Lockers

[Johnyxxx]

Hello.

Can anybody tell me what the author means by the word "lockers"? A kind of ventilation or something like that?


I am short-sighted, as you know, and I may have been mistaken, but this is what I think I saw. From the altar a great tongue of flame seemed to shoot upwards and lick the roof, and from its pediment ran flaming streams. In front of it lay a body--Dubellay's--a naked body, already charred and black. There was nothing else, except that the Gorgon's head in the wall seemed to glow like a sun in hell.
I suppose I must have tried to enter. All I know is that I found myself staggering back, rather badly burned. I covered my eyes, and as I looked through my fingers I seemed to see the flames flowing under the wall, where there may have been lockers, or possibly another entrance. Then the great oak door suddenly shrivelled like gauze, and with a roar the fiery river poured into the house.

The Wind In The Portico, John Buchan, 1927


Thank you.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

No, it's not ventilation. Have you looked it up? What is confusing about the definition?

 

[Johnyxxx]

Yes, I have looked it up. I know what a locker is but in this case it makes no sense to me. The altar is situated outside, in a classical portico (which is part and parcel of the front of the building) and the flames ran streaming from the altar and flowing under the outer stone wall into the house. So my thought was "a locker" could be a kind of ventilation which allows the fire to get inside the building.

Thank you for helping me.

 

[GoesStation]

A locker is not a ventilation system. If the flames are "flowing under the wall" from the altar, they're presumably going inside.

 

[Skrej]

A 'locker' can also be a refrigerated or chilled room for storing perishable food. Perhaps back during the time the book was written, 'locker' was a synonym for what today we'd call a cold cellar or root cellar.

That would (at least to me), make a bit more sense than the notion of the narrator thinking there were storage cabinets under the walls.

 

[jutfrank]

Look at the page from the book displayed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs...5.10852185?needAccess=true&journalCode=raij20

 

[emsr2d2]

Look at the page from the book displayed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs...5.10852185?needAccess=true&journalCode=raij20

I'm going to make a concerted effort to use the word "aumbry" in the next few days. ;-)

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Look at the page from the book displayed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs...5.10852185?needAccess=true&journalCode=raij20

Wow. Well done!

 

[GoesStation]

Johnny, the author describes exactly what he means by "lockers" at the top of the page.

 

[Johnyxxx]

What confused me was the fact the "flames were flowing under the wall". Because I could not imagine how the fire could get through the solid stone wall, I thought there must have been a ventilation grille or something like that installed on the wall at the ground level.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-house-ventilation-grill-on-brick-wall-facade-144576611.html

 

[Tdol]

I like his books, but this one was tricky and required some help.