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Fence   Listen
noun
Fence  n.  
1.
That which fends off attack or danger; a defense; a protection; a cover; security; shield. "Let us be backed with God and with the seas, Which he hath given for fence impregnable." "A fence betwixt us and the victor's wrath."
2.
An inclosure about a field or other space, or about any object; especially, an inclosing structure of wood, iron, or other material, intended to prevent intrusion from without or straying from within. "Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold." Note: In England a hedge, ditch, or wall, as well as a structure of boards, palings, or rails, is called a fence.
3.
(Locks) A projection on the bolt, which passes through the tumbler gates in locking and unlocking.
4.
Self-defense by the use of the sword; the art and practice of fencing and sword play; hence, skill in debate and repartee. See Fencing. "Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric, That hath so well been taught her dazzing fence." "Of dauntless courage and consummate skill in fence."
5.
A receiver of stolen goods, or a place where they are received. (Slang)
Fence month (Forest Law), the month in which female deer are fawning, when hunting is prohibited.
Fence roof, a covering for defense. "They fitted their shields close to one another in manner of a fence roof."
Fence time, the breeding time of fish or game, when they should not be killed.
Rail fence, a fence made of rails, sometimes supported by posts.
Ring fence, a fence which encircles a large area, or a whole estate, within one inclosure.
Worm fence, a zigzag fence composed of rails crossing one another at their ends; called also snake fence, or Virginia rail fence.
To be on the fence, to be undecided or uncommitted in respect to two opposing parties or policies. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fence" Quotes from Famous Books



... being established, Burton gave his evidence without further word fence. "When I went out to Brazil," he said, "I took a present from Lady Tichborne for her son, but being unable to find him, [254] I sent the present back. When returning from America, I met the claimant, and I recognise him simply as the man I met. That is all." Burton, like others, always ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... the bush?" He felt that she disdained subterfuges, although when necessary for her purposes, he was assured that she could use diplomacy, as a master of fence might his foils. "You, Mr. Hayden, have been lucky enough to find the lost Mariposa, the lost Veiled Mariposa. Is it not so? But you are in a peculiarly tantalizing position. You can not convert gold into gold. Strange. It sounds so simple. But your ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... apparent in your surroundings; you have rapiers here of every form and to suit the most exacting taste. Do you still fence well?" ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... sunset began to gather in the West. We came slowly down through the pastures, till we joined the familiar road again. And at last we parted, in that wistful silence that falls upon the mood when two spirits have achieved a certain nearness of thought, have drawn as close as the strange fence of identity allows. But as I went home, I stood for a moment at the edge of a pleasant grove, an outlying pleasaunce of a great house on the verge of the town. The trees grew straight and tall within it, and all the underwood was full of spring flowers and green ground-plants, expanding ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Kirkwoods lived was in the least fashionable part of Main Street, beyond the commercial district and near the railroad. Trains thundered through a cut not far from the rear fence, and the cars of the Sycamore Traction Company rumbled by at intervals. The cottage was old but comfortable, and it was remarked that Kirkwood had probably chosen it for the reason that he could go to and from his office without ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... native of Tsin Chen, recollected, at the age of five, that he had been a son to the next-door neighbour, and that he had left his ring under a mulberry-tree close by the fence of the house. Thereupon he went with his nurse and successfully restored it, to the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... a wild-looking individual in a red shirt and enormous hat, came from behind the hut, unhitched the stout little broncho tied to the fence, gave the poor animal a desperately tight 'cinch,' threw himself into the saddle without touching his foot to the lumbering wooden stirrups, and, digging his spurs well into the horse's sides, was out of sight in an instant, ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... hardy little ponies, cows, goats, sheep, and pigs were feeding, and picking their way about in the marshy mead below, and a small garden of pot-herbs, inclosed by a strong fence of timber, lay on the sunny side of a spacious rambling forest lodge, only one story high, built of solid timber and roofed with shingle. It was not without strong pretensions to beauty, as well as to picturesqueness, for the posts of the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... west of Wildlake; but he had gone scant half a mile ere he fell in with a throng of folk going to Burgstead. They were of the Shepherds; they had weapons with them, and some were clad in coats of fence. They went along making a great noise, for they were all talking each to each at the same time, and seemed very hot and eager about some matter. When they saw Gold-mane anigh, they stopped, and the throng opened as if ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... the back yard on the line between these two houses. On each side of the fence was a handle on the pump so that it could be worked by both families. The water flowed smoothly until something caused a fuss between the two men, and one day, when Mr. Hill, who was a very large man, protruded over the fence, Mr. Vanderwerken ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... on the landscape with lack-lustre eyes, submitted to be led into the shade of a big maple, without evidencing any especial appreciation of Lucy's thoughtfulness. Lucy tied the halter to the snake fence, and returned to the group on the grass, who were already justifying their claims regarding their appetite by an ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... of the weather having inspired him to the part of a schoolboy, he avoided a gate and leaped a small fence into the meadow, and he waged boyish fun upon grave-faced Cyprian, who longed to be fishing. He greeted his two gardeners with an air of holiday, and, having waved his stick to them, he called out some ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... were disturbed by realities. I had come to one of those dreadful moments when danger rises like an appalling cloud, through which we can see no gleam of light beyond. This cloud, "at first no larger than a man's hand," arose from a fence in the person of Piney Savercool. I saw him with pleasure, for I knew that I was coming to familiar roads, and then he was such a very small boy that I had not that sense of humiliation which I must have felt had one of ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... long walk to the cemetery, but we reached it to find Billy seated on the steps that lead over the fence, still shielded by ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... buying the freehold of the meadow at Gad's, and of an adjoining arable field, so that I shall now have about eight-and-twenty freehold acres in a ring-fence. No more now. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... in a yard some eighty or ninety feet square, surrounded by a picket fence of cedar. He had with him nine men, of these he detailed five to hold horses, and with the other four; all armed with shot guns loaded with buck-shot, he lay down behind the low fence. The horses were sent back some distance into ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... moment when Jock and Tam came flying over the fence and down the hill like a cyclone after the rabbit, Angus was kneeling beside the brook to get a drink. His lips were pursed up and he was bending over almost to the surface of the water, when something dashed past him, and an instant later something else struck him like a thunderbolt ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... carriage had scarcely bowled away, when a little buggy and a sorrel pony came up the road, and somebody alighted with a brisk spring, slipped the rein with a loose knot through the fence-rail at the corner, and came up one side of the two-plank foot-walk that ran around the Horseshoe; somebody who had come home unexpectedly, to take his little wife to ride. Kenneth Kincaid had business over at the new ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... that zone she comprehended not only all the great cities of the ancient world, but so perfectly did she lay the garden of the world in every climate, and for every mode of natural wealth, within her own ring-fence, that since that era no land, no part and parcel of the Roman empire, has ever risen into strength and opulence, except where unusual artificial industry has availed to counteract the tendencies of nature. So entirely had Rome engrossed whatsoever ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... (pointing to the recoil-controlling gear of No. 2 gun), whether both barrels were fired at once, gave me a cue priceless and not to be missed. My imagination held good for full fifteen minutes, and by the time we were ambling back to the fence I had got on to our new sensitive electrical plant for registering the sound, height, range, speed and direction of hostile aircraft. The fluent ease of it intoxicated, and I was lucky not to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... crow and blue jay belong to the singers, you will be surprised to hear. And what a crowd of these song-birds there are trilling and warbling in the sunshine! Have you ever watched the meadow-lark singing as he sits on guard on the fence, while the rest of his brown-coated yellow-vested flock run along the field ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... is sure: that here the whole French force Schemes to unite and sharply follow us. It formulates our fence. The cavalry Must linger here no longer; but recede To Mont Saint-Jean, as rearguard of the foot. From the intelligence that Gordon brings 'Tis pretty clear old Blucher had to take A damned good drubbing yesterday at Ligny, And has been bent hard back! So that, for us, Bound to the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... suspicion as an eccentric. He actually made his daughter, attired in a skirt that only reached to her knees, perform inelegant feats on parallel bars and ladders, while he was wont to boast that she could out-fence any boy at the school. She was an expert swimmer too, and there were rumours, that at summer bathing excursions she wore a somewhat similar garment to that of the gymnasium, instead of one of those long serge gowns reaching ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... her timely warning, I clambered over my garden fence, as the only practicable way to the stables, selected a horse, and notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, proceeded to St. Christoval, the country palace of the Emperor, where, on my arrival, I demanded to see His Majesty. The request being refused by the gentleman in waiting, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... retained the most beautiful parts of the photoplay as it was exhibited. It is an exceedingly irrelevant imagination that shows her in other scenes as a duellist, for instance, because forsooth she can fence. As a child of the ocean, half fish, half woman, she is indeed convincing. Such mermaids as this have haunted sailors, and lured them on the rocks to their doom, from the day the siren sang till the hour the Lorelei sang ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... garden spread their branches over the verandah and towards the house. Far to the right, in among the trees, a glimpse is caught of the lower part of the new villa, with scaffolding round so much as is seen of the tower. In the background the garden is bounded by an old wooden fence. Outside the fence, a street ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen

... mighty crowd, Fifteen thousand, come out of France the Douce. On white carpets those knights have sate them down, At the game-boards to pass an idle hour;— Chequers the old, for wisdom most renowned, While fence the young and lusty bachelours. Beneath a pine, in eglantine embow'red, l Stands a fald-stool, fashioned of gold throughout; There sits the King, that holds Douce France in pow'r; White is his beard, and blossoming-white ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... We do not remember ever to have fallen in with a more extraordinary instance of inconsistency. When Mr. Gladstone wishes to prove that the Government ought to establish and endow a religion, and to fence it with a Test Act, Government is to pan in the moral world. Those who would confine it to secular ends take a low view of its nature. A religion must be attached to its agency; and this religion must be that of the conscience of the governor, or none. It is for the Governor to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... anxious glance. The trunk of the tree was hidden in the deepest shade. I advanced close up to it. No one was visible, but I was not discouraged. The hour of his coming was, perhaps, not arrived. I took my station at a small distance, beside a fence, on the right hand. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... yesterday, late in the afternoon. Frederic brought her from the tavern. The horse shied at an old coat thrown over a fence and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... on to the fence. They were polishing their curbs and chains, and laughed at the spectacle before them. But to Vogt it did not seem amusing. What was the use of making those two hundred men do such childish things there on the parade-ground? Would they ever march into battle ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... shrewd backwoodsman, ready for fight or prayer. He suffers at the hands of desperadoes, but is dauntless, and always gets the better of his partner in a trade. His white mule Ma'y Jane, is the only creature that outwits him, and that only at fence-corners.—Octave Thanet, Expiation (1890). ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... the mob, straight on to the massive stone house of Pillette, the resident manager of the great Ames mills. On over the high iron fence, like hungry dock rats. On through the battered gate. On up the broad drive, shouting, shooting, moaning, raving. On over the veranda, and in through broken windows and shattered doors, swarming like flies over reeking carrion, until the flames which burst through ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... fence in front of the marquee, dividing the lawn from the park, but a temporary bridge had been made for the passage of the victors, and the groups of people standing, or seated here and there on benches, stretched on each side of the open space from the white marquees ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... expunged, although it cost him L30—the lowest calculation, taking in paper and printing! In vain have his real friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness. George is as obstinate as a Primitive Christian—and wards and parries off all our thrusts with one unanswerable fence;—"Sir, it's of great consequence that the world ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... meeting of the hero and heroine was in front of a board fence near Broadway. The day had been a disappointing one. There had been no fights on the street, children had kept from under the wheels of the street cars, cripples and fat men in negligee shirts were scarce; ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... brass-handled chests of drawers, its extraordinary fireplace, and best of all, its white-curtained cupboard-beds; one for grandmama, with a kind of trapeze arrangement to help her rise; one for papa and mama, with an inner shelf like a nest for baby; and one with a fence for a parcel of children. The artist's cream-eggs grew cold while he worked, but it was worth the sacrifice, for the result was excellent, and Nell's admiration gave me, I'm ashamed to say, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... road side,—a stream so small it was marvelous it had a voice. As they rounded the mountain, the gap widened into the mouth of the vale, which lifted back to an upper bench, over-topped by a lofty plateau. Then she swung the team around and stopped. The way was cut off by a barbed wire fence. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... rows of stakes, till they stood firm like piles, five and a half feet from the ground. I made the stakes close and tight with bits of rope and put small sticks on the top of them in the shape of spikes. This made so strong a fence that no man or beast could get in. The door of my house was on top, and I had to climb up to it by steps, which I took in with me, so that no one else might come up by the same way. Close to the back of the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... traversed by three very inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom was sorely battered about the head, must have been a path of torment. Still I did not quite recognise the right of the three musketeers to turn me into a 'fence' for ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... covered way, swarming with people, a glimpse of a street and whirling snowflakes, an iron fence pierced by gates where gilt-and-blue officials stood, saying, monotonously: "Tickets! Please show your tickets. This way for the Palmetto Special. The Eden ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... a form of skill which has always been as magical to me as it seemed to him, was charmingly boyish, and Colin turned over his sketch-book, and showed him the notes he had made as we went along. One of a stump fence particularly delighted him—those stump fences made out of the roots of pine trees set side by side, which had been a feature of the country some miles back, and which make such a weird impression on the landscape, like rows of gigantic black antlers, or many-armed ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... painstaking instruction, could read this sign very distinctly. In fact, she had often read it before. For Sophy was a child who loved beauty, in a blind, groping sort of way, and had sometimes stood by the fence of the cemetery and looked through at the green mounds and shaded walks and blooming flowers within, and wished that she might walk among them. She knew, too, that the little sign on the gate, though so courteously worded, was no mere formality; for she had heard how ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... and the landing both in a patch of mire planted with big stones, and the stones sometimes reddened with the blood of horses that have gone before. To make these obstacles more annoying, you have sometimes to wait while a black boar clambers sedately over the so-called pig fence. Nothing can more thoroughly depict the worst side of the Samoan character than these useless barriers which deface their only road. It was one of the first orders issued by the government of Mulinuu ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... waited a second, but the deer was gone. I had scarcely got over my disappointment when I heard the branches breaking in the wood very near to me, and suddenly a deer sprang right over my head, taking a flying leap, like a hunter would do over a fence. ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... sire, the towers That fence the city round far off appear. This seems a holy place; 'tis full of pine, Of laurel, and of vine under whose leaves Trills her sweet notes full many a nightingale. Here rest thee on this unhewn seat of rock; The journey for thy ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... their way about and any dry, well ventilated shelter that is proof against thieving skunks, weasels and similar wild life, will be adequate for them along with a chicken run with a high enough fence to keep them within bounds. For this type of fowl is no respecter of property. Not only does it take delight in working havoc with its owner's flower beds and borders but those of his neighbor ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... the shore, but that was the only thing that could have happened. I rose, threw on my tunic, girded on a dagger, and with the utmost quietness went out of the hut. The blind boy was coming towards me. I hid by the fence, and he passed by me with a sure but cautious step. He was carrying a parcel under his arm. He turned towards the harbour and began to descend a steep and ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... winter, the loveliest of all dreams, that he was young again? In the joyous growth of this snow-white glory he had forgotten all pain and decay, forgotten the moss on his bark, the rottenness of his roots was concealed. A rickety gate had been taken from its place and was propped against the fence, broken and useless. The artist hand of winter had sought it out too, and glorified it, and it was now an architectural masterpiece. The slanting black gate-posts were a couple of young dandies, with hats on one side and jaunty air. The old, grey, mossy rails—one could not imagine Paradise ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... "It isn't very pleasant, either. Although it will be some fun to work on the opposite side of the fence for once." ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... turning the corner where Nickerson's Lane enters the main road, he saw something which caused him to pause, alter his battle-mad walk to a slower one, then to a saunter, and finally to a halt altogether. This something was a toy windmill fastened to a white picket fence and clattering cheerfully as its arms spun in the brisk, pleasant ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... this memory of her early consciousness—a tree in pink bloom; morning-glories covering a rotting board fence; deep, rich, sun-warmed soil into which her baby ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... a place where the ground was green, and they saw in it wild beasts grazing and trees with ripe fruit growing and springs flowing. Quoth Taj al-Muluk to his followers, "Set up the nets here and peg them in a wide ring and let our trysting place be at the mouth of the fence, in such a spot." So they obeyed his words and staked out a wide circle with toils; and there gathered together a mighty matter of all kinds of wild beasts and gazelles, which cried out for fear of the men and threw themselves ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... and I did not ask him much; he talked about my books, and a good deal about old friends; but all with a sense, I thought, of detachment, as though he were viewing everything over a sort of intangible fence. After luncheon, we adjourned to his study and smoked. He then said a few words about his illness, and added that it had altered his plans. "I am told," he said, "that I must take a good long holiday—rather ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... and crabs, and took them out with a rod and line when we had need of food, and time to spare for that kind of sport. In the ground round the mouth of the Cave we drove a row of strong canes, bound at the top to a piece of wood, so as to form a fence, up which grew a vine, and, at each side, plants that threw a good show of gay bloom crept up to meet it. Shells of great size and strange shapes were got from the shore, and these we built up here and there with burnt clay, so as to form clumps of rock ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... to the outskirts of the village, and, on one side, the jungle came up to within a few yards of it. The spot was surrounded by a strong and high bamboo fence, except at one point where a narrow but very conspicuous opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground—as well, ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... All night has the white meteor fallen, in broad flake or minutest crystal, the sport and plaything of winds that have wrought it into a thousand shapes of wild beauty. Hill and valley, tree and fence, woodshed and well-sweep, barn and pigsty, fishing-smacks frozen tip at the wharf, ribbed monsters of dismantled hulks scattered along the river-side,—all lie transfigured in the white glory and sunshine. The eye, wherever it turns, aches with the cold brilliance, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... cattle, after having followed Richard for a short distance as the latter was being led away by his aggressors. At about 5 o'clock in the evening he went out to see a neighbor, but was immediately arrested and shot. His assassins threw his body over a fence into a garden. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... the droop of age. The air, rich with the smell of new earth and sprouting grass, the long, low skies newly washed and, through radiant distances, clouds light as thistledown and white as snow. And the birds! Wrens in the hedges, sparrows by the wayside and on fence-rails, starlings poised over meadows brilliant with glistening dew, larks in the pastures—all singing as they sang at the first dawn, and the mood of nature that perfect blending of earth and heaven that is given her children but rarely to know. It was good to be ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... She pressed her hands against her laboring breast; David ran forward and met the surrey as it came through the fence opening by the stable shed. Ed Arbogast was driving; and a stranger—a drummer evidently—in a white-and-black check suit, was holding Allen, crumpled in a ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... prairie. George's father had settled there after the Civil War, as so many other old soldiers had done; but they were Eastern people, and Editha fancied touches of the East in the June rose overhanging the front door, and the garden with early summer flowers stretching from the gate of the paling fence. ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... ground, and the upper parts firmly nailed to cross-wise stringers. There was only one opening, which was at the main gate about the center of the north side of the grounds. A line of guards was maintained at the gate and all round the inside of the inclosure, with the beat close to the fence, for the purpose of keeping the men in camp. No enlisted man could go out except on a pass signed by his captain, and approved by the colonel. The drilling of the men was conducted principally inside the grounds, but on skirmish ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... race just as considerately as with Nicodemus. He invited her to his discipleship just as cordially, and to the same discipleship. There is not a hint that the Good Shepherd built another fold for the Samaritan sheep, lest some of the Jewish flock should jump over the fence, if they were put into the ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various

... almost at his feet, and wheeling in circles through the air, dipped again into some dark crevice of the waste, unnoticed by him! One thought only possessed, and never left him, as he went. He had overheard Nina's words to his sister, as he made his escape over the fence, and learned how she promised to 'spare him'; and that if not worried about him, or asked to pledge herself, she should be 'merciful,' and not entangle the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... fence one particularly hot afternoon, and his father coming by, cool and fresh, found fault with his work, chiefly to show his authority, because the work was not badly done—Mr. Ware was a good man, but like other good men he had a rare fault-finding impulse. The voices in the woods had ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sandy wastes. The declining sun had left them among the foothills, wandering from one to another, in the vain hope that each summit might show the silvery gleam of a windmill, or even that outpost of civilization, the barb-wire fence. And now the stars looked down indifferently, myriads of them, upon the travelers still plodding wearily through a land magically transformed by moonlight to a silvery loveliness that blotted out all the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... Edward I all through the wilds of Scotland, prayed that his body might find a resting-place within the walls of Fountains Abbey. Lands were given to the abbey, until there were 60,000 acres attached to it and enclosed in a ring fence. One of the monks from Fountains went to live as a hermit in a secluded spot adjoining the River Nidd, a short distance from Knaresborough, where he became known as St. Robert the Hermit. He lived in a cave hewn out of the rock on one side of the river, where the banks were precipitous ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... at a frenzied scamper through the woods, taking the short footpath which would lead them to the back of the house of Locksley. Robin broke through the trees and undergrowth and hastily scaled the fence that railed off their ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... runneth after fools shall have property enough," he quoted inaccurately. "I'll have some of your black hides on the fence by morning." ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... prowling camp followers, who were already stripping and plundering the slain.... At last, in front of a large villa, now a black and smoking skeleton, he leaped a wall, and found himself landed on a heap of corpses.... They were piled up against the garden fence for many yards. The struggle had been fierce there some ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... wicked and shallow and feeble and foolish would Hamlet appear, if represented, not in the light of Shakespeare's imagination, but in the light of Macaulay's epigrams! How the historian would "play the dazzling fence" of his rhetoric on the indecision of the prince, his brutality to Ophelia, his cowardice, his impotence between contending motives, and the chaos of blunders and crimes in which he sinks from view! The subject would be even a better one for him than that of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... or flood, death or disaster, had ever moved Dick Dunning; then a single blow killed him. He rode once in a while over the ranch, a great tract by that time of twenty thousand acres, all in one body, all under fence, up and down both sides of the big river, in part irrigated, swarming with cattle—none of it stirred Dick! and with little Dicksie in his arms he ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... dark and empty, but the recluse desired no refreshment. Only his wish that he had a staff revived in his mind, and he soon contrived to possess himself of one, by pulling a stake out of the fence that surrounded the innkeeper's little garden. This was a somewhat heavy walking-stick, but it eased the recluse's steps, for though his hot and aching feet carried him but painfully the strength of his arms ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and Teresa, lived and died. A fine old place it is; and a picturesque road leads to it, winding through a tract called the Warren, between the high chalk-cliffs, clothed with trees of all varieties, that for so many miles fence in the northern side of the Thames, and the lordly river itself, now concealed by tall elms, now open and shining in the full light of the summer sun. There is not such a flower bank in Oxfordshire ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... droo de hair, Einer aus Böblingen[15] - he too vash dere- Karli of Karlisruh's shot near de fence (His horse vash o'erloadet mit toorkies und hens), Und dough he like a ravin' mad cannibal fought Yet der Breitmann - der capt'n - der hero vash caught; Und de last dings ve saw, he vas tied mit a cord, For de repels had goppled him oop at ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland

... that fence Samaria to the north, down through terraced vales abloom with hawthorns and blood-red poppies, across hill-circled plains where the long, silvery wind-waves roll over the sea of grain from shore to shore, past little gray towns sleeping ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... important demonstration by the mob that evening, was the tearing up of the fence in front of Squire Woodbridge's house and the construction of an immense bonfire in the street out of the fragments, the conflagration proceeding to the accompaniment of an obligato ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... obsequious porters to collect her baggage, which lay where it had alighted with one trunk gaping open, while a couple of men in blue shirts and soil-stained jeans leaned upon the neighbouring fence watching her with mild curiosity. Her father addressed another one somewhat differently attired who stood in the door of ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... neighb'ring plain, With creaking wheels slow comes the heavy wain: High on its tow'ring load a maid appears, And Nelly's voice sounds shrill in Robin's ears. Quick from his hand he throws the cumb'rous flail, And leaps with lightsome limbs th' enclosing pale. O'er field and fence he scours, and furrow wide, With waken'd Comrade barking by his side; Whilst tracks of trodden grain, and sidelong hay, And broken hedge-flow'rs sweet, mark ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... the autumn. The leaves in the forest turned yellow and brown; the wind caught them so that they danced about, and up in the air it was very cold. The clouds hung low, heavy with hail and snow-flakes, and on the fence stood the raven, crying, "Croak! croak!" for mere cold; yes, it was enough to make one feel cold to think of this. The poor little Duckling certainly had not a good time. One evening—the sun was just setting in his beauty—there ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... dumbly removed his coat and waistcoat, slipped his suspenders down, tightened the strap at the back of his trousers, clasped his hands in front, and bowed his head. The dog, which had crept to the fence and was peering through the pickets, whined anxiously and was quivering. When roughly ordered away by Mr. Gilbert, he went upon a terrace that overlooked the fence, and trembled as he watched. The boy did not once look toward him. He was struggling ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... dressed ourselves in strange costumes to personate spirits or fiends, and Bysshe would take a fire-stove and fill it with some inflammable liquid, and carry it flaming into the kitchen and to the back door." Shelley often took his sisters for long country rambles over hedge and fence, carrying them when the difficulties of the ground or their fatigue required it. At this time "his figure was slight and beautiful,—his hands were models, and his feet are treading the earth again in one of his race; his eyes too have descended in their wild fixed beauty to the same person. As a ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... was a fisherman out for fishes who chose to fence with me, or whether in that cruise of his he landed up in a Norwegian bay, or thought better of it in Orkney, or went through the sea and through death to the place he desired, I have ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... car under the shade of some nearby trees, the doctor leapt the pasture fence in one fine bound. The blue figure among the daisies was stooping, her face hidden by a shady hat. No one else was in sight—just he and she in all the lovely, sunny, breeze-swept earth! He came towards her softly; called her name, but so low that she did not hear. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... winter nest of a family of ants. A piece of fence rail was found beneath an old pile of boards and brought into a warm room for the sake of a rich fungus growing upon it, and several hours after the table and chairs were found to be covered with ants. Where they ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... I have a plan—a good one and simple. When I was a boy and coveted apples, one fellow got over the fence and attracted the attention of the farmer, while the other secured apples in a far corner of the orchard. Don't ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell

... woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes, calmly, hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom's wave (her heaving embon) red rose rose slowly sank red rose. Heartbeats: ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... tortured enemy. Unhampered by the exhausting efforts of industry, the Indian, trained by centuries of war upon adjoining tribes, felt himself foot-loose and free to shoot the unprotected forefather from behind the very stump fence his victim had worked so hard ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... the ugly countries shall be blessed with the greater love of their children, while men born in a beautiful land seem readiest to emigrate from it and make the best settlers in a new home. There is only one country in the world with a ring-fence round it. If a Russian is driven from his home, he will go to another part of Russia: ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... with folded arms leaning against the rail fence that enclosed the yard, and contemplating the ceremonies till the last Indian departed, now turned to leave, when the constable with a paper in one hand approached, and touching Holden with the other, told him he was his prisoner. The Solitary asked no questions, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... which led to the river. He did the talking, while she answered yes or no, with a sound of tears in her voice. When they reached the highway they stopped by the sunken grave, and leaning against the fence which inclosed it, Eudora removed her sunbonnet, letting the moon shine upon her face, as it had done when she sat in the clearing. It was very white but there were no tears now in her eyes. She was forcing them back and she tried to ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... silly boy!" She laughed, but she did not look at him. They had turned the corner and were now at the end of the asylum yard, enclosed by its high wooden fence, and as they started to go down the street which would lead into the road to Tree Hill she laid her hand again on ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... uniform height determined with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and sandpapered every day. How else are these marvels of symmetry, cleanliness, and order attained? It is wonderful. There are no unsightly stone walls and never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, no decay, no rubbish anywhere—nothing that even hints at untidiness —nothing that ever suggests neglect. All is orderly and beautiful—every thing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Marion spent the first season of their happy married life under my lintel-tree, and are now our nearest neighbors in our new land of sojourn. A slender iron fence divides our grounds from theirs. A golden cord of affection binds our lives together. Our interests, too, are ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... which had long been in a condition of ominous second-childhood, suddenly died a natural death at the foot of a steep hill, where a rail-fence presented itself as a barrier to farther progress. The bars were soon removed by Youth, who triumphantly announced, as Cha-os walked slowly through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... to get them is to plant more nut trees. Why not start a campaign in this direction? Where I live in the midwest the black walnut is at home and likewise the hickory, hazel, etc. Farmers may be reluctant to set aside acreage for this purpose but they could be planted along fence rows around the entire farm and would produce shade for livestock, an abundance of marketable nuts, and later a fortune in saw logs. The average size farm of 160 acres could support a great many black walnuts if planted along fence rows which ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various

... what I have observed of the slow growth of this tree in rocky situations, and of its durability, I have often thought that the one I am describing must have been as old as the Christian era. The tree lay in the line of a fence. Great masses of its ruins were strewn about, and some had been rolled down the hill-side and lay near the road at the bottom. As you approached the tree you were struck with the number of shrubs and young ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... bedding. No pretty garden was in front of the inn, for the road ran close to the very door, so that its dust lay upon the doorsill. All around the house, to a high, rocky hill at the back, a heavy stone fence was built, so that the people and the animals inside might be ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various

... a foot-path led down the declivity, by a shorter cut, which was always taken by pedestrians. Making an incoherent excuse to Moses, and telling him to wait for me at the foot of the hill, I sprang out of the carriage, leaped a fence, and I may add, leaped out of sight, in order to conceal my emotion. I was no sooner lost to view, than, seating myself on a fragment of rock, I wept like a child. How long I sat there is more than I can say; but the manner in which I was recalled ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper



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