"Battlement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman he owes his misfortunes! As Alice said in Wonderland, it grows "mysteriouser and mysteriouser." Also it grows more romantic, when one puts two and two together; and I have always been great at that. The "sentimental association" of the battlement garden plus the inspiration to evil language, equal (in my fancy) one fair, faithless lady, once loved, now hated. I hate her, too, whatever she did, and I should like to box her ears. I hope she's quite old, and married, and that she makes ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... death, the silent, spotless snow gleamed in the light of the waning moon. Not a breath of wind sighed amongst the stately black trees. Only, far below, the tumbling torrent roared through its half-frozen bed, and high above, from the summit of the battlement that had sheltered so many generations of Greifensteins from danger in war, and in peace from the bitter north wind, the great horned owls sent forth their melancholy note, from time to time, and opened wide their cruel hungry eyes, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... without, the people were rising in masses, and thousands from adjacent towns were gathering around the city walls, and all crying loudly for revenge; but none could enter. The Romans held the gates, and every tower and battlement along the great red-brick walls, hard as adamant, was crowded with glistening spears. Nothing could be done from without, and there was little chance of help to come from within. A scheme was proposed to burn the fleet, ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... very horrible sort of end to a promising life. But, as I sit by my window on the Walk, while the tides of Thames and traffic flow swiftly by, and the blue evening mist comes down over the river, transforming dingy wharf and factory into fairy palace and phantom battlement, it seems to me that my friend died fitly and well, in the midst of Realities, recking little that the love he thought secure had passed irrevocably from him, but never swerving in fidelity to his mistress or ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... sense Of a crying sin in any expense, Should so besotted be, and lost To the fact that now, at public cost, Powder was being day by day Wantonly wasted, blown away);— Yes, he would ask, "with what intent But to perch the Greeks on a battlement From which they might o'erlook the town, The easier to batter it down, Which he had proved must be the case (If it hadn't already taken place): He called on his readers to fear and dread it, Whilst ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... one evening at one of his solitary vigils, wrapped up in meditation; the hour was late, and his neighbour, the owl, was hooting from the battlement of the tower, when he heard the door open behind him. Supposing it to be his daughter coming to take her leave of him for the night, as was her frequent practice, he called her by name, but a harsh voice me this ear in reply. He was grasped by the arms, and, looking up, perceived three ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... godsend were of course carried instantly to the castle; for the Baron was a very great man; and if a dun cow had flown across his property unannounced by the warder, the Baron would have pecked him, the said warder, from the topmost battlement into the bottommost ditch,—a descent of peril, and one which "Ludwig the Leaper," or the illustrious Trenck himself, might well have shrunk ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... earthquake, but remaining as a pathetic memorial of bygone power and pride. Pavilions and baths, grottoes and fish-ponds, set in the tangled verdure of a neglected garden, surround the arcaded parapets of a colossal tower. Green plumes of fern wave from wall and battlement, velvet moss and orange lichen tapestry the blackened stone, and matted creepers sway their woven curtains in the evening wind. A Dancing Hall, which formerly rang with the weird music accompanying ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... MAHADI) are spent; And now the scorpion's shaft, the quarry sent From high balistas and the shielded throng Of soldiers swinging the huge ram along, All speak the impatient Islamite's intent To try, at length, if tower and battlement And bastioned wall be not less hard to win, Less tough to break down than the hearts within. First he, in impatience and in toil is The burning AZIM—oh! could he but see The impostor once alive within his grasp, Not the gaunt lion's hug nor boa's clasp Could match thy gripe of vengeance or keep ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... were extinguished, and then they went up to the platform above. They fastened one end of the rope to the battlement, having first tied ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... in dizzy steps descending, Sometimes in narrow circuit bending, Sometimes in platform broad extending, Its varying circle did combine Bulwark, and bartizan, and line, And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign. Above the booming ocean leant The far-projecting battlement; The billows burst, in ceaseless flow, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... perpendicular bluff two hundred feet above your head, round by the road and up to the plain above, and into the inclosure of this old-time fortification, where, leaving your carriage, you proceed to the round tower, or look out of the fort, and on the very pinnacle of both cliff and battlement you may gaze out and over a spectacle more grand and beautiful than anything we know short of the White Hills. Away to the right stretches the valley of the Minnesota River, while before you the "Father of Waters" receives into his embraces the waters of the Minnesota, then, sweeping ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... a State? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, 5 Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... this being done before sunset this evening, he will yield to you free and uninjured the said M. de Tignonville, and will retire from the lands of Vrillac. But if you refuse"—the man passed his eye along the line of attentive faces which fringed the battlement—"he will at sunset hang the said Tignonville on the gallows raised for Tavannes, and will harry the demesne of ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... the captain stiffly, for there were several guards in white and gold uniforms pacing to and fro on the battlement-like walls. He led the two adventurers through a door in the base of the dome. At first they were dazed by a brilliant light from above, and looking up they beheld a marvel of kaleidoscopic colors formed by a myriad of electric-lighted ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... belched their broadsides of yellow flame now. From battlement and casemate of forts rolled the thunder of their batteries, sending their heavy shots smashing ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... great things that a chorus of psalmists say that it will do for a man. Here is one of their triumphant utterances: 'Thou wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt Thou compass him as with a shield.' That crystal battlement, if I may so vary the figure, is round a man, keeping far away from him all manner of real evil, and filling his quiet heart as he stands erect behind the rampart, with the sense of absolute security. That is one of the blessings that God's favour or ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... shouted we, some of us discharging our pieces to add to the uproar, while one man exploded a swivel gun which stood on the seaward battlement. ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... forth from his dress a thickish cord, which he procured some days before from the turnkey, and fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over the wall. Now the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly have) an overhanging sort of battlement on either side; and the stone, when flung over and drawn to the tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the wall, and ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the commander of the Goths, and the keys of the gates to the emperor, but he himself turned his attention to the circuit-wall, which had fallen into ruin in many places; and he constructed each merlon of the battlement with a wing, adding a sort of flanking wall on the left side,[69] in order that those fighting from the battlement against their assailants might never be hit by missiles thrown by those storming the wall on their left; and he also dug a moat about the wall of sufficient depth to ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... summit of the central tower caught the last reflection of the declining orb. Leonard watched the rosy gleam till it disappeared, and then steadfastly regarded the reverend pile as its hue changed from grey to black, until at length each pinnacle and buttress, each battlement and tower, was lost in one vast indistinct mass. Night had fallen upon the city—a night destined to be more fatal than any that had preceded it; and yet it was so calm, so beautiful, so clear, that it was scarcely possible to imagine that it was unhealthy. The destroying ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the castle disappeared, Save here and there a distant battlement, And through the foliage the palace walls, And windows of Arabian tracery. But everywhere were flowers—wondrous flowers— Rising in terraces of tropic growth: A splendid garden of luxuriant flowers Created by ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... Framlinghame! I touch my lyre delighted, thus to bring To thee my heart's full homage while I sing! And thou, old Castle!—thy bold turrets high, Have shed their deep enchantment on mine eye, Though years have changed thee, I have gazed intent In silent joy, on tower and battlement, When all thy time-worn glories met my sight; Thou have I felt such rapture, such delight, That, had the splendour of thy days of yore Flashed on my view, I had not loved thee more! Scene of immortal deeds! thy walls have rung To pealing shouts from many a warrior's tongue; When ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... was enclosed in a mud wall and a moat. Since then the city has so increased that an extension has been made to an outer boundary some ten miles in circumference, and marked by an uneven ditch, the excavated sand of which is thrown up to form a sort of battlement. Twelve gates, opened at sunrise and closed at night, give access to the town. The citadel, the ancient part of the city, contains the principal public buildings, the private residences of high officials, and the Shah's Palace. To the south of this are found the extensive domed ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... first within the South methought I saw A wilderness of spires, and chrystal pile Of rampart upon rampart, dome on dome, Illimitable range of battlement On battlement, and the ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... For the spirit of God lies all about the spirit of man like a mighty sea, ready to rush in at the smallest chink in the walls that shut him out from his own—walls which even the tone of a violin afloat on the wind of that spirit is sometimes enough to rend from battlement to base, as the blast of the rams' horns rent the walls of Jericho. And now to the day of his death, the shoemaker had need of nothing. Food, wine, and delicacies were sent him by many who, while they considered him outside of the kingdom, would have troubled themselves ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the rampart!" Klingsor persists. Kundry wrings her hands. "Woe! Woe! Have I waked for this? Must I, indeed?... Must I?" At which first intimation of weakening, Klingsor ceases to press his authority, and adopts a different method of persuasion. Climbing to the battlement, he describes the approaching figure: "Ha! He is beautiful, the boy!" "Oh! Oh!" moans Kundry, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... clearer as we went, We heard from tower and battlement A whisper, like a warning, sent From watchers out of sight; And clearer, brighter, as we drew Close to the walls, we saw the blue Flashing of plumes where peacocks flew ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... you here all this time?' asked he, as he saw Nina seated on the battlement, and throwing dried leaves carelessly to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... being sickly, had in attendance upon him eleven physicians, one of whom was a European gentleman of education, Claudius Maille, of Bourges.[26] The chief favourite of the eleven was, however, a Persian, 'who one day threw his wife from the top of a battlement to the ground in a fit of jealousy. He thought the fall would kill her, but she had only a few ribs broken; whereupon the kindred of the woman came and demanded justice at the feet of the governor. The governor, sending for the physician, commanded him to be gone, resolving to retain him no ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... menace of night; Then a long, lonely, leaden mere Backed by a desolate fell, As by a spectral battlement; and then, Low-brooding, interpenetrating all, A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky, So beggared, so incredibly bereft Of starlight and the song of racing worlds, It might have bellied down upon the Void Where as in terror Light was ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... called because men had likened the glory of her hair to a waving flambeau, he caused to reside in a tiny cottage beneath the very shadow of Sir Jacques' frowning fortress; and the men-at-arms looking down from battlement and bartizan marvelled when the morning wove a halo around the head of the witch's daughter. (In the poem-picture which grew thus in his mind as he swung along towards Hatton, Mrs. Duveen had become even more shrivelled than nature ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... perfectly preserved city and fortress of the middle ages. Here has been none of the Vandalism of Vauban, Cohorn, and those mechanical-pated fellows, who, with their Dutch dyke-looking parapets, made such havoc of donjons and picturesque turrets in Europe. Here is every variety of mediaeval battlement; so perfect is the illusion, that one wonders the waiter's horn should be mute, and the walls devoid of bowman, knight, ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... entirely roofless, but the hall and other rooms are pointed out by the guide, and the whole is tapestried with abundant ivy, so that my impression is of gray walls, with here and there a vast green curtain; a carpet of green over the floors of halls and apartments; and festoons around all the outer battlement, with an uneven and rather perilous foot-path running along the top. There is a fine vista through the castle itself, and the two gateways of the two encompassing walls. The passage within the wall is very rude, both underfoot ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thereof, but he forgot not the joy of battle. He aimed at Alkmaon, son of Thestor, with the spear, and smote him, and drew out the spear. And Alkmaon following the spear fell prone, and his bronze-dight arms rang round him. Then Sarpedon seized with strong hands the battlement, and dragged, and it all gave way together, while above the wall was stripped bare, and made ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... standard, planted on the battlement, Despair and death among the soldiers sent; You the bold Omrah tumbled from the wall, And shouts of victory ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... battlement, and hall, Scathed as with the thunder-stroke, Flashed through midnight's dusky pall, Twined in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... help stealing a glance at poor Miss Eunice, behind her fragile battlement of the tea-set, and was deeply touched at the glance of sympathy which dimly flickered in the lonely eyes. "I do think, mother, that Anna is right about single women's having some occupation," was timidly suggested. "Of course, I mean those who have no special ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... can see myself, a little creature in a straw hat, playing on what the nurses used to call "the libery lawn"— a beautiful stretch of sward, upon which the Great Parlour window opened. This lawn is half surrounded by an old red sandstone battlement wall, with a long, terrace-like mound in front of it. Suddenly, in the middle of our play, I saw the Great Parlour window open and my father, with his hand held to shelter his eyes from the glare, stepping on to the gravel path. He called to my elder brother and me ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... at the door to turn an icy cold look of cruelty upon him. "What! Thou wouldst know? Then thou shalt have it, young idolater. It may cool thy hot blood. I will dress him in dust colour like the walls of Kabul and hang him over the battlement at dawn as a mark for my brother's artillery. Then we shall see the breach in my citadel made! Then we shall see my revenge—but it will not be of my making! His father ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... walks along the main street of the town, and here and there a real lawn, cut by a lawn-mower; but as the machine buzzed on toward the river the familiar little old battlemented buildings came to view. The Palace Hotel, half log, half battlement, remained on its perilous site beside the river. The triangle where the trails met still held Halsey's Three Forks Saloon, and next to it stood Markheit's general store, from which the cowboys and citizens had armed themselves during the ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... Revesby Abbey. In the west front, over the door, is a large two-light window, and above it a clock, the only village church clock in the neighbourhood, by Smith of Derby. Within the west doorway, let into the north wall of the tower basement, is a fragment of an old battlement, having a shield in the centre, probably a relic from the original church. The font is modern, having a plain octagonal bowl, shaft, and pediment. The roof is of pitch pine, the timbers being supported by plain ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... represents the inner keep of Klingsor's castle, the magician himself being seated on the battlement. He is gazing intently into the magic mirror, wherein all the world may be seen, and comments with malicious glee upon Parsifal's ejection from the temple of the Holy Grail and his approach to his ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... Lloyd's,—all are gone out of sight into the forgotten silences of the green underworld. Upon the land we can trace Roman and Celt, Saxon and Norman, by names and places, by minster, keep, and palace. This one gave the battlement, that the pinnacle, the other the arch. But the fluent surface of the sea takes no such permanent impression. Gone are the quaint stern-galleries, gone the high top-gallant fore-castles, gone the mighty banks of oars of the olden time. It is only in the language that we are able to trace the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... then she remembered for the first time that one word—"Walpi!" uttered by the Indian as he came to a halt the night before and pointed far to the mesa—"Walpi." She lifted her eyes now and scanned the dark mesa. It loomed like a great battlement of rock against the sky. Could it be possible there were people dwelling there? She had heard, of course, about the curious Hopi villages, each village a gigantic house of many rooms, called pueblos, built upon the lofty crags, sometimes five or six ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... to the automobile again that night, but strolled on the quay by the little river Sevre-Niortaise, and watched the moon rise over the old chateau donjon, and heard the rooks caw, and saw them circle and swing around its battlement in a final night-call before they went to rest. It was all very idyllic and peaceful, although Niort is, as may be inferred, an ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... battlement and the stories were told. They were stories of the small grains lying hid in the dark earth waiting for the golden heat of the sun to draw them forth into life until they covered the tilled fields with waving ...
— The Land of the Blue Flower • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... legs are winged sphinxes, terminating in lions' paws, the two other legs are plain, being intended to stand against the wall. The bottom is formed with bronze bars, on which are laid bricks supporting pumice-stones for the reception of charcoal. There is a sort of false battlement worked on the rim, and in the middle a cow is to be seen in high relief. Three bronze benches also were found, alike in form and pattern. They are one foot four inches high, one foot in width, and about six feet long, supported by four legs, terminating ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... what he should do next, he saw three men separate from the knot of soldiers and ride towards the Towers, one of whom held a white cloth above his head in token of parley. Then Christopher went up into the little gateway turret, followed by Emlyn, who crouched down behind the brick battlement, so that she could see and hear without being seen. Having reached the further side of the moat, he who held the white cloth threw back the hood of his long cape, and they saw that it was the Abbot of Blossholme himself, also that ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... the attack continued and was repulsed. Meanwhile, unknown to the Spaniards, the besieged burghers were silently and swiftly building inside the ravelin a solid half-moon shaped battlement. On the 31st of December, the last day of 1572, the great assault was made. "The attack was unexpected, but the forty or fifty sentinels defended the walls while they sounded the alarm. The tocsin bells tolled, and the citizens, whose sleep was not apt to be heavy ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... to its crown of silvery birches, above which, as often as the slowly circling road brought him to the other side, he saw rise like a helmet the gray mass of the fortress. Turret and tower, pinnacle and battlement, appeared and disappeared as he climbed. Not until at last he stood almost on the top, and from an open space beheld nearly the whole front, could he tell what it was like. It was a grand pile, but looked a gloomy one ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... merriment. alejarse move away, recede. alentar animate, foster, cherish. alfombra f. carpet. algazara f. shout, shouting, hubbub. alguno, -a adj. pron. some, some one. aliento m. breath, spirit, exhalation. alma f. soul, heart, person. almena f. battlement. almo, -a holy. alquiler m. hire; de —— hired, let for hire. alrededor adv. around; a mi —— around me. altanero, -a soaring, haughty, arrogant, overbearing, proud. altar m. altar. alterar change, disturb, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... to have gained something in addition from reason, and then to have protected this with security? And whom did you ever see building a battlement all around and encircling it with a wall? And what doorkeeper is placed with no door to watch? But you practise in order to be able to prove—what? You practise that you may not be tossed as on the sea through sophisms, and tossed about from what? Show me first ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... is strong, but a woman's pride is stronger. Under temptation's test, her religion might was dim, but her refinement would rise as a battlement in defense. Her church and creed might waver and sink, but that undefinable innocence which we call womanhood, would lead her, a Dian, through the fires of hell. In society and the slums a large percentage of ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... cold. Gusts of wind from the snow-covered Schneeberg drove along the streets, making each corner a fortress defended by the elements, a battlement to be seized, lost, seized again. Peter Byrne battled valiantly but mechanically. And as he fought ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... from crenelle; the holes in a battlement made for the purpose of shooting arrows and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... To groan, and shrieks, and sobbing and the cries Of wailing women pierce the vaulted skies. 'Twas e'en as though all Carthage or old Tyre Were falling, stormed by ruthless enemies, While over roof and battlement and spire And temples of the Gods rolled ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... records state that the long roof was taken down, and replaced in the following year. Six years later there is another interesting entry as follows: "The churchwardens after Michaelmas, intending of themselves to build a battlement upon the top of the church tower, offered to do the same without any charge, and for that purpose did set forth three stage-plays, played in the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... rules of society would allow. I found the family established in one of those Dutch edifices, of which Albany was mainly composed, and which stood a little removed from the street—having a tiny yard in front, with the stoop in the gable, and that gable towards the yard. The battlement walls of this house diminished towards the high apex of a very steep roof by steps, as we are all so much accustomed to see, and the whole was surmounted by an iron weathercock, that was perched on a rod of some elevation. It was always a matter of importance with ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... lies by Chillon's walls: A thousand feet in depth below Its massy waters meet and flow; Thus much the fathom-line was sent 110 From Chillon's snow-white battlement,[11] Which round about the wave inthralls: A double dungeon wall and wave Have made—and like a living grave. Below the surface of the lake[12] The dark vault lies wherein we lay: We heard it ripple ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... king of them. A lonely church upon the clifftop beyond it, by affording him some measure of the probable size of this edifice, increased his incredulity. He looked again, and saw that it was not a castle, though the sun yet seemed to light up tower and battlement quite vividly, but only one isolated rock of vast size and picturesque proportions; upon the crown of which, however, there were certainly walls, and what looked to be broken towers. "That must be Gethin," said the young man, cheerily. "I must be at the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... this scene below us here, as we sit on our lofty battlement. Not on the turrets or the loopholes, the grates and spikes, or all the fortified horror,—but on the earth. It is fair earth, though not Italy; this is a mountain-fortress; here are all the lights and shadows that play over grand hill-countries, and yonder are fields of grain, where the winds and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... recurrence. It was, there, long ago, in times of trouble and danger, that the De Lacys of those evil days used to sit in feudal judgment upon captive adversaries, and, as tradition alleged, often gave them no more time for shrift and prayer, than it needed to mount to the battlement of the turret over-head, from which they were forthwith hung by the necks, for a caveat and admonition to all evil disposed persons viewing the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a difference in architecture betwixt the English and Scottish towers. The latter usually have upon the top a projecting battlement, with interstices, anciently called machicoules, betwixt the parapet and the wall, through which stones or darts might be hurled upon the assailants. This kind of fortification is less common on the ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... when she saw the isle so rugged and forbidding, but when the boat came aland in a stony bight, whence the ground went up somewhat steeply toward the heights, she went ashore straightway, and toiled up toward the white battlement. Presently she found herself in a strait and rugged path betwixt two walls of rock, so that she lost sight of the castle a while, till she came out on to a level place which looked down from aloft on to the blue water, but all over against her close at hand were the great towers and walls. She was ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... say to you about the Baronetcy, by and bye." He paused to notice the keen old Scotchman wince under the thrust, "but, in the mean time, I am merely waiting orders here, and I want you to post me about the condition of affairs up there." He vaguely indicated with his thumb the far-distant battlement of the Roof of the World. Hugh Johnstone rang a silver bell, and muttered a few words in Hindostanee to an attendant. "I must know more from Calcutta before I can explain just where I stand," said ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... clear stars through the tree-tops, he heard the gurgle of the stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed he saw Jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and heard him sing, "Oh, say, can you see?", It was the first time he had ever slept on ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... thickness of the walls, from tower to tower, and the dim corridors and dizzying bartizans are made safe to the most timid of Cockneys by stout wooden banisters, that enable you to stand as securely on a crumbling battlement as on the top of Salisbury plain. We saw the courts and quadrangles, admired the splendid windows, and only wondered at the lowness of the ceilings of some of the principal rooms, as from floor to floor could not have been more than seven feet and a half. There were fountain courts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... at it. It was enormous, a huge battlement of a font in dead white stone with wreaths of carved ivy creeping ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... was a strange dusky mingling of gold and gloom, when Moses stole softly in. The great cloud-castle that a little while since had glowed like living gold from turret and battlement, now dim, changed for the most part to a sombre gray, enlivened with a dull glow of crimson; but there was still a golden light where the sun had sunk into the sea. Moses saw the little thin ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... is striking and picturesque. A long line of battlement walls, flanked by venerable towers, mounts the hill in a grand irregular sweep, and incloses many a woody garden and grove of slender cypress. Beyond rises an awful assembly of mountains; opposite to which a fertile plain presents itself, decked with all ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... almost gone before de Vasselot reached the base of the mound of half-shattered rock upon which the chateau had been built. The wall that had once been the outer battlement of the old stronghold was so fallen into disrepair that he anticipated no difficulty in finding a gap through which to pass within the enclosure where the house was hidden; but he walked right round and found no such breach. ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... up under the porte-cocher of a mansion built of cobble-stones. It was as strong as a battlement, but its outlines curved in obedience to gracefulness and yielded to the demand of striking effect. Viewed from one point it might have been taken for a castle; from another, it suggested itself as a spireless church. Strangers halted to gaze at it; street laborers looked ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... city wall, a huge battlement, ancient and weathered, like an unscalable cliff, and going through its gate was entering the shadows of a cave. Out of the glare of the sun I went into the gloom of deep, narrow, and mysterious passages. The ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the scaffold, And he turned him to the crowd; But they dared not trust the people, So he might not speak aloud. But he looked upon the heavens, And they were clear and blue, And in the liquid ether The eye of God shone through: Yet a black and murky battlement Lay resting on the hill, As though the thunder slept within— All else was calm ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... which engaged her more to my service, with the aid of my liberality; but all this did not allay one spark of the fire kindled in my soul for the lovely Calista; and I was impatient for night, against which time I was preparing an engine to mount the battlement, for so it was that divided the garden from the street, rather than a wall: all things fitted to my purpose, I fixed myself at the window that looked directly towards her sashes, and had the satisfaction ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... by the foe, who seemed to have risen from the bowels of the earth by magic, the soldiers of the Baron of Wortham offered but a feeble resistance. Some were cast over the battlement of the keep, some driven down staircases, others cut down, and then Cuthbert, fastening a small white flag he had prepared to his quarter-staff, waved it above ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... No! There will be a shudder, as though a calamity had happened. Standing on heaven's battlement, a watchman will see something shoot past, with fiery downfall, and shriek: "Wandering star—for whom is reserved ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... their archers in front, and their men at arms behind, marching forward to the attack in strong columns, three in number. They came on steadily, and some of us would fain have shot at them; but it was strictly forbidden, and we were obliged to remain motionless, sheltering ourselves behind the battlement as we best might. As the Southron formed their long ranks into lines, each man occupying his place as by magic, and preparing to cover themselves by large shields, called pavesses, which they planted before them, I again felt a strange breathlessness, and ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... dim figure, crouching against the battlement; and the thought, which was also in Marcadel's mind, that the enemy had set a ladder against the wall and outflanked them, rendered him desperate. At any rate there was but one on the roof as yet: and quick as thought the young man lowered his pike ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... until she reached the open, where a double row of trees on each side marked the edge of a big square, large enough for the drilling of an army. Along one side of the square there ran the high brick wall, topped with a kind of battlement, that guarded the Maharajah's palace grounds from the eyes ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... curvature not unlike that of a new moon. The houses were ultra-Dutch, being low, angular, fastidiously neat, and all erected with their gables to the street. Each had its ugly and inconvenient entrance, termed a stoop, its vane or weathercock, its dormer-windows, and its graduated battlement-walls. Near the apex of one of the latter, a little iron crane projected into the street. A small boat, of the same metal, swung from its end,—a sign that the building to which it ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the heroes toiled upward faster and faster, and soon came near the glittering castle of Jeraspunt, and the besiegers. The latter were on the point of overpowering the garrison and gaining possession of the queen. When Dietrich saw her on the battlement, wringing her hands in despair, he rushed impetuously forward, crying that he had come to save her. He struck right and left, and did such good execution with his sword that the mountains shook, the icebergs cracked, ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... little stone boxes. Automobiles and trees appear. Here begin the ornaments. Marble, bronze, carved and painted brick—a filigree and a scrollwork—put forth claims. The lords of the city stand girthed in ornaments. Knight and satrap have changed somewhat. Moat and battlement grimace but faintly from behind their ornaments. The tick-tock sounds through the carouse. Sleek, suave men and languorous, desirable women sit amid elaborations, sleep and breed in ornamental beds. Power wears new masks. Leadership ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... only enchanted,' said Elizabeth; 'clear away the mist of incredulity from your eyes, and behold keep, drawbridge, tower and battlement, and loop-hole grates ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chosen for the attempt. Not a single star shone in the sky, the cold blast came sweeping from the ocean, the rain fell in torrents, and the water roared and raged with terrific violence amid the rocky caverns. Escaping down from the battlement by a rope-ladder, they discovered to their horror, that on reaching the ground they were surrounded by armed men. Not a word was uttered; but they {466} well knew into whose hands they had fallen. Conducted again within the fortress, they found themselves face to face with their injured ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... described him. Suddenly a cloudy shadow passed over him, and he looked up, expecting to see a flight of cranes in the air; but the sky was clear and blue. While the young knight was still wondering, a long bright spear fell at his feet from a battlement ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... [v]Malvoisin; say it cometh from me and is written by the Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it to York with all speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to doubt nothing he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement. Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack of runagates who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine art ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... neared me, blazed and flashed in splendor, and fled away! At length,—was it not a thousand years?—I saw before me, yet afar off, a wall, the rocky bourn of that country whence travelers come not back, a battlement wider than I could guess, the height of which I could not see, the depth of which was infinite. As I approached, it shone with a splendor never yet beheld on earth. Its solid substance was built of jewels the rarest, and stones ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... here, disturbed by the steps of the two nightly wanderers, now soared aloft to the highest turrets. At length after moving in silence for some minutes, both stepped out through the pointed arch of a narrow gate-way into the open air upon a lofty battlement. Nicholas seized Bertram's hand, with the action of one who would have checked him at some dangerous point;—and, making a gesture which expressed—"look before you!" he led him to the outer edge of the wall. At this moment the full moon in ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... wondrous castles and palaces were there, marvelous in their beauty, glorious in their splendor, dazzling in their colors of emerald, rose and purple, of ruby, crimson and gold. From spire and dome, cupola and turret, tower and battlement the lights flashed and gleamed, while the Pilgrim looked in wonder and in awe. And high above the city walls, that shone as burnished silver in the sun, rose the temple flaming like a ruby flame—the temple ...
— The Uncrowned King • Harold Bell Wright
... might. Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For while I muse, the lance points slantingly Athwart the morning air: some lady sweet, Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet, From the worn top of some old battlement Hails it with tears, her stout defender sent: And from her own pure self no joy dissembling, Wraps round her ample robe with happy trembling. Sometimes, when the good Knight his rest would take, It is reflected, clearly, in a lake, With the young ashen boughs, 'gainst which it rests, And ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... broken in the Decorated period by the insertion of three slender windows, each having two lights with a quatrefoil above. Above the windows comes the moulded string or cornice continued from the transept, and above this the pierced merlons of the Decorated battlement are again very broad in proportion to the embrasures. Instead of being built up, the exposed arches of the triforium have here been glazed. The clearstorey resembles that of the transept, but the corbel table is surmounted here by a slope, on which rest two large gargoyles ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... "I will trust thee;" and she descended from the verge of the battlement, but remained standing close by one of the embrasures. "Here," she said, "I take my stand. If thou shalt attempt to diminish by one step the distance now between us, thou shalt see that the Jewish maiden will rather trust ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... out, in compliance with this insidious hint, than, one folding-door of the ancient gate being already closed by the wind, as has been already intimated, honest Caleb lost no time in shutting the other with a clang, which resounded from donjon-vault to battlement. Having thus secured the pass, he forthwith indulged the excluded huntsmen in brief parley, from a small projecting window, or shot-hole, through which, in former days, the warders were wont to reconnoitre those who ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... towers of the later or curvilinear Decorated; and the towers above the roof, Perpendicular of the fifteenth century. The central gable and the great west window are almost flamboyant in their decoration. A battlement immediately above the central window runs right across the front. The niches on the buttresses are in four storeys, and those on the central part of the front in six, of varying heights. There is also a row of niches on the towers immediately above the ornamental gable of the aisle windows, ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... either side. Gradually, Stanley's thoughts became indistinct; the stars seemed to lose their radiance, as covered by a light mist; a dark cloud appearing, in his half dormant fancy, to take the gigantic proportions of a man, hovered on the battlement. It became smaller and smaller, but still it seemed a cloud, through which the moonlight gleamed; but a thrill passed through him, as if telling of some impalpable and indefinable object of dread. With a sudden effort he shook off the lethargy of half sleep, and sprung to his feet, at the very ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... square, 1-1/2 inches high and wide. A little platform is put on the upper case, which projects beyond it all round. On this the head stands, and at each corner a little round pillar, the height of the head, rears itself up. On the top of the head there is an ornamental battlement, composed of dog-tooth pieces of cork. As the clock has a head, it ought to have a face; indeed, the face is one of the chief parts of a clock. Take a piece of stiff white paper or thin cardboard, cut it square the exact size of the head, and on it mark, in your neatest style, ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... anecdote about the Sinopean. A report that Philip was marching on the town had thrown all Corinth into a bustle; one was furbishing his arms, another wheeling stones, a third patching the wall, a fourth strengthening a battlement, every one making himself useful somehow or other. Diogenes having nothing to do—of course no one thought of giving him a job—was moved by the sight to gird up his philosopher's cloak and begin rolling his tub-dwelling energetically up and down the Craneum; an acquaintance asked, and got, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... beetling crag, which took omnipotence a thousand years to rear, crumbles into dust, the mere plaything of the idle wind; it lays its hand upon the populous city with its teeming, restless multitude. And yesterday, where stood the glittering spire, the shining tower, the frowning battlement, today the cold gray ocean ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... first two, on the left, somewhat square and blank, then the next two higher and richer, the tiles being seen on their slopes. Both these groups being couples, there is enough monotony in the series to make a change pleasant; and the last battlement, therefore, is a little higher than the first two,—a little lower than the second two,—and different in shape from either. Hide it with your finger, and see how ugly and formal the other four ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... have a presentiment. preso -a (from prender) prisoner. prestar to lend. prestigio prestige. presto soon, quickly. presumir to presume, claim; — de to claim to be. presunto presumed, presumptive. pretension f. pretension, expectation. pretexto pretext. pretil m. battlement, breastwork. prever to foresee. primavera spring. primero first. primitivo primitive. principado principality. principe prince. principiar to begin. principio beginning, principle. prisa haste, promptness, celerity; de — in a hurry. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... unbroken When first he feels the rein, The furious river struggled hard, And tossed his tawny mane, And burst the curb and bounded, Rejoicing to be free, And whirling down, in fierce career, Battlement, and plank, and pier, ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Not high-raised battlement, or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crown'd; No:—Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:— Men who ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner |
