"Knocker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Miss Wilson, and Gertrude. We have been watching the storm, and there is some one knocking at the—" A tremendous battery with the knocker, followed by a sound, confused by the gale, as of a man ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Valerie, and stepping out into the hall, they carefully closed the door, then ran softly along to Vera's door, and tapped upon the panel with a hat-pin for a knocker. The door opened and they were only too glad to have it close behind them. Yet a bit longer they waited before lighting up, and while they waited, they sat upon the bed and ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... Business in "Knocker's Hole" must have been brisker in 1811 than it has been of late years. Old Salem people will remember ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... astonished Mr. Carvel's guests, and which he alone could cook. The coach still stands in the stables where Harvey left it, a lumbering relic of those lumbering times when methinks there was more of goodwill and less of haste in the world. The great brass knocker, once resplendent from Scipio's careful hand, no longer fantastically reflects the guest as he beats his tattoo, and Mr. Peale's portrait of my grandfather is gone from the dining-room wall, adorning, as you know, our ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... been recurring since the world was made, and had been misunderstood from the beginning. He used the simplest means. His experiment was in a different way daily performed for him by nature. He was philosophically daring, indifferently a tinker with nature's terrific machinery; a knocker at the door of an august temple that men were never known to have entered; a mortal who smiled in the face of inscrutable and awful mystery, and who defied the lightning in a sense not merely moral. [Footnote: Professor Richmann, of St. ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... in breadth. The place was buried under layers of mystery. It was silent, it was dark with the blackness of darkness; it was like an unholy sepulchre that gave forth no sound, though we beat upon its sodden door with its rusted knocker until a dog howled dismally on the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... I felt I couldnt afford to risk giving offense and so at fouroclock promptly I was in Georgetown, using the knocker of a door looking like all the other doors on both ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... only one known in the olden times. The belcher (what a name! ) supplies its place, together with the bird's eye, or the colours of some black or white boxer. An accomplished man was the delight of all companies in former times. An out and outer, one up to every thing, down as a nail or the knocker of Newgate, a trump, or a Trojan, now carry the mode of praise; one that can patter flash, floor a charley, mill a coal-heaver, come coachey in prime style, up to every rig and row in town, and ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... arms of Bethune and Baliol, with various other devices, carved in stone. The door itself was studded with iron nails, and formed of black oak; an iron rasp, as it was called, was placed on it, instead of a knocker, for the purpose of summoning the attendants. [See Note 3.—Iron Rasp.] He who usually appeared at the summons was a smart lad, in a handsome livery, the son of Mrs. Martha's gardener at Mount Baliol. Now and ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... could not wait, though time might present more than one opportunity, spurred me on. What I could do I must do now, at once. The sense that this was so being heavy upon me, I saw nothing for it but to use the knocker and gain admission, by fraud if I could, and if not, by force. Accordingly I stepped briskly across the kennel, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... good cider—but I can't drink it in peace till I know what's behind those devilish hedges. I always remember poor Larose and Vieux-Chapeau rolling down the ditch at La Pelerine. I shall recollect Larose's queue to the end of my days; it went hammering down like the knocker of a front door." ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... a one, yore, pluralized, distingue, ruination, complected, mayhap, burglarized, mal de mer, tuckered, grind, near, suicided, callate, cracker-jack, erst, railroaded, chic, down town, deceased (verb), a rig, swipe, spake, on a toot, knocker, peradventure, guess, prof, classy, booze, per se, cute, biz, bug-house, swell, opry, rep, photo, cinch, corker, in cahoot, pants, fess up, exam, bike, incog, zoo, secondhanded, getable, outclassed, gents, mucker, galoot, dub, up against it, on tick, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... Narrative (not deficient in height of colouring) of the terrors of that night. From five in the afternoon, a great City is struck suddenly silent; except for the beating of drums, for the tramp of marching feet; and ever and anon the dread thunder of the knocker at some door, a Tricolor Commissioner with his blue Guards (black-guards!) arriving. All Streets are vacant, says Peltier; beset by Guards at each end: all Citizens are ordered to be within doors. On the River float sentinal barges, lest we escape by water: the Barriers hermetically closed. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... mortal height, or seemed so to the terrified eyes which saw them. They reached the mantel-shelf where the sign-board hung, then a black-draped long arm was seen to rise and make a motion, as if plying a knocker. Then the whole company passed out of sight, as if through the wall, and the room was as before. Mrs. Townsend was shaking in a nervous chill, Adrianna was almost fainting, Cordelia was in hysterics. David Townsend stood glaring in a curious way at the sign of the Blue Leopard. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... WORLD WITH THOUGHT WAVES: The dire curse of this world is idleness. Some are working too hard, while a vast multitude idly look on. Don't be a looker, be a doer. Don't be a knocker, be a booster. Idleness is a sin: "The wages of sin is death." That is why people who stop working soon die off. "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." He can't eat long. He loses his appetite, spoils his digestion, gets heart failure. When ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... misfortune. So that it may safely be taken to mean that the consultant will shortly be going to see a friend who has had an operation; this fact is borne out by the short dotted line beyond, leading to the door knocker, under which ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... dub, and a softy, and a knocker," he said good- humoredly. "What's she know about such things, anyway? I tell you it is good, and healthy, too,"—this last as an afterthought. "Look at me. I tell you I have to live clean to be in condition like this. I live cleaner than she does, or her old man, ...
— The Game • Jack London
... hope in her heart that kindled color in her pale cheeks and light in her weary eyes, sped away to the Spragues. There was no tremor in the hand that raised the dragon-headed knocker, nor hesitancy in the voice that bade the servant say that "Miss Boone requested a few moments' conversation with ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... over the meal one warm September morning, as if loth to make further exertion in the growing heat, the Sound of a knocker was heard, and a moment later the coloured maid ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... entered Green Street, and came to the house of the kind lady who had furnished her and many others with work; raised the knocker, and gave one humble knock at the door. She had never been at the house before, but she had sometimes had to go to other genteel houses where she had been met with incivility ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... universal test of an able housewife—a character which formed the utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmothers. The front door was never opened except on marriages, funerals, new year's days, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, curiously wrought, sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes of a lion's head, and was daily burnished with such religious zeal, that it was oft-times worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... who had so kindly directed her, and went to the house of Hugh Price. This house, next to the home of Governor Berkeley, was the most elegant mansion in Virginia. On the front door was a large brass knocker, common at the time, and, seizing it, the young girl struck the door. It was opened by a negro woman whose red turban and rich dress indicated that she was the household servant of an aristocratic family. The stranger asked for Rebecca Stevens, and was shown ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... is safe," says Frank, trembling, and his honest eyes filling with tears, "a silver statue to Our Lady!" He was going to rattle at the great iron knocker on the oak gate; but Esmond stopped his kinsman's hand. He had his own fears, his own hopes, his own despairs and griefs, too: but he spoke not a word of these to his companion, or showed any ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long time on the panels of the front door—she could not reach the knocker—she walked round to the back of the house, and knocked there. But still there was no answer. Then she tried the side door. By this time her knuckles were sore, and, as she found she could turn the handle, she opened ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... A quaint brass knocker which gentlemen—long since dust—had approached wearing laced three-cornered hats, velvet short-clothes, and silver buckles, and upon which they had rapped announcement of their social claims, still hung on the rest from which they had lifted it. It was not often used ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... The heavy knocker fell again and again and again. Between the knocking there was a sound like the roaring of lions. Husband and wife stared at one another with white faces. Firmin picked up his gun with trembling hands, and the movement seemed to set his teeth ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... and door frames. Hinges a yard long on the gates; over the gates a semi-circular grating of iron bars an inch in diameter; in one of these gates a wicket, and on the wicket a heavy, battered, highly burnished brass knocker. A short-legged, big-bodied, and very black slave to usher one through the wicket into a large, wide, paved corridor, where from the middle joist overhead hung a great iron lantern. Big double doors ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... to a hooded entrance, and ascending the two stone steps, the Chancellor lifted the mailed glove which did duty as a knocker. Twice he brought it down on the oak panel underneath, and the sound of metal smiting against wood went echoing through the house, with an effect ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... heavy knocker on the door and a slot opened for a quick check of his identity. The door opened wide and Technician ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... favoured ones were mostly children who chanced to wander up Snowdon by themselves. She had, she said, not only heard but seen these Knockers. They were thick-set dwarfs, as broad as they were long. One Knocker, an elderly female, had often played with her on the hills. Knockers' Llyn, indeed, was very much on Winifred's mind. When a golden cloud, like the one on which she was singing her song at the time I first saw her, shone over a person's head at Knockers' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... often been told in Mr. Ray's family. "One summer morning, a loud rap with the knocker at the front door arrested the attention and the door being opened, a man entered, who after asking, 'Does the Rev. Mr. Ray live here?' and receiving an affirmative answer, whistled as a signal to attract the notice of his comrades, then cried out, 'Come on, boys!' and forthwith fourteen men in ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... least) retained their old manners and even their old dress. The other day Mrs. White, Horton's mother-in-law, had a violent sick headache, and, as we are all very fond of the kind old lady, we were trying to keep things as quiet as possible down-stairs. Suddenly there came a bang! bang! bang! at the knocker; and then in an instant another rattling series of knocks, as if a tethered donkey were trying to kick in the panel. After all our efforts for silence it was exasperating. I rushed to the door to find a seedy looking person just ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... "Weren't some of the popes—of course, not our present man, or his predecessor, but some of the old popes—not exactly... you know... up to the knocker?" ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... your voice if you are as much in earnest as he was! Why should not God hear the voice of William, or Robert, Sarah or Edith? He is no respecter of persons. Is it not written over the door of mercy, "Knock, and it shall be opened?" Aye, and the knocker is so low a child's hand may reach it. St. James tells us that Elijah was "a man of like passions." He was a human being like you and me, but he had faith in God. Why should we not believe in God as much as the prophet did? Is He not God yet? Have any of these sceptics ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... to remain near the boat with Rockets, while I proceeded alone to the house. If I was well received I was to summon him. My heart beat pretty fast as I approached the door. It did not occur to me till my hand was actually on the knocker that it was nearly midnight, and that in all probability the family would be in bed. However, I knocked with tolerable distinctness, and then waited the result. I saw lights gleaming at the windows, and before long a voice in negro ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... no slim, black-clad figure moved among the wilderness of neglected flowers. Virginia tethered her mare, ascended the two or three stone steps, and struck the mailed glove of iron which formed the knocker on the oak of the door. Its echoes went reverberating through wide, empty spaces, and for some moments she stood trembling at her audacity. She said to herself that she could not knock again. If no one answered the last summons she would take it as a sign that she ought not to have come, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... with the heavy iron knocker of the house-door drowned his words. A strange voice ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... morning, full fig, calls a cab, and proceeds in state to our embassy, gives what Cooper calls a lord's beat of six thund'rin' raps of the knocker, presents the legation ticket, and was admitted to where ambassador was. He is a very pretty man all up his shirt, and he talks pretty, and smiles pretty, and bows pretty, and he has got the whitest hand you ever see, it looks as white, as a new bread and milk ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... whitewashed cottage with a small leaded casement window on each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... lawn were kept in good order, but no one belonging to the house ever frequented it. Had any stranger driven up to the front door, he might have hammered away with the narrow knocker—there was no bell—for half an hour before making any one hear, and then probably it would have been by the accident of the servant going by the passage, and not by dint of noise. The household lived in the back part of the house. There was a parlour well furnished, sweet with flowers placed there ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... I thundered on the knocker until it opened, and brushing past the pallid Clegg, bade him order ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... if it came in answer to her poignant wish for some untoward happening, there was a quick double knock at the front door of the Blanchard's dwelling, and a sharp whirring ring at the push-bell below the knocker. The sounds seemed to go violently through and through the little house in rapid waves of ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... muscles toughened and quickened by the active, strenuous river work, will set out to "take the town apart." For a time he leaves rack and ruin, black eyes and broken teeth behind him, until he meets a more redoubtable "knocker" and is pounded and kicked into unconsciousness. Organized gangs go from house to house forcing the peaceful inmates to drink from their bottles. Others take possession of certain sections of the street and resist "a l'outrance" ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... have reached you a Swastika door-knocker, which I hope may fit in with the new house and the new name. It was made by a village-smith; and you will see that it has my initials, to which I hope you will add yours, that ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... had hardly gotten over their wonder and bewilderment, when they heard sleighbells, and a loud "Whoa—whoa—you old reindeer, whoa when I tell you!" Then there was a stamping on the porch and the old brass knocker was lifted—it fell—"clack, clack"; the door opened, and in ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... out in a large carriage-house and walked over to the front door. It was a true type, with sunburst window over the door, and a wonderful old knocker on the front panel of the door. A narrow high window at each side had diamond panes in them. There was a dear little hood over the doorway that someone called a "rain-shed." And on each side of the "stoop" which was reached by three steps, was a high-backed wooden seat, with funny low arms ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... far in arrears of private business, which pressed upon me in the various items of correspondence, accounts, and papers, that I have been obliged to delay this letter longer than I intended. My attorney hath now his leave of absence from me, to anew paint the green door, and repolish the brass knocker of his country villa. As soon as Lady Y. is sufficiently strong I propose quitting town, remaining ten days at Delaforde, and then proceeding to swim at Southampton or Lymington, having as just claim to breathe a sweeter air as the ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... and leaving the knocker, began to pull violently at the door bell, when the other parrot, who had not before spoken, exclaimed, 'Go ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... lights visible anywhere, and only for the big, shapeless mass of something in front of me, which the driver had said was the hotel, I should have fancied that I had been set down by the roadside. I was wet to the skin and in no amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or knocker, or even a door, I belabored the side of the house with my heavy walking-stick. In a minute or two I saw a light flickering somewhere aloft, then I heard the sound of a window opening, followed by an exclamation of disgust as a blast of wind extinguished the candle which had given me an ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Aunt Lois, and they crossed the street, and stopped before a quaint looking building. The massive oak door boasted a huge knocker, in the form of a frowning lion's head that held a huge ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... decided, he'd be in Pleasant Street; and later he dressed with the most meticulous care. A growing doubt seized him as he mounted the outside steps of the Ammidons' impressive house; but he crushed it down and firmly rapped with the polished knocker on the opened door. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... feeling shy, but then she had never seen so many strangers before. They went up the steps, upon the shaded porch,—where two little girls were sitting in a hammock reading, and looked as if they were birds in a nest,—-and rang the bell. Aunt Emma raised the great knocker upon the front ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... bell or knocker, Jetson was surprised to hear him give three raps on the door with his stick. There was no answer, and Jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused, crossed to the other corner, from where he could command a better ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... curiously at the old red-brick house, with its picturesque gables and mullioned windows, and then, as he deposited Fay on the stone seat inside the porch, and was just raising his hand to the knocker, the door opened, and a very tall man in clerical dress appeared suddenly on the threshold. Erle's hand fell to his side, and he and Fay exchanged puzzled glances; it must be Mr. Ferrers, they thought, and of course he did not ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... The knocker had scarcely sounded under the hand of the young man before the tumult ceased, steps approached, the door was opened, and d'Artagnan, sword in hand, rushed into the rooms of M. Bonacieux, the door of which doubtless acted upon by ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... oak, brown, shrunken, and split in many places; though frail in appearance, it was firmly held in place by a system of iron bolts arranged in symmetrical patterns. A small square grating, with close bars red with rust, filled up the middle panel and made, as it were, a motive for the knocker, fastened to it by a ring, which struck upon the grinning head of a huge nail. This knocker, of the oblong shape and kind which our ancestors called jaquemart, looked like a huge note of exclamation; an antiquary who examined it attentively might have found ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door of this house, except that it was very large; also, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also, that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London. And yet Scrooge, having his key in the lock of ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... fifteen minutes of midnight the strange trio passed up the graveled walk leading to the Martin mansion. The front door had a ponderous old-fashioned knocker, and Bart plied it ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... lady and her complaisance. I was not any better satisfied than he, but being calmer I tried to quiet him; and at last, unable longer to restrain his impatience, the prince sprang out of the carriage, and I followed; but, just as his hand was on the knocker of the door, the Emperor came out. It was then already broad daylight, and the Prince informed him of our anxiety, and the reflections we had made upon his rashness. "What childishness!" said his Majesty; "what is there to fear? Wherever ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Dutch. New York gets her Santa Claus, her doughnuts, crullers, cookies, and many of her odors, from the Dutch. The New York matron ran to fine linen and a polished door-knocker, while the New England housewife spun linsey-woolsey and knit "yarn mittens" for ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... which Mrs. Hooker and you go on refusing to give any address leads us to believe that you are dwelling peripatetically in a "Wan" with green door and brass knocker somewhere on Wormwood Scrubbs, and that "Kew" is only a blind. So you see I am obliged to inclose ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... standing in the dark, and when I stepped upon the porch I heard some one walking heavily and slowly up and down the library. On the door was a brass knocker, and when I raised it and let it fall, the foot-steps came hastily to the door. A hanging lamp was burning in the hall, and I saw that the old General himself had ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... and Phoebe was praised for never even looking frightened, then again for her organ of locality and the skilful pilotage with which she unerringly and unhesitatingly found the way through the Whittingtonian labyrinths; and as the disgusted tiger pealed at the knocker of Turnagain Corner, she was told she would be a useful guide in the South African bush. 'At home,' was the welcome reply, and in another second her arms were round Robert's neck. There was a thorough brotherly greeting between ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my long-handled "knocker," I used to be sent forth in the April meadows to beat up and scatter the fall droppings of the cows —the Juno's cushions as Irving named them—I was in much more congenial employment. Had I known the game of golf in those days I should probably ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... so high it was merely a door cut in the fence, allowing no glimpse of what was within, and instead of immediately opening it, Mr. Dingley rapped upon it with the iron knocker, whose lion head had been wont to snarl at me years ago. I heard a sharp clicking as of something being unlocked, and the gate opened. But after we were inside I got an uncanny shock, for excepting ourselves there was not a soul to ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... rang four times at Dr Chartley's door-bell, and rapped as many at the great grinning knocker tied in flannel, before he heard the chain put up and the lock shot back, to display the smudgy unwholesome countenance of Elizabeth Gundry, who always blinked like a night-bird when forced to leave her ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... thickly leaved oak tree, secured him, and then holding up her saturated skirt with one hand and holding on her cap with the other, she went up some moldering stone steps to an old stone portico and, seizing the heavy iron knocker of a great black oak double door, she knocked loudly enough to awaken ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Ignacio Chavez had allowed the dangling rope to slip from his hands so that the Captain rested quiet in the starshine. Roderick and Florence were coming in through the wide patio door; Norton was just saying that Florrie had promised to play something for him when the front door knocker announced another visitor. Florence made a little disdainful face as though she guessed who it was; Engle ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... wuddent be gude for our souls if the parson shud cum out to investigate." Chuckling away into the silent street they disappeared, while Laurence Shafton stalked angrily up the little path and pounded loudly on the quaint knocker of ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... much longer than the head; broad, acutely pointed; nasal apparatus very complicated; the lower leaf very large, concealing the upper lip like a door knocker; the upper leaf like a graduated spire; ears transversely striate; a rather large semi-circular lobe at base of ear; fur long, dense, soft, and lax, slightly curled or woolly black with a silvery grizzle, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... itself to its very narrowest and, diving under a printing-office shows itself in Shoe Lane. The houses in these trenches were not by any means of the worst kind. In the aforesaid expansion they were even genteel, or at any rate aspired to be so, and each had its own brass knocker and kept its front-door shut with decent sobriety and reticence. On the top floor of one of these tenements lodged Jean Caillaud and Pauline. They had three rooms between them; one was Jean's bedchamber, one Pauline's, and one was workroom and ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... silent. I bent my ear to listen, but could hear nothing except, perhaps, the sound of a low moaning as of a person in pain or in great mental distress. Convinced, however, from what my friend Sir Jeremy Buggam had told me, that the Grange was not empty, I raised the ponderous knocker and beat with ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... on the knocker, and its fall startled me as the clatter echoed far down the street and seemed ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... Beelzebub sat, With his imps and his devils around, When the thundering knocker of Hell's outer grate Rang a peal so terrifick and loud on the gate, That ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... an old house with stone chimney, (on which an old date stands coarsely cut,) and with front door divided down its middle, with a huge brazen knocker upon its right half,—with two St. Luke's crosses in its lower panels, and two diamond-shaped "lights" above. Hereabout the street widens into what seems a common; and not far below, sitting squarely and authoritatively in the middle of the common, is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... real, old colonial mansion with tall white pillars, a door with a glittering brass knocker, which gleamed out severely at you as you approached through a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... perpetrate another solo on the knocker, I rushed out and opened the door myself, just as Mrs Nash, with her face scarlet and her sleeves tucked up above the elbows, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... be the last to object. But he knew it was a baseless castle while he built it, for Mr Graham would assuredly provide for himself, if it were by breaking stones on the road and saying the Lord's Prayer. It all fell to pieces just as he lifted his hand to Miss Horn's knocker. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... home later, I was in a fright having laid in bed cooling down, and thinking of possible consequences; heard the street-door knocker, got out of bed, and in my night-shirt went half way downstairs listening. To my relief, I heard Charlotte in answer to my mother's enquiry, say I had come home about an hour before, and had gone to bed unwell. My mother came to my room, saying ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... affected liveliness by alarming remarks on her apparent preoccupation), there fell upon his ear the sound of a loud knocking at the door. Dinner had been served in a small room at the back of the house, and the President could not command a view of the knocker without going out on to the veranda, which ran all round the house, and walking round to the front. When the knock was heard, ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... good John! fatigued, I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out: Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... Gluck, "that my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I'm sure, when they have such a nice piece of mutton as this, it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them." Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up. "It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... that even with our 361,000, or practically 362,000, population, there are, by the last census, almost a score of larger cities in the United States. But, gentlemen, if by the next census we do not stand at least tenth, then I'll be the first to request any knocker to remove my shirt and to eat the same, with the compliments of G. F. Babbitt, Esquire! It may be true that New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia will continue to keep ahead of us in size. But aside from these ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... town, in the month of September, We find neither riches nor rank; In vain we look out for a member To give us a nod or a frank. Each knocker in silence reposes, In every mansion you find One dirty old woman who dozes, Or peeps ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion, built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose threshold General Washington had stood more than once. His father admitted him directly into a prim, wainscoted room with a square-angled stairway in the corner leading ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... the pillar sharply with his palm, merely for the sake of hearing a noise. There was no answering sound, so, after a moment's hesitation, he walked to the door,—which stood ajar,—purposing to call in the aid of bell and knocker. Neither of these civilized appliances was to be found. While debating whether to use his voice or to enter and use his eyes, the note of the hoopoe fell on his ear. An instant after came an answering note, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... scarcely believe his ears when he heard the sound of the old brass knocker on the front door resound ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... morning in late November Katrine clapped the knocker of this old house with fear in her heart, for her future hung on the word of the great teacher who lived here, Josef, whose genius, generosity, and brutal frankness were the talk of the musical world. A Brittany peasant woman opened the door with no salutation ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... True. But how would it be to hang up our stockings again this evening—now that we know he knows we are here? I would suggest tied on to the door-knocker, to save him the trouble of coming ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... steep; the wind blustered; and gusty squalls at intervals threatened to upset both horse and rider into the abyss. However the well-trained horses overcame all difficulties; at length the head of the troop reached the castle; and the foremost dragoon seizing a vast iron knocker struck the steel-plated gate so powerfully, that the echo on a more quiet night would have startled all the deer in the adjacent park for ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... sir," said the woman hastily just as there was a little rat-tat at the brass knocker of the outer door, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... monkeys were all dead and buried, and the little old man and woman lived all alone-ty-donty. It had bright green blinds, bright red sides, a bright blue door, and bright yellow steps. On the bright blue door there was a bright brass knocker, which was polished up at such a rate that you could see your face in it, looking as l-o-n-g as anything; and underneath that was a bright brass door plate, with the old showman's name, "Timmy Timmens," on it, which was also polished up until ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... made no effort to solve. From the testimony of several members of the American colony in Berlin, it appeared that all New York and half of Boston had heard of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, who, for three or four seasons past, had been using her really choice musicales as a species of knocker upon the portal of New York society. By this time, she had passed the portal and was disporting herself in the vestibule, with one toe resting upon the sacred threshold. Socially, she was as yet impossible; ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... like babies' hands. She had a momentary desire to stay, to wander round the hill and look with untired eyes at the familiar scene; but she passed on under the tyranny of tea. The Malletts were always in time for meals and the meals were exquisite, like the polish on the old brass door-knocker, like the furniture in the white panelled hall, like the beautiful old mahogany in the drawing-room, the old china, the glass bowls full ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... polypus[obs3], fungus, fungosity[obs3], exostosis[obs3], bleb, blister, blain[obs3]; boil &c. (disease) 655; airbubble[obs3], blob, papule, verruca. [convex body parts on chest] papilla, nipple, teat, tit [vulgar], titty [vulgar], boob [vulgar], knocker[vulgar], pap, breast, dug, mammilla[obs3]. [prominent convexity on the face] proboscis, nose, neb, beak, snout, nozzle, schnoz[coll]. peg, button, stud, ridge, rib, jutty, trunnion, snag. cupola, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... be gained by standing there in the drenching storm, I moved onward, taking the way to Mrs. Wallingford's dwelling. I had scarcely touched the knocker when the door was opened, and ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work—Master Porbus, sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de' Medici took Rubens ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... by the giant trees that arched above it. A dog's bark sounded snappily from a kennel, but he paid no heed. He went up the broad white walk, climbed the steps to the square front porch, and lifted the great brass knocker. When he let it fall, the sound echoed through the ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... and picking stone was drudgery, and haying and harvesting I liked best when they were a good way off; picking up potatoes worried me, but gathering apples suited my hands and my fancy better, and knocking "Juno's cushions" in the spring meadows with my long-handled knocker, about the time the first swallow was heard laughing overhead, was real fun. I always wanted some element of play in my work; buckling down to any sort of routine always galled me, and does yet. ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... you come to an archway, imperfectly stopped up by a rusty old gate—my gate. The rusty old gate has a bell to correspond, which you ring as long as you like, and which nobody answers, as it has no connection whatever with the house. But there is a rusty old knocker, too— very loose, so that it slides round when you touch it—and if you learn the trick of it, and knock long enough, somebody comes. The brave Courier comes, and gives you admittance. You walk into a seedy little garden, all wild and weedy, from which the vineyard opens; cross it, enter ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... matter, for almost everyone in town was familiar with its locality, and towards the close of the afternoon he found himself upon its broad steps applying vigorous strokes to the ponderous brass knocker, and half hoping the summons would be answered by Maggie herself. But it was not, and in the bent, white-haired woman who came with measured footsteps we recognize old Hagar, who spent much of her time at the house, and who came to the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... he had touched the knocker the door was opened by a little old woman, plainly dressed, but neat and tidy: and when the Prince told her who he was, and what he wanted, she answered him with a good-humored smile, very different from the frown of stern Necessity: "Every one can have food in ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... sound of a rifle butt against the door which struck them dumb. Muffled by the thick wood, the voice of the knocker yet came clearly: "Open in the name of ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... grounds. Inspector Seldon and Flack passed rapidly through the grounds and reached the front door of the mansion. There was nobody about; the place seemed deserted, and the blinds were down on the ground-floor windows. Inspector Seldon knocked loudly at the front door with the big, old-fashioned brass knocker, and rang the bell. He listened intently for a response, but no sound followed except the sharp note of the electric bell as Flack rang it again while Inspector Seldon bent down with his ear at the keyhole. Then the inspector ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... the clang of the knocker sounded through the house. Charlotte took off her apron and started to answer it, but her mother caught her and pinned up a stray lock of hair. "I 'most wish you had put on your ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the doctor, dwelling on the famous and striking syllables. 'Your uncle is the typical instance of the man who has never been ill in his life. He walks up a little slope or up some steps to a friend's house, and just as he is lifting his hand to the knocker, he has a convulsion and falls down unconscious. That's Bright's disease. Never been ill in his life! Not so far as he knew! Not so far as he knew! Nearly all you Myatts had weak kidneys. Do you remember ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... age, and even by the moonlight one might see, from the form of his clothes, that he was dressed with fastidious care. The walls and verandah, of his house, which were of wood, glistened almost as brightly with white paint as the knocker and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... at last!" struck in Ailsa excitedly, as the door-bell and knocker clashed and the butler's swift footsteps went along the hall. "Now we shall know, Mr. Cleek—oh, now we ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... short wire, and for the rest of the drive lay back in the cab with his hat tilted over his nose to keep the sun from his face. Our driver pulled up at a house which was not unlike the one which we had just quitted. My companion ordered him to wait, and had his hand upon the knocker, when the door opened and a grave young gentleman in black, with a very shiny ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... inquired the way all uncapped most respectfully, and replied with much courtesy; but when the hotel of the English ambassador had been pointed out to him, he hardly believed it, so foul and squalid was the street, where a large nail-studded door occupied a wide archway. Here was a heavy iron knocker, to which Osbert applied himself. A little door was at once opened by a large, powerful John Bull of a porter, whose looks expanded into friendly welcome when he heard the English tongue of the visitor. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... note across, wondering what would be said while I was gone, and knowing why Sir John wanted his son to go as well as he did, and Miss Virginia too, poor thing. The knocker seemed to make the house opposite echo very strangely, as I thumped; but when the door was opened in a few minutes, everything in the hall seemed very proper and prim, while the maid who came looked as stiff and ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... Canterbury behind us forever, we came again into the voiceless streets, past a "very old house bulging out over the road, ... quite spotless in its cleanliness, the old-fashioned brass knocker on the low, arched door ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkling like a star," the very house, perhaps, "with angles and corners and carvings and mouldings," where David Copperfield ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and Jane took to their heels. The house they sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind them. Their breath was coming in choking gasps as they reached Sir James's door. Tuppence seized the bell and Jane the knocker. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... a gleam of recognition, on here a post, and there a garden fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here again an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the door-step. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and that ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the rest did, and not taking up more than his fair share of the conversation, when there was a quick step on the stairs. Nobody heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just as she had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, and when he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go over and ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... Mitford's own description. 'The Cross is not a borough, thank Heaven, either rotten or independent. The inhabitants are quiet, peaceable people who would not think of visiting us, even if we had a knocker to knock at. Our residence is a cottage' (she is writing to her correspondent, Sir William Elford), 'no, not a cottage, it does not deserve the name—a messuage or tenement such as a little farmer ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... very slowly. She had scarcely done so before a loud ring, followed by a rat-tat on the knocker of the front door, was ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... jigging at Northampton with that old harlotry Major Compton? Peggy Trevor told me, she had sent you a mandate to go thither. Shall I tell you how I found Peggy, that is, not Peggy, but her sister Muscovy? I went, found a bandage upon the knocker, an old woman and child in the hall, and a black boy at the door. Lord! thinks I, this can't be Mrs. Boscawen's. However, Pompey let me up; above were fires blazing, and a good old gentlewoman, whose occupation easily spoke itself to be midwifery. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... is business; and if I am ever to sue for my Charlotte's hand, I must present myself before her as the winner of the three thousand. Remembering this, I lifted Mr. Goodge's knocker, and presently found myself ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... pause: Hotchkiss moved his toes. By that time I had found a knocker and was making the night hideous. But there was no response save the wind that blew sodden leaves derisively in our faces. Once Hotchkiss declared he heard a window-sash lifted, but renewed violence with the knocker produced ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... kiverlids wove and counterpanes worked, sheets and piller-cases all made to your hand. Nothing to do, but step right into Mrs. Scott's shoes. Cow in the barn and pig in the sty, cellar all banked up, and knocker on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... Mrs. Knocker came into Dunkirk for a night's rest while I was staying there. She had been out all the previous day in a storm of wind and rain driving an ambulance. It was heavy with wounded, and shells were dropping ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... season seemed to haunt the spot. Snow-drops and crocuses were up in one secluded nook; a plump maltese cat sat purring in the porch; and a dignified old dog came marching down the walk to escort the stranger in. With a brightening face Christie went up the path, and tapped at the quaint knocker, hoping that the face she was about to see would be in keeping ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... again. He did not envy the responsibility of a president in war time, whether the president of a country already established or of one yet tentative. He hurried home, and it was his mother herself who responded to the sound of the knocker—his mother, quiet, smiling and undemonstrative as of old, but with an endless tenderness for him in the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... errand was so impersonal a one as bearing somebody else's note, without enquiring whether the friend was in, and being instantly admitted if she was, and as a matter of fact, Georgie caught a glimpse, when the knocker was answered (Mrs Quantock did not have a bell at all), through the open door of the hall, of Mrs Quantock standing in the middle of the lawn on one leg. Naturally, therefore, he ran out into the garden without any further formality. She looked like a little round fat stork, whose ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... upon Dame Giovanna. We on our part would remember the fable of the Sack and the Ass and laugh; while Ann slipped off to her garret chamber when the Magister was coming; and she could never fail to know of it, for no son of man ever smote so feebly as he with the knocker on the door plate. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... were the hopes of humanity fulfilled? I could not have completed my third snore when there came a furious ringing at the street-door bell, and then an impatient thumping at the knocker, which awakened me at once. In a minute afterward, and while I was still rubbing my eyes, my wife thrust in my face a note, from my old friend, Doctor Ponnonner. It ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the old swaying stage-coach,—looking out, as he passed, upon the parsonage, with its quaintly panelled door, and its diamond lights, of which he long kept the image in his mind. That brazen knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beating,—beating as if his brain lay ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... him. He had only to knock. But in proportion as he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose all, with all in his grasp, to fail upon the threshold, was a thing which bore no looking at; and it was with a nervous hand and eyes cast fearfully behind him that he plied the heavy iron knocker ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... again searching something—a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... end of a steep and narrow street. When she arrived about at the middle of it, she heard strange noises, a funeral knell. "It must be for some one else," thought she; and she pulled the knocker violently. ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... said she gruffly, as she opened the door; "don't you think better break de door down at once-rapping as if you was guine to tear off de knocker—is dat de way, gal, you comes to quality's houses? You lived here long nuff to larn better dan dat—and dis is twice I've been to de door in de last half-hour—if any one else comes dere they may stay ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... through the gate, went up the walk, and lifted the knocker on the front door. A moment, and a servant appeared and ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... half an hour, perhaps, in reaching the Waldheim. As he turned in at the gate he noticed a sledge, with a dozen people following it, coming toward him. It was a singularly silent party. Peter, with his hand on the door-knocker, watched ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the steps, tottering now with age and disuse, and Virginia playfully raised the big brass knocker, brown now, that Scipio had been wont to polish until it shone. Stephen took from his pocket the clumsy key that General Carvel had given him, and turned it in the rusty lock. The door swung open, and Virginia stood in the hall of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... living in the upper part of a house in the Gower Street region. That first home in London I remember chiefly by its fine brass knocker, which mother kept beautifully bright, and by its being the place to which I was sent my first part! Bound in green American cloth, it looked to me more marvelous than the most priceless book has ever looked since! I was so proud ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... perfectly. Ten years previous she had cooked for Jacob Welse, and served him in one fashion or another ever since; and when on a dreary January morning she opened the front door in response to the deep-tongued knocker, even her stolid presence was shaken as she recognized the visitor. Not that the average man or woman would have so recognized. But How-ha's faculties of observing and remembering details had been developed in a hard school where death dealt ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... windy, November night. Brown and Bim were alone together—temporarily. Suddenly, above the howling of the wind sounded sharply the clap of the old knocker on the door. Brown laid down his book—reluctantly, for he was human. A woman's figure, clad from head to foot in furs, sprang from the car at the curb, ran across the sidewalk, and in ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond |
