Cellar

“ There was a large fireplace in the center of the cellar, around which fifty or sixty persons sat, of all ages and of both sexes. The floor was of damp clay, smooth and trodden by the feet of countless thieves, vagabonds, and prostitutes. The corners of the cellar were buried in darkness, while the center of the cavern, near the fireplace, was bright with the flames of a fire of logs, which threw a flickering light on the wooden beams, the broken chairs and stools, the pewter pots in the hands of the lodgers, and on many faces stained with dirt and ploughed up with crime and misery. ”

“ When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly immune to suspicion, for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary mountain cabin. ”

“ Probably, because the cellar is so very dark, God wants to station a candle there, and has placed you there because you can accomplish a work for Him, and for others, of priceless importance. Where is the light needed so much as on a dark landing or a sunken reef? Go on shining, and you will find some day that God will make that cellar a pedestal out of which your light shall stream over the world; for it was out of his prison cell that John illuminated the age in which his lot was cast, quite as much as from his rock-pulpit beside the Jordan. ”

“ Down into the cellar. . . Back to the brothel. . . We don't need any daughter now . . . don't need her. . . She's become what her mother was. . . God won't have it. . . Back to the cellar. . . Down into the brothel!
Sarah
So you want to go back to the cellar? — Into the cellar, then! Much I care! (Resumes her packing.) He wants to ruin us completely. What has come over the man? (For a moment she is absorbed in reflection.) If you're going to stand there like a lunatic, I'll get busy myself! (Takes off her diamond ear-rings.) I'll go over to Shloyme's and give him my diamond ear-rings. ”

“ You creep part way down the cellar stairs with only the light of a single tallow candle, and behold by its dim glimmer an expanse of dark water, boundless as the sea. On its surface, in dire confusion, float barrels and boxes, butter firkins and washtubs, boards, planks, hoops, and staves without number, interspersed with apples, turnips, and cabbages, while half-drowned rats and mice, scrambling up the stairway for dear life, drive you affrighted back to the kitchen....Now consider the case of one of these old farmhouse cellars that has been in use fifty years or more. ”

“ Then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. I had stationed Miss Hisgins in the center of the place, with her father and Parsket holding the background as before. When all was ready and just as I pressed the trigger of the 'flash,' there came in the cellar that dreadful, gobbling neighing that I had heard out in the Park. ”

“ But soon we entered upon a broad expanse of cellar, in which a candle burned, and which was partly furnished. Farther, a smaller cellar was piled with boxes, and still farther, I was ushered into a dismal, badly-lighted apartment, in the corner of which a man lay stretched upon a bed. ”

“ We are in a cellar about ten feet square, and this is separated from others like it by a partition. We are really in one room of a big cellar stretching under a crowded tenement house over our heads. We look around us; and as soon as our eyes get accustomed to the darkness—for the only light is from the narrow width of glass, reaching from the ground up to the floor which forms the ceiling of the room where we stand—we see that this is the den—for you cannot call it anything else—of an old man and his wife. ”

“ To find each other friends go from cellar to cellar. There are vaults and arched passages, crypts under churches and lordly habitations, deep, damp, mouldy, and smelling of rotten air, sheltering families. ”

“ Presently she returned, flying. "I know! Let's have it in the cellar! In the cellar! Oh, it'll be lovely!"
The outer door of the cellar was open, and they proceeded down some steps with their treasure. There was plenty of light; the cellar was high-walled, warm, and dry. They named it an ideal place. Two huge cylindrical furnaces were humming away, one at either end. Overhead the beams detonated with the different emotions which agitated the tea party. ”

“ He was just going out again when he saw the glimmer of a candle in the Castle cellar. He stopped. Through the little barred windows he could plainly see a man come into the cellar with a candle in one hand and a chair upholstered in red silk in the other. It was the Master. He was shaved and dressed as though for a great occasion. Perhaps I might knock at the window and give him the Lady's message, thought the Miller, but stood still. ”

“ The smells of cellars are a rare treat to dogs, especially ancient Brooklyn cellars which have a cachet all their own. The cellar of the Haunted Bookshop was, to Bock, a fascinating place, illuminated by a warm glow from the furnace, and piled high with split packing-cases which Roger used as kindling. ”

“ She did not know that I had a key.
The next day I pleaded indisposition and spent most of the hours idling and drowsing in my chamber. Not till nearly midnight did I venture down. The servants were certainly asleep that time. A dose of chloral in their wine had attended to the certainty of their slumbers. Fully dressed, with an automatic in my pocket, I reached the cellar and opened the door. It swung noiselessly on its well-greased hinges. The darkness on the other side was the blackness of hell. ”

“ It must then be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel to some other building. ”

“ English didn't like to go back to Mrs. McCarty, so we used to sleep at Mrs. Sullivan's cellar in 'Cut Throat Alley.' And Mrs. Sullivan's cellar was only about twelve feet by twenty, and high enough to stand up in, and wet enough for anything, and so overrun with rats and vermin that we couldn't sleep. There were nine rag-beds in the cellar, which as many as twenty-three would sometimes sleep on, or, if they were not too tipsy, try to sleep on. And folks used to come into the cellar at night, and be found dead in the morning. ”

“ The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me, But left an open door to cool the room off So as to sort of turn me out of it. I was just coming to myself enough To wonder where the cold was coming from, When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar. The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on When there was water in the cellar in spring Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then some one Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step, The way a man with one leg and a crutch, Or little child, comes up. ”

“ A cellar, dark and noisome, under a city street: an old woman in a long blue cloak and a white cap, crouching over a spark of fire: a half-naked child playing on the naked floor: in a corner a man sprawling half-drunk, smoking a clay pipe. ”

“ In the centre of the cellar there lies an iron plate. Whosoever ventures to lift it may look into a black and narrow shaft with slippery sides. Cold and sheer it runs down into the heart of the earth. ”

“ Every cellared house—and nearly every house had its cellar—blazed the information abroad. "Cave voutée" (vaulted cellar) , 20 personnes, 50 personnes, 200 personnes, even 500 personnes, indicated shelter in an emergency. In a raid every man's cellar is his neighbour's. Once we harboured some refugees, and that night at dinner the shy member (perhaps I ought to say that the adjective was entirely self-bestowed) , gurgled suddenly. ”

“ I don't mean a cellar with a smooth floor, and coal-bins, and a big furnace, and shelves with jars of nice jam on them and glasses of jelly; I've been in that kind of a cellar too—I like quince jelly the best; it's first rate spread on bread and butter—but I'm talking of another kind of a cellar, one with the house all taken away, and only a big brick chimney left in the centre, with the top knocked off of that, and bricks and pieces of stone and chunks of mortar scattered all round; with berry bushes growing in one corner, and wild vines growing all around the edges. ”

“ For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection caused by a false chimney or fireplace, that had been filled up and made to resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious. ”

“ The air in a good-sized cellar will last a considerable time, and I could easily poke out anything that my friend might stuff into the keyhole. Then, when the men arrived in the morning, I could kick on the cellar door, and they would come and let me out. ”

“ I remained silent, pretending I had seen nothing, and, closing the door, made a movement back up the cellar stairs. There I waited for about five minutes. The ruse worked. The door of the chamber opened, and a man, dressed in a dark cloak and a mask, partly emerged, and, I thought, started for the other stairs at the west end of the cellar. ”

“ Our house is in a turmoil from morning till night with women charging in like a mob, or stealing out like conspirators. Their badges, their sandwich boards, their banners lie about in our hall, so much in everybody's way that I sympathized with the infuriated tenant whom I caught one night kicking the whole collection into the cellar. ”

“ At length they reached the gully, and, crossing it, they ascended the steep slope on the other side. This brought them to the old French orchard, and to the very cellar which had been the scene of their memorable midnight operations. Looking down into the cellar, they could see the traces of their work very plainly. They had filled in the hole as well as they could, but the ground bore visible marks of having been turned up.
“If any of the fellows have been up here,” said Bart, “they must have noticed this.” ”

“ The ladies gradually became accustomed to the noise of the fire over their heads, and as two of them were naturally of a very lively turn of mind, the cellar presented occasionally a scene of hilarity, fun, and good humour, which strongly contrasted with the more frequent one of alarm, fear, and despondency. It must not be supposed that the ladies were confined prisoners during the whole time in the cellar; curiosity prevailed, even at the risk of life, and there was many a creep up stairs to gain a peep at the scene without. ”

“ A heavy plunge and a groan announced the man's descent into the cellar.
"Help!—help!" cried Johnny Darbyshire, rushing wildly into the room above. "The man, like a madman, has walked over the landing into the cellar. If he isn't killed, it's a mercy. ”

“ The corollary was obvious.
"'Is that another room?' he asked, pointing to the cellar door.
"I threw it open and let him look into the dark cavity. 'That,' I said, 'is the cellar. It has a door opening into the back yard, which has a gate that opens into Bell's Alley. It might be useful. Don't you think so?'
"He did think so; very emphatically, to judge by his expression. Very useful indeed when you have knocked down an old man and rifled his safe, to have a quiet exit at the back. ”

“ After working on the night of the 25th, two men were left down in the cellar to cover up all traces of the work during the day, and as soon as it was dark to complete the work—to go into the large sewer, explore it, and have every thing ready by eight or nine o'clock, at which time the bricks would be removed from the hole leading into the cellar, which had to be placed carefully in their original position every night, from the beginning to the completion of the work. ”

“ There was another privy, not in the cellar, which was used by the inmates. The window of the cellar was generally opened about seven o'clock. Remembers an old woman coming to the house, at ten o'clock, on the 19th of August. She was a tall person; but witness did not see her face. She had on a dark stuff gown, a light blue shawl, and a black willow bonnet: her feet were through her stockings, and she wore shoes. Witness, on her first examination, described the shawl to be an old dark one; but upon recollection, knows that the colour was light blue. ”

“ At times, knowing that if we stopped another moment in these rooms we should scream, we would steal softly out and rush downstairs, and, shutting ourselves out of hearing in a cellar underneath the yard, laugh till we reeled against the dirty walls. ”

“ Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the earth. ”