When the porter of the hotel who from the simplicity of my dress inferred great meagreness of purse, first took me through the long dark passages, and the gloomy courts, and we scrambled up the delapidated staircase, over the landing where dusty furniture, old spinning-wheels, beds, earthen ware and provisions of maize lay in confused heaps, and the spiders, undisturbed for many years, spun their webs, I felt oppressed and my heart beat so that I had to rest at every third step.
"The Dead Lake and Other Tales"
Paul Heyse
They heard the deep booming bark of a watch-dog far up the valley, a sound like the clang of metal plates on earthen floors.
"Command"
William McFee
Some one had given them a white earthen wash-bowl long before.
"In Wild Rose Time"
Amanda M. Douglas