"Firth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in this chamber only at my birth— When the long hours of that mysterious night Were over, and the morning was in sight— I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth; And never shall one room contain me quite Who in so many rooms first saw the light, Child of all mothers, native of ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... Anglesey, flows along the North Wales coast and fills Liverpool Bay and the Mersey. The third branch streams round the north coast of Ireland, past the Mull of Cantyre and Rathlin Island; part fills up the Firth of Clyde, while the rest flows south, and, swirling round the west side of the Isle of Man, helps the southern current to fill the Bay of Liverpool. The rest of the great wave impinges on the coast of Scotland, and, curling round it, fills up the North ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... vellum-hole waistcoat of a gone-by vintage, and I saw how futile it were to attempt to lead him, while in that state of absorption, to topics which touched my affair. Of a sudden the significance of what he had said crept over me, the word Solway repeating itself in my mind. That firth bordered England itself, and Dorothy was in London! I became reconciled. I had no particle of objection to the Solway save the uneasiness my grandfather would come through, which was beyond helping. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... one morning the wind would blow from the south, and a strange smell come into the air. The dogs left their lair by the fire and, led by the Garm the old blind patriarch, made a tour of inspection among the outhouses to the edge of the birch woods. Presently would come a rending of the ice on the firth, and patches of inky water would show between the floes. The snow would slip from the fell-side, and leave dripping rock and clammy bent, and the river would break its frosty silence and pour a mighty grey-green flood to the sea. The swans and geese began to fly northward, and the pipits woke ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... N. land covered with water, gulf, gulph^, bay, inlet, bight, estuary, arm of the sea, bayou [U.S.], fiord, armlet; frith^, firth, ostiary^, mouth; lagune^, lagoon; indraught^; cove, creek; natural harbor; roads; strait; narrows; Euripus; sound, belt, gut, kyles^; continental slope, continental shelf. lake, loch, lough^, mere, tarn, plash, broad, pond, pool, lin^, puddle, slab, well, artesian well; standing water, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... days after his arrival, at the residence of the British agent and consul-general, where Lady Firth was giving tea to the six nurses from the English hospital and to all the other respectable members of ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... And ane cam frae the banks o' Forth, Whase name was Patie Birnie. This Patie, wi' superior art, Made notes to ring through head and heart, Till citizens a' set apart Their praise to Patie Birnie. Tell auld Kinghorn, o' Picish birth, Where, noddin', she looks o'er the Firth, Aye when she would enhance her worth, To sing ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... thousands slain on Baillie's side against six men on Montrose's. Many prisoners were taken, but the chief nobles escaped by the swiftness of their horses. Argyle was one of these. Carried by his horse to Queens-ferry, he got on board a ship in the Firth of Forth (the third time, it was noted, of his saving himself in this fashion), sailed down the Firth into the open sea, and did not come ashore till he was at Newcastle. [Footnote: Wishart, 162-171; Napier, 542-541. But ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... me what was on yer road, ye roarin' norlan' Wind, As ye cam' blawin' frae the land that's niver frae my mind? My feet they traivel England, but I'm dee'in for the north." "My man, I heard the siller tides rin up the Firth o' Forth." ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... veined and tipped with snow; and behind, and fainter, the low, blue land of Cantyre. Cottony clouds stood, in a great castle, over the top of Arran, and blew out in long streamers to the south. The sea was bitten all over with white; little ships, tacking up and down the Firth, lay over at different angles in the wind. On Shanter they were ploughing lea; a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if the spring ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... calls it, runs down into the sea at St. Abb's Head. For the greater part of its length it divides Berwickshire from East Lothian; but at its seaward end there is one Berwickshire parish lying to the north of it—the parish of Cockburnspath. The land in this parish slopes down to the Firth of Forth; it is rich and well cultivated, and is divided into large farms, each of which has its group of red-roofed buildings, its substantial farmhouse, and its long tail of hinds' cottages. The seaward views are very fine, ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... Note. Robert Southey (1774-1843) was an English poet. From 1813 until his death he was Poet Laureate of England. Bell Rock, or Inchcape, is a reef of red sandstone near the Firth of Tay, on the east coast of Scotland. At the time of the spring tides part of the reef is uncovered to the height of four feet. Because so many vessels were wrecked upon these rocks the Abbot of Aberbrothok is said to have placed a bell there, "fixed ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... recalled by Domitian after seven years' warfare, and his garrisons did not long hold their forts on his lines or frontier, which stretched across the country from Forth to Clyde; roughly speaking, from Graham's Dyke, east of Borrowstounnis on the Firth of Forth, to Old Kilpatrick on Clyde. The region is now full of coal-mines, foundries, and villages; but excavations at Bar Hill, Castlecary, and Roughcastle disclose traces of Agricola's works, with ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... would be re-formed. They might find their way to a spot to which they had once been led, and—most important of all, some night towards the dark of the moon, the Good Intent would be seen, between the star-shine and the luminous sea, making her way up the firth with the first "run" ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Bajadore, Others Dondra head, others pass the straits of Sunda, others cape Lopatka, others Behring's straits, Others cape Horn, others sail the gulf of Mexico or along Cuba or Hayti, others Hudson's bay or Baffin's bay, Others pass the straits of Dover, others enter the Wash, others the firth of Solway, others round cape Clear, others the Land's End, Others traverse the Zuyder Zee or the Scheld, Others as comers and goers at Gibraltar or the Dardanelles, Others sternly push their way through the northern winter-packs, Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... radiant earth That heaves and glows from firth to firth In vale and mountain, bright in dearth And warm in wealth, Which gave his fiery glory birth ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was high at three o'clock; and methinks that a boat would put out an hour or two before low tide, so as to take the water with it as far as New Berwick, and there catch the flood flowing into the Firth. In that case, the boat would put out at six, or ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... marched into the district at the head of his earls and barons, accompanied by a large army, and subdued an insurrection fomented by the local chiefs against his authority. On this occasion he built two castles within its bounds, one called Dunscath on the northern Sutor at the entrance to the Cromarty Firth, and Redcastle in the Black Isle. In the same year we find Florence, Count of Holland, complaining that he had been deprived of its nominal ownership by King William. There is no trace of any other earl in actual possession ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... habitat, while allied species living on seaweed or on the outside of dark shells were dark brown.[77] A still more interesting case has been recorded by Mr. George Brady. He says: "Amongst the Nullipore which matted together the laminaria roots in the Firth of Clyde were living numerous small starfishes (Ophiocoma bellis) which, except when their writhing movements betrayed them, were quite undistinguishable from the calcareous branches of the alga; their rigid angularly twisted rays ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... is a native of Chili, and was introduced to the royal gardens at Kew, in the year 1788, by Capt. FIRTH; it takes the name of Fuchsia from Fuchs a German Botanist of great celebrity, author of the Historia Stirpium in folio, published in 1542, containing five hundred and sixteen figures in wood; and which, though mere outlines, express the objects they are intended to represent, ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 3 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... our most inveterate enemies. Ireland has the greatest possible facilities for carrying on commerce with the whole of Europe. It contains, within a circuit of 750 miles, 66 secure harbours, and presents a western frontier against Great Britain, reaching from the Firth of Clyde north to the Bristol Channel south, and varying in distance from 20 to 100 miles; so that the subjugation of Ireland would compel us to guard with ships and soldiers a new line of coast, certainly amounting, with all its sinuosities, to more than 700 miles—an addition of polemics, ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... Spaniard as well. The earliest ancestor that I know commanded the Santiago, wrecked on Achill Island, when the Armada came south from the Pentland Firth. The rest of me is Irish. I need hardly say more. That is why I am ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... attended by Breze and his squire, and also by the man of the cave, who was acquainted with the country, and acted as guide. They reached Carlisle in safety, and there embarked on board a vessel, which took them down the Firth and landed ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... looking, but wants some of the symmetry and aptitude to fatten which characterize the short horn, which is supposed to have contributed to build up this valuable breed on the basis of the original stock of the county of Ayr, which extends along the eastern shore of the Firth of Clyde, in the southwestern part ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... born at Firth, in the parish of Lilliesleaf, in the county of Roxburghshire, on the 17th of August, 1789. From his early youth he composed verses. He merited the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who afforded him pecuniary assistance. He died November 12, ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... return, taking his two brothers with him. At Durham Bishop William of St. Calais, who had found means to reconcile himself with the king, was restored to his rights after an exile of three years. The expedition to Scotland led to no fighting. William advanced with his army to the Firth of Forth. Malcolm met him there with an army of his own, but negotiations were begun and conducted for William by his brother Robert, and for Malcolm by the atheling Edgar, whose expulsion from Normandy had been one of the conditions of the peace between William and Robert. Malcolm at last agreed ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... whatever shores they touch. The expanding Angles and Saxons did it in the North Sea and the Channel, where they stretched their litus Saxonicum faintly along the coast of the continent to the apex of Brittany, and firmly along the hem of England from Southampton Water to the Firth of Forth;[488] the sea-bred Scandinavians did it farther north in the Teutonic fringe of settlements which they placed on the shores ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Up the loch, over the firth, and through the sound. Over to Inchkie Island. We'll take the guns; we may get a shot at a hare, hawk, or ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... for cloud, though it resembled land. It was the Isle of Man. In an hour or two the outline had grown much clearer; the heights and hollows were no longer doubtful. In the north became visible another remote and hilly tract, it was the coast of Scotland beyond Solway Firth. ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... stager like myself. The undergraduates come about me in large numbers, and I have asserted in some sense my own freedom; but one cannot escape the tyranny of the system."* This is severe, though not perhaps severer than the Inaugural Lecture of Professor Firth. To a critic from the outside it seems that Boards of Studies should have power to relax their own rules, and that the utmost possible relaxation should have been granted in the case of Froude. A famous historian of seventy-four, if qualified to be a Professor at all, must be capable ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... requires a very great deal of material. England, as can easily be seen from the map, possesses a fairly limited number of river mouths and ports for rapid development of her great oversea trade. Beginning in the northeast, those on the east coast are mainly the Firth of Forth, the mouths of the Tyne and Humber, and then the Thames; in the south, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Plymouth, with some neighboring harbors; in the west, the Bristol Channel, the Mersey, the Solway, and the Clyde. These are the entries that have ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... windy, it is true, especially in the winter, but commanding a noble prospect of a range of distant hills, which I was told were 'the hieland hills,' and of a broad arm of the sea, which I heard somebody say was the Firth of Forth. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... from the Pentland Firth we had a violent gale from the north, which gave us an opportunity of experiencing how the Fram behaved in bad weather. The trial was by no means an easy one. It was blowing a gale, with a cross sea; we kept going practically ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... were in sight. Sundry vessels had been described bound in for the Firth of Forth, on whose south shore, well up the Firth, stands Leith, the port of Edinburgh, distant but a mile or two from that capital. He resolved to dash at Leith, and lay it under contribution or in ashes. He called the ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... attacking our fortresses, they inspired terror as daring to act offensively; insomuch that some persons, disguising their timidity under the mask of prudence, were for instantly retreating on this side the firth, and relinquishing the country rather than waiting to be driven out. Agricola, in the meantime, being informed that the enemy intended to bear down in several bodies, distributed his army into three divisions, that his inferiority of numbers, and ignorance of the country, might not ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... that we did not see the land till the evening of the 13th, when the hills of the Cheviot in the S. E. of Scotland appeared. The next day we chased sundry vessels, and took a ship and a brigantine, both from the Firth of Edinburgh, laden with coal. Knowing that there lay at anchor in Leith Road an armed ship of 20 guns, with two or three fine cutters, I formed an expedition against Leith, which I purposed to lay under a large contribution, or otherwise to reduce it to ashes. Had I been alone, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... on thee, Princess, and speed thee also!" said the Abbot, retreating. "But my soul tells me I look on thee for the last time!" The sails were hoisted, the oars were plied, the vessel went freshly on her way through the firth, which divides the shores of Cumberland from those of Galloway; but not till the vessel diminished to the size of a child's frigate, did the doubtful, and dejected, and dismissed followers of the Queen ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Fate, To witness what I after shall narrate; Or whether, rapt in meditation high, He wander'd out he knew not where nor why) The drowsy Dungeon-clock,[61] had number'd two, And Wallace Tow'r[61] had sworn the fact was true: The tide-swol'n Firth, with sullen sounding roar, Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore. All else was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e: The silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree: The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, Crept, gently-crusting, o'er ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... her, on behalf of Senor Montijo, from the builders. These trials were of a most searching and exhaustive character, lasting over a full week, at the end of which came the coal-consumption test, consisting of a non-stop run northward at full speed, through the Pentland Firth, round Cape Wrath; then southward outside the Hebrides and past the west coast of Ireland, thence from Mizen Head across to Land's End; up the English Channel and the North Sea, to her starting-point. The run down past ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... in profound respect these illustrious names, the writer ventures to ask for a modification of this verdict. That the Scottish Lowlanders (among whom we include the inhabitants of the coast districts from the Tay to the Moray Firth) were, in the end of the thirteenth century, "English in speech and manners" (as Mr. Oman[5] guardedly describes them) is beyond doubt. Were they also English in blood? The evidence upon which the accepted theory is founded is twofold. In the course of the sixth ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... All the engines on the Grand Trunk from the Pentland Firth to the Channel might have bu'sted their bilers since that time—but it ain't likely," replied John, with a ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... to enter the Firth of Forth," was the general opinion. Even the brave soldiers, who perhaps heard the name for the first time in their lives, repeated the word with as important an air as if all the secrets of the military staff had been all at once revealed ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... Cockle Gat before it was dark. Fortunately, through the kindness of Lieutenant Hewit of the Protector, I was enabled to convey a note to our missing companion, desiring him to proceed immediately by the coach to the Pentland Firth, and from thence across the passage to Stromness, which appeared to be the only way of proceeding by which he ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... is beautifully situated on the Firth of Tay, which here spreads its waters, and the quantity of shipping ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... loon!" answered Deans—"he was in his bandaliers to hae joined the ungracious Highlanders in 1715, an they had ever had the luck to cross the Firth." ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... forced into their service, went away with the long-boat, making the best of their way for the mainland of Scotland. These men, however they did it, or what shift soever they made to get so far, were taken in the Firth of Edinburgh, and ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... delighted with the view from the windows, which commanded that incomparable prospect of the ground between Edinburgh and the sea; the Firth of Forth, with its islands; the embayment which is terminated by the Law of North Berwick; and the varied shores of Fife to the northward, indenting with a hilly outline the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... identified by Professor Firth with the Seven Champions of England, an extremely artificial romance, which may be taken as typical of hundreds more of its kind. The 1610 edition of it is a very lively book with a good deal of playing to the gallery, such as this: "As for the name ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... old men gave directions for their burial, and they charged their sons to lay them beneath two barrows or mounds, one on each side of the narrow firth, whose murmurs would ever be sweet music as they slept, and across whose waves their spirits would hold converse as ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... rejoin the fleet at Rosyth. Without slackening speed the three cruisers flung about, and steered a course immediately opposed to the one they had previously been following. Experience had told them that speed was one of the essentials to safety, even when in land-locked waters such as the Firth of Clyde. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... were drawn; the Great Seal was affixed; the subscription books were opened; the shares were fixed at a hundred pounds sterling each; and from the Pentland Firth to the Solway Firth every man who had a hundred pounds was impatient to put down his name. About two hundred and twenty thousand pounds were actually paid up. This may not, at first sight, appear a large sum to those who remember the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in a vessel which, recklessly, they had not insured. Thereupon John Douglas, having still over 3000 pounds, invested it in what was then considered a safe concern, and finding his wants very few and very simple, repaired to the Renfrewshire coast, and found there a small cottage overlooking the Firth of Clyde and the sea, where he could live cheaply and comfortably. And he did live there very comfortably and contentedly, though not quite to the satisfaction of his neighbours, who resented the intrusion amongst them of a man who minded ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... conversion into fragments and dust of a very considerable portion of the underside of the seam of coal, the workman laboring in a confined position, and in peril of the block of coal breaking away and crushing him beneath it. Coal-getting machines, such as those of the late Mr. Firth, worked by compressed air, reduce to a minimum the waste of coal, relieve the workman of a most fatiguing labor in a constrained position, and save him from the danger to which he is exposed in the hand operation. It is a matter of deep regret on many grounds, but especially as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... said Thorvald to his companions, "I propose that we raise the keel upon this cape, and call it Keelness"; and so they did. Then they sailed away to the eastward off the land and into the mouth of the adjoining firth and to a headland, which projected into the sea there, and which was entirely covered with woods. They found an anchorage for their ship, and put out the gangway to the land; and Thorvald and all of his companions went ashore. "It is a fair region here," said he; "and here I should like ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... not evil enough, Mother, and anguish on earth Born with a man at his birth, Wastes underfoot, and above Storm out of heaven, and dearth Shaken down from the shining thereof, Wrecks from afar overseas And peril of shallow and firth, And tears that spring and increase In the barren places of mirth, That thou, having wings as a dove, Being girt with desire for a girth, That thou must come after these, That thou ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of beasts was coming by the way. Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed, Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels Or Durham feed; With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils From nether side of Tweed, Or Firth of Forth; Looking half wild with joy to leave the North,— With dusty hides, all mobbing on together,— When,—whether from a fly's malicious comment Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank; Or whether Only in some enthusiastic moment,— However, one brown monster, in a frisk, Giving his tail ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... parts of the sea bottom in the immediate vicinity of the British Islands, as in the Clyde district, among the Hebrides, in the Moray Firth, and in the German Ocean, there are depressed areas, forming a kind of submarine valleys, the centres of which are from 80 to 100 fathoms, or more, deep. These depressions are inhabited by assemblages of marine animals, which differ from those found over the adjacent and ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Norway, a shipwreck on the north coast seems as probable as either in the Firth of Forth, or Tay; and the ballad states the disaster to have taken place out of ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... disdainfully by, "like pity on a monument, smiling at grief." Above all, conceive him taking the lover's leap—say from Dunnet or Duncansby-head, where the rocks tower four hundred feet above the Pentland Firth, and floundering in the waters like an enormous whale; the herring shoals hurrying away from his unwieldy gambols, as from the presence of the real sea-born leviathan. Cacus in love was not more grand, or the gigantic Polyphemus, sighing at the feet of Galatea, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... certain strand went west of the firth, and a great stead was thereon, which was called Baldur's Meads; a Place of Peace was there, and a great temple, and round about it a great garth of pales: many gods were there, but amidst them all was Baldur held of most account. So jealous were the heathen ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... the Parliament House, in the course of which his Majesty gave as a toast, "The Chieftains and Clans of Scotland, and prosperity to the Land of Cakes." The King did not quit his Scottish dominions till the 29th, when he embarked from Lord Hopetoun's seat on the Firth of Forth, previously directing a letter to be written to Sir Walter Scott by Sir Robert Peel, expressing his warm personal acknowledgments for the deep interest he had taken in every ceremony and arrangement ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... slowly on, revealing on her stern the "Lively Poll" in letters of burnished gold—past the pier-head, down the broad river, out upon the widening firth, beyond lighthouse, buoy, and beacon, until at last the fresh Atlantic breezes ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... harp playde on its leeful lane, (Lang is my luvis yellow hair.) Quhill it has charmit stock and stane, (Furth by firth, deir lady fare.) ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... when either of us turned his thoughts to home and childhood, what a strange dissimilarity must there not have been in these pictures of the mind - when I beheld that old, gray, castled city, high throned above the firth, with the flag of Britain flying, and the red-coat sentry pacing over all; and the man in the next car to me would conjure up some junks and a pagoda and a fort of porcelain, and call it, with the same ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been sailing eastwards before a light breeze. The sun had long been up, but the whole sky was obscured by light clouds, and there was an early morning feel in the air. Nearly the whole length of the wide and lonely firth that divides Orkney from the Scottish coast lay behind them, and close ahead they saw the little island that Grim had chosen for the meeting- place. When they had reached the holm they anchored the ship close inshore, and two boat-loads of men were ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... sore forewearied host the shores that nearest lay Stretch out for o'er the sea, and turn to Libyan land this while. There goes a long firth of the sea, made haven by an isle, 159 Against whose sides thrust out abroad each wave the main doth send Is broken, and must cleave itself through hollow bights to wend: Huge rocks on this hand and on that, twin horns of cliff, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... regular and even line, in their continuity and orderly embankment, in their splendid monotony of contour they recall but one thing—Rome; they might be indeed only another work of that mighty government which conceived and built the great Wall that stretches from the Solway to the Firth of Forth which marked the limit of the Empire and barred out its enemies. And this wall of the South Downs, too, marked but another frontier of the same great government; beyond it lay the horizons unknown, and it barred out ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... the remnants of the united state of the first King of the English—Egbert, whose realm embraced not only the midland and semi-pagan Mercia, but who claimed the fealty of East Anglia and Northumbria and for a few years made the Firth of Forth the north coast of England. To the south-west the country that Alfred was called upon to govern reached to the valley of the Plym, and so "West Wales" or Cornwall became the last retreat of those Britons who refused to ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... lived. He read much and miscellaneously, and picked up odd sorts of knowledge from many quarters—from workmen, carpenters, fishermen and sailors, and above all, from the old boulders strewed along the shores of the Cromarty Firth. With a big hammer which had belonged to his great-grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy went about chipping the stones, and accumulating specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet, and such like. Sometimes he had ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... progenye, lyif, and eruditioun, becaus men of fame and renune have in diverse workis writtin, we omitt all curiouse repetitioun, sending such as wald knaw farther of him then we write to Franciss Lambert,[44] Johne Firth, and to that notable wark,[45] laitlie sette furth be Johne Fox, Englisman, of the Lyvis and Deathis of Martyrs within this yle, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... seldom a misfortune accepted with equanimity, and several of the beaten and despondent Saxons had joined the royal exiles. Their voyage, however, was an unprosperous one, and after much beating about by winds and storms they were at last driven up the Firth of Forth, where their ship found shelter in the little bay at the narrowing of the Firth, which has since borne the name of St. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... who were attached to practically all the chief ports of England. For the reasons already given the south-east coast had especially to be well provided in this respect. And, because of the proximity to the Isle of Man, the Solway Firth had also to be protected efficiently by these officers, additional, of course, to the aid rendered by the cruisers. Wales, however, seems to have been left practically unprotected. In the year 1809 ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... den, from the king's lions being formerly kept there. The whole is now used as barracks. From the Castle, looking over the town, towards the east, is a vast plain, nearly 40 miles in extent, called the Carse of Stirling, through which the Firth in meandering, forms a number of peninsulas, in places approximating so closely as to have an isthmus of only a few yards, the effect of which in the picture, reminded us of the contrived intricacies of a child's puzzle; in this direction ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... of the American Navy, King George and the Prince of Wales, were aboard the Queen Elizabeth, the flagship of Admiral Beatty, commanding the Grand Fleet. Five hundred British and American war vessels were in the receiving lines, and convoyed the surrendered German ships to the Firth of Forth, just below Edinburgh, Scotland, where they will lie until their disposal is determined. Among the German vessels surrendered that ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... the dowry, and even the feather beds were stowed away; and the last farewells having been said, the great ship weighed anchor, and sailed slowly out of the Firth ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... and had been making a trial trip a few miles outside the Firth of Clyde. She was returning to Glasgow, and the Isle of Arran already loomed in the distance, when the sailor on watch caught sight of an enormous fish sporting in the wake of the ship. Lord Edward, who was immediately apprised of the fact, came up on the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... surges, And sweethearts wander free, And the Firth as with laughter dimples . . . I would ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... make a saint swear! Why, I tell you, if this paper, the loss of which seems to sit so light on you, be not found, farewell to the fair lordship of Glenvarloch—firth and forest—lea and furrow—lake and stream—all that has been in the house of Olifaunt since the days ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... publicists should see, personally, what Great Britain had done, and was doing in the war; and it had decided to ask a few individuals to pay personal visits to its munition factories, its great aerodromes, its Great Fleet, which then lay in the Firth of Forth, and to the battle-fields. It was understood that no specific obligation rested upon any member of the party to write of what he saw: he was asked simply to observe and then, with discretion, use his observations for his own guidance and information in future writing. In fact, each ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... he should row us on the Firth, and made an appointment one day with himself and his wife for ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... refuse left by them in the valleys and along the hill-sides of North Derbyshire are still spoken of by the country people as "old man," or the "old man's work." Year by year, from Dartmoor to the Moray Firth, the plough turns up fresh traces of their indefatigable industry and enterprise, in pigs of lead, implements of iron and bronze, vessels of pottery, coins, and sculpture; and it is a remarkable circumstance that in several ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... 4.30 on Saturday afternoon, July 31st, being tugged out of the harbour at Granton. The Firth of Forth was then as calm as a lake, scarce a ripple to be seen on its surface. A previous thunderstorm had freshened the air, the rain which had fallen had ceased, and those lovely mists and tints usually to be seen after a storm, had taken ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... transmitting speech. Instead, the oscillations must be of constant amplitude and continuous. That a direct current arc light transforms a part of its energy into electric oscillations was shown by Firth and Rogers, of ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... which lies very broad, above ten miles within the country, which passing at Trewardreth (a town of no great note, though the bay takes its name from it), the next inlet of the sea is the famous firth or inlet called Falmouth Haven. It is certainly, next to Milford Haven in South Wales, the fairest and best road for shipping that is in the whole isle of Britain, whether be considered the depth of water for above ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... unnaturally near. The large town of Halifax sloped down to a lake-like harbour, about two miles wide, dotted with islands; and ranges of picturesque country spangled with white cottages lay on the other side. The lake or firth reminded me of the Gareloch, and boats were sailing about in all directions before the evening breeze. From tangled coppices of birch and fir proceeded the tinkle of the bells of numerous cows, and, mingled with the hum of ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... blankets out to dry, and the sound of people beating carpets is rarely absent. Beyond all this, the suburbs run out to Leith; Leith camps on the seaside with her forests of masts; Leith roads are full of ships at anchor; the sun picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith Island; the Firth extends on either hand from the Ferry to the May; the towns of Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of blowing smoke, along the opposite coast; and the hills enclose the view, except to the farthest east, where the haze of the horizon rests upon ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... meantime Aunt Barbara Brodie had done exactly as Rahal Ragnor anticipated. The boat had made the journey in an abnormally short time. A full sea, and strong, favourable winds, had carried her through the stormiest Firth in Scotland, at a racer's speed; and she was at her dock, and had delivered all her passengers when Conall Ragnor arrived at his warehouse. Then he had sent word to Rahal, and consequently she ventured on the prediction that "Aunt Barbara might ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... none offer so wide and varied an extent of scenery, from the melancholy stretch of the parallel sands to the hills in the west, the golden glitter of the beach, beneath the faint aerial blue of the still more distant hills across the firth, while behind is the city set on its cliffs, and proud with its crown of spires. The reflected sunset lingers on the walls and crags and towers, that shine imaged in the wet sands, the after-glow hangs over the eastern sky, and these have their ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... I have to thank Messrs. Sidney Webb, Hubert Hall and George Unwin, of the London School of Economics, for reading manuscript and suggesting improvements. For similar help and for reference to new material my acknowledgments are due to Mr. C.H. Firth, Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford, and to Mr. C.R.L. Fletcher, of Magdalen College. At the British Museum I found the officials most courteous, while the librarians of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, have given me ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... kings, as they increased their strength, should wish to annex these districts. But the efforts of Somerled of Argyll in the twelfth century, and of King Alexander the Second in 1249, had done no more than secure the few islands lying within the shelter of the Firth of Clyde. Earl John of Islay and many of his neighbours were now paying homage to both Norway and Scotland. The isle of Gigha, which had been a possession of Alpin of Bute, had been bestowed at that chief's death upon his younger son Roderic. But Roderic, as has been told, had ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... east coast of Great Britain and through the Pentland Firth does not usually take a long time. When the vessel is a swift little schooner-yacht, and the breeze is stiff as well as fair, the voyage ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... principal seaports of Galicia, and is admirably situated for commerce, on a deep firth, into which the river Mirando debouches. It contains many magnificent buildings, and an extensive square or plaza, which is planted with trees. I observed several vessels in the harbour; and the population, which is rather numerous, exhibited none of those marks of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the brightest contributions to the 'Highways and Byways' series. We have found Mr. Firth a careful guide, with a nice way of choosing from a great mass of material just such scenes and memories as appeal ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... company were privileged against arrest and imprisonment, and if placed in durance, the company was authorized to invoke both the civil and military power. The Great Seal was affixed to the Act; the books were opened; the shares were fixed at L100 sterling each; and every man from the Pentland Firth to the Galway Firth who could command the amount was impatient to put down his name. The whole kingdom apparently had gone mad. The number of shareholders were about fourteen hundred. The books were opened February 26, 1696, and the very first subscriber was Anne, dutchess of Hamilton. On that ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... every wind of heaven except the soft south-east, should have become a favourite haunt, not only for invalids, but for naturalists. Indeed, it may well claim the honour of being the original home of marine zoology and botany in England, as the Firth of Forth, under the auspices of Sir J. G. Dalyell, has been for Scotland. For here worked Montagu, Turton, and Mrs. Griffith, to whose extraordinary powers of research English marine botany almost owes its existence, ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... and furrowed front of Caerketton, the low sun striking athwart the sloping fields of white, the shadows creeping out from the hills, and the frosty yellow fog drawing in from the Firth—must often have flashed back on the thoughts of the exile of Samoa. Against this wintry background the white farmhouse, old and crow- stepped, looks dingy enough; the garden is heaped with the fantastic ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... Ireland. Then was their ship tossed to and fro on the sea. They returned about harvest-tide, worn out by toil and much exhausted, and reached Eiriksfjordr at the beginning of winter. Then spake Eirik, "You were in better spirits in the summer, when you went forth out of the firth, than you are in now, and yet for all that there is much to be thankful for." Thorstein replied, "It is a chieftain's duty now to look after some arrangement for these men who are without shelter, and to find them food." Eirik answered, ...
— Eirik the Red's Saga • Anonymous
... recreation, when no other is at hand, to read the letters of some of the New York correspondents who do the heavy Trite and the small Horrible for the outside barbaric folios. Standing on the shore of their Firth of Froth, so to speak, we watch with considerable interest the unique soarings and divings of "Our Own." One of these writers informs the readers of a Boston paper that "There is a great deal of business talent in New York," and that "There is a great deal ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... notoriety and of the importance of those who have assumed them to be true. Following this order, the two first on the list will naturally be the death, by Claverhouse's own hand, of John Brown, and the deaths, by drowning on the sands of Solway Firth, of the two women, Margaret Maclachlan and Margaret Wilson—popularly known as the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... barge, ye gallant crew! And, gentle ladye, deign to stay! Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... Merlin is said to have been a bard of the fifth century, and is supposed to have served the British chief Ambrosius Aurelianus, and then King Arthur. This Merlin lost his reason after the battle of Solway Firth, broke his sword, and retired into the forest, where he was soon after found ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... been bruised and mutilated. The only rational conjecture that can be formed of the circumstance is, that the fish were transported thither in a water-spout—a phenomenon that has before occurred in the same county. The Firth of Dengwall lies at a distance of three miles from the place in question; but no obstruction occurs between the field and the sea, the whole is a level strath or plain, and water spouts have been known to travel even farther ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... bridge of 180 feet span, and 30 feet high, and presenting apparently almost no surface to the wind, was blown so much out of line that the track had to be shifted. The recent terrible disaster at the Firth of Tay was, no doubt, due ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose
... on the part of an excursion of Evanses and Joneses from Cardiff, had obtained a secure foothold. While these things were happening in Wales, the army of Monaco had descended on Auchtermuchty, on the Firth of Clyde. Within two minutes of this disaster, by Greenwich time, a boisterous band of Young Turks had seized Scarborough. And, at Brighton and Margate respectively, small but determined armies, the one of Moroccan brigands, ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... vision to the left. The sheet of water extended far away to the eastward, forming the south and east angle of the lake, while two large islands, distant about twenty or thirty miles, formed the visible north shore of this firth. Ukerewe is the name by which the whole lake is called by the Arabs. Below, at no great distance, was the debouchure of the creek along which he had travelled ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... and calm, when at the ebbing tide, the wave but gently kisses the rock, then by the light of the silver moon, the occupants of the vessels which sail from the Firth of Tay, have often beheld the form of the beautiful Katerina, waving her white scarf as a signal that they should approach, and take her off from the rock on which she is seated. At times, she offers a ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... searched at low water for mines which might be showing above the surface. Around the anchorage of the Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow a wide belt of sea was kept clear of mines so that at any moment the fleet could reach blue water without risk from these weapons. The same precautions were taken off the Firth of Forth for the benefit of the battle cruisers, and outside Harwich for Admiral ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... on this side of Lochy, and the horse went Lochquhaher, agreeing, however, to meet again upon notice from the Pretender. And here being advised that two French frigates were come for their relief, and would lay in Pentland Firth till they should hear from them, the Lord Duffus, Sir George Sinclair, General Eckline and others, about 160 gentlemen in all, well mounted on horseback, made a sally from the hills, and crossing the shire of Murray,[62] ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... salons, is represented in Guy Mannering as the library of Pleydell with its fine view from the windows, 'which commanded that incomparable prospect of the ground between Edinburgh and the sea, the Firth of Forth with its islands, and the varied shore of Fife to the northward.' Bozzy may have been reticent about the former tenant; he was 'not clear that it was right in me to keep company with him,' though he thought ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... self-defence. Meantime, D'Elboeuf, brother of Guise, had sailed with a powerful flotilla, which was however almost annihilated by a storm. For a time then at least there was no danger of another French expedition to Scotland. Wynter's fleet commanded the Firth of Forth, and the French soon found that, except for an occasional raid, they would have to confine their efforts to making their ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... wore on; one of the worst I went through. We were rushing 'em steadily—four badly wounded in the back you know, and one who could sit up in the front seat with the driver, every trip. About 3:30 as I was going up to the front lines, I struck Ted Firth again ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... century there was, and at the present moment there is, a portion of the duchy of Sleswick called Anglen or the corner. It is really what its name denotes, a triangle of irregular shape, formed by the Slie, the firth of Flensborg, and a line drawn from Flensborg to Sleswick. It is just as Danish as the rest of the peninsula, and cannot be shown to have been occupied by a Germanic population at all. Its area is less than that of the county of ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... impaired by the insubordination of Landais, who evinced great jealousy of his superior. Several prizes were taken, one of them by Jones off Cape Wrath, at the extremity of Scotland. Traversing the eastern coast, he arrived, with the Pallas and the Vengeance, at the Firth of Forth, and entertained the bold idea of attacking the armed vessels at the station, and putting not only Leith, but possibly the capital, Edinburgh itself, under contribution. He would certainly have made the attempt—indeed, it was in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... young whale of the family of Balaena Whales was caught near the Queensferry, in the Firth of Forth. One much larger had been seen some time before, but escaped. I purchased it for dissection, although I was aware that it was impossible for me, during the hurry of the winter session, to devote much time to it. But ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... century, shortly after the withdrawal of the regular Roman troops, several bodies of heathen Anglo-Saxons, belonging to the three tribes of Jutes, English, and Saxons, settled en masse on the south-eastern shores of Britain, from the Firth of Forth to the Isle of Wight. The age of mere plundering descents was decisively over, and the age of settlement and colonisation had set in. These heathen Anglo-Saxons drove away, exterminated, or enslaved the Romanised and Christianised Celts, broke down every ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... awful, and a gold crown girdeth her head; And a sword of the kings she beareth, and her sun-bright hair is shed O'er the laps of the snow-white linen that ripples adown to her feet: As a swan on the billow unbroken ere the firth and the ocean meet, On the dark-blue cloths she sitteth, in the height of the golden place, Nor breaketh the hush of the hall, though her eyes be set ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... Mr. C.H. Firth's Life of Marvell in the thirty-sixth volume of The Dictionary of National Biography has, I am sure, preserved me from some, and possibly from ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell |
