"Letting down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then murder them, but were skilful to hide their brigandage under a show of generosity. For they had hung on certain hidden chains, in a lofty part of the house, an oblong beam like a press, and furnished it with a steel point; they used to lower this in the night by letting down the fastenings, and cut off the heads of those that lay below. Many had they beheaded in this way with the hanging mass. So when Ebb and his men had been feasted abundantly, the servants laid them out a bed near the hearth, so that by the swing of the treacherous beam they might mow off their heads, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... letting down her hair to wash it, and her arms out through the sleeve-holes of her shift. Her soft hands were as white as the snow of a single night, and her eyes as blue as any blue flower, and her lips as red as the berries of the rowan-tree, and her body as white as the foam of a wave. ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... on mornings that promised better, I'll own. I would rather be letting down the bars in the old meadow just now, or hawing with my team down the brake; with the children by my side to pick the ripe blackberries for our morning meal, than standing here in these rags with a gun on my shoulder. Let ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... quarrelling thus until the Rakshas said, "Well, never mind; I don't know how it is, but I'm very thirsty; let's come and drink some water." So both the Rakshas and his wife went to a well which was close to the house, and began letting down jars into it, and drawing up the water and drinking it. And the Princesses, who were on the top of the house, saw them. Now the youngest of the two Princesses was a very wise girl, and when she saw the Rakshas and his wife by the well, ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... hinges, if possible; for there is danger that the being about to appear may shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which in our country dialect we call a "wecht," and go through all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Repeat it three times, and the third time an apparition will pass through the barn, in at the windy door and out at the other, having both the figure in question, and the appearance or retinue, marking the employment ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... much more easy. He can also convey signals by jerking it. A usual rock-climbing arrangement is shown in the sketch. One man with a post behind him, as in fig. 1, or two men, as in fig. 2 are entrusted with the letting down of a comrade to the depth of 100 or even 150 feet. They pass the rope either under their thighs or along their sides, as shown in the figures. The climber is attached to the rope, as shown in fig. 2. The band on which he sits is of worsted. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... same man, opening the carriage door and letting down the step. The king obeyed, seated himself at the back of the carriage, the padded door of which was shut and locked immediately upon him and his guide. As for the giant, he cut the fastenings by which the horses were bound, harnessed them himself, and mounted on the box ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the last of Doctor Blimber's, however. There was something else. There was Mr Toots. Who, unexpectedly letting down one of the coach-windows, and looking in, said, with a most egregious chuckle, 'Is Dombey there?' and immediately put it up again, without waiting for an answer. Nor was this quite the last of Mr Toots, even; for before the coachman could drive ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... stone still remain over one of the windows at the south-east corner. The north-west corner or keep was surmounted by a tower, and is the place mentioned by Knox at pages 53, 179, as "the Sea-tower." On entering it, after descending a few steps, the dungeon is shewn to visitors by letting down a light, till it nearly reaches the bottom, at about 20 feet. The diameter at the top may be 7 feet, and after a descent of 7 or 8 feet, it gradually widens to 18 or 20 feet diameter, cut out of the solid rock. There is no appearance of any similar excavation ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... there produc'd by the Doctor, who assures me, he was yet deliberating whether the tree being hollow, it might not possibly proceed from some other latent cause, as afterwards he discover'd when having obtain'd permission to open the body of it, he found another elm, letting down its stem all the length of this empty case, and striking root when it came to the earth, from whence it deriv'd nourishment, maintains a flourishing top, and has (till now) pass'd for a little miracle, as it still may do for a thing extraordinary, and rare enough; considering ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... her father with absolute consternation. He was transformed; he had become a new person; he was forgetting himself in a ridiculous manner; letting down his dignity to an alarming extent. Dr. Rylance, the fashionable physician, the man whose nice touch adjusted the nerves of the aristocracy, to disport himself with unkempt, bare-handed young Wendovers! It was an upheaval of things which struck horror to Urania's soul. Easy, after ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... asked, "How would you like to be thrown into the lime?" "Not at all," I gasped, in a voice scarcely audible, "it would burn me to death." I suppose he thought I was sufficiently frightened, for he bade his men close the door. This they did by slowly letting down the floor, and I could see that it was in some way supported by the chains attached to the walls but in what manner I ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson |
