous of accommodating. No witch, when proceeding to the Sabbath, can go out by a door or window, were she to try ever so much. Their general mode of ingress is by a keyhole and of egress by the chimney, up which they fly, broom and all, with the greatest ease. To prevent the absence of the witches being noticed by their neighbours, some inferior demon is commanded to assume their shapes and lie in their beds, feigning illness, until the Sabbath is over. When all the ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... beehive dungeon—it was no wonder, I say, that she should shrink and draw back. A few rays came through the decayed planks of the door which Alec had pushed to behind them, and fell upon the rubbish of centuries sloping in the brown light and damp air down into the abyss. One larger ray from the keyhole fell upon Kate's face, and showed it blanched with fear, and her eyes distended with the effort to see ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... was what made the task arduous. Lydia finished her studying as hurriedly as possible each night and went on to her room. It was bitter cold in the room when the door was closed, but she hung a dust cloth over the keyhole, a shawl over the window shade, wrapped herself in a quilt and unwrapped the bundle. By two o'clock she had finished and shivering and with ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... garret stairs, and patrolling the house. In vain the doors of the upper entry had been locked; the ghost either carried a duplicate key in its pocket, or availed itself of a ghost's immemorial privilege of coming through the keyhole, and promenaded as before, with a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a door half hidden among the ivy, which Jean used for his mysterious comings and goings, and of which the abbe had a key. He had brought it with him to-night by a lucky chance. He had to push aside the ivy which hung from the walls in great ropes, and only found the keyhole after a hurried search. But the lock was in good order. Jean, it appeared, was ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... his instructions. From the other side of the door came the sharp sound of the bolt as it was shot back, and at the same time the light ceased to shine through the keyhole. A moment later the handle turned, and Bradshaw ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the cage was all masonry and formed part of the building behind it. In the right-hand corner, almost invisible from outside, was a narrow door of thick teak that opened very readily when the Mahatma fumbled with it although I saw no lock, hasp or keyhole on the side toward us. We followed him through ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... their mouths, by beginning too soon to eat it. And while they were walking, a little old Woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch. The door was not fastened, because the Bears were good Bears, who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that any body would harm them. So the little old Woman opened the ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... the kitchenmaid and Lady Devereux' two other servants were shrieking on the kitchen stairs. Mrs. O'Halloran dealt with the rebels first. She opened the baize-covered door and put her mouth to the keyhole of the other. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... the heavy iron knocker of the house-door drowned his words. A strange voice called aloud through the keyhole: ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... I stole gently down to the scullery and applied the spectroscope to the keyhole. To my mingled amazement and ecstasy, I perceived a large dome-shaped fabric blocking up the entire back garden. Roughly speaking, it seemed to be about the size of a full-grown sperm whale. A faint heaving was perceptible in the mass, ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... to the Citation Amendment (Scotland) Act, which has put an end to keyhole citations in small debt cases throughout Scotland, we may remark that Mr. Anderson aimed, in introducing this measure, at the amelioration of the poorer classes, on whom the keyhole system pressed with undue severity. Previous to the passing of the new Act the officer ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... may then be worked out approximately by points above and below on the stream, for accurate reading, hold the aneroid face up, gently tap it, and read; then face down similarly, and take the mean. Guard that the wind does not blow against any keyhole in ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... fellows were the gunmen of New York he had read about—paid assassins whose business it was to frame innocent men for the penitentiary or kill them in cold blood. They were of the underworld, without conscience and without honor. As he looked at them through the keyhole, the watcher was reminded by their restless patience of mountain wolves lying in wait for their kill. Gorilla Dave sat stolidly in his chair, but the other two got up from time to time and paced the room silently, always with an eye to the ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... four well-defined kinds. First, a long, flat saw, for cross-cutting. Second, a slightly larger saw for ripping purposes. Third, a back saw, with a rib on the rear edge to hold the blade rigid, used for making tenons; and, fourth, a compass or keyhole saw. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... spaniel called Monster, nothing but a flea-bearing dust mop, do nothing but sit and yap for chocolates?—what man is going to dare do otherwise than suppress a little profanity and then go and whisper apologies at the keyhole? ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... a cat who knew the name of each member of the household. If she was asked about an absent one, she would look at his vacant seat and then at the speaker. If told to fetch him she would run upstairs to his room, take the handle of the door between her paws, mew at the keyhole, and wait to be ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... going on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. I find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... but a chapel and small villa as abandoned as the rest. After toiling up a steep and narrow lane between two walls, our carriage stopped at a solid wooden gateway, and the coachman told us to get out and look through the keyhole. We were aghast, but he insisted, laughing and nodding; so we pocketed our pride and peeped. Through an overarching vista of dark foliage was seen, white and golden in a blaze of sunshine, the cupola of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... him; his breath became short; voice weak and lungs rotting. Early in December, 1909, he believed that he had been chloroformed by the prison officials for five days; he was not certain how this was done but believed that it might have been poured through the keyhole. During this period he sang like a graphophone; voices said "move his head", and his head would move itself. When his eyes were open he saw nothing unusual but when they were shut he could hear them operating a machine on his body; they ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... I'm not to hear: call me if I'm wanted." He descended. Sophy, with less noble disdain of eavesdropping, stood in the centre of the room, holding her breath to listen. She heard no sound; she had half a mind to put her ear to the keyhole, but that seemed even to her a mean thing, if not absolutely required by the necessity of the case. So there she still stood, her head bent down, her finger raised: oh, that Vance ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... door. She heard the buzz of voices; and that was enough. She went into the kitchen, and stirred up the fire, and lighted the house, and prepared for the wanderer's refreshment. How fortunate it was that her mother slept! She knew that she did, from the candle-lighter thrust through the keyhole of her bedroom door. The traveller could be refreshed and bright, and the first excitement of the meeting with his father all be over, before her mother became ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... being obeyed by the men who guarded the entrance, the dwarf began to abuse them. A considerable interval elapsed; the hunchback, who dared not go into the room himself, compromised by kneeling before the keyhole; at the foot of the stairs stood the girl, her strained ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... a cabbage," he answered. "I've scooped out the inside and filled it with tow. We'll set fire to one end, and blow the smoke through the keyhole." ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... the shutters of this grim apartment were kept closed, and an inquisitive eye, applied to the keyhole, could just faintly discern the portrait in crayon of the late Mr. Handsomebody, presiding, like some whiskered ghost, over the revels of the stuffed birds in the ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this matter of identity. Does this plan look sufficiently harmless to ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... the old movements, a little of each one at a time, and take two lengths of ribbon as wide as an ordinary rein, or, better still, two leather straps, and fasten one to the knobs on the two sides of a door and run the other through the keyhole. Call the knob straps the snaffle reins, and the keyhole straps the curb, and, sitting near enough to let them lie in your lap, practice picking them up and adjusting them with your eyes shut. When you can do it quickly and neatly, try and see with ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... shall tell it to the student!" And with these words the goblin went quite quietly up the back stairs to the garret, where the student lived. The student had still a candle burning, and the goblin peeped through the keyhole, and saw that he was reading in the torn book that he had carried up out of ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... sonatas. Leonard took me to see him late one evening at the Hotel de Havane in Paris, where Sivori was staying. When we came to his room we heard the sound of slow scales, beautifully played, coming from behind the closed door. We peered through the keyhole, and there he sat on his bed stringing his scale tones like pearls. He was a little chap and had the tiniest hands I have ever seen. Was this a drawback? If so, no one could tell from his playing; he had a flawless technic, and a really pearly quality of tone. He was very jolly and amiable, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... poet, with a smile, "I peeped through the keyhole, before going to bed, and I beheld the most delicious dame in her shift that ever made a bed creak ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... party in his lair, and Burns, who roomed across the passage and who was the worst bummer in Encina, went down to Fessler, and complained that he couldn't study because of the noise in that number? And Fessler forgot who roomed there and came up and gave them Tartarus through the keyhole and nearly dropped when Torts opened ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... when she was so very young that it had become a habit before her parents perceived it. She was a very little creature when she was once nearly squeezed to death between two double doors as she was peeping through the keyhole of one of them to see who was in the drawing-room; and another time she was locked up for several hours in a closet in which she had hid herself for the purpose of overhearing what her mother was saying to one of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... clear; the temptation great. These men then were still deceiving him with a feigned antagonism. He listened at the keyhole, not without some compunction; which, however, became less and less as fragments of the dialogue ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... into the world: it was mysterious, very, and I cannot make it out now. My first thought was, that he must have had airy wings, and after he had come they had disappeared. My second thought was that he was so very little as to be able to come through the keyhole, and increased rapidly in size, just as it says in the Bible that a grain of mustard-seed springs to be so large a tree that the fowls of the air can roost ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... chance, for it was cunningly hidden. Whatever the danger, he must enter the garden again in search for his comrade. The door was shut, and as he felt along it from top to bottom, touching no latch nor handle, nor keyhole even, he realized that entrance that way was barred. The door only opened from within. He had stepped back to consider how, and at what point, he could best scale the wall, when a slight movement ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... as well as a set of figures before you can get the lock to work." He rose and showed a double-radiating disc round the keyhole. "This outer one is for the letters, the inner ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... footstool, and a doll, which my mamma had drest for me, while she was sitting in her elbow-chair, her head supported with pillows. With these in my hands, I used to go to the door of the room in which I had seen her in her last illness; and after trying to open it, and peeping through the keyhole, from whence I could just see a glimpse of the crimson curtains, I used to sit down on the stool before the door, and play with my doll, and sometimes sing to it mamma's pretty song, of "Balow my babe;" imitating ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... door, it observed very attentively, then put a piece of wood in the keyhole, and tried to turn it round. Having been scratched by a cat with which it was playing, it could never be induced to touch pussy again. It untied knots easily, and regularly practised upon the shoes of those who came near. It could lift very heavy burdens, and made as ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... all work had been suspended at the College for the remainder of the week, Webster was again busy in his room early Wednesday morning. Littlefield could hear him moving about. In vain did the janitor look through the keyhole, bore a hole in the door, peep under it; all he could get was a sight of the Professor's feet moving about the laboratory. Perplexity gave way to apprehension when in the course of the afternoon Littlefield discovered that the outer ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... o'm drink'd so much, he coulden mind The word he wer to zay to meaeke en small; He got a-dather'd zoo, that after all Out tothers went an' left en back behind. An' after he'd a-beaet about his head, Ageaen the keyhole till he wer half dead, He laid down all along upon the vloor Till gramfer, comen down, unlocked the door: An' then he zeed en ('twer enough to frighten en) Bolt out o' door, an' down ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... he is unjust to women; quite unjust. There is hardly any punishment he does not deserve for making Lady Castlewood peep through a keyhole, listen at a door, and be jealous of a boy and a milkmaid. Many other things I noticed that, for my part, grieved and exasperated me as I read; but then, again, came passages so true, so deeply thought, so tenderly felt, one could not ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell |
