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More "Latch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a bunch of mountain-willers, and, after driving a big railroad-spike into the door-casing, over the latch, he said the senate and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... yet. He passed around the hut, groping with his hands upon the building until he came to the door. Here he paused. He would awake Aim-sa that she might prepare for her flight with him. There was much to be done. He was about to knock but altered his mind and tried the latch. It yielded to his touch ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... as we had lifted up the latch to enter into the next apartment, we were immediately alarmed by a horrid howling; which upon opening the door we discovered to be the savage musick of a lusty young wolf, who looked as fierce as if he would have torn every one of us to pieces. But a strong chain confined his fury to ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... displaying her beauty—hitherto protected and hidden in her parents' home—to the thousand eyes of the gaping multitude, she went towards the sitting-room; but she drew back her hand she had put forth to raise the latch, for she heard the voices of several men who must just ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... last words, for with quick and firm step she had been making her way up the six flights of stairs, steep enough to make her head reel had she been ascending them for the first time. 'Nine o'clock!—nine o'clock! How uneasy she must be!' and as she spoke, she opened with her latch-key the door of a wretched garret, in which dimly burned a rushlight, whose flickering flame scarcely seemed to render visible the scanty ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... he come unto the chamber door, That shuts him from the heaven of his thought, Which with a yielding latch, and with no more, Hath barr'd him from the blessed thing he sought. So from himself impiety hath wrought, That for his prey to pray he doth begin, As if the heavens ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... Of course we have no doors on the open Adirondack camp, but we have passed the open camps now and are well into cabin work, and all cabins have some sort of a door. All doors have, or should have, some sort of a door-latch, so the doors and door-latches have been saved for this place in the book, where they are sandwiched between the log cabin and the log houses proper, which is probably the best place for them. The "gummers" who collect spruce gum in the ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... to the station was by the garden gate; as she raised the latch, she was amazed to see ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... century the battle with frost and famine went on. The very severity of the struggle with Nature seemed to make the gold hunters kindly toward one another. The latch-string was always out, and the open hand was the order of the day. Distrust was unknown, and it was no hyperbole for a man to take the last shirt off his back for a comrade. Most significant of all, perhaps, in this connection, was the custom of the old days, that when August the first ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... I heard him latch the gate and walk away toward the hut. Night was falling on the valley. Through my roof of hurdles a star or two shone down palely. Now was my time. I slipped a hand beneath me and recovered my ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... door, and evidently everybody was asleep, and we went in without making any noise, by means of her latch-key, and walked upstairs on tip-toe. The frightened servant was sitting on the top of the stairs, with a lighted candle by her side, as she was afraid to stop by the dead man, and I went into the room, which was turned upside down, as if there ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... lallygaggin'," Swing exclaimed, impatiently. "Let's have the whole sermon. Gawd, yo're worse'n a woman. Gab, gab, gab! Nothing but. C'mon, tie the string to the latch, and slam the door. This tooth has been aching a long, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... on the table near him, where his Etchemin servants had placed it before they trotted off to the camps. The high windows flickered, and there was not a sound in the house except the low murmur or crackle of the glowing backlog, until the door-latch clanked, and the door flew wide and was slammed shut again. Saint-Castin looked up with a frown, which changed ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... in the Rue Servandoni was left on the latch night and day for a whole week. But Madame Vernet's generous hope was in vain; while she still hoped and watched, the end had come. On the evening of the seventh, Condorcet, with one of his legs torn or broken, his garments in rags, with visage gaunt and hunger-stricken, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... to the front gate, which he essayed to open. There was apparently some defect in the latch, for it refused to work. Warwick remembered the trick, and with a slight sense of amusement, pushed his foot under the gate and gave it a hitch to the left, after which it opened readily enough. He walked softly up the sanded path, tiptoed up the steps and across the piazza, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... convinced of this terrible fact. On a level with his horse's head an object appeared hanging against one of the leaves of the great door. It was a head—the head that had belonged to the corpse. It was hanging from the latch, suspended by the hair. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... economist, has related the following illustration of the neglect of little things. Once, at a farm in the country, there was a gate enclosing the cattle and poultry, which was constantly swinging open for want of a proper latch. The expenditure of a penny or two, and a few minutes' time, would have made all right. It was on the swing every time a person went out, and not being in a state to shut readily, many of the poultry were from time to time lost. One day a fine young porker made ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... on the latch, and you're right about the lock, I shall walk in as though I were the son of ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... judge that the place where I hang out is a little antique. It is. But inside it's mighty comf'table, and it's the best imitation of a home I've ever carried a latch-key to. As for the near-aunts, Zenobia and Martha, take it from me they're the real things in that line, even if they did let me in off the street without askin' who or what! The best of it is they never have asked, which makes ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... way! By this window ... where else?... You can see quite well that he has broken the panes!... Why, look! His hooded cloak has got caught on the window latch!..." ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... men were cleaning their guns and singing very happily; the officers were in their tents, reading still more happily their letters just arrived from home. Suddenly I heard a knock at my tent-door, and the latch clicked. It was the only latch in camp, and I was very proud of it, and the officers always clicked it as loudly as possible, in order to gratify my feelings. The door opened, and the Quartermaster thrust in the most ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Mary was at no loss to conjecture where she should find her father—but as she approached that room her steps grew slower, lighter—she was treading on holy ground. With difficulty she nerved herself to turn the latch of the door, and in an awed whisper she entreated her father to come to her. Mr. Sinclair rose from his knees, but he lingered a moment to cast one look on that still lovely face, to press his lips to that cold brow, and then, reverently veiling it, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... thee to lift the latch, Where Faith has kept her midnight watch, Smiling on woe: with thee to kneel, Where fixed, as if one prayer could heal, She listens, till her pale eye glow With joy, wild health can never know, And each calm feature, ere we read, Speaks, silently, ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... closely drawn curtains was fastened together by a safety pin. The horsehair easy-chairs bore disfiguring antimacassars, the photographs which adorned the walls were grotesque but typical of village ideals, the carpet was threadbare, the closed door secured by a latch instead of the usual knob. One side of the room was littered with golf clubs, a huge game bag and several boxes of cartridges. Two shotguns lay upon the remains of a sofa. It scarcely needed the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... all, till they reached the Kimberly's home, when Charlie said he would see Mabel home, and explain the cause of her absence to her friends, and Minnie bade her friend good-night with a very tired but happy face. Charlie came up the steps to open the door to her with his latch-key, and as she went in he stopped suddenly and kissed her on the forehead and then ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... Lafitte, as soon as we get aboard, are to run and close the hatch of the engine-room. That will pen Williams, the engineer, below, where he can make no resistance. As soon as that is done, run to those doors forward which lead down to the dining-room companionway and shut those doors and latch them. That will take care of John, the cook. The deck-hand is away with the varlet. That leaves only the shipmaster and ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... the wind was to wandering footsteps, slowly drawing near, creeping round the house. She could almost have fancied that a hand touched the shutters, was even now trying to raise the latch of the door. ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... to give even a glance in their direction just then. Perhaps Lindsay felt the same, for she also hurried quickly towards the door. To their utter amazement it was closed, shut tight and firm; and though they lifted the latch, and tugged and rattled and pulled with all their might, they could not open it. They stared at each other with blank, horror-stricken faces. They were locked up ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... and slowly disappeared in the gloom. The moment he had passed she was not quite sure it was he. She went downstairs in the dark, having taken off her shoes to prevent any noise. She put on her shoes again, drew back the bolts softly, left the door upon the latch, and crept out into the street. Swiftly she walked, and in a few moments she was within half-a-dozen yards of those whom she followed. She could not help being sure now. She continued on their track, her whole existence absorbed in one single burning point, until she ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... been about a year from that day, when the priest, late one autumn evening, heard some one in the passage outside of the door, carefully trying to find the latch. The priest opened the door, and in walked a tall, thin man, with bowed form and white hair. The priest looked long at him before he recognized him. It ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... still comparing us with each other and speaking of our parents, when I was aware of a tall man coming up to the garden gate; and my aunt, turning as she heard the latch clink, cried,— ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... friends (or "pals," as he vulgarly designated them), and when he got to her house he discovered she had forgotten to leave the door open for him; but being pretty well acquainted with that accomplishment of the "force," area scaling, and being supplied with his own latch-key, he did not think much of her neglect. But, strange to say, and considerably to the astonishment of Dick, the head of the family had a strong objection to that individual's visiting his ladye love; and absolutely mistaking him for a common burglar, seized him, with malice ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... either be dead or banished, and a new tribe of successors settled in their place; or else uncle William must be deceased, and have left his father money enough to build a new house. He walked up to the door, where he stood trembling for some minutes, without courage to put his hand to the latch, and at last went round to the window, and, with a desperate effort, looked in. How his heart bounded! His father was there, still a stout healthy man of middle life, his hair hardly beginning to be grizzled, by the meddling finger of the old painter Time; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... endeavoured to peep in at the window; but from the deep shadow of the trees already mentioned, and the gloom within, he could not clearly discern objects, so we lifted the latch and pushed open the door. We observed that the latch was made of iron, and almost eaten away with rust. In the like condition were also the hinges, which creaked as the door swung back. On entering, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... an invitation to single combat, for she again lowered her head and ran at Charlie, who had no stick, and so thought best to run from the enemy. He started for the stable door, but in his hurry and fright he could not open it, and while fumbling at the latch the creature made another attack. Charlie dodged her again, and one of her horns pierced the door nearly an inch. Again she ran at him, and with her nose "bunted" him off his feet. Charlie was getting afraid now, and called out to the folks in the house, "Oh, come and ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... rearrangement of this interlaced work, or by a different disposition of the coloured compartments, will at once be apparent; it was worked out with singularly good effect by the older artists in decoration of all kinds. The key (Fig. 10) and the latch (Fig. 11) are examples of quaint old Gothic metal works. The latter is copied from the old Hotel de Ville of Bruges; the dragon is used as a lever to lift the latch, and is one of those grotesque imaginings in which ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... first chair. Being an Eldorado king, he had felt it incumbent to assume the position in society to which his numerous millions entitled him; and though unused all his days to social amenities other than the out-hanging latch-string and the general pot, he had succeeded to his own satisfaction as a knight of the carpet. Quick to take a cue, he circulated with an aplomb which his striking garments and long shambling gait ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the latch, stepped over the dog, and entered. The peat-fire was smouldering low on tho hearth. She sat down and closed her eyes. When she opened them, there lay Snootie, stretched out before the fire! She rose and shut the door, fed and roused the fire, and brought the ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... latch broke the silence. One of the other stick-men eased himself in, holding the door only wide enough to squeeze past the jamb. Don't give the suckers a peek at the seamy side. They might just take their money to the next clip ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... here! "Into my hands! Into my hands." He passed into the office and swiftly as he could go up the stairs. He encountered no one. He came to Twyning's door and put his hand upon the latch. Immediately, and enormously, so that for a moment he was forced to pause, the pulse broke out anew in his head. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. Curse the thing! Never mind. In! In! At him! ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... some meat and wine; please open the door," answered the Wolf. "Lift up the latch," cried the grandmother; "I am much too ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... outside Miss Owen's room, but heard nothing. Just then she thought she heard the front-door pulled gently to. She went cautiously down, and discovered that all the bolts had been undone, and the door was fastened simply by the latch. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... the thistles stand At the gate where no hand Ever lifts the latch, now nailed fast: One gate low doth lie Which the passer by Treads o'er as ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... other particulars, he supposed to be the bedchamber of his beloved Dolly, who had by this time retired to her repose. Full of this idea, and instigated by the demon of desire, Mr. Thomas crept softly upstairs, and lifting the latch of the closet door, his heart began to palpitate with joyous expectation; but before he could breathe the gentle effusions of his love, the supposed damsel started up and seizing him by the collar with a Herculean gripe, uttered, in the voice of Crabshaw, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the women engaged in the Abolition movement accused of boldness, because they lifted the voice in public, and lifted the latch of the stranger. But were these acts, whether performed judiciously or no, so bold as to dare before God and Man to partake the fruits of such offence ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... of anguish and terror; he had never done a violent thing in all his days. There was no clear purpose in his mind as he pulled open his door to go out—merely an ill-ease that forced him to go nearer to the cause of those screams. He had descended the stairs and was fumbling at the latch of the street-door before he realized that he ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... tendency of utterly dissimilar characters and her heart responded to every appeal alike of humblest suffering or loftiest endeavor. In the plain, yet eloquent phrase of the backwoodsman, "the string of her door-latch was always out," and every wayfarer was free to share the shelter of her roof, or a seat beside her hearth-stone. Or, rather, it might be said, in symbol of her wealth of spirit, her palace, with its galleries of art, its libraries ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... wretch would attract attention, Cummings placed his arm around him, and half-carrying, half-dragging him, bore him to his room. Slipping the latch of the door, he turned up ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... de wind blow' on it, an' li'l' black Mose he ain' see no ca'se for to remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch' down, an' he raise' up de pumpkin, an' he perambulate' right quick to he ma's shack, an' he lift' up de latch, an' he open' de do', an' he yenter' in. ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... her face towards us—a wild, beautiful face, perplexed and tear-stained—I knew her instantly for a gentlewoman, and when she walked hastily to the door, and laid her hand upon it, and seemed to listen—when she shook the latch and dropped her hands in despair and went back to the hearth, I made another discovery I knew at once, seeing her there, that we were likely but to change one prison for another. Was every house in Paris then a dungeon? And did each roof ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... grip upon democratic principle in matters nearer home. Newspapers and magazines and steamships are constantly making India more real to him, and the conviction of a Liberal that Polish immigrants or London 'latch-key' lodgers ought to have a vote is less decided than it would have been if he had not acquiesced in the decision that Rajputs, and Bengalis, and Parsees should be ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... cut me short, and bade me sharply to mind my promise, and never speak of Herdegen again. My hot blood rose at this and I made for the door; nay, I had the handle of the latch in my hand when she flew after me, held me back by force, and entreated me with prayers that I would let her do her will, for that she had no choice. She purposed in solemn earnest henceforth at all times ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... only eight o'clock in the evening when the fisherman lifted the latch of the outer door and ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... behind him! He felt as if he had committed a murder, and left his card-case with the body. A vague terror grew upon him as he hurried along. Justice seemed following on his track. He had found the door on the latch: if anything was missing, how should he explain the presence of his hat without his own? The devil of the brandy he had drunk was gone out of him, and only the gray ashes of its evil fire were left in his sick brain, but it had helped first to kindle another ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... an hour to high water when Miss Marty Lear heard her brother's boat take ground on the narrow beach below the garden, and set the knives and glasses straight while she listened for the click of the garden-latch. ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the garden gate. It did help him, ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... herself. Practically the use of the post-office is in her own hands. And, as this spirit of self-conduct has grown up, the morals and habits of our young ladies have certainly not deteriorated. In America they carry latch-keys, and walk about with young gentlemen as young gentlemen walk about with each other. In America the young ladies are as well-behaved as with us,—as well-behaved as they are in some Continental countries in which they are still watched close till they ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... schooling And mastery in the mind, In silk-ash kept from cooling, And ripest under rind— What life half lifts the latch of, What hell stalks towards the snatch of, Your offering, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... escaped this obstruction, had scarcely time to assure the corporal that the back door was already barred, a fact which he had discovered by dint of feeling, when the latch was first heard gently tried, then the door violently assaulted. Another loud and angry yell from the Indians announced their disappointment, then several shots were fired at the door, and two or three balls could ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... forms shown has a ball thrust bearing between the pinion and frame. The breast plate may be adjusted to suit and is locked by a set screw. The spindle is kept from turning while changing drills, by means of the latch mounted on the frame, and readily engaging with the pinion. The crank is pierced in three places so that the handle can be set for three different sweeps, depending on the character of ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... the creaking gate unclose? The gleaming latch uplifted? No—'twas the wind that, whirring, rose, Amidst the poplars drifted! Adorn thyself, thou green leaf-bowering roof, Destined the bright one's presence to receive, For her, a shadowy palace-hall aloof With ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... darkened window and door of the heart's old home. Shall wait with an unspoke welcome for one that shall never come; And one at the gate stand watching as there in the years before, While the latch of the gate is silent and one shall ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... heard. She rushed to the door, lifted the latch, and admitted Sashenka. She had not seen her for a long while, and the first thing that caught her eye was ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... deep in the artistic enjoyment of a form, at the same time so beautiful and strong, yet with the lines of suffering in every limb and feature, when his daughter's hand was laid on the latch. He started, flung the velvet drapery over the body, and went to the door. But Lilith had vanished. He returned to his labours. The operation took a long time, for he performed it very carefully. Towards midnight, he had finished encasing the body in a close-clinging shell of plaster, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... inappropriate) than that the poet should reveal his personal feeling in his poem; and to the dramatic character of his own work he held tenaciously. He rebuked the idea that Shakespeare "unlocked his heart" to his readers, and he warns them off from the use of any fancied latch-key to his own ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... entered the house. A gardener's wife, half speechless with amazement, showed me the steps leading up to the attic. I stood before a low, badly fitting door, knocked, received no answer, finally raised the latch and entered. I found myself in a quite large, but otherwise extremely wretched chamber, the wall of which on all sides followed the outlines of the pointed roof. Close by the door was a dirty bed in loathsome disorder, surrounded ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... her a latch-key, and as she stepped in at the front door, Nan, in a pretty house dress, stood ready ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... a lily yestreen at my window; I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up: When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window, It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup. O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown! Remember how dearly I loved you, my own. O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky! Remember I love you ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... that Mirah had nearly ended giving Mab her weekly lesson, avowing that he came then because he wanted to hear Mirah sing. But on the particular Wednesday now in question, after entering the house as quietly as usual with his latch-key, he appeared in the parlor, shaking the Times aloft with a crackling noise, in remorseless interruption of Mab's attempt to render Lascia ch'io pianga with a remote imitation of her teacher. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... at the sound of the latch, to see Diana coming in, all the man's secret calculations and revolts were for the moment scattered and drowned in sheer pity and dismay. In a few short hours can grief so work on youth? He ran to her, but ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... constructed latch which Clayton had made for the door had sprung as Kerchak passed out; nor could the apes find means of ingress through the heavily ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... spring-latch, both. I remember because the fact made me think there might be somebody else in the house. As soon as Burke left I went over the whole place, methodically and painstakingly, and I can now swear, if anybody was secreted in here anywhere, why, he 's here ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... who owns a cow that knows exactly how to lift an iron latch to the barn door with her tongue and open the door. Innumerable times she has opened a gate in the same way to permit her calf to go free with her. So skilled is she in the manipulation of doors and latches that we are tempted to believe in some ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... a blown leaf: the loose wooden latch rises at the touch of a familiar hand; familiar feet, that have trodden every inch of that poor log floor, lead the way; and then all at once, like a bundle of Chinese crackers, intermingled with shrieks and groans and deep, vehement curses, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... lane, but there was no sign of occupation. Mr. Buxton went across, threw the window open and looked out. There was a steel cap three or four feet below, and a pike-head; and at the sound of the latch a bearded face ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... The door behind them was constructed in two portions, of which the upper stood wide, the lower deceptively on the latch. Against this, as she struggled with Godolphus's ardour, Tilda gave a backward lurch. It yielded, flew open, and child and dog together rolled in across the threshold, while a shop-bell jangled madly ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rose from his place, pushed open the gate, laying a tender touch upon the latch that such dear hands had pressed in days gone by. So he made his way, going with unerring step, beneath the overbranching of copper-beech, lilac, and red may, to the flower-carpeted wilderness where, with bluebells about its roots and feathery foliage waving high around its trunk, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... coolly tipped it over, with a fine smash, calling out to Burney that she'd have to pay for it, that mamma would be very angry, and that she, Poppy, was going to spoil every thing in the room. But Burney was gone, and no one came near her. She kicked the paint off the door, rattled the latch, called Burney a "pig," and Cy "a badder boy than the man who smothered the little princes in the Tower." Poppy was very fond of that story, and often played it with Nelly and the dolls. Having relieved ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Janet," said I, as the twa southron chiels gaed thro' the hole, trailing their bagganets alang wi' 'em; "winna the puir tykes hae an unco saft couch o' it, think ye, luckie, O 'tis a gude sight for sair e'en to see 'em foundering and powtering i' the latch o' ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... been there two minutes before I was aware that someone came up out of the basement and was standing in the hall. I think he must have suspected something, for he came along toward my door and I got inside and closed it, with my hand on the knob so as not to click the latch. Then I felt a pressure on the door—the fellow had the nerve to try it. He wanted to see if it was open, probably thinking it was left ajar and he may have seen the light from the window, pulled it open then and there he was—pretty much through the door before ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... kitchen," he muttered to himself, and slipping out on to the little landing he raised the latch of his uncle's door, glided in, and made for the big portmanteau that lay unstrapped beneath ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... staying until next to last and then, with a number of belts buckled together, aiding Frank to gain the opening. Meanwhile Jack, who was in the lead, found on closer investigation that the slatted shutter obscuring the air port was on hinges and caught with a rusted latch. To open the latch and unhinge the shutter and then, by turning it sideways, pull it back into the passageway and place it noiselessly on the floor, was a comparatively ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... the thinnest, neatest latch-key in the Five Towns), he entered his home and stumbled slightly over a brush that was lying against the sunk door-mat. He gazed at that brush with resentment. It was a dilapidated hand-brush. The offensive object would have been out of place, at nightfall, in ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... he quietly drew forward the yellow hair over the forehead again, replaced the hat, and rose to his feet. Charles and I glanced apprehensively at Ralph, but he had not stirred. As we looked, a hurried step came across the yard, a hand raised the latch of the door, and some one entered abruptly. It was Carr. For one moment he stood in the door-way, for one moment his eyes rested horror-struck on the dead woman, then darted at us, from us to the inspector, who was coolly watching ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... light was burning there. There sat Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, and Joe Harper's mother, grouped together, talking. They were by the bed, and the bed was between them and the door. Tom went to the door and began to softly lift the latch; then he pressed gently and the door yielded a crack; he continued pushing cautiously, and quaking every time it creaked, till he judged he might squeeze through on his knees; so he put his head ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... why Pelliter did not see him or hear the three or four sharp yelps the dogs had given. He twisted off his snow-shoes, chuckling as he thought of the surprise he would give his mate. His hand was on the door latch when he stopped. The smile left his lips. Startled wonderment filled his face as he bent close to the door and listened, and for a moment his heart throbbed with a terrible fear. He had returned too late— perhaps a day— two days. Pelliter had gone mad! He could hear him raving inside, ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... made his appearance. Dolly was looking from the window, and saw the village fly drive up and her father get out of it. She announced the fact to her mother, and then ran down to the garden gate to meet him. As their hands encountered at the gate, Dolly almost fell back; took her hand from the latch, and only put it forth again when she saw that her father could not readily get the gate open. He was looking ill; his gait was tottering, his eye wavering, and when he spoke his utterance was confused. Dolly felt as if a lump of ice ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Porte Tertasse startled him from his thoughts. He roused himself, and uncertain how long he had lingered he took up his cloak and bag and, turning, hastened across the street to the door at the head of the four steps. He found it on the latch, and with a confident air, which belied his real feelings, he pushed ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... ten minutes of walking they entered a narrow thoroughfare to which the street lamp on the corner gave the name of Grant Place. The houses were sober and reputable. Up the steps of one of the soberest went Storri and the San Reve; the latter let them in with a latch-key. Storri consigned his overcoat and hat to the rack in the hall as though his surroundings were familiar, and he with the San Reve passed into what in the original plan of the house had been meant ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... said to herself some draught must have blown it to. If so, there was much danger that the noise had been heard; but, in any case, there was no time to lose. She glided swiftly to it. She lifted the latch softly—but, horror of horrors! in vain. The door was locked. She was shut out. She must lie or confess! And what lie would serve? Poor Letty! And yet, for all her dismay, her terror, her despair that night, in her innocence, she never once thought of the ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... chanced one time Mamma had gone away. Amanda she had left at home All by herself that day. Then someone rattled at the latch;— Amanda heard him there;— She heard him shutting fast the door And creeping ...
— Careless Jane and Other Tales • Katharine Pyle
... house the Colonel laid his hand upon the latch of Angela's chamber; but the Chevalier pushed him back, saying, 'My wife is asleep. Do you want to rouse her up out of ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and matches. But the room was small. I knew the geography of it, and could easily—I told myself—grope my way to the corner, find the cupboard, and, feeling for the keyhole, insert the key. I was about to essay this when the thought occurred to me that, as Captain Danny had left the door on the latch, so very likely with equal foresight he had placed his tinder-box handy—on the table, it might be. I put out my hand in the direction where, as I recollected, the table stood. It reached into empty darkness. I took another step and groped for the table ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Tussaud's, around Baker Street Station, and then into the maze of those small cross-streets that lie between Upper Baker Street and Lisson Grove until she stopped before a small, rather respectable-looking house, half-way along a short side-street, entering with a latch-key. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... den,' said Wilson. 'No; this way, by the back'; and he showed Darnell another ingenious arrangement at the side door whereby a violent high-toned bell was set pealing in the house if one did but touch the latch. Indeed, Wilson handled it so briskly that the bell rang a wild alarm, and the servant, who was trying on her mistress's things in the bedroom, jumped madly to the window and then danced a hysteric dance. There was plaster found on the drawing-room table on Sunday afternoon, ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... was coming. He had been away visiting some poor and sick people, and when he came back to Greyhope it was too late to catch the train. But the horses were harnessed straightway, and he was driven into town, a three-hours' drive. He had left the horses at the stables, and, having a latch-key, had come in quietly. He had seen the light in the study, and guessed who was there. He entered, and saw his brother asleep. He watched him for a moment and studied him. Then he moved away to take off his hat, and, as he did so, stumbled slightly. Then it was Frank waked, and for the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to the latch, a terrible thought crossed him. "Suppose they had already dealt with Gerard. Why, then," thought he, "nought is left but to kill, and be killed;" and he strung his bow, and walked rapidly into the kitchen. There were seven hideous faces ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... my boy, when you've done your duty by the law. Every citizen should be a protector as well as a keeper of the law. So come again; the latch-string is always out." ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... lifted the latch at a small cottage and entered. It was a little better than a workman's house, but not much; there were two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs, and that was all. To the front of the little house was the tiny parlour, at the back an equally ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... found himself before a window whose small panes dripped and groaned under a rain that was fast becoming a torrent. Chilled by the sight, he turned toward the door faintly outlined beside it, and in the semi-darkness seized an old-fashioned latch rattling in the wind that permeated every passageway, and softly ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... by Fate to know Jehovah's plan, Thet man's devices can't unmake a man, An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in Against the poorest child of ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... murmured these words audibly, with an appreciative thrill, he heard the latch of his gate click, and a light footfall sounding on the steps. He turned his head, and saw a woman ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the two to a dark house. The woman rang a bell; a latch clicked and a big door swung open. She grasped ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the hand, applied at last to the latch, had evidently wandered over the panel, seeking the fastening which at first it could not discover, and making outside a noise resembling the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... through a main door, but by separate stairs leading up directly from the streets and lanes. It would appear that each tenant had his own key, corresponding, though hardly in convenience of size, to our latch-key. Whereas it will be found that the ordinary private house of one storey was for the most part lighted by openings in the roof and by wide courts, this arrangement could manifestly be applied only ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, 'My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, I would that ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... this note to my aunt, and soon went round, very much interested. My latch-key opened the Lancasters' door, and I hurried to the parlor, where I heard my friend practising with great diligence. I went up to her, and she turned her head and kissed me solemnly. You need not smile; we are not sentimental girls, and are both much averse to indiscriminate ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems, where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this house's latch, too poor For hand of thine? and canst thou think, and bear To let thy music drop here unaware In folds of golden fulness at my door? Look up, and see the casement broken in, The bats and owlets builders in the roof! My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. Hush, call no echo up in further ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... We drew the latch, and in stumbled Etienne Girod (as he afterward named himself). But just then he was no more than a worm struggling for life, enveloped ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... He has rid himself of his wig and beard and is wearing an overcoat buttoned up to his chin and a cap drawn down to his brows. His face is white and his jaws are set determinedly.] How— how have you got in? [He produces a bunch of keys and grimly displays a latch-key.] Oh— oh——! [Pulling off his cap, JEYES advances to the table in the centre, glaring at FARNCOMBE. LILY closes the door sharply and also advances, speaking volubly to FARNCOMBE as she comes forward.] Captain Jeyes is in the habit of bringing me home from ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... a long time before there was any response. Duvall had almost begun to despair of getting one, when he heard the clicking of the electric latch, and found that he could turn the ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... is there, engaged in undoing the latch? The whole Chandala hamlet is asleep. I, however, am awake and not asleep. Whoever thou art, thou art about to be slain.' These were the harsh words that greeted the sage's ears. Filled with fear, his face crimson with blushes of shame, and his heart ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... fugitive's body thrilled with hope. He examined it from top to bottom, though scarcely able to distinguish its outlines in the surrounding darkness. He passed his hand over it: no bolt, no lock! A latch! He started up, the latch yielded to the pressure of his thumb: the door silently ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the inquest. He had been known for years past as an inveterate drunkard, he had been seen overnight going home in liquor; he had been found locked up in his room, with the key inside the door, and the latch of the window bolted also. No fire-place was in this garret; nothing was disturbed or altered: nobody by human possibility could have got in. The doctor reported that he had died of congestion of the lungs; and the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... the body of the car is a curtain that can be automatically raised and lowered as the door is opened or closed to shut the light away from the motorman. Another attachment is the peculiar handle on the sliding door. This door is made to latch so that it cannot slide open with the swaying of the car, but the handle is so constructed that when pressure is applied upon it to open the door, the same movement will ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... the sand by accident, or by a process of thought; in either case, it showed cleverness and adaptability. So also with the processes of opening the door of his cage. He had first to prize up the latch with his beak to a certain height, and then by sudden sharp pecks send it clear of the hasp; then descend to the floor, and by straight pecks send the door open. If he could not get the door to open thus, he understood at once that the latch was not clear ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... sleep I strove to find the hidden latch of the gate in the ivied antique wall, though it was exceedingly well-hidden. And I would tell myself that the realm beyond the wall was not more lasting merely, but more lovely and radiant ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... house and knocked. "Come in!" someone called. This was a little sudden, for it took some time to get hold of the latch. But Walter did it. Perhaps he ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... was one who had highly offended these convalescents by retiring to his cabin, pulling the latch-string inside and remaining deaf to all calls and appeals from outside. Mutterings of discontent were heard for a while, but at last as there was no further mention of the matter, ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... sleepy awhile yet, Hanna, why not run over to Widow Dinninger's to pass the time of evenin'? I'll keep the door on the latch." ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... But won't you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray, languidly, as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his latch-key. ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... deal of coaxing—more than Paul had done—but the trained coquette was equal to the task, and she brought him to the climax just as she had brought his predecessor. And there was the one little embrace granted, and there was a rustle of skirts, and the click of a door-latch, and Gertrude's voice said, 'You will stay now Ricardo?' and Ricardo groaned. Then the door was closed, and there was silence. Then Ricardo groaned again, and Paul heard his disordered footsteps as he paced the room. The unwilling listener returned to the cane-chair and stretched ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... would escape but found no way; then he walked slowly on. At the door of the cabin he paused again. The firelight shone through from underneath, and a fine thread of golden light sifted through the latch of the door and fell on the hand that held Amalia's crutches. He looked down on the spot of light dancing over his hand as if he were dazed by it. Very gently he laid the crutches across the threshold, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... with an inquiring eye; and in time he perceived that a thin string was fastened to the bottom of the door, the other end of which was tied to the Shadow's ankle; and this string could not be cut without letting fall a sort of latch or bar which closed the door outside, only to be raised ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... an end to this speech, and the old man retreated humbly toward another door, with a somewhat anxious visage, and then lingering and looking back, his hand upon the latch— ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch. The door was not fastened, because the Bears were good Bears, who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that anybody would harm them. So the little old Woman opened the door, and went in; and well pleased she was when she saw the porridge on the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... beak, entreated him fervently not to plunge them in new and unknown dangers. In vain! the Caliph, to whom a valiant heart beat beneath his stork-wing, burst away with the loss of a feather, and hastened into a gloomy gallery. In a moment he reached a door, which seemed only on the latch, and out of which he heard distinct sighs, accompanied by a low moaning. He pushed the door open with his bill, but stood, chained by amazement, upon the threshold. In the ruinous apartment, which was now but dimly lighted through a grated window, ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... you ever see a better, wider, airier dining-room? What capital suppers and things we'll have there! the nicest times,—everything free and easy, you know,—just what I've always wanted a house for. I tell you, Chris, you and Tom Innis shall have latch-keys just like mine, and there is a capital chamber there at the head of the stairs, so that you can be free to come and go. And here now's the library,—fancy this full of books and engravings from the ceiling to ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the bolt, and the plate is slotted under the bolt, and a lug projects into the slot and bears against a spring contained by a small casing riveted to the back of the plate. The end of the bolt is beveled, and its operation is similar to that of the ordinary door latch. Two handles are provided, one of which is of sufficient length to reach through the door, and a pawl or dog accompanies the bolt, which may be attached to the door with a single screw, and is to be used in locking the door. The bolt is very simple and strong, suitable for shops, out-buildings ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... gossip about the trouble between you and Britt. But that gossip doesn't belong in this thing right now. Vaniman, you know what a country town is when it turns against an outsider! If you go before a jury on this case—and that money isn't in sight—you don't stand the show of a wooden latch on the back door of hell's kitchen! They'll all come to court with what they can grub up in the way of brickbats—facts, if they can get 'em, lies, anyway! Come, come, ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... consent, as it appeared, the girls rose and crowded round the entrance. Ellenor lifted the latch, and, flinging the door wide open, she stood on the threshold and looked out into the inky blackness of the night. The wind howled and moaned as it entered the kitchen; and a flash of lightning tore open, for one second, the darkness of ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... the use of this machine, this difficulty is completely obviated.—The machine complete is represented by figure A; and B, C, D, E, F, represent its several parts. B is the bottom, made of strong sheet-iron, standing upon three legs. The hollow part of it contains the fire, put in at a door, the latch of which appears in front. The tube which projects upwards, is a stove pipe to carry off the smoke; and the circular pan that is seen between the legs, is a receptacle for the ashes or cinders that fall down through the grate ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... window. I was directed to look for such a light in the house to which I was bound; and as this appeared to be the only place in the street so distinguished, I walked boldly up to the door, raised the wooden latch, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his head ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... have taken a hint for the management of their sons from her. She found no fault with cigars or latch-keys. She was the essence of all that was kind, yet, at the same time, she was so animated, so bright, so witty, that the time spent with her passed quickly as a dream. Lord Chandos did not even like to think of parting from her; and then, when she was ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... stopping Evan ducked under the side of the car opposite to the curb. He heard the car-door slam and feet run across the pavement. Cautiously peering around the back he saw Charley, fully revealed in the light of a street lamp, run up the steps of a house and let himself in with a latch-key. Just before disappearing he glanced up and down the street; no other car was in sight. Evan said to himself: "He is stopping here. That ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... stealing two pieces of brocaded silk, value 46, the goods of Anthony Johnson, and for breaking open his doors; whereas I knew very well they could not pretend to prove I had broken up the doors, or so much as lifted up a latch. ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... passage to her grandfather's room. She stopped a minute at the door and held her breath to see if she could hear any movement which might tell her he was not asleep. It was all still, and pulling the iron latch with her gentlest hand Fleda went on tiptoe into the room. He was lying on the bed, but awake, for she had made no noise and the blue eyes opened and looked upon her as she ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... top of it, the laird turned to the right, and lifted the latch—all the doors were latched—of a dark-looking door. It screaked dismally as it opened. He entered and undid a shutter, letting an abiding flash of the ever young light of the summer day into the ancient room. It was long since Cosmo ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... George lingered; muttering that perhaps he could help her in another way. But she shook her head, once and again; and, instinctively respecting the grief which had found at length its proper vent, he turned and, softly lifting the latch, ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... "Secure the latch bar of this door from the outside, fellas," he said. "Then go to the gallery around the top ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... John Runnels, looking never a whit less the good-natured, easy-going town marshal in his brass-buttoned uniform and gilt-banded cap, stumbling over the threshold as he let himself in at the side door which had been left on the latch. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... and looked significantly at Charles. Then he quietly drew forward the yellow hair over the forehead again, replaced the hat, and rose to his feet. Charles and I glanced apprehensively at Ralph, but he had not stirred. As we looked, a hurried step came across the yard, a hand raised the latch of the door, and some one entered abruptly. It was Carr. For one moment he stood in the door-way, for one moment his eyes rested horror-struck on the dead woman, then darted at us, from us to the inspector, who was coolly watching him, and—he was gone! gone as suddenly as he had come; gone swiftly ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... has lift the latch; One more man is now within. Very soon he strikes a match; Candle's lit! Can Markham catch Those ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... playing with Robin and tending baby; only leaving them for a few necessary minutes, to run to the nearest shop for bread or oatmeal. Two or three of the neighbours took the trouble to climb the ladder, and try the latch of the door, but they always found it locked; and if Meg answered at all, she did so only with the door between them, saying she was getting on very well, and she expected father home to-day or to-morrow. When she went in and out on her errands, Mr Grigg, a gruff, ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... must have gone forth to meet him, and to wring from him, by what means she might, that quarter's salary which the dastard had left unpaid. Then my thoughts flew to the door-key, the cause of that fierce family hatred which burned between Philippa and her betrayer. That latch-key she had wrested from him, it had fallen from her hand, and I—I ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... prevails at the present time among the Zui, but the result is attained without great difficulty by means of rude cross bars, now that they have framed wooden doors. One of these is illustrated in Fig. 75. These doors are usually opened by a latch-string, which, when not hung outside, is reached by means of a small round hole through the wall at the side of the door. Through this hole the owner of the house, on leaving it, secures the door by props and braces on the inside of the room, the hole being sealed up and plastered ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... my dear," said the old lady, who was a little deaf. "Pull the string and the latch ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... and Rainham waited silently while his friend discharged the cabman, and let him in with his latch-key into the bright, spacious hall. Then, after glancing into the empty drawing-room, Lightmark preceded him up the thick carpeted stairs, on which their footsteps scarcely sounded, and stopped at the door of Eve's boudoir, through which a woman's voice, speaking rather rapidly, and, as it struck ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... turns to go home. The weeper sits down close to the gate; the lord of life draws nigh to him from within. God loves not sorrow, yet rejoices to see a man sorrowful, for in his sorrow man leaves his heavenward door on the latch, and God can enter to help him. He loves, I say, to see him sorrowful, for then he can come near to part him from that which makes his sorrow a welcome sight. When Ephraim bemoans himself, he is a pleasant child. So good a medicine is ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... personal feeling in his poem; and to the dramatic character of his own work he held tenaciously. He rebuked the idea that Shakespeare "unlocked his heart" to his readers, and he warns them off from the use of any fancied latch-key to his own ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... on our storming expedition on a Tuesday night, about nine o'clock; we had a latch-key, so we could come home when we pleased. Rectus carried the rope, and I had the grapnel, wrapped in its cotton wool. We put newspapers around these things, and made pretty respectable packages of them. We did not go down the sea-wall, but walked around through ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... she placed her hand on the latch of the door, when he felt at that gesture that he was to lose her, that he should never have her again, he shouted. He forgot everything. There remained in him only the dazed feeling of a great misfortune accomplished, of an irreparable ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... window seat, where till now I had been crouching for fear the shaft of light should betray me, and presently (as I was expecting) heard the latch of the back perch gently lifted, and spied the heavy form of the bully ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... for himself and for his family, and completed a lawful life without debt or crime. The greatest poet sees and admits these economies as he sees the economies of food and sleep, but has higher notions of prudence than to think he gives much when he gives a few slight attentions at the latch of the gate. The premises of the prudence of life are not the hospitality of it, or the ripeness and harvest of it. Beyond the independence of a little sum laid aside for burial-money, and of a few clap-boards around and shingles overhead on a lot of American soil own'd, and the easy ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and when he gets back to Spain writes long letters to Garcia begging him to come back to his Barcelonian wife and family. At another time somebody else sees Sir John Poling letting himself in at the front door with a latch-key. "So that's where he lives now," she says to herself, and spreads the news among their mutual friends. Of course, this is very annoying for us, and one cannot help wishing that these ghosts would confine themselves to one ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... the stair, waiting for a silence in the manse that would not come. A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man woke in ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fell. Like the woman of spirit she was, she jumped out of bed, crept downstairs to the kitchen, picked up the broom, and listened, with her hand on the latch of the back-door. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the door latch broke the silence. One of the other stick-men eased himself in, holding the door only wide enough to squeeze past the jamb. Don't give the suckers a peek at the seamy side. They might just take their money to the next clip ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... July mark an memorable epoch in the history of this good county. The authoritative proclamation has gone forth that her house has been put in order, that the latch-string is out —all things in readiness—and that McLean County would welcome the return of all her children who have in days past ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... open door I briefly saw a bed, a child's small dresses hanging on a hook, before Miellyn kicked the door shut and I heard a latch being fastened. Behind the closed door Rindy broke into angry screams, but I put ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... denied even the relief of tears. Dry-eyed and heavy-hearted, she waited her husband's coming, and dreading it—for the first time she had seen her Bill look on her with cold, critical anger. For an interminable time she lay listening for the click of the latch, every nerve strung tight. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... while doing the cage work, the keeper walked through the partition gate from Bob's den into Tommy's. He slammed the iron gate behind him, as usual, but this time the latch did not catch as usual. In a moment Bob became aware of this unstable condition. Very innocently he sauntered up to the gate, pushed it open, and walked through into the next den. The keeper was then twenty ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... of sounds outside. Her hand leaped to the revolver. She sat motionless, listening, with nerves taut. It came again presently, a deadened footfall, close to the door. Then, after an eternity, the latch clicked softly. Some one, with infinite care, was trying to discover whether the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... had cast a look about him in the outer room, he raised a wooden latch, and entered a narrow passage that divided the inner end of the house into two equal parts. Frontier usages being no way scrupulous, and his curiosity being strongly excited, the young man now opened a door, and found himself in a bedroom. A single glance sufficed to ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... into the fire," so that he remained to take charge of the menage. His wife led the way up a little winding path, which, after threading some thickets of sweetbrier and honeysuckle, conducted to the back-door of a small garden. Jenny undid the latch, and they passed through an old-fashioned flower-garden, with its clipped yew hedges and formal parterres, to a glass-sashed door, which she opened with a master-key, and lighting a candle, which she placed ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shook off his aiding arm and moved slowly to Tobey's door. She paused there a moment, resting her hand on the latch, her eyes searching the faces of the men in the room. With a gesture of dreary resignation she opened the door and entered, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... a blue ribbing all the same," answered Mrs. Sampson; "and I never saw him the wuss for drink, 'e being allays able to use his latch-key, and take 'is boots off afore going to bed, which is no more than a woman ought to expect from a lodger, she 'avin' to do ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... again,' thought I; but, opening my eyes, I saw a light under the door. I rubbed my eyes, hoping I had been in a dream: the light disappeared, and I thought it was my fancy. As I kept my eyes, however, turned towards the door, I saw the light again through the key-hole, and the latch was pulled up; the door was then softly pushed inwards, and I saw on the wall the large shadow of a man with a pistol in his hand. My heart sunk within me, and I gave myself up for lost. The man came in: ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... finally, I was rather excited. Chevassat seemed to have unbuttoned, and told me lots of funny things which set me a-laughing heartily. But when the coffee had been brought, with liquors in abundance, and cigars at ten cents apiece, my individual rises, and pushes the latch in the door; for ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... speculation. I need not have been so precipitate in dispatching my repast, for some dreary hours intervened ere the arrival of another visiter. One, however, came at length; a tremulous, almost inaudible, stroke upon the door, and a nervous clasp of the latch, again spoke hope to my sinking spirits; and, with a swift step, I rose and gave admittance to a young and timid girl, blushing, and trembling, and wondering, as it seemed, at the extent of her own daring. This business was not so readily despatched as that of the angry matron. There were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... stiffly found her feet again, and began to clamber up the stiff incline. Presently she made out a hut. Stumblingly, she staggered up till she reached the door and fell heavily against it, clutching at the latch so that it gave to her hand and sent her lurching into the room. Her knees doubled under her and she sank at the feet of one of two men who sat beside a ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... wits a-tingle. More distinctly he recalled the jarring bang, accompanied by the metallic click of the latch, when the girl had shut herself in—and him out. Now, some person or persons had followed her, neglecting the most obvious precaution of a householder. And why? Why but because the intruders did not wish the sound of closing to ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... to bed that night a troubled woman, and lay awake watching and expecting when the usual midnight tumult should arise. But that evening there was none. No sound but the key in the latch, the shutting of a door or two, and all quiet. Compunctions filled the mother's heart. What was the wrong if, perhaps, she could satisfy Elinor, perhaps get at the heart of Phil, who had a heart, though it was getting strangled ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the sound of the wicket! That was the latch as it rose! No—the wind that through the thicket Of ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... to the city, he must start directly the meal was over, and would not be able to get home till late, long after the usual bedtime; but he did not want any one to sit up for him, as he could let himself in with his latch key. ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... at last she got in, and as the dog was about to spring in afther her, he found the door shut in his face. There now was the proof of it; but wait till you hear what's comin'. The men all ran up here and opened the door, for there was only a latch upon it, and if the hare was in existence, surely they'd find her now. Well, they closed the door at wanst for fraid she'd escape them; but afther sarchin' to no purpose, what do you think they found? No hare, at any rate, but ould ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... however, that his master would wish his old friend to make himself at home in the flat; so he presently goes off, leaving the newcomer installed for the night. Lord Eric goes to the bedroom to change his clothes; and, the stage being thus left vacant, we hear a latch-key turning in the outer door. A lady in evening dress enters, goes up to the bureau at the back of the stage, and calmly proceeds to break it open and ransack it. While she is thus burglariously employed, Lord Eric enters, and cannot refrain from ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the iron gate, and without trusting herself for another look, walked away. She passed the spring and the homestead ruins, and finally found herself in sight of the miller's house, which alone seemed unchanged. As she lifted the latch of the gate and entered the yard, it seemed but yesterday that she was driven away to the depot in the miller's ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... matter!" Suddenly he remembered the chicken coop. "It's late. Edith won't be coming in." So he skulked around behind the house and the stable, and up the gravel path to the henhouse. Lifting the rusty latch, he stepped quietly into the dusky, feathery shelter. "I can think the damned business out, here," he thought. There was a scuffling "cluck" on the roosts, but when he sat down on an overturned box, the fowls settled into stillness and, except for an occasional sleepy ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... path. There were bee-hives ranged against the fiery creeper on the far-end wall, and the booming of the bees made a drowsy atmosphere in the place. This, together with the odour of stocks and wallflowers, was deliciously perceived as soon as your hand lifted the latch of the little green door, and regretfully missed when you closed ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... the engineer, padded snug in a blouse, his head bullet-tight under a cap, the long visor hanging beak-like over his nose. His chin was swathed in a roll of neck-cloth, and his eyes, whether he hooked the long lever at his side or stretched both his arms to latch the throttle, she could never see. Then, or when his hand fell back to the handle of the air, as it always fell, his profile was silent. If she tried to catch his face he was looking always, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... pinned on her hat and struggled into her fur coat, and, taking her latch-key, started for Ilse's apartment, feeling need of her in a blind sort of way—desiring to listen to her friendly voice, touch her, hear her clear, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Robson was 'pretty nigh wore out, a setting up for Mr. Griffith's untimely hours.' 'He laughed and coaxed—what I calls cajoling—did Mr. Griff, to get a latch-key; but we knows our dooty too well for that, and Mrs. Winslow had made us faithfully promise, when Master Clarence first came to us, that he should never have a latch-key,—Mr. Clarence, as had only been five times later than eleven o'clock, and then he was going to dine with Mr. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Seidlitz-powder man. 'Tom Cummins was in the chair,' said the man with the brown coat. 'It was half-past four when I got to Somers Town, and then I was so uncommon lushy, that I couldn't find the place where the latch-key went in, and was obliged to knock up the old 'ooman. I say, I wonder what old Fogg 'ud say, if he knew it. I should get the sack, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... lay before them, off which doors opened on all sides. Precipitating herself at one of these doors, Baubie Wishart, who could barely reach the latch, pushed it open, giving egress to a confusion of noises, which seemed to float above a smell of cooking, in which smell herrings and onions contended for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... laughed again. What boyish uncontrol To be so racked. Then felt his ticking watch. In half an hour Grootver would know the whole. And he would be returned, lifting the latch Of his own gate, eager to take Christine And crush her to his lips. How bear delay? He broke into a run. In front, a line Of candle-light banded the cobbled street. Hilverdink's tavern! Not for many a day Had he been there to ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... hearing their voices, and having said everything she had to say to her parrot, judged that it was time for her to come back and play chaperon again. She was careful to make a good deal of noise with the latch before ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... thought can travel across space between minds sympathetically in tune, for just as the secretary put his latch-key into his shiny blue door the idea flashed through him, 'I wonder what Mr. Rogers will do, now that he's got his leisure, with a fortune and—me!' And at the same moment Rogers, in his deep arm-chair before the fire, was saying to himself, 'I'm glad Minks has come to me; he's ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... his own cottage went the doubly shadowed young physician; he opened the door with a latch key, and the followers lost him in the darkness of the unlighted vestibule. Presently, however, a light was seen to glimmer through the partially closed blinds, and then John Burrill crept cautiously nearer, and feeling his way carefully, lest some obstacle at his feet should cause him ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... that the unknown Jud had gone for a gun to shoot Sanch, Betty gave a desperate pull at the latch and ran into the yard, bent on saving her friend. That it was a friend there could be no further question; for, though the creature rushed at her as if about to devour her at a mouthful, it was only to roll ecstatically at her feet, lick ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... room where was the door through which the friends and visitors came and went was another door, low and narrow. Sandy's guide led the way directly to it, lifted the latch, and opened it. It led to a long entry beyond, gloomy and dark. This passageway was dully lighted by a small square window, glazed with clouded glass, at the further end of the narrow hall, upon which fronted a row of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... how many achievements of civilization the privileged classes take as a matter of course. What a remarkable thing it was, when one came to think of it, that a door should swing true upon its hinges, and fit exactly into its frame, and latch with a precise and soul-satisfying snap! And that windows should slide up and down in their frames, and stop at ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... scope and schooling And mastery in the mind, In silk-ash kept from cooling, And ripest under rind— What life half lifts the latch of, What hell stalks towards the snatch of, Your offering, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... of all this display of energy, however, for upon investigation Paul discovered that he could easily move the door, once he got his hand on the wooden latch. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... when he could go to his work and try to forget! Restless, sleepless, unable to read, tired of sitting, driven on by the desire to get rid of his own thoughts, he started out to walk. As he passed his school-house he noticed that the door of it, always fastened by a simple latch, now stood open; and he went over to see if everything inside were in order. All his life, when any trouble had come upon him, he had quickly returned to his nearest post of duty like a soldier; and once in the school-room now, he threw ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... both chambers stood high, and men went up by steps to them. Now the bearserks got riotous and pushed Grettir about, and he kept tumbling away from them, and when they least thought thereof, he slipped quickly out of the bower, seized the latch, slammed the door to, and put the bolt on. Thorir and his fellows thought at first that the door must have got locked of itself, and paid no heed thereto; they had light with them, for Grettir had showed them many choice things which ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... fireside, footsteps were heard, and the wooden latch was suddenly lifted. Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes that it was Basil the blacksmith, and Evangeline knew by her beating heart that ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... girl would who is on the point of displaying her beauty—hitherto protected and hidden in her parents' home—to the thousand eyes of the gaping multitude, she went towards the sitting-room; but she drew back her hand she had put forth to raise the latch, for she heard the voices of several men who must just now have joined ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... forced to see the truth of this, and promised to restrain himself, hard as the task was. He took the house; and used to let himself into it with a latch-key at about ten o clock ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... seemed to meet on one common ground of terrified understanding though their eyes. The old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and a push from without made the door shake ineffectually. "It's Henry," Rebecca sighed rather than whispered. Mrs. Brigham settled herself after a noiseless rush across the floor into her rocking-chair again, and was swaying back ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... his latch at eve, Though tired in heart and limb: He loved no other place, and yet Home was ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... lock, in doubt she needs must stand, And to herself she said, "Lo, here the trap! And yet, alas! whatever now may hap, How can I 'scape the ill which waiteth me? Let me die now!" and herewith, tremblingly, She raised the latch, and her sweet sinless eyes Beheld a garden like a paradise, Void of mankind, fairer than words can say, Wherein did joyous harmless creatures play After their kind, and all amidst the trees Were strange-wrought founts ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... was not exactly like that of her son—in order to ascertain the fact, she said "Jake, where are the Indians?" The reply which was "um gone," satisfied her on that point. She then said, as if speaking to her son, "Put your ear to the latch-hole of the door I want to tell you something before I open the door." The head was placed at the latch-hole, and the old lady fired through the same spot and killed an Indian. She stepped back from the ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... the door-latch sounded soon, and the two entered, and went slowly up three flights of stairs. On the landing beyond the third flight, the door of a rear flat stood open, and in the doorway appeared the figure ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... consisting of innumerable Spanish dishes, meat and vegetables, fish and fowl, fruits and sweatmeats, all served in white and gold French porcelain, with coffee, wines, etc. After breakfast, the Seora having despatched an officer for her cigar-case, which was gold, with a diamond latch, offered me a cigar, which I having declined, she lighted her own, a little paper "cigarito," and the gentlemen followed ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... set in her. No matter where he might be in the county, when night came he always rode home, saying that his wife would be expecting him. 'Don't keer whether she 's asleep or not,' he used to say to those who bantered him, 'she knows I 'm a-comin', and she always hears my click on the gate-latch, ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... sang full long together Their songs love-sweet, death-sad; The robin woke from his slumber, And rang out, clear and glad. "Now go!" she coldly said; "'tis late;" And followed him—to latch the gate. ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... the door as if a mischievous hand twitched the latch-string, but it hung within. There was a pause. The listening children on the hearth sighed and shifted their posture; one of the hounds ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... store, the indescribable smell of damp gloom, of locos, of pimento, of olive oil, of new sugar, of new rum; the glassy double sheen of Ramon's great spectacles, the piercing eyes in the mahogany face, while the tap, tap, tap of a cane on the flags went on behind the inner door; the click of the latch; the stream of light. The door, petulantly thrust inwards, struck against some barrels. I remember the rattling of the bolts on that door, and the tall figure that appeared there, snuffbox in hand. In ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... me to take you home, I'll take you home. Otherwise I shall leave you here, go round to the club, explain that I've lost my latch-key and get a ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... long, straight road. After turning once more she stopped at a three-storeyed house. Going up to the door, she laid her hand upon it. I tried to lead her gently away, but she resisted. What was I to do? The house was an empty one. I paused. Once before my latch-key had opened a strange door. Would it open this one? I tried ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of the room was accomplished in a few seconds, whereupon Gladwin hastened to the doorway, reached for the folding doors and hauled them to, fastening the latch. Next he shut the door to the kitchen hallway and fastened that, when, with a sigh of relief, he walked to the long carved oak table that flanked the window, hoisted himself on it, produced his gold cigarette case, took out a cigarette, set fire to ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... good old days, when a man wanted a scrap with his neighbour, he put a double charge of powder into his blunderbuss, crammed in on top of it two horse-shoes, his latch-key, an old watch-chain, and a magnet, and then started on the trail. It was very effective, but of course some busy-body "improved" on it. Nowadays our gunners ring up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... keyhole; then she peeped through the window. Then she lifted the latch and peeped through the doorway; and, seeing nobody in the house, she walked in. And when she saw the porridge cooling on the table she was very pleased, for she had walked a long way, ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... at once I realized that Leroux was firing his revolver at the panels. It was fortunate that we both stood at one side, where the latch was. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... The first rusty latch yielded easily. The house contained a single dirty room. There was no furniture, except one or two old chairs. The four corners of the room were filled with hemlock branches, which must once have served as beds. A rusty rifle leaned against the wall. Beside ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... silence to his own apartments; rather let us say he pointed the way, since in the march down the long corridor the two field commanders tramped evenly abreast as if neither would give the other the advantage of an inch of precedence. In the sitting-room of the private suite the senator snapped the latch on the door, and pressed the wall-button for the electric lights. McVickar dragged a chair over to one of the windows commanding a view of the busy street, and dropping solidly into it, like a man bracing himself ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... accepted eagerly in his own and his wife's name. A moment after I heard the click of the gate-latch and then in an ecstasy of barking from his demonstrative dog his serious head went past my window on the other side of the hedge, its troubled gaze fixed forward, and the mind inside obviously employed in earnest speculation of an intricate nature. One ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... of genius, my contemporaries; but, in point of popularity, not of actual talent, the caprice of the public has certainly given me such a temporary superiority over men, of whom, in regard to poetical fancy and feeling, I scarcely thought myself worthy to loose the shoe-latch. On the other hand, it would be absurd affectation in me to deny, that I conceived myself to understand more perfectly than many of my contemporaries, the manner most likely to interest the great mass of mankind. Yet, even with this belief, I must truly and fairly say, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... dropped from his shoulders in these last few minutes, and even Aldous could not keep quite out of his face his amazement and wonder. Very gently Donald put his hand to the latch, as though fearing to awaken some one within; and very gently he pressed down on it, and put a bit of his strength against the door. It moved inward, and when it had opened sufficiently he leaned forward so that his head and a half ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... been a little more nervous than he allowed to appear. When he noticed that his escort simply closed the door on the latch, without locking or bolting it further, he said in ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... lay stretched in the sunshine on the hall steps; twitching his ears to keep off a persistent fly. You would have sworn that his was the only intelligence in the place. Yet at the sound of the iron latch of the gate and the squire's footsteps on the stones, the place, so to say, became alive, though in a furtive and secret manner. Over the half door of the stable entrance on the left two faces appeared—one, which was Dick's, sullen and angry, the other, that of a stable-boy, inquiring ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... different words have been formed; with, it may be, other slight differences superadded; thus is it with 'poke' and 'poach'; 'dyke' and 'ditch'; 'stink' and 'stench'; 'prick' and 'pritch' (now obsolete); 'break' and 'breach'; to which may be added 'broach'; 'lace' and 'latch'; 'stick' and 'stitch'; 'lurk' and 'lurch'; 'bank' and 'bench'; 'stark' and 'starch'; 'wake' and 'watch'. So too t and d are easily exchanged; as in 'clod' and 'clot'; 'vend' and 'vent'; 'brood' and ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... moment's hesitation, lifted the latch of the door somewhat nervously. I affected to take no notice of him, so breathless was the haste with which our immense business connection compelled me to finger the keyboard: but, looking up at him under my eyelashes, I could just make ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... our suspicions of that house ever since," Macdermott went on; "so we went exploring this evening, and by the luck of God they'd gone out and left the door on the latch, so we slipped in and searched around, and found a trap-door in a cupboard—where they'd have shoved me down if they hadn't given up the idea half-way. It lets you down into a passage just like this, that runs down to the water and comes out in the courtyard of one of those tumble-down old ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... and her eyes still seemed to have in them the dazzle of light and triumph she had just left. There was a frightful stench of garbage; and it appeared to be a vault, because the outcry of the men besieging the door volleyed and echoed the more thunderously. There came the sharp click of a latch and Katharine found herself impelled to descend several steps into a blackness from which came up a breath of closer air and a smell of rotting straw. Fear suddenly seized upon her, and the conviction that ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... two to a dark house. The woman rang a bell; a latch clicked and a big door swung ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... of him going down her stairs, and the click of the latch at the bottom, and the slamming of the front door; and then, under her windows, his feet on the pavement of the Square. She went to the window, and stared at the weeping ash-trees in the garden and thought of how Brodrick had said that it ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... winding lanes, past walls where the fishermen's nets were drying, and over cobble-stoned alleys redolent of herring, until he reached a modest line of whitewashed cottages fronting the sea. At the door of one of these the young man tapped, and then without waiting for a response, pressed down the latch and walked in. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... length, he rose from his place, pushed open the gate, laying a tender touch upon the latch that such dear hands had pressed in days gone by. So he made his way, going with unerring step, beneath the overbranching of copper-beech, lilac, and red may, to the flower-carpeted wilderness where, with bluebells ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then presented to view? The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had been ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... I was in my dressing-room, I neglected to latch the bedroom door. When I was ready to get into bed, lo! there was Khaki on the foot of the bed, close against the footboard, fast asleep. Not only was he asleep, but he was lying on his back, with his two white paws folded over his eyes as if to keep the lamplight out of them. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... of mountain-willers, and, after driving a big railroad-spike into the door-casing, over the latch, he said the senate and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and the moat, till they had reached the opposite side of the Keep, Eustace stopped at a low doorway; a slight click was heard, as of a latch yielding to his hand, the door opened, and he led the way up a stone staircase in the thickness of the wall, warning his follower now and then of a broken step. After a long steep ascent, Gaston heard another door open, and though still in total darkness, perceived ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Craigin's voice was cold and deliberate. "These stores are in my charge. I am an officer of the law. If any man lays his hand on that latch I'll shoot him, ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... of Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence. But much of the diamond-shaped glass in this bay-window, as it stood upon the terrace of the Pryor's Bank, was ancient, and very curious. You could not fail to remark the quaint window-latch, termed "a Turn Buckle." ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... but chiefly a passionate self-contempt that he had allowed himself to doubt her, raged tumultuously in his heart and drove him in a silent fury through the dark until they reached their own gate. Then as his mother's hand reached toward the latch, the boy abruptly caught her arm in ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... exclaimed, running toward the door. But with her hand on the latch she stopped suddenly. She had promised that she would not leave the room that day. She had set her own punishment for rudeness, and for the thoughtlessness that had perhaps ruined her ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... of people coming and going, people preparing for the funeral—but I watched my chance, and used my latch-key, and I'm sure no one connected with the ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... night by the relentless five thirty-four local. Why not a lover? Surely about such a dainty trim figure as this courtiers hovered as moths about a flame. Upon a tender intimate sorrow it was not the place of an unknown Magee to intrude. He put his hand gently upon the latch of the door. ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... slung over the old coat, a bucket of cold victuals was reached from the shelf, and the old hog-feeder, equipped for his day's work, lifted the latch, and, stepping out into the sharp frostiness of the November morning, plodded with heavy steps toward the barnyard, Drive following closely ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... bullet-tight under a cap, the long visor hanging beak-like over his nose. His chin was swathed in a roll of neck-cloth, and his eyes, whether he hooked the long lever at his side or stretched both his arms to latch the throttle, she could never see. Then, or when his hand fell back to the handle of the air, as it always fell, his profile was silent. If she tried to catch his face he was ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... the largest cottages, we immediately gained admission. The door, unlike those of Nova Scotian houses, opened outwards, the fastening being a simple wooden latch. The room into which we entered was a large, dark, dingy, dirty apartment. In the centre of it was a tub containing some goslins, resembling yellow balls of corn-meal, rather than birds. Two females were all that were at home, one a little wrinkled woman, whose age it would ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... a voice within. "The door is open." It had a wooden latch. Mr. Travers lifted it while the voice of his wife continued as he entered. "Did you imagine I had locked myself in? Did you ever know me ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... reassured them. After they had tiptoed out of the house and gained the road they discovered that they had forgotten the bag of doughnuts. The Knight declared that he would not return for a million doughnuts, but the Boy, remembering how delicious they tasted, stole back to the door and lifted the latch softly. Aunt Jo was still snoring, but, just as he laid hold of the doughnuts, Pluto the cat came leaping in from the kitchen, and the Boy had barely time to put the door between its sharp claws and himself. He ran down the path, vaulted ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... as he did so the sound of something heavy falling reached him from within. Kate was evidently moving the heavy benches. He hesitated only for an instant, then he placed his hand cautiously on the latch and raised it. In spite of his precautions the heavy old iron rattled noisily, and again he hesitated. Then, with a thrust, he pushed the aged door open and ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... continued, but more loudly. Evidently there was a house-cleaning going on, and 'Zekiel supposed this was why Dame Fossie had been deaf to his repeated knockings. He lifted the latch of the room from which the noise proceeded, and peeping cautiously in, beheld such a strange sight that he remained rooted to ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... ignorant.... What, dear? What is it you want?" Her brother has been exploring the window-frame with a restless hand, as though in search of some latch or blind-cord. He cannot find ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the creeps ran up and down my back! and oh! how I loved to distinguish myself! I let them bundle me up till I was nearly smothered. I paused with my mittened hand on the latch. I shivered, though I could have sat the night out with a Polar bear without another shawl. I opened the door, and then turned back, to make ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... opened the gate; the quick-stepping figure in white flannels glanced around at the click of the latch. ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... as the man stepped before the consulting-room door, there was the quick rattle of a latch-key heard faintly from the front-door, and as the opening door affected that of the surgery, and made it swing slightly and creak, the girl ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... and down, and her forehead was wet by the time she had reached the small back door. Was it locked or bolted—was it? She put her hand gently upon the latch and lifted it without making any sound. Thank God Almighty, it was neither bolted nor locked, the latch lifted, the door opened, and she slid through it into the shadow of the grey which was already almost the darkness of night. Thank God ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... forehead bends; On Man's cold heart celestial ardor flings, And showers affection from his sparkling wings; 470 Rolls o'er the world his mild benignant eye, Hears the lone murmur, drinks the whisper'd sigh; Lifts the closed latch of pale Misfortune's door, Opes the clench'd hand of Avarice to the poor, Unbars the prison, liberates the slave, Sheds his soft sorrows o'er the untimely grave, Points with uplifted hand to realms above, And charms the world with ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... In the processions, huge balls were rolled along to the cry, "Keep the ball a-rolling." Every log cabin had a barrel of hard cider and a gourd drinking cup near it. On the walls were coon skins, and the latch-string was always hanging out. More than a hundred campaign songs were written and sung to popular airs. Every Whig wore a log-cabin medal, or breastpin, or badge, or carried a log-cabin cane. Read McMaster's History of the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... of June, when John Avery sat at the table making professional notes from a legal folio before him, and Isoult, at work beside him, was beginning to wonder why Barbara had not brought the rear-supper, a knock came at the door. Then the latch was lifted, and Mr Anthony Tremayne ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... he cried in his booming voice. "Josephine wants to know if you have forgotten her?" Adare's hand was on the latch. ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... was accustomed to look at and brave death under every shape, and with a steady hand he buried his tomahawk in the snout of his enemy, and, turning round, he rushed to his cabin, believing he would have time to secure the door. He closed the latch, and applied his shoulders to it; but it was of no avail, the terrible brute dashed in head foremost, and tumbled in the room with Boone and the fragments of the door. The two foes rose and stared at each other; ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... is thy father, Dead and gone to visit Ukko, Dead and gone thy faithful mother, And thy brother is a stranger, While his wife is chill and heartless!' "Heeding not these many warnings, Straightway to my brother's cottage Were my weary feet directed, Laid my hand upon the door-latch Of my brother's dismal cottage, But the latch was cold and lifeless. When I wandered to the chamber, When I waited at the doorway, There I saw the heartless hostess, But she did not give me greeting, Did not give her hand in welcome; Proud, alas! was I unhappy, Did not make the first advances, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... askance The drifted fleeces that around him dance, And hurries on his half-averted form, Stemming the fury of the sidelong storm. Him soon shall greet his snow-topp'd [cot of thatch], Soon shall his numb'd hand tremble on the latch, Soon from his chimney's nook the cheerful flame Diffuse a genial warmth throughout his frame; Round the light fire, while roars the north wind loud, What merry groups of vacant faces crowd; These hail his coming—these his meal prepare, And boast in ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Caroline threw a shawl over her head and ran across the field. The house looked lonely and deserted. As she fumbled at the latch of the gate the kitchen door opened, and Christopher Holland appeared on ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to get in, Craig discovered that the fire- escape could be reached from a balcony by the hall window. He swung himself over the gap, and we followed. It was the work of only a minute to force the window-latch. We entered. No one ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... hanging on the wall just as it used to was, even to Uncle Silas's old faded green baize working-gown with the hood to it, and raggedy white patch between the shoulders that always looked like somebody had hit him with a snowball; and then we lifted the latch and walked in. Aunt Sally she was just a-ripping and a-tearing around, and the children was huddled in one corner, and the old man he was huddled in the other and praying for help in time of need. She jumped for us with joy and tears running down her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the Athenaeum has no visible door. He went to the book-masked entrance in the corner, and felt among the bookshelves for the hidden latch. Then he paused, held by a curious thought. What exactly was the intention of that symbolical struggle with his sash and gaiters, and why had they impeded his pursuit ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... the house opposite, had pushed open the porte cochere, which was on the latch—when, without the slightest warning, he was suddenly attacked from behind, his arms seized and held behind his back with a vice-like grip, whilst a vigorous kick against the calves of his legs caused him to lose his footing and suddenly ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... motives of these two stories makes comparison easy. Each starts with the seduction of a young girl; and each is mainly concerned with her subsequent adventures. From the beginning the advantage of probability is with the younger novelist. Mr. Moore's "William Latch" is a thoroughly natural figure, and remains a natural figure to the end of the book: an uneducated man and full of failings, but a man always, and therefore to be forgiven by the reader only a little less readily than Esther herself ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... me. I next threw open a little green lattice-door in the facade under the shaknisier, and entered. Here it was dark, and the moment that she, too, was within, I slipped out quickly, slammed the door in her face, and hooked it upon her by a little hook over the latch. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... from the crash of its universe. She had drunk the half of a bitter cup, and the remainder she must drink; but when all was said, she was going, after weary months, to see the face of the man she loved. Philip Sidney lifted the latch of the door, saw her enter, and let ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... when it will ever appear to many of its friends to have been most delightful. The long line of the quay is unaltered, and the rare charm of the river. People came and went in the shop: it is a wonder how many, in the course of an hour, may lift the latch even of an establishment that pretends to no great business. What was all this small, sociable, contentious life but the great Daumier's subject-matter? He was the painter of the Parisian bourgeois, and the voice of the bourgeois was ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... door and set the latch, suffering from a species of mild astonishment. His psychological processes seemed to him rather unique; he felt that he was hardly playing the game according to Hoyle. A man who has just broken with the woman ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... even made up her mind to put up with the cold reception she would probably meet with, nor to reply if any hard words were used towards her. Thus thinking, she lifted the latch, as country people do not use much ceremony, and stepped into the cottage, when what was her surprise to find the girl she had come to see with a beautiful diamond locket about her neck, gleaming in the sunshine from the open door! ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... movement. They were in the path of Kohlvihr's reserves, it appeared, in the center of the line, when the signal "forward" was sounded. The works suddenly blackened with men. It was too much for the pony. Peter found a bridle with a broken throat latch in his hand, as he watched the little beast tear down the front, and heard the roar of laughter from ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... breath the mulatto waited, stooping with her ear at the keyhole till the regular respirations of the mother and the softened panting of the little invalid assured her that all was safe. Then, at last, turning the handle of the latch silently and gradually, she glided into the room and stood by the side of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... said the other. "It shall never be said, whilst I am bailiff of Southampton, that any waster, riever, draw-latch or murtherer came scathless away from me and my posse. Leave that rogue lying. Now stretch out in line, my merry ones, with arrow on string, and I shall show you such sport as only the King can give. You on the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his chin; and plates he had on his legs and arms. He wore a green coat over his armour, and thereon was wrought in gold an image of a tree leafless: he had a little steel axe about his neck, and a great sword hung by his side. Ralph stood looking on him with his hand on the latch of the gate, but when the man came thereto he tore it open roughly and shoved through at once, driving Ralph back, so that he well-nigh overset him, and so sprang to his horse and swung himself into the saddle, just as Ralph steadied himself and ruffled ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... Batten and Sir William comes. It is a good seat, with a fair grove of trees by it, and the remains of a good garden; but so let to run to ruine, both house and every thing in and about it, so ill furnished and miserably looked after, I never did see in all my life. Not so much as a latch to his dining-room door; which saved him nothing, for the wind blowing into the room for want thereof, flung down a great bow pott that stood upon the side-table, and that fell upon some Venice glasses, and did him a crown's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... parlor-maid the necessity of doing what she could to help cook in this sudden emergency, she ran upstairs to put on her bonnet and jacket, for the time had almost arrived when she must start on her journey. She had just come downstairs when the click of the latch-key was heard, and Jasper, in excellent spirits, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... to be elected; so, one and all, great and small, short and tall, when you come down to Jackson after the election, stop at the auditor's office—the latch-string always hangs out; enter without knocking, take off your things, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... of which gave new occasion for the colonel to show his ingenuity in getting over dry shod, and so sparing his threatening rheumatism—the cry of "Sausipata!" was uttered by Pepe Garcia. Two neat mud cabins, each provided with a door furnished with the unusual luxury of a wooden latch, marked the plantation of Sausipata. The situation was level, and within the enclosing walls of the forest could be seen a plantation of bananas, a field of sugar-cane, with groves of coffee, orange-orchards and gardens of sweet potato and pineapple. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... her eyes going misty. He was so quiet, and so reassuring in his quiet. Half her burden seemed to slip from her shoulders while she looked at him. She turned away, groping for the door latch. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... began hoping that he would speak, would argue or remonstrate. Instead, he said nothing, only sat serenely indifferent, his eyes still on the fire. Stepping around the debris that filled the room, I had placed my hand on the latch, when I heard a stealthy footstep behind me. Brutus was at my elbow. There was a tinkle of a wine glass falling on the hearth. I turned to see my father facing me beside the table I had quitted—the ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... uncertainly. But the little voice from Truslow Manor and the thought of Dulcie's danger were stronger than the wind, and drove her on again till she stood with trembling knees close to the river, her hand touching the latch of the gate. What, oh! What was that, looming towards her, shapeless and awful, across the bridge! A cow, perhaps?—it was too low; a dog?—it was too large. On it came, slowly, nearer and nearer, and Biddy could see that where its head should have been there was something that napped ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... aged spruce was the only woods. On his way to it, he stumbled upon three graves, snow-buried, but marked by hand-hewn head-posts and undecipherable writing. On the edge of the woods was a small ramshackle cabin. He pulled the latch and entered. In a corner, on what had once been a bed of spruce-boughs, still wrapped in mangy furs that had rotted to fragments, lay a skeleton. The last visitor to Surprise Lake, was Smoke's conclusion, as he picked up a lump of gold as large as his doubled fist. Beside the lump was ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... skir'mish de'vi ous quick com mand' ster'ling re'al ize solve com mence' sur'feit re'qui em wrong com mend' ur'gent co'gen cy quince com pact' fur'lough no'ti fy shrimp com plaint' jas'mine po'ten cy cause es tray' lack'ey o'ri ole gauze ap proach' latch'et o'ri ent quoin cor rode' mat'in jo'vi al squaw cur tail' scat'ter vo'ta ry cross re ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... seemes like a Dreame, (I have done noughte but dreame of late, I think,) my going along the matted Passage, and hearing Voices in my Father's Chamber, just as my Hand was on the Latch; and my withdrawing my Hand, and going softlie away, though I never paused at disturbing him before; and, after I had beene a full Houre in the Stille Room, turning over ever soe manie Trays full of dried Herbs and Flower-leaves, hearing ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... the buffers of the diminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the door of his hut, to proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, in front of the struggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gates asunder, throwing one-half to the keeper, and running with the other half, forwards. Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards, almost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare's ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... haven't forgot all I was charged with, I'd better give my message," said Margaret; "but Father Tye's well-nigh shook all my wits out of my head. Robin Purcas came by this morrow, and he lifted the latch, and gave me a word from Master Benold, that I was to carry on— for he's got a job of work at Saint Osyth, and won't be back while Friday—saith he, on Friday even, Master Pulleyne and the Scots priest, that were chaplains to my Lady of Suffolk, ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... do you see bolts and bars, my dear Buvat?" said Dubois, laughing; "the door shuts with a latch, and has not even a lock: as to the window, yours looks on the gardens of the Palais Royal, and has not even a lattice to intercept the view, a superb view—you are lodged here ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... however, to make the attempt, and began at once to drag on some garments. Then he bethought him that he must not make the attempt just yet, for the household might not have fallen asleep, and he lay down again to wait with what patience he could. But at last he thought he might venture, and raising the latch of his door softly, he popped out his head, first an inch or two, then further and further, and listened for any sound of voices from his father's and mother's room. They were talking, and they went on doing so for what seemed to Paul an endless time—he little ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... welcome here," said my father, with grave kindness. "We are plain people, and live simply; but a Wynne should always find, as we used to say here, the latch-string outside." ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... The latch of the screen door clicked. Kenny rummaged for cigarettes and struck a match. Joan had slipped to her place at the table before he threw the match away. Then he smiled. His eyes were a curious droll confessional that Brian ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... escape by one of the windows on the ground floor. Tiptoeing along the hall to the door of the great parlour, Myra noiselessly lifted the latch (all the doors in the house had old-fashioned latches) and peeped in. The candles on the long table had burned themselves out, and the shuttered room lay in darkness save for one long glint of light along the mahogany ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not forgetting that of lying in bed to receive him, when he was entered the door of my bed chamber, a latch, that I governed by a wire, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... roamed over Europe, and Countesses fair Had graciously smiled on the great millionaire. Yet his heart had turned coldly away; "From her childhood, I've loved her, sweet Dorothy Moore," Just then the latch clicked—through the half opened door Crept humbly, poor ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... hat he went out. Handing in his key at the porter's lodge he found the porter's wife half clasped in the arms of a gallant. The poor woman was so flustered that it was five minutes before she could open the latch. ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... the few minutes when he was still under the influence of the vagueness that the shock had produced in his ideas, "my mother and I heard the noise of your fall on the floor, and we fancied we heard a groan. The silence following on the crash alarmed us, and we hurried up. Finding the key in the latch, we happily took the liberty of entering, and we found you lying motionless on the ground. My mother went to fetch what was needed to bathe your head and revive you. You have cut your forehead—there. Do you ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... of that house ever since," Macdermott went on; "so we went exploring this evening, and by the luck of God they'd gone out and left the door on the latch, so we slipped in and searched around, and found a trap-door in a cupboard—where they'd have shoved me down if they hadn't given up the idea half-way. It lets you down into a passage just like this, that runs down to the water and comes out in the courtyard of one of those tumble-down ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... side of the car opposite to the curb. He heard the car-door slam and feet run across the pavement. Cautiously peering around the back he saw Charley, fully revealed in the light of a street lamp, run up the steps of a house and let himself in with a latch-key. Just before disappearing he glanced up and down the street; no other car was in sight. Evan said to himself: "He is stopping here. That ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... large blue-and-white sugar-loaf. On the wall hangs a round cage containing a turtle-dove. At the back, two windows, with closed inside shutters. Under one of the windows, a stool. On the left is the front door, with a big latch to it. On the right, another door. A ladder leads up to a loft. On the right also are two little children's cots, at the head of which are two chains, with clothes carefully folded on them. When the curtain rises, TYLTYL and MYTYL are sound asleep in their cots, ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... was thus speaking, the glass door which led from the dining-room into the garden was obscured by the interposition between it and the light of a dark body. The glasses of a pair of spectacles, catching a sunbeam, sent forth a fugitive gleam; the latch creaked, the door opened, and the Penitentiary gravely entered the room. He saluted those present, taking off his broad-brimmed hat and bowing until its ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... the woman's manner attracted Cicely's attention, and gave a hint of tragedy. She paused at the door, fumbling with its latch, which was not her way, then turned and stood upright against it, like a picture in ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... not what she uttered. The words came unbidden from her lips. She laid her hand on the latch, but Clinton caught hold of it ere she had time ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... which Vanamee now stood had been hermetically closed. But he, himself, had long since changed that. He stood before it for a moment, steeping himself in the mystery and romance of the place, then raising he latch, pushed open the gate, entered, and closed it softly behind him. He was ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... was heard. She rushed to the door, lifted the latch, and admitted Sashenka. She had not seen her for a long while, and the first thing that caught her eye ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the glories of the sunset which he had been contemplating, and was on the point of entering the garden when his quick ear caught the sound of horse's hoofs on the road, causing him to pause with his hand on the latch of the gate. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... and the kitten chased it, 'whoo-oo'—the faintest sound in the keyhole. I looked up, and saw the feathers on a sparrow's breast ruffled for an instant. It was quiet for some time; after a while it came again with heavier purpose. The folded shutters shook; the latch of the kitchen door rattled as if some one were lifting it and dropped it; indefinite noises came from upstairs: there was a hand in the house moving everything. Another pause. The kitten was curled up on the window-ledge outside in the sunshine, just as the sleek cats curled up in the warmth ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... In the next instant, he thought, their light would break; and the body he supported would collapse and fall back for ever. It was the last gasp. Then a ringing voice broke the silence, just as Rex had his hand upon the latch. 'I will, I ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... the man was like to drown. So he threw open the kitchen door and ran into the parlour, but it wasn't long before the quern had ground the parlour full too, and it was only at the risk of his life that the man could get hold of the latch of the house door through the stream of broth. When he got the door open, he ran out and set off down the road, with the stream of herrings and broth at his heels, roaring like a waterfall over the ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... like a blown leaf: the loose wooden latch rises at the touch of a familiar hand; familiar feet, that have trodden every inch of that poor log floor, lead the way; and then all at once, like a bundle of Chinese crackers, intermingled with shrieks and groans and deep, vehement curses, the rapid reports of pistols fill the chambers. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... ribbing all the same," answered Mrs. Sampson; "and I never saw him the wuss for drink, 'e being allays able to use his latch-key, and take 'is boots off afore going to bed, which is no more than a woman ought to expect from a lodger, she 'avin' ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... her husband, he said, calmly, "Good-night, dear," and trudged off in the cool May dusk down Lonely Lake Road. He found the door of the house on the latch, and a little fire glowing in the stove; Brother Nathan had seen to that, and had left some food on the table for him. But in spite of the old man's friendly foresight the house had all the desolation of confusion; in ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... Club and her own Latch-key fights, Another wastes in Study her good Nights. Ah, take the Clothes and let the Culture go, Nor heed the grumble of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... him, where his Etchemin servants had placed it before they trotted off to the camps. The high windows flickered, and there was not a sound in the house except the low murmur or crackle of the glowing backlog, until the door-latch clanked, and the door flew wide and was slammed shut again. Saint-Castin looked up with a frown, which changed to ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... had reached the door of the "keeping-room" as the widow concluded her last remark; but pausing, with his thumb upon the latch, he turned, and, looking over his shoulder, whispered, with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... clicked the latch of a gate. A bare, brown cottage stood twenty yards back; an old man with a pearl-white, Calvinistic face and clothes dyed blacker than a raven in a coal-mine was washing his hands in a tin basin on the front porch. "How are you, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... he rose from his place, pushed open the gate, laying a tender touch upon the latch that such dear hands had pressed in days gone by. So he made his way, going with unerring step, beneath the overbranching of copper-beech, lilac, and red may, to the flower-carpeted wilderness where, with bluebells about its roots and feathery foliage waving high around its trunk, stood ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... in a long, low wall—the outer wall of some villa courtyard, it might be supposed—as if at liberty to enter, and rest there awhile. He held the door open for his companion to enter also, if he would, with an expression, as he lifted the latch, which seemed to ask Marius, "Would you like to see it?" Was he willing to look upon that, the seeing of which might define—yes! define the critical turning-point ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... as the Susunan happened to be seated with his face toward the door, it was fully ten minutes before his minister, after repeated ineffectual attempts, could obtain the opportunity of rising sufficiently to reach the latch without being seen by his royal master. The mission on which he was dispatched was urgent, and the Susunan himself inconvenienced by the delay; but these inconveniences were insignificant compared with the indecorum of being seen out of the dodok posture. When it is necessary for an inferior ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... Rooney spoke, the latch of the door was raised, and a miserably clad woman entered, closed the door immediately after her, and placed the bar against it. The action attracted the attention of all the inmates of the house, for the doors of the peasantry are universally "left ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Langenau who was behind me. I pushed open my door and went half-way in the room; then with a vehement and sudden impulse came back into the hall and pulled it shut again and stood with my hand upon the latch, and waited for him to pass. In an instant more he was near me, but not as if he saw me; he could not reach the stairway without passing so near me that he must touch my dress. I waited till he was so near, ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... rang loud and clear. She sprang to the stairs and went down with quick, nervous step. She fastened the chain-latch, opened the door an inch, and the dim light of the hall flashed on ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search. Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet; and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... there's something the matter!" Suddenly he remembered the chicken coop. "It's late. Edith won't be coming in." So he skulked around behind the house and the stable, and up the gravel path to the henhouse. Lifting the rusty latch, he stepped quietly into the dusky, feathery shelter. "I can think the damned business out, here," he thought. There was a scuffling "cluck" on the roosts, but when he sat down on an overturned box, the fowls settled into stillness and, except for an occasional sleepy squawk, the place was quiet. ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... to admit a stranger too eagerly—for a decent interval to elapse. Thanks to aunt Mary's coaching, Annie did not knock again, but stood in pretty decision with her eyes straight before her. A leisurely footstep sounded within; the latch lifted with dignity, the door opened a crack at first, then more widely; and, outlined against a blacker background, stood the tall, stern, forbidding figure of Miss ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... of single persons the change has been only beneficial. It was a strict code of the early nineteenth century that a single woman should find shelter under the roof of some family house, however independent, financially, her condition. Latch-key privileges were denied her. Result, the boarding-house of the later half of the century, nominally a family home, actually a hotbed of faultfinding and gossip, most wearing to the teacher and fledgling ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... it, the mill kept on, and before long the gruel got so deep in the room that the man was on the point of drowning. Then he opened the door to the sitting-room, but before long that room was filled too, and the man had all he could do to get hold of the door-latch down in this flood of gruel. When he got the door open he did not remain long in the room. He ran out as fast as he could, and there was a perfect flood of fish gruel behind, deluging the ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... a year from that day, when the priest, late one autumn evening, heard some one in the passage outside of the door, carefully trying to find the latch. The priest opened the door, and in walked a tall, thin man, with bowed form and white hair. The priest looked long at him before he recognized him. It ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... that afternoon David had let himself into the house with his latch key, hung up his overcoat on the old walnut hat rack, and went into his office. The strain of the days before had told on him, and he felt weary and not entirely well. He had fallen asleep in his buggy, and had wakened to find old Nettie drawing him slowly down ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to consider the result of his action, he sprang across the room, shouting as he did so that there was a man behind the door. Grasping the latch, he threw the door wide open, the others in the room looking at him as if ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... I know, 'twere afore sunrise; but it mid have been a dark blue, and I think 'twas. There were a grete wash up at the house that marnin', and I were coming to help. A sight of cherry-trees grow all about the door, and as I came round the corner there it stood with its hand on the latch, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... a slight nervousness as he opened the gate and went up the narrow path of flagstones. The lower window was dark, but there were no lights in the upper rooms, so that he guessed that the family had not retired. Mrs. Ashburn was entirely opposed to the latch-key as a domestic implement, and had sternly refused to allow such a thing to pass her threshold, so that Mark refrained from making use of the key—which of course he had—in all cases where it was not absolutely necessary, and he knocked and ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... I lifted the latch and opened the door. It gave access at once to the single plain living-room. There, all was huddled. For a moment my eyes hardly took in the truth. There are sights so sickening that the brain at the first shock wholly fails to ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the town in the cool of the morning. The catch of the door, however, refused to yield under his hand, and while he was endeavouring to undo it the noise he made awakened the boatswain, who told him that if he looked in his breeches pocket he would find a knife there with which he could lift the latch. Acting on this hint, the lad succeeded in opening the door, and thereupon went downstairs in accordance with his original intention. When he returned some half-hour later, as he did for the purpose of restoring the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... little lawn with its bordering of high privet hedges. Stuart ran out as the sound of the receding car reached his ears. By the time that he had reached the front of the house the street was vacant from end to end. He walked up the steps to the front door, which he unfastened with his latch-key. As he entered the hall, Mrs. M'Gregor appeared from ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... ledgers capped with copper. Strange to remark, everything in the room—the sewing-press, the tressel-table, the empty chair in front of it, the shelves piled with books, and even the shaving-mirror hung upon the latch—was on a diminutive scale, adapted to the height and reach of a child of twelve years old. It might have been taken for the house of a dwarf, or of a bookbinder ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... it occurred to Muffat that it would be very easy to find out whether Nana were in her dressing room or not. He went up the three steps, crossed the little yellow-painted lobby and slipped into the court by a door which simply shut with a latch. At that hour of the night the narrow, damp well of a court, with its pestiferous water closets, its fountain, its back view of the kitchen stove and the collection of plants with which the portress used to litter the place, was drenched in dark mist; but the two walls, rising pierced with windows ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... there, engaged in undoing the latch? The whole Chandala hamlet is asleep. I, however, am awake and not asleep. Whoever thou art, thou art about to be slain.' These were the harsh words that greeted the sage's ears. Filled with fear, his face crimson with blushes of shame, and his heart agitated by anxiety caused by that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... cross the ford, Follow again to the wobbly bridge, Turn to the left at the notice board, Climbing the cow-track over the ridge; Tip-toe soft by the little red house, Hold your breath if they touch the latch, Creep to the slip-rails, still as a mouse, Then . . . run like mad for ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... What right had she,—this insufferable peacock,—to consider herself his superior? Hot words rushed to his lips, but he checked them. He contented himself with an angry contemplation of her slender, graceful figure as she poised in the open doorway, holding the latch in one hand while the other was pressed against her bare throat for protection against the cold night air. Her ringlets, flouted by the wind, threshed merrily about the crown of her head. He noted the thick coil of hair that capped the shapely white neck. Despite his rancour and the glowering ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... willow-twig between gill and gill-cover. Nor was this all; the fish was fresh-caught, for the gills had not puffed out, nor the supple body stiffened. Every little wavelet rippled its slim and limber length; and a thread of blood trailed from the throat-latch out over the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... wearily leaned his pale, refined face upon his hand and looked up at Tabea. This look of inquiry had something of unhappiness in it that touched the nun's heart, and she was half sorry that she had spoken so sharply. She fumbled for the wooden latch of the door presently, and went out with a sense of ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... He stretched himself upon it, having settled the bill, but slept little. His mind was continually roaming. Now he imagined himself in the closet, with scarcely room to breathe, and an officer's hand on the latch; now groping along untraversed paths, till, falling into some hole, he awoke from ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... heard the gate-latch click; I looked out through the vine-leaves, all scarlet with the glory of the season, and saw William coming up the walk. I knew why he was there, and, still retaining the volume in my hand, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... doubt lithe, flexible. What "ligh in" is intended for, unless it be lykinge, which the Promptorium Parvulorum (vide part i. p. 304) explains by lusty, or craske, Delicativus, crassus, I am unable to conjecture. It is clear, that the wand in one hand is to steck, i.e. stake, or fasten, the latch of hell door, while the key in his other hand is to ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... In time the four-wheeler rumbled its way to think of resistance. In time the four-wheeler rumbled its way to Stafford's Inn; in time and by force of habit the Poet was mounting the bare, creaking, wooden stairs; in time he found himself fitting his unsurrendered latch ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... to single combat, for she again lowered her head and ran at Charlie, who had no stick, and so thought best to run from the enemy. He started for the stable door, but in his hurry and fright he could not open it, and while fumbling at the latch the creature made another attack. Charlie dodged her again, and one of her horns pierced the door nearly an inch. Again she ran at him, and with her nose "bunted" him off his feet. Charlie was getting afraid now, and ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... "loves you, and he's here to tell you himself." And with that I raised my voice and called his name. The door opened instantly—he must have had his hand on the latch the whole time—and there he stood, with his arms stretched out to her and the name, "Norah," on his lips. She sprang to her feet and ran to him with so joyful a cry that I knew my part in the comedy was over, and just as they embraced I turned away ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... kitchen, and an old woman could be seen knitting. They lifted the latch and walked in. Dropping her knitting, she rose with an exclamation ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... night, as he was kneeling at the attic door, the music suddenly ceased, and Christie heard a dull, heavy sound, as if something had fallen on the floor. He waited a minute, but all was quite still; so he cautiously lifted the latch, and peeped into the room. There was only a dim light in the attic, for the fire was nearly out, and old Treffy had no candle. But the moonlight, streaming in at the window, showed Christie the form of the old man stretched on the ground, and his poor old barrel-organ laid beside ...
— Christie's Old Organ - Or, "Home, Sweet Home" • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... troublesome, but he soon forgot all about it. He went downstairs, and how he laughed with pleasure when he noticed that the railing became a bar of shining gold as he rested his hand on it; even the rusty iron latch of the garden door turned yellow as soon as his fingers ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; Nor yet the creak of the opening door; Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor - But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown And turned its ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... stepped into the porch and entered the passage. Feeling about for the entrance she found the latch, which she lifted, and opened the door. She let the two girls go in first, and followed them ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... in quietly, closed the door, and was in his own room when Allison's latch-key rattled in the lock. The Colonel took pains not to be heard moving about, but it was unnecessary, for Allison's heart was beating in time with its own music, and surging with the nameless rapture that ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... seemed to welcome me, it looked so snug and bright. My low chair was drawn to the fire, a sort of tea-supper was awaiting me, and Mrs. Barton came out of the kitchen as soon as I had lifted the latch, to ask what ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... minute, in the hope of catching some sound from within that might prepare him for the scene he was to meet. Not a whisper, a moan, or a sob could be heard; and he ventured to tap lightly at the door. This was unheeded; waiting another minute, as much in dread as in respect, he raised the latch with some such awe, as one would enter into a tomb of some beloved one. A single lamp let him into the secrets of this ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... wind was blowing shrilly down the chimney; one could hear the sibilant rush of the dead leaves on the blast. The window and the door shook, and were still, and once more rattled as if a hand were on the latch. ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... another happy thought had descended, "my sister and I keep very early hours, and a latch-key we could never—" ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... want me to take you home, I'll take you home. Otherwise I shall leave you here, go round to the club, explain that I've lost my latch-key and ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... lies The mystery of mysteries! Happiest they of human race, To whom God has granted grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way; And better had they ne'er been born, Who read to doubt, or read ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... away the two went upstairs and unpacked the trunk. Such fun as it was to put all her own ribbons and handkerchiefs into the funny little bureau that stood in Mary Jane's room! And to hang up her dresses, or watch Grandmother hang them, in the queer little closet that had a latch like a front gate! Mary Jane was to have a whole room and a whole closet and a bureau all to herself, and she wouldn't feel a bit lonesome because Grandmother's room was right next and the door stood open all the ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... leader seized the latch of the nearest auto door and pressed down on it. As he did this, the door flew open with a heavy swing, and Ernie jumped aside just in time to ward off a body-lunge blow from the fist of a man who sprang out of the machine like a beast leaping ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... to a ball. She countermanded her maid's preparations, and sent the maid to bed. In due time all the servants went to bed, the front door being left on the latch as usual for Ashe's late return. About midnight a little figure slipped into the child's nursery. The nurse was fast asleep. Kitty sat beside the child, motionless, for an hour, and when Ashe let himself into the house about two o'clock he heard a little rustle ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... out at me, and no one answered when I called, and so at last I lifted the latch and went in. There was no one, but the people could not be far off, for meat and bread and a great pitcher of ale stood on the round log that served for table, as if the meal was set against speedy homecoming, and the ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... catch A are attached to the door in the usual manner. The latch is lifted with a stick of wood B, which is about 1 ft. long and 1 in. wide, and pivoted about two-thirds of the way from the top as shown. The latch A is connected to the stick B with a strong cord run through a staple to secure a right-angle ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... thus talking, and caressing each other and the child, a shadow darkened the room, and before they could catch a glimpse of the object that had occasioned it, it vanished, and Squire Griffiths lifted the door-latch and stood before them. He stood and looked— first on his son, so different, in his buoyant expression of content and enjoyment, with his noble child in his arms, like a proud and happy father, as he was, from ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Rainham waited silently while his friend discharged the cabman, and let him in with his latch-key into the bright, spacious hall. Then, after glancing into the empty drawing-room, Lightmark preceded him up the thick carpeted stairs, on which their footsteps scarcely sounded, and stopped at the door of Eve's boudoir, through which a ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... drive up and her father get out of it. She announced the fact to her mother, and then ran down to the garden gate to meet him. As their hands encountered at the gate, Dolly almost fell back; took her hand from the latch, and only put it forth again when she saw that her father could not readily get the gate open. He was looking ill; his gait was tottering, his eye wavering, and when he spoke his utterance was confused. Dolly felt as if a lump of ice had suddenly ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... some distance in the garden they heard, or thought they heard, a sound back at the gate, but decided that it was nothing but the latch clicking; and they went on ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody trying it softly? or, worse than any body, is—-? (Cold shiver.) Then a sudden gust that jars all the windows;—very strange!—there does not seem to be any wind about that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear the worms boring in the powdery ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... door behind her with a sharper click than she had ever given its latch before. She hurried to her typewriter in her little room and began to work with ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... still, with the latch-key in her hand. The car was out of sight now and they seemed to be almost alone in the street. At first there was something almost unfamiliar in her rather startled face, her coiffured hair, her bare neck ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nearly five o'clock, gray dawn of what was to be a clear, beautiful summer morning, when Keziah softly lifted the latch and entered the parsonage. All night she had been busy at the Hammond tavern. Busy with the doctor and the undertaker, who had been called from his bed by young Higgins; busy with Grace, soothing her, comforting her as best ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... finished to the architect's satisfaction, he gives his final approval and thirty days thereafter the final bill of the contractor is payable. This period is to allow for minor adjustments, such as windows that stick, doors that will not latch and the like, the small things that always need to be done with any new house and are generally attended to after the owner and his family ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... from this temptation—put all back again—hasten to thy room, to thy prayers, repent, repent: even thou shalt be forgiven, and none but God, who will forgive thee, shall know of this bad crime. Turn now from all thy sins; the gate of bliss is open, if thou wilt but lift the latch." ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the iron latch was at that late hour as unexpected and startling as a thunder-clap. Madame Levaille put down a bottle she held above a liqueur glass; the players turned their heads; the whispered quarrel ceased; only the singer, after darting a glance ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... she assured herself over and over, and began fumbling with the latch of the barn door,—but her fingers were stiff and cold. Suddenly from directly above her, there came the hideous clanking of iron chains. Connie had read ghost stories, and she knew the significance ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... coat on as she and Almira went through the gate. In such a village as that, no one was afraid to leave a house alone for an hour or two. Not only was the door-lock "on the latch" as usual, but Dick Lee had been vaguely expected to stay at home. There, again, Mrs. Myers had taken too much for granted; and she had not said a word ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... hitherto, a scarcely injured race; that in his fields at Coniston he had men who might have fought with Henry V. at Agincourt without being distinguished from any of his knights; that he could take his tradesmen's word for a thousand pounds, and need never latch his garden gate; and that he did not fear molestation, in wood or on moor, for his girl guests. Mr. Rawnsley, however, found that a certain beauty had vanished which the simple retirement of old valley days fifty years ago gave to the men among whom Wordsworth lived. 'The strangers,' he ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... was a substantial three-roomed structure. Its two outer doors opened with latch strings and were sawed across just above the middle, so that the lower sections might be kept closed against the straying pigs and fowls, while the upper part remained open to help the windows opposite give light and ventilation. ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... individuals together in one group or class. Only in this way can our thinking go beyond that of the lower animals; for a wise rat, even, may come to see the relation between a trap and danger, or a horse the relation between pulling with his teeth at the piece of string on the gate latch, and securing ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... that the roof rapidly lowered, while its walls narrowed until they reached a spot which was not much wider than an ordinary corridor. Here, however, it was so dark that it was barely possible to see a small door in the right-hand wall before which they halted. Lifting a latch the hermit threw the door wide open, and a glare of dazzling ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... have named the stars and weighed the moon, Counted our gains and ... lost the boon, If this be the end of all our lore— To draw the blind and close the door! O, lift the latch, slip in between The things which we have heard and seen, Slip thro' the fringes of the blind Into the souls ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... opposite a rickety little hovel, having a light burning in its window. I was directed to look for such a light in the house to which I was bound; and as this appeared to be the only place in the street so distinguished, I walked boldly up to the door, raised the wooden latch, and entered. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... halted at the door of a house in Charles Place, and was fumbling for my latch-key, when a most absurd idea came into my head. I let the key slip back into my pocket, and strode down Charles Place into Cambridge Street, and across the long bridge, and ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... wagon!" The little girl was all a tremor of gladness. He caught her eyes and beckoned, and she ran down. But she couldn't manage the night-latch, and so Margaret had ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... even allow him to have a latch-key, and then he complains if Gerald is rather late home in the evening, and he has to sit up for him. And even mamma annoys him dreadfully sometimes by calling him ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... the passage to her grandfather's room. She stopped a minute at the door, and held her breath to see if she could hear any movement which might tell her he was not asleep. It was all still, and pulling the iron latch with her gentlest hand, Fleda went on tiptoe into the room. He was lying on the bed, but awake, for she had made no noise, and the blue eyes opened and looked upon ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... action. Kurt's knowledge of the secret procedures at the base proved excellent. Twice they were halted by locked doors, but only momentarily, for Kurt had a tiny gadget, concealed in the palm of his hand, which had only to be held over a latch to open a ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... busily engaged in the manufacture of her staple, no doubt in anticipation of a greater demand for it in these stirring days, when much extra money would be passing around in the town, and many pennies thereof would dribble into the pockets of the youngsters. I lifted the latch and stepped in. She squeaked with affright till she saw who it was, and then turned her note into a gurgle ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... of my heart broke the close silence of the darkness in which I stood. When this had lasted a minute or two, I began to peer and wonder where I was; and remembering the dog I had heard, I moved stealthily to find the latch, and escape. As I did so, the bundle, to which through all I had clung—instinctively, for I had not thought ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... it was, Gilbert accompanied his friend for a mile of his homeward route. He had secured a latch-key during his last visit to Lidford House, and could let himself in quietly of a night without entrenching upon the regular habits of ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... he raised his latch at eve, Though tired in heart and limb: He loved no other place, and yet Home was no home ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... without umbrella, and when he let himself in by his latch-key at his own house-door about half-past eight, it was no wonder that he wrung out his coat and trousers so that he should not soak his Persian rugs. But from him, as from the charged skies, some tension had passed; this tempest which had so cooled the air and restored ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... inner door-latch made her start; the door was opened. She could hear and feel her husband entering and invisibly passing among the horses near to her, in darkness as they were, actively intermingled. The rather low sound of his voice as he spoke to the horses came velvety to her nerves. How near he was, and how ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... blinds, still asleep. He let himself in with his latch-key, dropped his bag, hat, and coat in the hall, and rushed upstairs to Bambi's rooms. No hesitation now. He would storm the citadel in truth. He opened her bedroom door softly and peered in. It was unknown country ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... house stan's all quiet lak an' solemn, Not a blessed soul in pa'lor, po'ch, er lawn; Not a guest, ner not a ca'iage lef' to haul 'em, Fu' de ones dat tu'ned de latch-string out air gone. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... her son—in order to ascertain the fact, she said "Jake, where are the Indians?" The reply which was "um gone," satisfied her on that point. She then said, as if speaking to her son, "Put your ear to the latch-hole of the door I want to tell you something before I open the door." The head was placed at the latch-hole, and the old lady fired through the same spot and killed an Indian. She stepped back from the door instantly, and it was ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... yellow light cleaved the dark of the corridor as a door was quietly shut. He heard the faint, distant click of a door-latch. Counting the entrances to that one, and sure that he had made no mistake, he rapped. The near-by clank of the engine-room well was the reply. He tried the handle. It was immovable. He struck a match. It ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... just finished their afternoon meal, cleaned their room, and settled themselves to their evening's work. Nora was spinning gayly, Hannah weaving diligently—the whir of Nora's wheel keeping time to the clatter of Hannah's loom, when the latch was lifted and Herman Brudenell, bringing a brace of hares in his hand, entered ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... road will lead that way," said Jones. "An' ef you do, jest remember that the skillet's on the fire, an' the latch string is ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had thought our marvellous sitting-room had had exceptional moments of beauty. To turn in from the sunlit, open court-yard; to pass beneath, the vine-hung gallery; to lift the great latch of the low Gothic door and to enter the rich and sumptuous interior, where the light came, as in cathedral aisles, only through the jewels of fourteenth-century glass; to close the door; to sit beneath the prismatic shower, ensconced in a nest ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... had reached home crosser than ever; but as soon as her mother heard her lift the latch of the door she ran out to hear her adventures. 'Well, did you get the ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... scarcely perceptible. He had little time to waste in speculation, but when, as he ran out to the door, glancing at his watch, the nauseous odour suddenly rose again to his nostrils, he stopped with his hand on the latch. ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... a minute," resumed the toll-woman, "that I hadn't any strength. The middle door never is locked. I leave it on the latch like, so I can hear wheels better. What to do I didn't know, but a body thinks fast at such times. First thing I knew I was on the back doorstep, hookin' the door on the outside. Then a gust of wind like, came ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... perfect hubbub of voices all talking at once. He listened long enough to hear himself characterized by a baritone as a stinking Jew, and by a treble as not her style and a bit too gay but quite the gentleman, before he raised the latch and stepped in. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... a way to get in, Craig discovered that the fire- escape could be reached from a balcony by the hall window. He swung himself over the gap, and we followed. It was the work of only a minute to force the window-latch. We entered. No one ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... could answer This comfort with the like. But I haue words That would be howl'd out in the desert ayre, Where hearing should not latch them ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to avoid a meeting; I tell you this frankly. Immediately, however, I noted that the door I was about to enter was the door of a tobacco dealer's shop. As though frozen into marble, I halted with my hand on the latch. I have never had recourse to that noxious weed, tobacco, in any form whatsoever, except on one occasion when, in the absence of camphor, I employed it in a crumbled state for the purpose of protecting certain woolen undergarments from the ravages ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... later I rose quietly to my feet, particularly careful not to disturb the blackguard at my side, and moved as silently as possible to the door. Despite my care the latch clicked. The old lady sat bolt upright in bed and stared at me. She was too late. I sprang through the door and struck out for the nearest point of woods, in a direction previously selected, vaulting fences like an accomplished gymnast and followed ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... beyond that of the lower animals; for a wise rat, even, may come to see the relation between a trap and danger, or a horse the relation between pulling with his teeth at the piece of string on the gate latch, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... nearly drowned by the shrill whistle of a steamer. A minute later Ann and Fledra heard running footsteps coming from the direction of the lake. There was no knock; but a quick jerk of the latch-string flung wide the door—and ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... Regent's Park. I wanted to get to Piccadilly, and took a short cut through a lot of shabby little streets. Suddenly I saw in front of me Lady Alroy, deeply veiled and walking very fast. On coming to the last house in the street, she went up the steps, took out a latch-key, and let herself in. "Here is the mystery," I said to myself; and I hurried on and examined the house. It seemed a sort of place for letting lodgings. On the doorstep lay her handkerchief, which she had dropped. I picked it ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... mumbled, without opening his eyes. The latch clicked, a hand seized him by the shoulder and ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... than men use to count a hundred. The latch clicked. Democrates gazed blankly on the door, then turned ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... never opening properly. If the gate was in one piece, it sagged so that it must be lifted; or it had lost one hinge, and fell over on the rash individual who loosened the fastenings; or it was about falling to pieces, and must be handled like a piece of choice bric-a-brac. If it had a latch, it was rusty or did not fit; and if it had not, it was fastened, either by a board slipped in to act as a bar and never known to be of proper size, or in some occult way which would require the skill of "the lady from Philadelphia" to undo. If it was ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... youth's chamber. As she reached the door, a feminine scruple came over her. A young girl seeking the apartment of a man at midnight—she shrunk back with a new feeling. But the dread necessity drove her on, and with cautious hand undoing the latch securing the door by thrusting her hand through an interstice between the logs—wondering at the same time at the incautious manner in which, at such a period and place, the youth had provided for his sleeping hours—she ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... misty. He was so quiet, and so reassuring in his quiet. Half her burden seemed to slip from her shoulders while she looked at him. She turned away, groping for the door latch. ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... walk by the counsel of the dead, shall have none of the living; and so you may do as you list; but if you will walk by mine, drop latch, and draw bolt, and bid him seek quarters farther—that ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... that Smith's explanations were meant to give Jeffry Hull something to think about instead of his fears. Hull was basically an Earth-hugger, and free fall did nothing to keep him calm. Evidently his subconscious knew that he had to latch on to something to keep his mental equilibrium, because he showed a tremendous amount of interest in what should have ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and passing through the ill-hung gate, I approached the dwelling. Slowly the gate swung on its wooden hinges, and the rattle of its latch, in closing, did not disturb the air until I had nearly reached the porch in front of the house, in which a slender girl, who had noticed my entrance, stood awaiting ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... who had lain waiting and watching for him all night arose from her uneasy couch when she heard the latch of the gate lifted, and opened the door. He came in and walked past her like a wraith. His eyes were wild, his face was bloodless and haggard, his hair damp and disordered. The Mother's eyes were filled with dumb pain. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... Anne had been drawn much nearer together by a common interest. The door between their rooms having some imperfection in the latch swung open as they were preparing for bed, and Anne was aware of a sound of sobbing, and saw one of the white- capped, short-petticoated femmes de chambre kneeling at Naomi's feet, ejaculating, "Oh, take me! take me, mademoiselle! Madame is an angel of goodness, but I cannot go ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... instantly, and with a noiseless step fled back to the door of the apartment, opened it with her latch-key, closed it silently, and bolted it on the inside. This was done before she knew what she was doing, and when she regained full possession of her faculties she was in the sitting-room, and the Carabineers were ringing at the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... wakefulness again; Rose had ceased to repeat her Psalms aloud, but was still at her needlework; another doze, another waking. There was some hope of Rose now, for she was kneeling down to say her prayers. Lucy thought they lasted very long, and at her next waking she was just in time to hear the latch of the door closing, and find herself left in darkness. Rose was not in bed, did not answer when she called. Oh, she must be gone to take Walter's coat back to his room. But surely she might have done that in one moment; and how ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boiled in a black pot. Chrisfield tiptoed over and looked in. At the bottom of the bubbling water he saw five potatoes. At the other end of the kitchen, beyond two broken chairs, was a door. Chrisfield crept over to it, the tiles seeming to sway under foot. He put his finger to the latch and took it off again suddenly. Holding in his breath he stood a long time looking at the door. Then he pulled it open recklessly. A young man with fair hair was sitting at a table, his head resting on his hands. Chrisfield felt a spurt ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... sum which I held in trust for him. That, with what he had already, would be enough to start him as an honest man in the new world, when he would ever remember and pray for the dear sister who had been his savior. That was the style of the letter, and it ended by imploring me to leave the window-latch open, and to be in the front room at three in the morning, when he would come to receive my last kiss and to bid ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... feller was busted, the horses was thin, an' the grass round here kind of good, An' he said if I'd let him hold here a few days he'd settle with me when he could. So I told him all right, turn them loose down the draw, that the latch string was always untied, He was welcome to stop a few days if he wished and rest ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... heard a step on the gravel walk in front of the house, and the sound of a latch-key in the front-door; in another minute Hugh came up the stairs on the way to his room. "Hugh! Hugh!" called out ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... passed she was not quite sure it was he. She went downstairs in the dark, having taken off her shoes to prevent any noise. She put on her shoes again, drew back the bolts softly, left the door upon the latch, and crept out into the street. Swiftly she walked, and in a few moments she was within half-a-dozen yards of those whom she followed. She could not help being sure now. She continued on their track, her whole ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... who is on the point of displaying her beauty—hitherto protected and hidden in her parents' home—to the thousand eyes of the gaping multitude, she went towards the sitting-room; but she drew back her hand she had put forth to raise the latch, for she heard the voices of several men who must just now have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... looked in at the sitting-room window, for a light was burning there. There sat Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, and Joe Harper's mother, grouped together, talking. They were by the bed, and the bed was between them and the door. Tom went to the door and began to softly lift the latch; then he pressed gently and the door yielded a crack; he continued pushing cautiously, and quaking every time it creaked, till he judged he might squeeze through on his knees; so he put his head through and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... looked poorer, and meaner, and more comfortless than ever, after the luxuries she had grown accustomed to. Her mother and all the rest of them were sitting at dinner when Cherry opened the door. At the sound of the latch Mrs. Honey looked up, ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... first knock he heard a foot come slowly across the floor. It was my lady, who opened the latch herself and stood before Sholto in the habit she had worn when at the castle gateway Malise had told his news. Her couch was unpressed. Her window stood open towards the south. A candle still glimmered upon a little altar in an angle of the wall. She had been kneeling ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... brown ears under the headstall, and to pull out his forelock comfortably while he nosed the pan. The bridge was too small for Jake, but Mary V thought it would do, since she was in a great hurry and the buckles would be stiff and hard to open. The throat latch would not fasten where Tango always wore it, but went down three holes farther. Jake was bigger ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... went round quietly to the front door and let himself in with his latch-key. When he entered the smoking-room he found his wife there alone. She stood on his hearth, and met him with hard eyes, desperate ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the door and stood with one hand on the latch. He came and stood beside her, a suppressed excitement in his manner, his eyes gleaming brightly in the dusk which had ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Where can that latch be that rattles so? Is anybody trying it softly? or, worse than any body, is—-? (Cold shiver.) Then a sudden gust that jars all the windows;—very strange!—there does not seem to be any wind about that it belongs to. When it stops, you hear the worms boring ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... seem that thought can travel across space between minds sympathetically in tune, for just as the secretary put his latch-key into his shiny blue door the idea flashed through him, 'I wonder what Mr. Rogers will do, now that he's got his leisure, with a fortune and—me!' And at the same moment Rogers, in his deep arm-chair before the fire, was saying to himself, 'I'm glad Minks has come to ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Jordan, eight hundred feet below the sea, at the entrance of the two chief passes into the Judean highlands, it was too indolent or cowardly to maintain its own importance. Stanley called it "the key of Palestine"; but it was only a latch which any bold invader could lift. The people of Jericho were famous for light fingers and lively feet, great robbers and runners-away. Joshua blotted the city out with a curse; five centuries later Hiel the ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... of Eskimo outside. Philip could hear the snarling rebellion of the wolves as they slunk away from the cabin, and he drew Celie back from the door. Suddenly she freed her hands, ran to the door and slipped back the wooden bolt as the wolf-man's hand fumbled at the latch. In a moment she was back at his side. When Bram entered every muscle in Philip's body was prepared for action. He was amazed at the wolf-man's unconcern. He was mumbling and chuckling to himself, as if amused at what he had seen. Celie's ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... neighborhood applied themselves with prodigious incompetence to the most whimsical subjects. One afternoon I stayed in my room on account of a very heavy rain. The good woman was energetically polishing the copper latch of my door. She used a paste called Tripoli, which she spread upon a paper and rubbed and rubbed.... The peculiar appearance of the paper made me curious. I glanced at it. 'Great heavens! Where did you get this paper?' She was perturbed. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... enwrapped the little village when I was startled from my sleep by a noisy chorus of voices and a busy hurrying of footsteps. A moment later some one, heavily booted, ascended the ladder leading to our bedroom, and a ponderous knock resounded on our door. St. Aubyn sprang from his bed, lifted the latch, and admitted the younger Raoul, whose beaming eyes and excited manner betrayed, before he spoke, the good tidings in store. "We have seen him!" he cried, throwing up his hands triumphantly above his head. "Both ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... seek one more fitted to the purpose than his mother? The door of the house where she lodged was common to many, and therefore opened with a latch. He went in, and upstairs, tried the door of his mother's room, and found it fastened within. He knocked, heard the grumbling of the old woman at her being obliged to rise from her chair: she opened the door, and Vanslyperken, as soon as he was in, slammed it to, ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of aged spruce was the only woods. On his way to it, he stumbled upon three graves, snow-buried, but marked by hand-hewn head-posts and undecipherable writing. On the edge of the woods was a small ramshackle cabin. He pulled the latch and entered. In a corner, on what had once been a bed of spruce-boughs, still wrapped in mangy furs that had rotted to fragments, lay a skeleton. The last visitor to Surprise Lake, was Smoke's conclusion, as he picked up a lump ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... the straw hat stood gazing after them a moment and then came wearily up to the gate. It didn't bother to undo the latch but just climbed right over the gate as though it were something in the way. And then I noticed that it took hold of the bars with its feet, so that it really had four hands to climb with. But it was only when I at last ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... Tin Emperor, nodding; "I also remember Mr. Yoop. But how are we to get into his deserted castle? The latch of the door is so far above our heads that none of us can ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... in the kitchen, and an old woman could be seen knitting. They lifted the latch and walked in. Dropping her knitting, she rose with an exclamation ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... old daughter. Both seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry for the captain, one of them at last understood that he was asking for their lodgers, and pointed to a door across the passage. The captain's lodging turned out to be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand on the iron latch to open the door, when he was struck by the strange hush within. Yet he knew from Katerina Ivanovna's words that the man had a family. "Either they are all asleep or perhaps they have heard me coming and are waiting for ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... endeavoured to peep in at the window, but from the deep shadow of the trees already mentioned, and the gloom within, he could not clearly discern objects; so we lifted the latch and pushed open the door. We observed that the latch was made of iron, and almost eaten away with rust. In the like condition were also the hinges, which creaked as the door swung back. On entering, we stood still and gazed around us, while we were much impressed with ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... meditations, and after a step of sixty rods, the breadth of the lot, I am once more at home, where, as it is now dark, we will close the door and shut out the world, to this old country prejudice has made us attach a small wooden button inside, the only fastening, except the latch, I believe, in the settlement. Bolts and bars being all unused, the business of locksmith is quite at a discount in the back woods, where all idea of a midnight robbery is unknown; and yet, if rumour was true, there were persons not far from us to ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... must be done," she thought rapidly. "I care not whether he be friend or foe, I take the consequences; be mine the blame," and she lifted her pretty head with an air of determination, as a soft knock fell upon her chamber door; but before she could rise to open it, the latch was raised and a little figure, ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... house, a slender, girlish figure, with her back towards him, was stooping over a bush of great crimson roses, cautiously clipping a blossom here and there. At the click of the gate-latch she started and turned towards him. Her light gingham bonnet, falling back, disclosed a long oval face, fair and delicate, sweet brown eyes, and brown hair laid smoothly over the temples. A soft flush rose ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... close the hatch of the engine-room. That will pen Williams, the engineer, below, where he can make no resistance. As soon as that is done, run to those doors forward which lead down to the dining-room companionway and shut those doors and latch them. That will take care of John, the cook. The deck-hand is away with the varlet. That leaves only the shipmaster ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... door softly on the spirits of the dead within, and caught the short, deer skin latch-string to the wooden pin outside. With his Barlow knife, he swiftly stripped a bark string from a pawpaw bush near by, folded and tied his blanket, and was swinging the little pack to his shoulder, when the tinkle of a cow-bell came ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... called it,—a tin bread-pan attached to the latch so the door couldn't open without tumbling it down. He set it every night, as though he were afraid of what might happen,—the very thing which did happen, for that matter. On the night of the murder I awoke ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... admitted. She hesitated long, for it seemed like a positive wrong to her husband's memory, but the woman in her yielded at last; she was going away on the following morning, and she could not refuse to see him for once. She hesitated again as she laid her hand upon the latch of the door, knowing that he was in the room beyond; then at ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the chinks between the logs were filled with mud that had hardened like plaster. There were no windows in the cabin, except in the eaves. The heavy door was half open, but it had an old-fashioned wooden latch on the outside. ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... a mile and clicked the latch of a gate. A bare, brown cottage stood twenty yards back; an old man with a pearl-white, Calvinistic face and clothes dyed blacker than a raven in a coal-mine was washing his hands in a tin basin on the front porch. "How are you, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... the light is almost gone!" He pointed to the lamp, which the nurse hastened to refill. As soon as it burned again brightly, the master vanished. The door closed; the latch was affixed without ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... He was just beginning to dream of home and its dear delights, when a door-latch was lifted, and a young girl entering, began to make preparations for supper. She moved quickly towards the fire, and with a pair of iron tongs, deftly raided the ponderous cover of the Dutch oven, hanging over the blaze. The wheaten rolls it contained were ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... and summer." Whether we have stone facings or no,—whether our parlor has cornices or marble mantels or no,—whether our doors are machine-made or hand-made. All our fixtures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but we will have fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and string, if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too,—but in our house we will live cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe the foul air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than we will use a neighbor's tooth-brush and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... in—the cook." She looked at him a moment, and broke into a malicious laugh very unlike that of a social reformer, which rang shriller at the bovine fury which mounted to Lemuel's eyes. The rattle of a night-latch made itself heard in the outer door. Sibyl's voice began to break, as it rose: "I never expected to be treated in my own aunt's house with such perfect ingratitude and impudence— yes, impudence!—by one ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... himself able to think, he determined that his first move must be to find Carlin, and that very night. It had been some weeks since he had visited the ship-chandler. He had tried the latch several times, and would have repeated his visits had not a bystander told him that Carlin was in the country fitting out a yacht for one of his customers and would not be back for a month. The ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I expect that's it—we don't live in months and years, but just in minutes. It doesn't take long for an earthquake to do its work—it's seconds then.... P'r'aps dad won't even come to-morrow," she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. "It never seemed so long before, not even when he's been away a week." She laughed bitterly. "Even bad company's better than no company at all. Sure. And Mickey has been here always when dad's been away past times. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... however, to develop "Young America" in the great metropolis. He is generally ready to go out into the world at a very tender age. Our system of society offers him every facility in his downward career. When but a child he has his own latch-key; he can come and go when he pleases; he attends parties, balls, dancing-school, the theatre and other evening amusements as regularly and independently as his elders, and is rarely called upon by "the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... mentioned, paused a minute or two before lifting the latch of the door. When she entered there was no unusual sign of writing about; only Will Coulson looking very red, and crushing and smelling at the ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... went a few weeks later to have a look at the manor-house he could not believe his eyes at the sight of the destruction that had taken place. There were no panes in the windows and not a single latch left on the wide-open doors; the walls had been stripped and the floors taken up. The drawing-room was a dungheap, Pani Joselawa, the innkeeper's wife, had put up hencoops there and in the adjoining rooms; axes and saws were lying about everywhere. The farmhands, who according to agreement were ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... word, and we went silently together to the door that led to the queen's end of the hall. There she stayed for a moment with her hand on the latch. ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... that helped kill this whale? Doesn't the devil live for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a latch-key to get into the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose he can crawl into a porthole? ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... and a face clouded with anxiety, Droop propped his bicycle against the wall within the passage and resolutely raised the heavy latch. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... it, took his head out from under his wing, and laughed at the fun until he almost tumbled out of his cage. The lively dog, Spot, heard it out in his shed, too, and whined at the door until Jumping Jack contrived to undo the latch and let him in. The little late chicken heard it also, hopped out of his snug basket, and was soon enjoying himself as much as if they were all chickens and it was ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... Prince's countenance was mingled compassion and vexation. He, however, lifted the latch of the door, and let the son of Aristotle pass ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... and lifted the latch, and went up under an old apple tree that hung over the path, and knocked at the door. Presently it was opened by John himself, who stood there, a wretched figure of a man, bowed with disease, and his face all ugly and scarred. Herbert, who loved things beautiful, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... intricate course by winding alleys and narrow side-streets, keeping his glance well about him until at length he came to a certain door in a certain dingy street,—and, finding the faulty latch yield to his hand, entered a narrow, dingy hall and groped his way up the dingiest stairs ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... front door for herself, pulled it to behind her with a bang, when to her dismay she found herself held fast. The door had closed on her dress. She pulled and twisted, but it was of no use—she was a prisoner. She could not reach the bell, and only a dead latch-key would open it from the outside. It was late in the afternoon and few people were passing; then too she did not like to call for help. The poor child felt herself to be in a somewhat ridiculous position, and if she dreaded anything it ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... the best use of those pretty legs which had attracted the commendation even of the reflective and cautious Adam Woodcock. She hastened towards a large door in the centre of the lower front of the court, pulled the bobbin till the latch flew up, and ensconced herself in the ancient mansion. But, if she fled like a doe, Roland Graeme followed with the speed and ardour of a youthful stag-hound, loosed for the first time on his prey. He kept her in view in spite of her efforts; for it is remarkable what an advantage, in such a race, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... course I couldn't get back till the next evening. So I sighed and switched off to the superintendent's office, expecting to go over on No. 4 and look at the bridge. At the office they told me that I needn't go till Tuesday, so I strolled up town and got home about nine o'clock, went in with a latch key, just as a mutual friend went out through the bed-room window, taking a sash that I paid two dollars for. I didn't care for the sash, because he left a pair of pantaloons worth twelve dollars and some silver in the pockets, but I thought it was such odd taste ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... sound of the latch, to see Diana coming in, all the man's secret calculations and revolts were for the moment scattered and drowned in sheer pity and dismay. In a few short hours can grief so work on youth? He ran to her, but she held up a hand ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... scuffling of feet outside, both of them had now alighted from the canoe and were approaching the door. Soon he heard a hand fumbling with the latch and ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... has his hand upon the latch of 'Almack's,' and calls to us from the bottom of the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five Point fashionables is approached by a descent. Shall we go in? It ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... found and lost her again almost at the same instant. The worn out steps were old acquaintances of his; he knew better than any one else how to open that weather-beaten door with the large headed nail which served to raise the latch within. He entered without knocking, or giving any other intimation of his presence, as if he had been a friend or the master of the place. At the end of a passage paved with bricks, was a little garden, bathed in sunshine, and rich in warmth and light. In this garden Mercedes ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hand was at the latch, Before the door had given her to his eyes; And from her chamber-window he would catch Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; 20 And constant as her vespers would he watch, Because her face was turn'd to the same skies; And with sick longing all the night outwear, To hear ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... o'clock: Joan had fallen into an uneasy doze and Eve was beginning to nod, when a rattle of the latch made them both ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... out and saw that the house number was thirty-eight. That was the number of the Lees' house; he descended, bade the cabman await him, and, producing his latch key, started up the ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... thought came too late, however. He took one step towards the door, guided by the glimmer, beneath it, of her retreating candle. His hand even fumbled for the latch, and found it. But a sudden shyness seized him and he drew back. He heard her footsteps creaking on the party-stairs: heard the sound of her door softly closed, then the sound of a bolt thrust home in its socket; and ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... goin amongst 'em to equire the reel pronounciation," his lordship said, as he let himself into his lodgings with his latch-key. "That was a very eloquent young gent at the 'Constantinople,' and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spends the long working hours of a summer day; varied by the occasional visits of a rather exacting Father from the neighboring monastery; or perhaps some idle and gossiping acquaintance who looks in to hold a long parley with his hand upon the latch. Or it may be that the mind turns to another carver, at work in one of the many large colonies of craftsmen which sprang up amid the forest of scaffolding surrounding the slow and mysterious growth of some noble cathedral. Here all is organized activity—the best men to be found in the country have ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... changed his direction, and drove to the house of the lawyer he had consulted at the time of his divorce. The lawyer had not yet come up town, and Ralph had a half hour of bitter meditation before the sound of a latch-key brought him to his feet. The visit did not last long. His host, after an affable greeting, listened without surprise to what he had to say, and when he had ended reminded him with somewhat ironic precision that, at the time of the divorce, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... until the plow was thrown clean from the furrow. And when he came to the shade of the butternut-tree by which she must pass, it had seemed to him imperative that the horses should rest. Besides, the hames-string wanted tightening on the bay, and old Dick's throat-latch must need a little fixing. He was not sure that the clevis-pin had not been loosened by the collision with the stone just now. And so, upon one pretext and another, he managed to delay starting his plow until Julia came by, and then, though his heart had counted all her steps from the ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... lock the barn and shed and knew that he would be going upstairs immediately, so she quickly went through the side yard and lifted the latch of the kitchen door. It was fastened. She went to the front door and that, too, was bolted, although it had been standing open all the evening, so that if a breeze should spring up, it might blow through the house. Her father supposed, of course, that she ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... when he reached home. He let himself in with a latch-key, and went into his room for ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... commencing with that of the second assistant. His room was empty, and so was his Excellency's, neither apartment having been occupied during the night. We then returned to the first floor and forced the door of the ante-room, which, we discovered, was only secured by a spring latch, the lower lock not having been used. As soon as we entered the room, we found the four dead men. Hussein, the servant, was nearest the door and was lying in a crumpled-up position. He had been stabbed twice through the back and once through ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... that night a troubled woman, and lay awake watching and expecting when the usual midnight tumult should arise. But that evening there was none. No sound but the key in the latch, the shutting of a door or two, and all quiet. Compunctions filled the mother's heart. What was the wrong if, perhaps, she could satisfy Elinor, perhaps get at the heart of Phil, who had a heart, though it was getting strangled in all those intricacies of gambling and wretched business. She turned ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... it had been occupied as usual. She then noiselessly unfastened the door, and proceeded with her dressing, so that when, a few minutes after, Dame Lovell came panting up the stairs, and lifted the latch, the only thing she noticed was Margery standing before the mirror, and fastening up her hair with what she called a pin, and what we should, I suspect, designate a ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... gloom, of locos, of pimento, of olive oil, of new sugar, of new rum; the glassy double sheen of Ramon's great spectacles, the piercing eyes in the mahogany face, while the tap, tap, tap of a cane on the flags went on behind the inner door; the click of the latch; the stream of light. The door, petulantly thrust inwards, struck against some barrels. I remember the rattling of the bolts on that door, and the tall figure that appeared there, snuffbox in hand. In that land of white clothes, that precise, ancient, Castilian in ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the throat-latch of his bridle and picking up the reins, advanced hat in hand, leading the horse. "I beg your pardon," he said, gravely, "I didn't know who it was, when your horse splashed ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... how long I wait for WATTY. Can you? Too good of you, I'm sure! WATTY will chaff me when he hears I've been borrowing like this, ha, ha!" Here your ear, sharpened by affection, catches a well-known turn of the latch-key at your front-door. "Why, how fortunate!" you exclaim, "here is my husband already, Captain CAULKER. He will come in as soon as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... right counter as one entered and the near end held a show case containing a display of cutlery, pewter spoons, jewelry and fishing tackle. There were double windows on either side of the rough board door with its wooden latch. The left counter held a case filled with threads, buttons, combs, colored ribbons, and belts and jew's-harps. A balance stood in the middle of this counter. A chest of tea, a big brown jug, a box of candles, a keg and a large wooden pail occupied its farther end. The shelving ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... should open outward. Every nerve in the miserable fugitive's body thrilled with hope. He examined it from top to bottom, though scarcely able to distinguish its outlines in the surrounding darkness. He passed his hand over it: no bolt, no lock! A latch! He started up, the latch yielded to the pressure of his thumb: the door silently swung ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... heed of these contortions. After a moment's pause he rapped sharply on the door with the knob of his walking-stick, then boldly lifted the latch and ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Court House, S.C., a tavern-keeper, by the name of Samuel Davis, procured the conviction and execution of his own slave, for stealing a cake of gingerbread from a grog shop. The slave raised the latch of the back door, and took the cake, doing no other injury. The shop keeper, whose name was Charles Gordon, was willing to forgive him, but his master procured his conviction and execution by hanging. The slave had but one arm; and an order on the state treasury ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... said, 'Who is there, engaged in undoing the latch? The whole Chandala hamlet is asleep. I, however, am awake and not asleep. Whoever thou art, thou art about to be slain.' These were the harsh words that greeted the sage's ears. Filled with fear, his face crimson with blushes of shame, and his heart agitated ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... had a face of rough stucco, and casement windows with green frames and shutters; inside, it was full of long passages, and rooms with low ceilings. There was a large heavy knocker on the green door, and though Mr. Dempster carried a latch-key, he sometimes chose to use the knocker. He chose to do so now. The thunder resounded through Orchard Street, and, after a single minute, there was a second clap louder than the first. Another minute, and still the door was not opened; whereupon ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and Michael J. Murphy listened. From within came a medley of gentle sighs, snores and the slow, regular breathing of sleeping men. Softly Mr. Reardon closed the door, turned the ring until the latch caught, drew a section of chain through the ring in such a manner as to prevent the latch from being released, passed the ends of his chain round the steel handrail along the front of the forecastle and ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... serv'ile la'i ty wren con tempt' skir'mish de'vi ous quick com mand' ster'ling re'al ize solve com mence' sur'feit re'qui em wrong com mend' ur'gent co'gen cy quince com pact' fur'lough no'ti fy shrimp com plaint' jas'mine po'ten cy cause es tray' lack'ey o'ri ole gauze ap proach' latch'et o'ri ent quoin cor rode' mat'in jo'vi al squaw cur tail' scat'ter vo'ta ry cross re ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... high-lows my grandfather lent him, and started off for a ramble in the night air, with a plenty of instructions about the safest paths. At nine o'clock, which was their regular hour, my grandfather and grandmother made out the light and went to bed, leaving the door on the latch. It was an hour before my grandfather could get to sleep. He was thinking of the five guineas, and how they ought rightfully to ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... killed in the army. His chin sank upon his breast. Sawyer got up quickly and began to search for the gun. He found it and hid it under a bed. Then he turned his attention to Lyman's room. The apartment was approached by an encased stairway, leading from the sitting-room. He lifted the latch and listened, the old man was snoring; the young man felt like a thief; but that was to be expected, and therefore did not alarm his conscience. The stairs creaked, still he did not pause. The door of Lyman's room, to the left at the head of the stairs, was not locked. Sawyer struck ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... you so; for she never will see any strange folks. Nobody speaks to her about new folks lately," she added warningly, as she tapped at the door, and Madam asked, "Is it the child?" And Deborah lifted the latch. When I was fairly inside, my interest in life came back redoubled, and I was no longer sad, but looked round eagerly. Madam spoke to me, with her sweet old voice, in her courtly, quiet way, and stood looking ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... The sound of her frightened snivel aged him. He tiptoed to the barn door, eying a light in the farm-house. He reached far up to the latch of the broad door and pulled out the wooden pin. The latch slipped noisily from its staple. The door opened with a groaning creek ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... my own white-enamelled door in Wilton Street, off Belgrave Square, and, alighting, I entered with my latch-key. ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... tartly, with such a frown that Lloyd began singing in a tantalising tone, "Crosspatch, draw the latch, sit by the fire ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... prisoner having, with the remarkable ingenuity which he has shown throughout, attempted to prepare an alibi by feigning to leave London by the first train to Liverpool, returned home, got in with his latch-key through the street door, which he had left on the latch, unlocked his victim's bedroom with a key which he possessed, cut the sleeping man's throat, pocketed his razor, locked the door again, and gave it the appearance of being bolted, went downstairs, unslipped ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... me to be of a morose temper, and were very short with me; though they never stinted me in such broken fare as was to be got out of regular hours. One night when I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had heard the clink of the latch, ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... rabid individualist, to whom the community is the "herd," and common notions of right and wrong are absurdities to be visited with scorn and denunciation. He makes a strong appeal to young men, even after the years during which the carrying of one's own latch-key is a source of elation. He appeals also to those perennially young persons who never attain to the stature which befits those who are to take a responsible share in the organized ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... dreaming. Horses, finding themselves in want of a shoe, have of their own accord gone to a farrier's shop where they were shod before. Cats, closed up in rooms, will endeavour to obtain their liberation by pulling a latch or ringing a bell. It has several times been observed that in a field of cattle, when one or two were mischievous, and persisted long in annoying or tyrannizing over the rest, the herd, to all appearance, consulted, and then, making a united effort, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... believe that doctor," she murmured, as she mounted the long flight of stairs which led to the fifth floor. "Aint I always 'ad good luck all the days o' a long life?" She reached her own landing at last, panting a little for breath as she did so. She opened her hall door with a latch-key and entered the kitchen. The kitchen was absolutely neat, the stove shone like a looking-glass, the dinner was cooking in the oven, and the table round which the entire family were soon to dine already wore its coarse ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... a shuffling in the kitchen and the sound of feet going toward the door. The latch lifted with a rasp. He could hear the hoarse, deep tones of a few boys, and the high-pitched sing-song intonations of girls. He knew they were going for a few miles' walk along the roads. He went over and raised the blind on the window. Overhead the moon ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... had not heard the peerless Lind, But for your spirit enterprising, You were the man to raise the wind, And make a coup confessed surprising. You're reckoned in your native town A friend in need, a friend in danger, You ever keep the latch-string down, And greet with open hand ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... What boyish uncontrol To be so racked. Then felt his ticking watch. In half an hour Grootver would know the whole. And he would be returned, lifting the latch Of his own gate, eager to take Christine And crush her to his lips. How bear delay? He broke into a run. In front, a line Of candle-light banded the cobbled street. Hilverdink's tavern! Not for many a day Had he been there to take his old, ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... massive, the upper one a shutter which served as a window. In many of the smaller towns of France the shops have the same type of door though far more decorated, the lower half possessing a call-bell. The door in question opened with a wooden latch worthy of the golden age, and the upper part was never closed except at night, for it was the only opening through which daylight could enter the room. There was, to be sure, a clumsy window, but the glass was thick like the bottom of a bottle, and the lead which held the panes ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... Swift—bolt and spring-latch, both. I remember because the fact made me think there might be somebody else in the house. As soon as Burke left I went over the whole place, methodically and painstakingly, and I can now swear, if anybody was secreted in here ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... as though the fairies must have been aware of your great desire to have them, and so took matters into their own hands," replied Mrs. Rockwood, as she unfastened the front door with her latch-key and held it ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... his coat. "Well," he said, on his way to the door, "I'll be round Saturday, whether or no. And Milly," he added significantly, his hand on the latch, "you've got ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... green. I stopped and sighed. Yes, yes, Wordsworth lived here for thirty-three years, and here he died; the spot whereon I then stood had been pressed many times by his feet. I walked slowly, with uncovered head, and approached the gate. It was locked. I fumbled at the latch; and just as there came a prospect of its opening, a loud, deep, guttural voice dashed over ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... was not so strict about her own manners. She would often surprise us by walking into our rooms without stopping to rap, or even to say mew; for she could open any door in the house by raising the latch with her paw. ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... his kiak, he hurried toward the cabin. His hand was on the latch, when he chanced to glance up at the white emblem of distress ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... develop "Young America" in the great metropolis. He is generally ready to go out into the world at a very tender age. Our system of society offers him every facility in his downward career. When but a child he has his own latch-key; he can come and go when he pleases; he attends parties, balls, dancing-school, the theatre and other evening amusements as regularly and independently as his elders, and is rarely called upon by "the Governor," as he patronizingly terms his father, to give any ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... but once a year Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat Clap, clap handies Cock-a-doodle-do! "Cock, cock, cock, cock" Cocks crow in the morn Cold and raw the north wind doth blow Come when you're called Cross patch, draw the latch Cry, baby, cry Curly-locks, Curly-locks, wilt thou be mine? Cushy cow, bonny, let ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... oft, beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... proudly answered the young rascal. "Mr. Clayton trusts me in all things, and often gives me his latch-key and the room keys when he wants anything from the apartment. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... designated them), and when he got to her house he discovered she had forgotten to leave the door open for him; but being pretty well acquainted with that accomplishment of the "force," area scaling, and being supplied with his own latch-key, he did not think much of her neglect. But, strange to say, and considerably to the astonishment of Dick, the head of the family had a strong objection to that individual's visiting his ladye love; and absolutely mistaking him for a common burglar, seized him, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... the manufacture of her staple, no doubt in anticipation of a greater demand for it in these stirring days, when much extra money would be passing around in the town, and many pennies thereof would dribble into the pockets of the youngsters. I lifted the latch and stepped in. She squeaked with affright till she saw who it was, and then turned her note into ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... wren con tempt' skir'mish de'vi ous quick com mand' ster'ling re'al ize solve com mence' sur'feit re'qui em wrong com mend' ur'gent co'gen cy quince com pact' fur'lough no'ti fy shrimp com plaint' jas'mine po'ten cy cause es tray' lack'ey o'ri ole gauze ap proach' latch'et o'ri ent quoin cor rode' mat'in jo'vi al squaw cur tail' scat'ter vo'ta ry cross re pute' sav'age ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... avoid me, I passed the mill without looking in at the door, as I was in the habit of doing, and went on to the cottage, where I lifted the latch, and walked in. Both the old people were there, and both looked troubled, though they welcomed ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... far off and muffled, but the store was silent as a tomb. Twelve minutes ticked away. A footstep sounded. Wentworth could trace it descending the stairs, and walking the length of an aisle. Followed the sound of the opening door, and the click of the latch. Some belated department head, he thought. Possibly Hedin, himself—and he ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... steady beat of the rain they heard a noise which was half scratch, half thud. Under Rupert's hand the latch of the ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... concluding with family worship, which lasted three-quarters of an hour. The young fellow dreaded the Sabbath and rebelled against his gloomy, comfortable, middle-class home, where he had no individuality, no rights—and no latch-key! At last he broke loose—the flesh and blood of twenty-two years old revolted. At twelve o'clock one night he found himself locked out and, as the first bold peal of the bell elicited no reply, he never again applied for admittance, but with four pounds ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... to Dr. Dunton's house. He opened the heavy door with a latch-key, but before I could enter it was necessary for him to go ahead and light up. He was profuse in his apologies for the disorder of everything as he led me into the room behind the parlor, but beyond a thick coating of dust the dark mahogany furniture showed ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... glow of the smouldering twigs, I sometimes think I hear the tapping I have learnt to listen for, and I start from my seat, and softly open the door and look out. But only the Night stands there. Then I close-to the latch, and she—the living woman—asks me in her purring voice what sound I heard, hiding a smile as she stoops low over her work, and I answer lightly, and, moving towards her, put my arm about her, feeling ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... hast thy calling to some palace-floor, Most gracious singer of high poems, where The dancers will break footing, from the care Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. And dost thou lift this house's latch, too poor For hand of thine? and canst thou think, and bear To let thy music drop here unaware In folds of golden fulness at my door? Look up, and see the casement broken in, The bats and owlets builders in the roof! My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. Hush, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Manderson's room was the first on the right hand when the bedroom floor was reached, and he went to it at once. He tried the latch and the lock, which worked normally, and examined the wards of the key. Then ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... Entremetido (intruder, busybody), Entremetidos Gentilhombre (man of gentle birth), Gentileshombres Guardafuego (fire-guard), Guardafuegos Hijodalgo (squire), Hijosdalgo Pasamano (handrail, lace-edgings), Pasamanos Pasatiempo (pastime), Pasatiempos Picaparte (latch or latchkey), Picapartes Pisaverde (beau), Pisaverdes Portaestandarte (standard bearer), Portaestandartes Portafusil (musket-sling), Portafusiles Puercoespin (porcupine), Puercosespines Quienquiera (whoever), Quienesquiera Quitasol (parasol), Quitasoles Ricahembra ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... still, in his hand. It was too late for the maids, he knew—they had already gone to bed before Trent left—and he knew also that the person who entered at this hour must have opened the outer door by means of a latch-key. The soft, slow movement outside sent a nervous shiver through him; he was aware the next instant that he gripped the pencil more closely in his hand; and then, rising to his feet with a breathless impulse to be face to face at once with the inevitable moment, he made a single step ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... left you, mine eye is in my mind; And that which governs me to go about Doth part his function and is partly blind, Seems seeing, but effectually is out; For it no form delivers to the heart Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch: Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch; For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature, The mountain or the sea, the day or night: The crow, or dove, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... the advent of Owen Ford with a pleasant sense of expectation. If he were young and likeable he might prove a very pleasant addition to society in Four Winds. The latch-string of the little house was always out ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... occupied by the officers, she failed to note the quick closing of one of the doors before her. She passed the full length of the main room, and then retracing her steps stopped before each door to listen, furtively trying each latch. ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... entertainment that involved the breakdown, infinitely the best of all, but simultaneously, at its wildest moment, they all turned their heads to the door. Mac noticed the movement, listened, and then got up, lifted the latch, and cautiously looked out. The Boy caught a glimpse of the sky over ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... ducked under the side of the car opposite to the curb. He heard the car-door slam and feet run across the pavement. Cautiously peering around the back he saw Charley, fully revealed in the light of a street lamp, run up the steps of a house and let himself in with a latch-key. Just before disappearing he glanced up and down the street; no other car was in sight. Evan said to himself: "He is stopping here. That is ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... curling from the one chimney of Dutton's little house. Dr. Meeks rapped smartly on the door without bringing a response. After waiting a moment he knocked again, somewhat more heavily, but with like ill success. Then he tried the latch. The door ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and muffled tapping had brought the tremulous fingers of old Forsyth to the door-latch. He opened the door partly; a slight figure that had been lurking in the shadow of the porch pushed rapidly through the opening. There was a faint outcry quickly hushed, and the door closed again. The rays of a single candle showed the two old people hysterically ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... saw that she placed her hand on the latch of the door, when he felt at that gesture that he was to lose her, that he should never have her again, he shouted. He forgot everything. There remained in him only the dazed feeling of a great misfortune accomplished, of an irreparable ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... seized him: If they found him here alone—with all this money and all these dead men—what would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... gate, walked up the path, and hesitatingly raised the latch of the house door. What a sight met his eyes! it was a perfect picture. If the three sisters, Cleanliness, Neatness, and Order, had been looking out for a home, they certainly might have found one there. In some of the neighbours' houses, go when you would, you would find the inmates always ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... the car door closed with a spring latch that could only be opened from the outside. He knew that no one could board the train, now that it was in motion, to open the door. Above all he knew that if the young tramp were shut in there with him he would not suffer long from hunger and thirst before raising his voice and ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... lead somewhere!" cried Walter excitedly; and, lifting the roughly constructed wooden latch, he pushed the door ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... of the latch there entered a person with his hat awry upon his head, his clothes perversely ill-suited to his form, his eyes staring in directions opposite to their intelligence, and a certain odd unsuitableness pervading ...
— The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... since they had managed to re-latch their collars. But with a cold fury that had learned to take no chances with defeat, Nelsen proceeded to kick them again, first one and then the other, ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... was heard from the roof, the muffled noise which accompanied it ceased. The stranger groping about in the snowy gloom had stepped off the roof into the huge drift outside the Heavenly Bower, and a minute later, lifted the latch of the door and pushed in among the astonished miners. They saw the figure of a sturdy man holding something in his arms, so wrapped round with blankets and coverings that no one could tell its nature. He stamped the snow from his boots, ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... step outside. I arose in time to see the doctor on the brae. He tried the latch, but Leeby was there to show him in. The door of the ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... wooden latch into place, the woman realized with horror how frail the door was. Momentarily she expected to see it smashed in by a stroke of the monster's paw. She did not know a bear's caution, his cunning suspicion of traps, his dread of the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... third-floor stairway. I glanced back, and saw that it was Mr. Langenau who was behind me. I pushed open my door and went half-way in the room; then with a vehement and sudden impulse came back into the hall and pulled it shut again and stood with my hand upon the latch, and waited for him to pass. In an instant more he was near me, but not as if he saw me; he could not reach the stairway without passing so near me that he must touch my dress. I waited till he was so near, and said, ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... me whenever you tell that story—which I hope will be very often—just to mention that girl who left a New Jersey town some years ago? Say that mother is waiting for her daughter with arms open. Say the latch-string is out and there's a welcome. Perhaps—who can tell?—you may be the means of sending that daughter ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... the cabin quietly, wondering why Pelliter did not see him or hear the three or four sharp yelps the dogs had given. He twisted off his snow-shoes, chuckling as he thought of the surprise he would give his mate. His hand was on the door latch when he stopped. The smile left his lips. Startled wonderment filled his face as he bent close to the door and listened, and for a moment his heart throbbed with a terrible fear. He had returned too late— perhaps a day— two days. Pelliter had gone mad! He could hear ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... moment, then sank to her knees. Slowly she crept to the threshold, placed the jewel case so that it would fall inward when the door was opened, and started back. Instinct bade her hurry, but reason made her cautious. She forced herself to walk slowly and to muffle the latch of the gate with her skirts as she had done when she ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... the room that the man was on the point of drowning. Then he opened the door to the sitting-room, but before long that room was filled too, and the man had all he could do to get hold of the door-latch down in this flood of gruel. When he got the door open he did not remain long in the room. He ran out as fast as he could, and there was a perfect flood of fish gruel behind, deluging the yard and ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... which Mitchington knocked gently, and it was on their grave and watchful faces that a tall, clean-shaven, very solemn-looking man gazed in astonishment as he opened the door, and started back. He went white to the lips and his hand fell trembling from the latch as Mitchington strode in ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... painted, and in the front the window was hung with a curtain, now closely drawn, of some dark red material. The lock from the door had been removed altogether, and in its place was the aperture for a Yale latch-key. The last note of modernity was supplied by the telephone wire attached to the roof of the lifeboat shelter. He walked all round the building, seeking in vain for some other means of ingress. Then he stood for a few moments in front of the curtained window. He was ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dinners gave the solid citizens an excuse for leaving home six nights a year, and in a community where meetings of whist clubs and church boards constituted the only justification for carrying a latch-key this new freedom established him at once as a friend of mankind. Fosdick was wholly presentable, and while his contributions to the industrial glory of Montgomery lacked elements of permanence, he had, so the "Evening Star" solemnly averred, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... to the door, and with one hand on Dick's collar she gently raised the latch with the other. Bill had evidently found the sack, for the thieves were together again; she heard them whispering. One even seemed to be already fumbling with the latch ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... "ell," and looked in at the sitting-room window, for a light was burning there. There sat Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, and Joe Harper's mother, grouped together, talking. They were by the bed, and the bed was between them and the door. Tom went to the door and began to softly lift the latch; then he pressed gently and the door yielded a crack; he continued pushing cautiously, and quaking every time it creaked, till he judged he might squeeze through on his knees; so he put his head through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... me, in journey dark O'er moor and mountain, midnight theft to hatch; To charm the surly house-dog's faithful bark, Or hang on tiptoe at the lifted latch; The gloomy lantern, and the dim blue match, The black disguise, the warning whistle shrill, And ear still busy on its nightly watch, Were not for me, brought up in nothing ill; Besides, on griefs so fresh my thoughts ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... reached the door of the "keeping-room" as the widow concluded her last remark; but pausing, with his thumb upon the latch, he turned, and, looking over his shoulder, whispered, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... passed under the east oriel window of the old mansion, where all the old saints and histories and such-like are painted. It was not the common path I took, but one through the Park; for the postern door was upon the latch, and I thought I might take the privilege of an old comrade to ride across through the trees, both for shading, as the day was somewhat hot, and for avoiding of dust, because I had on my peach-coloured doublet, pinked out ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, and devoured her. Then he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap laid himself in ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... yards, when I found myself opposite a rickety little hovel, having a light burning in its window. I was directed to look for such a light in the house to which I was bound; and as this appeared to be the only place in the street so distinguished, I walked boldly up to the door, raised the wooden latch, and entered. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... manner attracted Cicely's attention, and gave a hint of tragedy. She paused at the door, fumbling with its latch, which was not her way, then turned and stood upright against it, like a picture ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... not of actual talent, the caprice of the public has certainly given me such a temporary superiority over men, of whom, in regard to poetical fancy and feeling, I scarcely thought myself worthy to loose the shoe-latch. On the other hand, it would be absurd affectation in me to deny, that I conceived myself to understand more perfectly than many of my contemporaries, the manner most likely to interest the great mass of mankind. Yet, even with this belief, I must truly and fairly say, that I always considered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... berth in the darkness, listening intently as the train rushed out of Paris across the plains of France. Once or twice, as the hours passed, he heard a stealthy footstep in the corridor outside, and once the faintest possible little click told that the latch of his door had been lifted to make sure that the bolt was still shot home in its socket. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... Furneaux waved a hand and tiptoed into the hall. Waiting until he heard the door of No. 18 slam he opened the latch of No. 17 so cautiously that no sound was forthcoming. Soon he had an ear to Theydon's letter box and was ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... easily be seen that the box was arranged with a door on a tripping-latch, so that the pigeon, on entering, would imprison itself. It was apparent that Mr. Jefferson was depending upon the natural homing instinct of his carrier pigeons to bring ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... her basket, when a shadow fell across the floor. Truedale and the girl turned and confronted—Jim White! What he had seen and heard—who could tell from his expressionless face and steady voice? The door had been on the latch and he ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... to confess that finding in one of the Farringford lanes a lovely little green gate opening into one of the "groves of pine," I did just try the latch. The door opened, and it looked all so still and shaded, whispery and ferny, so exactly as if Tennyson might any minute come pacing down between the tall trees, as if the "Talking Oak" was sure to stand just round a sun-lighted corner of the wood, that, incited thereto ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... approach the presence of majesty thus,—shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.—Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.—Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.—Very weel enacted—whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,—and motion to you to rise;—whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... has stood looking on. With his hand on the door-latch, he now calls loudly and tauntingly.] Give him something to eat, an' he'll soon ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... he turned and ran back into the monastery. He brushed aside the hateful gray uniforms. He ran panting up the stone steps. In the dark hall above he stopped at a cell door, and pounded, and tugged frantically at its latch. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... this here, and alone, of all places! He staggered from weakness, almost terror, and grasped the table to hold himself erect. The rising wind came swirling in through the open door, causing the fire to send forth spirals of smoke, and he turned, dragging the dazed negro within, and snapping the latch behind him. When he glanced around again he fully believed the vision confronting him would have vanished. But no! there she yet remained, those wide-open, frightened brown eyes, with long lashes half hiding ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... and fumbled for the latch; but ere he found it, it was flung open, and a strange and tragic figure ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... paused, with his hand on the door latch. The habit of his profession was strong in him—stronger than his sense of personal dignity. He ...
— The Damned Thing - 1898, From "In the Midst of Life" • Ambrose Bierce
... my little farm, I'm king 'ithin my little pleaece; I don't break laws, an' don't do harm, An' bent a-feaer'd o' noo man's feaece. When I'm a-cover'd wi' my thatch, Noo man do deaere to lift my latch; Where honest han's do shut the hatch, There fear do leaeve ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... the road they came to some rude stone steps and a wicket. The old gentleman lifted the wooden latch and found the gate unlocked. Followed by Mary Louise, he entered the vineyard and discovered a narrow, well-beaten path leading ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... but in a three-roomed cottage at the other end of the garden. Those are the only people that you would find within the grounds of Yoxley Old Place. At the same time, the gate of the garden is a hundred yards from the main London to Chatham road. It opens with a latch, and there is nothing to prevent anyone from ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the door, then tried the latch. The door was locked: but even as the young man hesitated for a moment wondering what he would do next, a firm step resounded on the floor on the other side of the partition and the next moment the door was opened from within, and a peremptory ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Tuesday night he was, at least, alive; and if he came or sent for the cigarettes Wednesday night, he was still alive. I shall call at the embassy this afternoon. No, it isn't advisable to go with you now. Give me your latch-key, please." ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... away; and as the darkness of the evening was changing into night, I ran as fast as I was able to the next place of shelter. By the pump, the horse-trough, and the dirty pool I knew that there was entertainment there for man and horse. I therefore raised the wooden latch, and in a modest tone made my request for a bed. A vixenish landlady from the midst of a group of screaming children cried to me, "You can't have a bed, you can have straw." That would do quite as ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... to her own room, but not to bed. For two hours, she could be heard moving stealthily to and fro, opening a closet door, closing a bureau drawer. Once the floor creaked softly, and a door latch clicked. Then silence fell again, and no one was the wiser for ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... world lay in coloured waves before them, wild, rugged, and grand, with sheltering spots of beauty between, and the shine of lowly waters. They tapped at the door of the hut, but there was no response; they lifted the latch—it had no lock—and found neither within. Alister and Mercy wandered a little higher, to the shadow of a great stone; Christina went inside the hut and looked from its door upon the world; Ian leaned against the side of it, and looked up to the sky. Suddenly ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I hadn't seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much style. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in town. There warn't no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed; but heaps of parlors in towns ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... panels, and rattled the latch angrily and Catherine asked why I was still shut up? He answered, I must try to endure it another hour, and they went away. I endured it two or three hours; at length, I heard ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... decomposed into amino acids and these amino acids pass into the blood where the body recombines them into structures it wants to make. And we have health. But when protein chains are heated, the protein structures are altered into physical shapes that the enzymes can't "latch" on to. The perfect example of this is when an egg is fried. The eggwhite is albumen, a kind of protein. When it is heated, it shrivels up and gets hard. While raw and liquid, it is easily digestable. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... satisfied the master of the house for what little he had called for, he went out, and proceeded directly to the cell of Fatima. He had no difficulty to open the door, which was only fastened with a latch, and he shut it again after he had entered, without any noise. When he entered the cell, he perceived Fatima by moonlight lying in the air on a sofa covered only by an old mat, with her head leaning against the wall. He awakened her, and clapped ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... Shrubs, however, which had grown in disorder under the walls, threw dark and steady shadows across the patches of lesser vegetation. The tops of early blossoms and nodding grasses showed beyond these spaces of blackness. Suddenly, as I looked down, I heard a click like that of a gate-latch, and a second later I saw, projecting from one of the fantastic patterns of shade, a round disk ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... settled the matter for her. The front door was opened by some one who had a latch-key, and a voice that thrilled every fiber of her being addressed some question to a servant passing through ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... with the seduction of a young girl; and each is mainly concerned with her subsequent adventures. From the beginning the advantage of probability is with the younger novelist. Mr. Moore's "William Latch" is a thoroughly natural figure, and remains a natural figure to the end of the book: an uneducated man and full of failings, but a man always, and therefore to be forgiven by the reader only a little less readily than Esther herself forgives him. Mr. Hardy's "Alec D'Urberville" ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... went there with Jonas, to carry a chair to be mended, or to get a lock or latch put in order; and sometimes to buy a basket, or a rake, or some simple thing that the corporal knew how to make. A corporal, you must know, is a kind of an officer in a company. This man had been such an officer; and so they always called ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott
... but Shock would if he was up in the loft, and in the hope that he was sleeping there I ran to the foot of the steps, scrambled up, and pushing back the door, which was only secured with a big wooden latch, I crept in as cautiously as ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... Rose had ceased to repeat her Psalms aloud, but was still at her needlework; another doze, another waking. There was some hope of Rose now, for she was kneeling down to say her prayers. Lucy thought they lasted very long, and at her next waking she was just in time to hear the latch of the door closing, and find herself left in darkness. Rose was not in bed, did not answer when she called. Oh, she must be gone to take Walter's coat back to his room. But surely she might have done that in one moment; and how long she was staying! ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Colonel McIntyre accompanies them or calls for them, and he has his latch-key. Lately," added Grimes as an after-thought, "Miss Helen has been using ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the room. Dr Pughson blinked up from the stacks of papers, rose, and the two spoke in low tones. Then, with a glance at Laura, they went together to the door, which Dr Pughson held to behind him, and stood just over the threshold. As they warmed to their talk, the master let the door slip into the latch. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... mysteriously as he had come, he turned and left her. She watched the latch. She saw the lock creep silently once more into its place. She heard no movement outside, but ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hand was on the latch of the gate he was perceived from within, and the front door flew open and all the family rushed out to receive him—Reuben and Hannah, and the two children and Sally and the dog—the latter was as noisy ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the gentle knocking was heard running on. It had never ceased; it was insistent! Crossing himself desperately, Stefano slid back the bolts, then paused, then turned the key, then paused again to breathe hard, his hand upon the latch. He threw his head forward with a gesture of abandonment to what must be, flung wide the door, and dropped ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... trying in vain to listen to the Parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the mother—heard a timid knock at the door and a nervous fumble at the latch. She started up, opened the door, and Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried his face, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... given her a latch-key, and as she stepped in at the front door, Nan, in a pretty house dress, stood ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... idea of the real nature of my debauches: after I had left the house in the afternoon I never returned till dawn the next day, and I reached my room (which was at some distance from the others) by climbing over the gate, for my mother had refused to give me a latch-key. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Nevill paused, latch-key in hand; a cautious impulse checked the admission of his identity. The individual who had accosted him, seen by the glow of a distant street-lamp, was thickset and rakish-looking, with a heavy mustache. He repeated ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... twist, make fast &c adj.; tie, pinion, string, strap, sew, lace, tat, stitch, tack, knit, button, buckle, hitch, lash, truss, bandage, braid, splice, swathe, gird, tether, moor, picket, harness, chain; fetter &c (restrain) 751; lock, latch, belay, brace, hook, grapple, leash, couple, accouple^, link, yoke, bracket; marry &c (wed) 903; bridge over, span. braze; pin, nail, bolt, hasp, clasp, clamp, crimp, screw, rivet; impact, solder, set; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in progress before the first grey, uncertain light of the autumnal morning began to diffuse itself through the latticed milk-house windows. All at once, during a pause in the labour, she fancied she heard a curious, hesitating fumbling with the latch ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... stealthy. I believe (in the old phrase) my beard was sometimes on my shoulder as I went. Muller's was but partly lighted, and quite silent, and the gate was fastened. I could by no means manage to undo the latch. No wonder, since I found it afterwards to be four or five feet long—a fortification in itself. As I still fumbled, a dog came on the inside and sniffed suspiciously at my hands, so that I was reduced to calling 'House ahoy!' Mr. Muller came down and put his chin across the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she needs must stand, And to herself she said, "Lo, here the trap! And yet, alas! whatever now may hap, How can I 'scape the ill which waiteth me? Let me die now!" and herewith, tremblingly, She raised the latch, and her sweet sinless eyes Beheld a garden like a paradise, Void of mankind, fairer than words can say, Wherein did joyous harmless creatures play After their kind, and all amidst the trees Were strange-wrought founts and wondrous images; And glimmering 'twixt the boughs could she behold A ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... echoes of the heavy house-door, closing on its latch, reverberated dismally through the building, Kate felt half tempted to call him back, and beg him to remain a little while; but she was ashamed to own her fears, and Newman Noggs was on his ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... matchboarding, and not a concealed door. The entrance to the stairway, therefore, must issue from the clothes closet. The right hand wall proved similar to the matchboarding of the lavatory as far as the casual eye or touch was concerned, but I saw at once it was a door. The latch turned out to be somewhat ingeniously operated by one of the hooks which held a pair of old trousers. I found that the hook, if pressed upward, allowed the door to swing outward, over the stairhead. Descending to the second floor, a similar latch let me in to a similar ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... hole they had made by wrenching the latch from the door: I wish'd him well you may imagine; but Gito had compassion and wou'd have succour'd the distrest Eumolpus; upon which, my rage continuing, I gave his pitying head two or three blows with my fist; he sate down on the bed ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... fears about to-morrow she had forgotten Rebecca—jealousy—everything except that her husband was gone and was in danger. Until this dauntless worldling came in and broke the spell, and lifted the latch, we too have forborne to enter into that sad chamber. How long had that poor girl been on her knees! what hours of speechless prayer and bitter prostration had she passed there! The war-chroniclers who write brilliant stories of fight ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was looking from the window, and saw the village fly drive up and her father get out of it. She announced the fact to her mother, and then ran down to the garden gate to meet him. As their hands encountered at the gate, Dolly almost fell back; took her hand from the latch, and only put it forth again when she saw that her father could not readily get the gate open. He was looking ill; his gait was tottering, his eye wavering, and when he spoke his utterance was confused. Dolly felt as if a lump of ice had suddenly come where her heart ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... funny mug, all blue with strange device Of birds and waters and a little man. And Philip held a bottle; and a smell Of strong tobacco, with a fainter smell— But still a smell, and quite distinct—of gin Was there. He raised the latch, and stealing by The cupboard, where a row of teacups stood, Hard by the genial hearth, he paused behind The luckless pair, then drawing back his foot— His manly foot, all clad in sailors' hose— He swung it forth ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... ebony stick and sent it smashing through the glass. In a second his hand was inside unlocking the latch of the window; a few seconds later he was in the room itself. He passed swiftly from room to room, but there was no sign of Lady Constance. On the floor of the study was a piece of lace collar, evidently wrenched ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... eleven sharp, and you're just seven minutes and a quarter behind. I was just off, for if I gave all my clients seven minutes and a quarter grace, I should lose about four hours a day, Sir. (Laughs jovially.) But no matter! Just step this way. (Produces latch-key.) But no, on second thoughts I won't go back. Unlucky, you know! We'll step across to the Wine Shades yonder, and talk our business over together with a glass of sound port, my boy. Best glass of port in London, BUMPUS sells, and as an old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... You see I tried my latch key first, and finding the house dark, I sought to avoid disturbing the sleepers. I went to the back door and the side door. Finally I knocked. Since neither of you was asleep it's ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
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