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Fence   Listen
verb
Fence  v. i.  
1.
To make a defense; to guard one's self of anything, as against an attack; to give protection or security, as by a fence. "Vice is the more stubborn as well as the more dangerous evil, and therefore, in the first place, to be fenced against."
2.
To practice the art of attack and defense with the sword or with the foil, esp. with the smallsword, using the point only. "He will fence with his own shadow."
3.
Hence, to fight or dispute in the manner of fencers, that is, by thrusting, guarding, parrying, etc. "As when a billow, blown against, Falls back, the voice with which I fenced A little ceased, but recommenced."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fence" Quotes from Famous Books



... the first of which the view was as follows, Immediately beneath it there ran a high road on which every irregularity, every pebble, every rut was known and dear to me. Beside the road stretched a row of lime-trees, through which glimpses could be caught of a wattled fence, with a meadow with farm buildings on one side of it and a wood on the other—the whole bounded by the keeper's hut at the further end of the meadow, The next window to the right overlooked the ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... good deal at Heavy, but she was so good-natured that the girls all liked her, too. What they should do when they reached Snow Camp was the principal topic of conversation. As the train swept northward the snow appeared. It was piled in fence corners and lay deep in the woods. Some ice-bound streams and ponds were thickly mantled in the ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... now right, now left, to force his way through the congestion at the door, like a harried rabbit at a wattled fence. A touch on the shoulder simultaneously with the click of a trigger at his ear brought his face round over his shoulder. He made the instinctive pioneer motion to his hip, looked into the bore of the Colonel's pistol, and under Keith's ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... out and drives Fessenden's away from the fence. He recommenced his wanderings,—up one street and down another, in search of a place to lay his head. The inferior dwellings he passed by. But when he arrived at a particularly fine one, there he rang. Was it not natural for him to infer that the largest ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... that he could not be waked (liquor was his great weakness), was placed in a peasant-cart, together with his kazak cap and his dagger, and sent off to the town, five-and-twenty versts distant,—and there was found under a fence.... Well, and Timofei, who still kept his feet and merely hiccoughed, was "pitched out neck and crop," as a matter of course. The master had made a failure of his attempt. So they might as well let ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... ran a picket-fence, old, uneven and dilapidated, but in picturesque keeping with the building. The gate hung loosely on its hinges, just opposite an old-fashioned porch, that shot over the front door, much after the fashion of that hideous thing called a poke, with which English women ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... him a bite, and the horse took him on his back, and galloped away, until they came to a nice little boy sitting on a fence whistling. There was nothing now left of the apple except the core; but Trotty said, "Please, boy, show me the way to Santa Tlaus's house, and I'll div you the tore of ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... John in strong entreaty, and then he followed the lad. He followed him down one street and up another, and out into the country along the lake shore. The stranger moved more slowly as he went on and stopped at last; and, leaning upon a broken fence, looked ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson

... was a roof, which prevented the mice from getting out over the tops of the nest-houses. Though this space was open in front, and the play-ground protected only by a fence an inch high, the little creatures seldom fell out, for it was five feet to the floor of the cellar, and this was a giddy height for ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic

... making friendly signs to Longears to enter the garden. Longears no sooner understood that he was called, than he cleared the fence at one bound, and came ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... such stuff? Of course! And sour milk? Oh, yes! And keep them in a stinking pen? I tell you, sister, the hogs of this country are put upon! They become unclean, like the hogs in the Bible. If you kept your chickens like that, what would happen? You have a little sorghum patch, maybe? Put a fence around it, and turn the hogs in. Build a shed to give them shade, a thatch on poles. Let the boys haul water to them in barrels, clean water, and plenty. Get them off the old stinking ground, and do not let them go back there until winter. Give them only grain and clean feed, such as ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... in a long, barn-like building, divided into apartments hardly six feet square, each formed of thick spars and resembling a cage. Outside were a high fence and an earthen wall. Here their food was much worse than that on the journey. While here they were several times examined, being conducted through the streets to a castle-like building, where they were brought into the presence of the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... clever at names, and he immediately suggested "Smiler" as an appropriate name for the chestnut. The dark grey he called "Toothpick," because of his habit of rubbing his teeth on the sharp points of the fence; while he called the big bony bay the "Nipper," from his being so fond of grazing on, and taking nips from, the manes and tails of his companions, when he could ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... "statement showing the decrease in price in the United States of many articles within the past ten years largely consumed by the agricultural community." And among these "many articles" "largely consumed," are "mowing machines, barb fence-wire, horseshoes, forks, wire-cloth, slop-buckets, wheelbarrows, and putty." No wonder dyspepsia is the national disease in America. Fancy "consuming" French staples, pie-plates (though they sound almost edible), and putty!!! The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various

... the field where Mabot stood and found him gazing at the Chinaman, who was lying face downward near the fence, quite dead. By the smell and the general lay-out, I reckoned he had ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady

... so on we are forced, though we sweat out our blood, To make these walls pay for poor Hoppy's good; To supply with rare diet his pot and his spit; And with richest Margoux to wash down a tit-bit. To wash oft his fine linen, so clean and so neat, And to buy him much linen, to fence against sweat: All which he deserves; for although all the day He ofttimes is heavy, yet all night he's gay; And if he rise early to watch for the state, To keep up his spirits he'll sit up as late. Thus, for these and more reasons, as before I did say Hop has ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... care, if his old mare—who, by the way, was a very nervous sort of a mare, and could not stay long in one spot—what did he care, if the old creature did jump over the six-rail fence around the good parson's field of clover, and eat what she wanted, and trample down, in her nervous way of doing things, a good share of the rest of the clover? Why, it didn't hurt him any. The old miser! It wasn't his field of clover that Katy trampled down. And besides, ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank

... Assembly of Virginia, accepting from Lewis Washington a grant of the "site of the birthplace of George Washington, and the home and graves of his progenitors in America," and appropriating five thousand dollars "to enclose the same in an iron fence," etc. Hon. Henry A. Wise, governor of Virginia at the time this act was passed, entered with zeal and alacrity upon the work, the execution of which was entrusted to him by the Legislature—went in person to Westmoreland, examined carefully the sites, negotiated with the owner of the adjacent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... well, I'm sorry to say," answered Mrs. Bow Wow, as she looked carefully along the back fence to see if there were any bad cats there who might meaouw, and try ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis

... which he found to be of growing interest. On his return to his camp, although tired, the lad would work till dark over his little garden, knowing that everything he succeeded in growing would add to the enrichment of his food supply. Then the fence around the garden was in very bad repair, and he set to work to make one which should effectively keep out ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... keep out o' there," said Schoverling. "Here's a good place for the outspanning, just at the bank. Bakari, better get a thorn fence up right away. There's no telling what's liable to happen here, and we can command the ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... eight years old he constructed various articles, such as a miniature water-wheel, and at seventeen years of age he made a clock. His younger brother relates that he was accustomed to stop when he was ploughing in the field, and solve problems on the fence, and sometimes cover the plough-handles over with figures. The highest expectations of his friends were more than realized in his after life. The peculiar genius which he exhibited in his boyhood ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... much practical value. But, in the Yunnari mountains, the roads are never repaired; so far from it, the indigent natives extract the most convenient blocks to stop the holes in their hovel walls, or to build a fence on the windward side of their poppy patches. The rains soon undermine the pavement, especially where it is laid on a steep incline; sections of it topple down the slope, leaving chasms a yard or ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... of a mill stone, till he was swollowed by a wale, cos wales is the largest of created beings wich plows the deep, but lions is the king of beests, an the American eagle can lick ol other birds, hooray! Wen the boy was a seekn his forten in the stummeck of the wales belly he cut to a fence, an wen he had got over the fence he found hisself in a rode runin thru a medder, and it was a ofle nice country fur ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... of position, whilst the infantry forced the crossing both by the bridge and by a ford a quarter of a mile to the right. As soon as Moor's brigade was over, it was deployed on the right and left of the turnpike, which was bordered on either side by a high and strong post-and-rail fence. Scammon's was soon over, and similarly deployed as a second line, with the Eleventh Ohio in column in the road. Moor had with him a troop of horse and a single cannon, and went forward with the first line, allowing it to keep abreast of him on right and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... male and female images of wood were placed on the outside of the enclosure, some on low pedestals under the shade of an adjacent tree, others on high posts on the jutting rocks that hung over the edge of the water. A number stood on the fence at unequal distances all around; but the principal assemblage of these frightful representatives of their former deities was at the south-east end of the enclosed space, where, forming a semi-circle, twelve of them stood in grim array, as if perpetual guardians ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... should be grave and decorous of speech, and yet of a gay and cheerful spirit. He strove hard so to deport himself that if, at any time, he should return to his mother's country, he could take his place among her relations without discredit. He learned to fence, ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... long he may be kept awake at night? Indeed, it was not until the sun had begun to sink that a messenger came, saying that the Chief desired to see me if I had rested. So I went to his big hut which stood alone with a strong fence set round it at a distance, so that none could come within hearing of what was said, even at the door of the hut. I observed also that a man armed with an axe kept guard at the gateway in this fence round which he walked from time ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... a third time, but with the same result as before, except that this time the bird dropped it; but she reached the ground as soon as the cicada did, and taking it in her beak flew some distance to a high board fence, where she sat motionless for some moments. While pondering the problem how that fly should be broken, the male bluebird approached her, and said very plainly, and I thought rather curtly, "Give me that bug," but she quickly resented his interference and flew farther ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... as fast as he could to a high fence, where he stopped to rest. He thought his dangers were over. He was ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry

... friend, and it belonged to the ardour of his genius, at least as he was then, to be a very active friend. He took up the pen as other chivalrous gentlemen of the day took up the sword, and showed himself a master of the art of fence therewith. His delicate exercise of himself with that weapon was nothing less than a revelation to all the world of the capabilities, the true genius of the French language ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... when he has reached the age of tail coats and spike-fence collars that he discovers two hands are frequently too many and often not enough. They are too many at your first church wedding when wearing your first pair of white kids and they are not enough at a five o'clock tea. There is a type of male who ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... boards to a fence around the ground on which a house was in process of construction, in the Rue de Reuilly found on that plot the torn fragment of a letter on which were ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... the bells Which of approaching labour tells Aroused Tattiana from her bed. The maiden at her casement sits As daylight glimmers, darkness flits, But ah! discerns nor wood nor mead— Beneath her lay a strange courtyard, A stable, kitchen, fence appeared. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... tacked to the board fence back of this stand attracted his attention. Impelled by a strange curiosity, he ventured into the circle of light, knowing full well, before he was near enough to distinguish more than the bold word "Reward," that this sinister bill had to do with ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... reported that she had seen two strangers lurking in this covert. The near prospect of reward animated the zeal of the troops. It was agreed that every man who did his duty in the search should have a share of the promised five thousand pounds. The outer fence was strictly guarded: the space within was examined with indefatigable diligence; and several dogs of quick scent were turned out among the bushes. The day closed before the work could be completed: but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... robes. Arjuna also shone like a blazing fire. Dhananjaya, unto whose car were yoked white steeds, then duly prepared, O king, to follow that horse of the complexion of a black deer, at the command of Yudhishthira. Repeatedly drawing his bow, named Gandiva, O king, and casing his hand in a fence made of iguana skin, Arjuna, O monarch, prepared to follow that horse, O ruler of men, with a cheerful heart. All Hastinapore, O king, with very children, came out at that spot from desire of beholding Dhananjaya, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Riverbeds had weakened, backed out, decided, like the cowards that they were, not to fight, after all? It was in the midst of an animated discussion over this possibility that the defenders of the fort were startled by piercing yells from the neighborhood of the stone fence that bounded the school-house lot in the rear. Looking in that direction they were thunderstruck to see the enemy's soldiers pouring over the wall and advancing vigorously toward them. With rare strategy the Riverbeds, instead of approaching ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... brought up, I may say, in the Scottish regiment, and after my father's death the officers and men were all very kind to me, and I learnt my drill both as a soldier and an officer, to fence, use my pistols, and ride. The officers lent me books ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... the attitude of effort, still tearing at the spiked boughs, some standing upright as though to signal the advance. The long row of dead lay here as where the prairie wind drives rolling weeds, heaping them up against some fence that holds them back ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... Netherby, Tintwa, and (north of Van Reenen's) De Beer's Pass, Cundycleugh, Muller's, and Botha's, beyond which the range ends with the frontier at Majuba. Three or four of these passes are crossed by waggon roads, but Van Reenen's has the only railway. The frontier, marked by a barbed wire fence across the summit of the pass, must be nearly forty miles from Ladysmith, but from the cliffs above it, the little British camp can be seen like a toy through this clear African air, and Boer sentries watch it all day, ready to signal the least movement of its ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... from the corner where I had been again placed, and joined the party. He placed himself behind a fence by which they must pass, and took such good aim with me that down fell a man ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen

... A fence of poles made a barrier across the narrow entrance of the valley, and so the horses were allowed ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

... is because you are known as a kindly man that the gaki-ami rested a while outside the fence of ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... getting to Pony's house that it was almost dusk when they reached the back of the barn, and Jim put him over the fence. Jim started to run, and Pony waited till he got out of sight and holloed; then he began to shout, "Father! Mother! O mother! Come out here! ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells

... I can, for that precious young man took me into his confidence. First, when I heard that he had come to the Perch, I trampled about the damp riverside with Barbara, and sure enough they met, he being on the Perch's side of the fence, and Barbara's line being caught high up in a tree on ours, as often happens. Well, I asked him to come over the fence and help her to get her line clear, which he did very civilly, and then he showed her how to fish, and then I asked him to tea and left them alone a bit, and when ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... fence protected the lot upon the street front; the bill-boards formed the side attractions; and in the center front was the monument, a stone of stumbling and offense. It was a neat, plain granite obelisk, which ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... gratitude to protect, comfort and cherish her; add to all, when she is perhaps one of the first of lovely forms and noble minds—the mind, too, that hits one's taste as the joys of Heaven do a saint—should a faint idea, the natural child of imagination, thoughtfully peep over the fence—were you, my friend, to sit in judgment, and the poor, airy straggler brought before you, trembling, self-condemned, with artless eyes, brimful of contrition, looking wistfully on its judge—you could not, my dear ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... us out of that obscure period like brief little bird-calls from a thick-leaved wood." He speaks of Chaucer's works as "full of cunning hints and twinkle-eyed suggestions which peep between the lines like the comely faces of country children between the fence bars as one rides by." He draws a fine comparison between William Morris and Chaucer: "How does the spire of hope spring and upbound into the infinite in Chaucer; while, on the other hand, how blank, world-bound, and wearying is the stone ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... yards. We fancied at first there must be some barge rope; not one was in sight. It lasted in this manner, and at the farther end, towards Teddington, even to dashing. It did not cease before I got to the middle of the terrace, between the fence and the hill. Yet this is nothing: to what is to come. The Bishop and I walked down to my meadow by the river. At this end were two fishermen in a boat, but their backs had been turned to the agitation, and they had seen nothing. At the farther end of the field was a gentleman ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... tortuous tangle of alleys through which he now felt himself led was dark as the nether regions to his unaccustomed eyes. There was snow under his feet and now and then he brushed against some obtruding object, or stumbled against a low fence; but beyond these slight miscalculations on his own part, he was a mere automaton in the hands of his eager guide, and only became his own man again when they suddenly stepped into an open yard and he could discern plainly before him the dark ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... tell whether or not it was the white and brown pigeon she had sheltered and fed in the morning. But just before sundown, as she stood by the parlor window, a cry of joy fell from her lips. There was the pigeon sitting on a fence close by, and looking, it ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... ordered the Black Band to take him back again; at the same time commanding the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his escaping out of Brentwood Church. Well! the Sheriff dug a deep trench all round the church, and erected a high fence, and watched the church night and day; the Black Band and their Captain watched it too, like three hundred and one black wolves. For thirty-nine days, Hubert de Burgh remained within. At length, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... was that it happened, perhaps some months after I had become a journeyman, that he told me to take a gang of men, whom he named, and to go quite up-town in the city, to put a close wooden fence around a vacant lot of land there. One of his regular employers had come to him, to say that this lot of land was to be enclosed, and the work was to be done by him. He had sent round the lumber, and he told me that I would ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... morning was revealing the outlines of the scrub oaks in the field as the two came back to the cottage. Sommers tied his horse to a fence-post at the end of the lane, and went in to warm himself from the chill of the night air. Mrs. Preston prepared some coffee, while he built a fire in the unused stove. Then she drew up her work-table before the fire and poured out the coffee into two thick cups. As there was ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... leapt O'er the fence and crept Through the ditch, with his thief's heart quaking; But the face of the maid No hint betrayed That she noticed the brambles shaking, Till she saw him clear Of her one wild fear— The chance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various

... buttons on Leonard's sleeve. "Last time I saw him it was in the garden on the same bench in the sun. He came over the fence, and he told me that his regiment had been ordered ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway

... lilacs, and he lifted his hat, hoping that she would meet him at the entrance; but although she bowed in recognition, he was forced to open the gate and admit himself. Throwing the bridle rein over one of the iron spikes of the fence, and taking off his gloves, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... and a fellow of an inquiring disposition. I told Ben something about the scrape I had been in, and Ben soon afterward hunted up Grierson. Grierson told Ben the whole truth about it. It seems that Grierson did not have any information from anyone. He saw our crowd go over the fence the night we Frenched it. But Grierson was too far away to catch any of us, or recognize us. So he made no alarm, but just waited and prowled until we came back. He heard the noise we made trying to get up over the wall from ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... and that's a lot better than nothing," said Dolly. "Come on! We started for the road. Let's go down and sit on the fence and watch ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart

... along, Norah completely unable to walk steadily, but progressing principally on one foot, while David Linton's eyes were twinkling. The chase was not a long one; the string suddenly cut across to the door in the high fence dividing the front and ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... the busy thoroughfare seemed deserted. In the mere wantonness of power, and the security of solitude, I indulged myself in snapping several door-latches, which gave me a pleasure as keen as that enjoyed in boyhood from passing a stick along the pickets of a fence. I was in nowise abashed to be discovered in this amusement by an old peasant-woman, bearing at either end of a yoke the usual basket with bottles of milk ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... had not been cleared away from the road, and Harnett was fastening his horses to the fence, in order to help remove that which had been of so much service in stopping the flight of the horse-thieves, when some papers in the ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... trader's house Larmer and another beachcomber were directing a score of Kiti natives how to sling the heavy gun between two stout poles. A sentry stood on guard at the gate of Challoner's fence, but Tiaru dashed his crossed musket aside, and then sprang into the midst of ...
— The Brothers-In-Law: A Tale Of The Equatorial Islands; and The Brass Gun Of The Buccaneers - 1901 • Louis Becke

... while she stealthily "shadowed" the old man along the lane. Never once did he look behind him, although she was prepared to dissolve from view instantly, had he done so. And at last the end of the lane was reached and he climbed the rail fence which separated it from the ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... rich scene, and yet the richest charm That e'er clothed earth in beauty, lives not here. Winds no green fence around the cultured farm No blossomed hawthorn shields the cottage dear: The land is bright; and yet to thine how drear, Unrivalled England! Well the thought may pine For those sweet fields where, each a little sphere, In shaded, sacred fruitfulness doth ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... You ask me why? Why can't a telegram travel on a fence instead of on a wire? Your friends could come back to you if you could put yourself in a receptive condition; but if you cannot, you must depend ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco

... it was almost entirely a settlement of Friends. A very few of the old houses with their quaint stoops or porches are left. That occupied by John Woolman was a small, plain, two-story structure, with two windows in each story in front, a four-barred fence inclosing the grounds, with the trees he planted and loved to cultivate. The house was not painted, but whitewashed. The name of the place is derived from the highest hill in the county, rising two hundred feet above ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... gesture to drive her back to the mountains. With the same care, however, that the deer had avoided us, she now sought our society, and did not leave us until we had reached the precincts of the village, and leaping a high, wooden fence that separated it from the forest, we gave her the alternative of doing as we did, or remaining where she was. With the decorous conduct of her sex she made not the attempt; but during the hour we wandered about the sleeping village in search of some boatmen to row us back to Auron, we ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... a strong wrist and a prodigious good fence, Mr. Montagu, but if you will pardon a word of criticism I think your ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... Point, commanded by Captain (afterward General) James Chatham Duane, of the engineers. During the ceremonies the general, in order to be more free in case of emergency, remained outside the Capitol square (which was at that time surrounded by a strong iron fence) with the batteries. The precautions thus taken were, like all of General Scott's plans, wise, and possibly saved the city from one of those scenes incident to the French Revolution, and, it may be, saved the country. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... the Jesuit. "We are already in possession of a respectable minority, and it will be easy for you, with the aid of promises and shrewd insinuations, to win over those who are on the fence. Marquis, the work intrusted to you ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... Cambridge student into jelly, and reduced him to a state which he picturesquely describes as resembling that of "a dog in a coal-box," he picks him up and philosophically informs him that "all the different styles of fence were invented and established for man's protection, not for his destruction. Besides," he adds, with much profundity, "the laws thereto appertaining are based on certain strict principles of honor, which you have unquestionably violated in this case. Now, take my advice, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... both countries, allocate divided villages, and stop illegal cross-border trade, migration, violence, and transit of terrorists through the porous border; Bangladesh protests India's attempts to fence off high-traffic sections of the porous boundary; a joint Bangladesh-India boundary inspection in 2005 revealed 92 pillars are missing; dispute with India over New Moore/South Talpatty/Purbasha Island in the Bay of Bengal deters maritime boundary delimitation; Burmese ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... excitedly. "And they are going to row right round the shoal of fish and make a regular fence of net about them, so as ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... His face was very pale, ghastly-looking. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the mantel, as he passed, and felt weak, as if he were really a criminal. But his heart did not relax, nevertheless. So he hurried into the night, down the garden, climbed the fence into the field, and went away across the field in ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... Mme. De l'Isle across to her beautiful gates, and Chester, not in dream but in fact, with M. De l'Isle and Mme. Alexandre following well in the rear, walked with mademoiselle to the high fence and green batten wicket of her olive-scented garden in the rue Bourbon. So walking, and urged by him, she began to tell of matters in her father's life, the old Hotel St. Louis life before hers began—matters that gave to ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... honestly, with a clean heart, and, man or woman, you can only be the better for it.' Perhaps his system was a shade too simple, a shade too obvious, for this complicated planet; but he held to it in all sincerity. It was in pursuance of the same system, I daresay, that he taught Nina to fence, and to read Latin and Greek, as well as to play the piano, and turn an omelette. She could ply a foil against ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... 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 Limited on ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... Stranger, I was a joggin' along into Windsor on Old Clay, on a sort of butter and eggs' gait (for a fast walk on a journey tires a horse considerable), and who should I see a settin' straddle legs "on the fence, but Squire Gabriel Soogit, with his coat off, a holdin' of a hoe in one hand, and his hat in t'other, and a blowin' like ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... this dark inferno, Tantril's ranch was an island of stillness. Within the high guarding fence, the long low buildings lay quiet and were [illegible] brushed periodically by the light from the watch-beacon high overhead as it swept its shaft over the jungle smother and then around over the black glassy surface of the Great Briney Lake, bordering the ranch enclosure on ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... towns in France, which can be called fine in themselves: their advantages lie in situation, and in the modern additions which have succeeded to the ramparts and close-walled enclosures of the ancient time, when to crowd streets together and fence them in was the principal aim; but Bayonne, although still fortified strongly, is less confined than most cities: a thorough air blows through the tolerably well-paved streets; open spaces occur every now and then, narrow and close places have ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... was the picture of the Good Shepherd. I dwelt on the vain efforts of the poor sheep to get out of the fold; its irrational aversion to its home, and its desperate resolution to force a way through the prickly fence. It was pierced and torn with the sharp aloe; at last it lay imprisoned in its stern embrace, motionless and bleeding. Then the Shepherd, though He had to wound His own hands in the work, disengaged it, and brought it back. God has His own times; His power went along ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... more dead than before. In the woods, where even the faithful springs are beginning to run low, the pines and balsams have thrown out all their fragrance upon the heat and wait for the wind to bring news of the rain. The clematis, wild carrot, and all the gipsy-flowers camped by sufferance between fence line and road net are masked in white dust, and the golden-rod of the pastures that are burned to flax-colour burns too like burnished brass. A pillar of dust on the long hog-back of the road across the hills shows where a team is lathering ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... Clean of officious fence or hedge, Half-wild and wholly tame, The wise turf cloaks the white cliff edge As when the Romans came. What sign of those that fought and died At shift of sword and sword? The barrow and the camp abide, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... dolts, facts had to be encountered, deeds done, in groaning earnest. These representatives of the pig-sconces of the population judged by circumstances: airy shows and seems had no effect on them. Dexterity of fence was thrown away. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... recesses of a grove, careless whither your steps carried you, so content you were to yield to the enchanting guidance of accident? And what though, in following your bent, you were compelled to climb an occasional fence or cross a chance puddle, the satisfaction of coming suddenly upon some pleasant view, or unexpectedly entering an apparently previously unexplored nook, more than atoned for such trifling annoyances. Without digression in some degree, neither spoken nor written language can ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the rest turned instantly to anger. The boys remembered suddenly that their eel was gone, and crowded round the man, yelling continuously, "Where's our ale? Where's our ale? You've stole our ale." And the ragged man with drooping shoulders and white scared face slunk along the fence under the road, looking for a weak place by which he might scramble out of the field. At last he found one and made a bound to climb up it; but the bank was too steep and he fell back. The boys seeing that he was afraid of them began to raise the cry of thief, ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... for Farmer Brown's boy, for she felt sure that he would come back to the house they had left, and sure enough he did. He brought a spade and dug the house open, and all the time old Granny Fox was watching him from behind a fence corner and laughing to think that she had been smart enough to move in ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess

... and picked out the Westcott by its name-plate, which, being new and shiny, was easy to read from a distance. Then Helen made a discovery. "Girls, there's water down there," she cried. Sure enough, behind the back fence and across a road was a pretty pond, with wooded banks and an island, which hid ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... substantial fence of boards, and if I were very anxious, I should keep a watchman, who would say politely, but firmly, to those who came with bags: "Excuse me, but my master is very particular about that. You must not fill your bag; you must take yourself ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... was narrow, And dusty, and hot, and mean; But the bush that bore white roses, She leaned to the fence between: ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone

... the roadway, and the next instant had crashed through a frail railway fence (Page ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... the elephants on into a suitable place, they fell trees and wreathe them very roughly together with bush rope, all round an immense enclosure, still taking care not to scare the elephants into a rush. This fence is quite inadequate to stop any elephant in itself, but it is made effective by being smeared with certain things, the smell whereof the elephants detest so much that when they wander up to it, they ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... Boupari no native, however daring or however wicked, would ever venture to transgress the narrow line of white coral sand which protected the castaways like an intangible wall from all outer interference. Within this impalpable ring-fence they were absolutely safe from all rude intrusion, save that of the two Shadows, who waited upon them, day ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... who would take all the precautions against the discovery that might have been expected from one of the craft. Indeed, the man's carelessness in going straight across the country to his brother's house, and leaving footsteps in the soft earth, easily traceable almost to the very boundary fence, shows he is incapable ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... fall across the fence, and the sheep would stray into the woods, which was fatal to them; or, the fastening to their pen would be left just one unlucky night not secured, and the morning would show a melancholy remainder of the fine flock that had been folded the night before. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... was two old fence rails, carried on the shoulder of an elderly man, recognized by Lincoln as his cousin John Hanks, and by the Sangamon folks as an old settler in the Bottoms. The rails were ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... been speaking, I went as usual into the garden, and after patrolling all the walks without success (the rooks knew me, and merely cawed spasmodically at a distance), I chanced to go close to the low fence which separated our domain from the narrow strip of garden stretching beyond the lodge to the right, and belonging to it. I was walking along, my eyes on the ground. Suddenly I heard a voice; I looked across the fence, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... and the ditch. Here they thrust their spears between the palisade; but these were wrenched from their hands, and scores fell from the blows of kris, spear, and arrow; until at last their leaders and chiefs, seeing how terrible was the slaughter, and how impossible it was to climb the bamboo fence, called their men off; and they fell back, pursued by exulting cries from the women, who were standing on the platform behind the wall of the palace, watching the conflict, and by the yells of the defenders ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... guess that everybody told me. Now poor Mrs Lucas is feeling out of it, and neglected and dethroned. It's all on my mind rather, and I'm talking to you about it, because it's largely your fault. Now we're talking quite frankly, so don't fence, and say it's mine. I know exactly what you mean, but you are perfectly wrong. Primarily, it's Mrs Lucas's fault, because she's quite the stupidest woman I ever saw, but it's partly your ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... are fifteen hogsheads of sugar on the beach, besides thirty or forty more in the wreck, and all above water. There are casks of beans and peas, the sea-stores of the French, besides lots of other things. I can plant, and fish, and shoot, and make a fence from the ropes of the wreck, and have a large garden, and all that a man can want. Our own poultry, you know, has long been out; but there is still a bushel of Indian-corn left, that was intended for their feed. One quart of that, will make me a rich man, in such a climate as this, and with soil ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... king, strutting about the yard, and looking as haughty and as full of fight as only a Spanish cock can, "to see my detested rival over the fence yonder humbled in ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... a brick building behind a high iron fence, kept by a woman of olive complexion, middle years, and pleasant manners, Madame Josephine Delaunay. She looked at him at first with a little doubt, because it was a time in Charleston when one must inspect strangers, ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... will now come back to my former story. So then the men, having in the first part of the contest done things worthy of themselves, and having for the most part, although not all, yet the majority, avoided the (not) falling into ditches and the like incurably at least, came presently to the wooden fence, which I conjecture to be the wall meant by the Delphic oracle. It being then necessary either remaining on the hither side to be driven away from all hope of the prize or leaping to run risks concerning their lives, and the rest having leapt in such a way that they crossed the fence sitting ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... polite society. As Miss Lafontaine's sole object in appropriating Skippy was the reflex action on the Triumphant Egghead, it was absolutely necessary that Skippy should at least give the appearance of appreciating the privilege. Miss Mimi, therefore, decided to jump the fence of strict conventionality if ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... of womb of 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: her breath: breath that is life. And all the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... start for a minute. I'd like to hev gone in and seen it nigh to, if I hadn't happened to think of this 'ere autoo. You see I ain't got it all paid for yet. I'm jest clean beat. You don't mind my takin' a leetle pull at a stone fence, ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... hundred yards away, which (as near as I could see) served either as a church or a tomb. Toward this we turned. All too soon I made out its entirely dismal exterior. Grey long stone walls, surrounded on the street side by a fence of ample proportions and uniformly dull colour. Now I perceived that we made toward a gate, singularly narrow and forbidding, in the grey long wall. No living soul ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... not, by the blessing of heaven, formed some of his letters with a queerness—! It was positive that the queerness could scarce have been greater if he had practised it for the very purpose of bringing their heads together over it as far as was possible to heads on different sides of a wire fence. It had taken her truly but once or twice to master these tricks, but, at the cost of striking him perhaps as stupid, she could still challenge them when circumstances favoured. The great circumstance ...
— In the Cage • Henry James

... homestead were Eliakim Walker, Nathaniel Atkinson and David Flanders, all of whom were at Bunker Hill—Walker in the redoubt under Prescott; Atkinson and Flanders in Captain Abbott's company, under Stark, by the rail fence, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... latter's disadvantage. A flicker passed in dipping flight above the pasture, and it seemed to him that never before was such a golden color as that upon its wings. Even the call of the woodpecker was music to him, and the chatter and chirr of a red squirrel perched jauntily on the rider of a rail fence seemed to him about the most joyous sound he had ever heard. He felt as if he were somehow being born again. And when his own farm came into view, the feeling but became intensified. He thought he had never ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo



Words linked to "Fence" :   have, close in, stickle, barrier, fencer, deflect, eastern fence lizard, debate, enclose, converse, squabble, quarrel, worm fence, hedge, discourse, quibble, hedgerow, fence in, western fence lizard, monger, palisade, paling, stone wall, inclose, argue, protect, backstop, fence-sitter, niggle, Virginia fence, rail fence, fence lizard, picket fence, altercate, fencing, contend, differ, argufy, stockade, surround, disagree, weir, fence line, wall, shut in, pettifog, dispute, dissent, dealer, struggle, fence mending, sunk fence, trader, peacock flower fence, receive, fence rail, spar, brabble, parry, bargainer, fight, on the fence, take issue, snake fence, oppose, chainlink fence, bicker, scrap, block, snake-rail fence, colloquialism



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