"Furlong" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... last furlong of the drive. At the big gate of the yard—very few people, not even bishops, go to the front gate of a Bush homestead—Brownie stood, her broad face beaming. As they pulled up, Murty O'Toole came forward to take the horses—a marked compliment from Murty, who, like most ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... depending on local custom, but the most common length was that prescribed by statute, that is to say, sixteen and a half feet. The length of the acre, forty rods, has given rise to one of the familiar units of length, the furlong, that is, a "furrow-long," or the length of a furrow. A rood is a piece of land one rod wide and forty rods long, that is, the fourth of an acre. A series of such strips were ploughed up successively, being separated from each other either by leaving the width of a ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... of the last furlong, where the ascent became steep enough for zig-zags, I turned to look back. Down away from me fell the valley, slipping by reason of its own slope out into the great Etchiu plain. Here and there showed bits of the path in corkscrew, from my personal standpoint ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... my object in coming abroad, and was revolving various subjects in my mind, my body only being conscious of the shocks which now and then I received from persons meeting or passing me, when I became conscious of a sudden rush along the street in the direction of the capitol, which was now but a furlong from where I was. I was at once awake. The people began to run, and I ran with them by instinct. At length it came into my mind to ask why we were ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... Helen, and his host gave him a large sum of money, promising to make him his guest-friend and to bring luck to his ship and his business. At daybreak Achilles dismissed him, telling him to leave the girl on the shore. When they had gone about a furlong from the island, a horrible cry from the maiden reached their ears, and they saw Achilles tearing her to pieces, ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... beneath the scented thorn He heard the birds their morning carols sing; And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born Not half a furlong from that ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... total length of the tunnel will be three miles one furlong, the distance from wall to wall at each side of the Mersey being about three-quarters of a mile. The underground terminus will be about Church street and Waterloo place, in the immediate neighborhood ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... from Chatham who managed the Bhamo State Line (The which was one mile and one furlong—a guaranteed twenty-inch gauge), So Exeter Battleby Tring consented his claims to resign, And died, on four thousand a month, in the ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... lightning over any topic that was started? The man's face that was so mobile is set now; gone is the light from his fine eyes. He says that A. (our host) is a thoroughly good fellow. Fifty yards further on, he adds that A. is one of the best fellows he has ever met. We tramp another furlong or so, and he says that Mrs. A. is a charming woman. Presently he adds that she is one of the most charming women he has ever known. We pass an inn. He reads vapidly aloud to me: 'The King's Arms. Licensed to sell Ales and Spirits.' I foresee ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... turned up the small footpath of which I have already spoken. It led in a zigzag manner through thickets of hazel, elder, and sweet- brier; after following its windings for somewhat better than a furlong, I heard a gentle sound of water, and presently came to a small rill, which ran directly across the path. I was rejoiced at the sight, for I had already experienced the want of water, which I yet knew must be nigh at hand, as I was in a place to all appearance occasionally ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... pile-drivings there, are enormous; and his perseverance needs to be invincible. For instance, looking out, one morning after heavy rain, upon some extensive anti-quagmire operations and strong pile-drivings, he finds half a furlong of his latest heavy piling clean gone. What in the world has become of it? Pooh, the swollen lake has burst it topsy-turvy; and it floats yonder, bottom uppermost, a half-furlong of distracted liquid-peat. Whereat his Majesty gave a loud laugh, says Bielfeld, [Baron de ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... is." Poppy's eyes had become inscrutable. "I really ought to attend to my Gamping, and pass the time of day with Cappadocia. Her snappishness has scared the maids. They refuse to go within a measured furlong of her." ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... on a beach of the same name, is within about half a furlong of the Chinese village of Maimatschin, (about the fiftieth parallel of latitude,) being one thousand miles from Pekin, and four thousand from Moscow. Such are the enormous distances through which the eagerness for money-making drives ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... I was sustained, yet not without exceeding conflicts, for the space of seven or eight weeks; for my peace would be in it, and out, sometimes twenty times a day; comfort now, and trouble presently; peace now, and before I could go a furlong, as full of fear and guilt as ever heart could hold. And this was not only now and then, but my whole seven weeks' experience: for this about the sufficiency of grace, and that of Esau's parting with his birthright, would be like a pair of scales within my mind; sometimes one end would be ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... the sailor noticed instantly. Some men, brave to rashness, ready as he to give his life to save her, would have raced madly over the intervening ground, scarce a furlong, and attempted a heroic combat ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... result, when he missed Bill Tarbox from the arena, and saw him a furlong away, hand in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... I stripped it of stock, crops, buildings, and fences, and saw it as bald as the palm of my hand. I recited the table of long measure: Sixteen and a half feet, one rod, perch, or pole; forty rods, one furlong; eight furlongs, one mile. Eight times 40 is 320; there are 320 rods in a mile, but how much is 16-1/2. times 320? "Polly, how much is ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... He would 'a' gone in after him. We'd be'n driv' a furlong back, I reckon, and every mark was lost. It 'ud be'n naught but to swaller him, too. He lost his sense. We had to holt him back. He raved thar', like a madman. It blew a bitter spell, longest of all, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... walke, 'twill walke you by, If you sit downe, it downe will lye, It with gesture will you wooe, And counterfeit those things you doe; Ore each Hillock it will vault, And nimbly doe the Summer-sault, Upon the hinder Legs 'twill goe, And follow you a furlong so, 120 And if by chance a Tune you roate, 'Twill foote it finely to your note, Seeke the worlde and you may misse To finde out such a thing as this; This my loue I haue for thee So thou'lt leaue him and ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... far from conclusive. It was now eleven. He was due at the canoe by midnight. He made for the place as fast as he could go, which, on such a night, was slow, but guided by occasional glimpses of the stars he reached the lake, and pausing a furlong from the landing, he gave the rolling, quivering ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... golf last year, and the first time I took the club in my hand I sent the ball a furlong. 'It seems an easy game,' I said to the man who was teaching me. 'Yes, most people find it easy at the beginning,' he replied dryly. He was an old golfer himself; I thought he was jealous. I stuck well to the game, and for about three weeks I was immensely pleased with myself. ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... darksome night coming on upon me, increased my fears of being devoured by wild creatures; my mind was plunged in despair, and having no prospect, as I thought, of life before me, I prepared for another kind of death then what I had lately escaped. I walked about a furlong to see if I could find any fresh water, which I did, to my great joy: and taking a quid of tobacco to prevent hunger, I got up into a thick bushy tree, and seating myself so that I could not fall, a ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... seeming to gather additional speed at every furlong. Her heavy shells played a merry tattoo upon the stem and deck ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... was sustained, yet not without exceeding conflicts, for the space of seven or eight weeks; for my peace would be in and out, sometimes twenty times a day; comfort now, and trouble presently; peace now, and before I could go a furlong as full of fear and guilt as ever heart could hold; and this was not only now and then, but my whole seven weeks' experience; for this about the sufficiency of grace, and that of Esau's parting with his birthright, would be like a pair of scales within my mind, sometimes one end ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fire, and broke silence. He was still surly, but the grudge was not audible in his voice. "I took your fire for a gypsy camp, and was glad enough of it. I've come by the hills from Winterslow since dusk. You were right, though: I was done. I couldn't have dragged another furlong." ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... accomplished. Our zigzag course had prolonged it into from two hundred and thirty to two hundred and fifty miles; and it is literally true that, of this entire distance from Westport House to Sackville-street, Dublin, not one furlong had been performed under the spontaneous impulse of our own horses. Their diabolic resistance continued to the last. And one may venture to hope that the sense of final subjugation to man must have proved penally bitter to the horses. But, meantime, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... respectable-looking labourer, with a face of the most perfect stolidity, and {288} who possessed a most curiously-shaped skull, broad and flat at the top, and projecting greatly on each side over the ears, deposed: 'I live about a furlong and a half from where the body was found. I have seen the body of the deceased. I had never seen her before her death. On the night of Friday, the 29th of July, I dreamt three successive times that I heard the cry ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... stumps were left and interfered with the cultivation of the soil. Beyond this clearing or open space extended the immense forests which at one time covered almost the entire face of our country. On the south side of the town and distant a furlong wound a creek, which after many shiftings and turnings found its way into the Mississippi and so at last into the Gulf of Mexico. The course of this stream was so winding that it extended on two sides of the town and ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... ere the Monkey People cry, Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer, Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh— He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear! Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade, And the whisper spreads and widens far and near. And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now— ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... proceeded at once to a measurement of the aforesaid island of Atlantis, which they discovered to be of a triangular or three-cornered shape, in dimensions as follows: On the northern face from Cape Providence (q.v.) to Cape Mercy (q.v.), one mile one furlong and a bit. On the south-western face from Cape Mercy (q.v.) to Point Liberty (q.v.), seven furlongs, two roods and a foot. On the south-eastern face, which is the shortest face, from Point Liberty (q.v.) round again to Cape Providence (q.v.), from which we started, something ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... so plainly true that it seems hardly worth while to say it. It certainly makes no difference whether the land be a square furlong ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... proceed at a somewhat livelier pace than before, affording thereby a hope that he knew he was drawing near to his quarters for the evening. This hope, however, was not speedily accomplished, and Mannering, whose impatience made every furlong seem three, began to think that Kippletringan was actually retreating before him in proportion to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... mirage; true and untrue She seems, and, pressing ever on in vain, I yearn across the mocking, tempting blue. Never she draws more near, never I gain A furlong's space toward where she sits and a miles; Smiles and cares nothing for my ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... Despond not. I cannot think that he is lost. We were but a furlong from the shore. My belief is, that seeing the capture of the Queen was certain, and that to him, if taken with her in arms against his country, death was inevitable, he, when he fell, rose again at a safe distance, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... It was but a furlong to that rock; it was but the breadth of the beach, that at low water stretched uncovered; and yet how slowly the boat sped, with the ruthless tide sweeping it back as fast as the oars ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Saturday. On Monday I enters the bird among a bunch of dogs to start in a five furlong sprint Thursday. I'm savin' every soomarkee I gets my hands on 'n' I pays the entrance to the secretary like it's a mere bag of shells. Joe Nickel can't ride fur me—he's under contract. I meets him ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... I war a-sayin', I know every furlong o' the creeks once down in the Cove, an' all their meanderings, an' the best part o' them in the hills amongst the laurel and the wildernesses. But now the ways of sech a stream ez Hide-an'-Seek Creek are past finding out. It's a 'sinking creek,' you know; ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... but the continual fogs make it so cold here that it is very unwholesome living by the water. Near this place are abundance of goats and land-crabs. About 2 mile south-east from the spring we found 3 or 4 shrubby trees, upon one of which was cut an anchor and cable, and the year 1642. About half a furlong from these we found a convenient place for sheltering men in any weather. Hither many of our men resorted; the hollow rocks affording convenient lodging; the goats, land-crabs, men-of-war-birds and boobies good food; and the ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... of the wood road leading to the cabin and had gone perhaps a furlong beyond, when his ears were startled by the sound of a child crying in the woods. He stopped, lowered his burden to the road, and stood straining ears and eyes in the direction of the sound. It was just at this time that ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... blessed sun shall set, I'll put a final end to that.' Then, putting on his stately hat, All nicely cocked and trimmed with lace, He issued forth with lofty grace, Bade the accuser; duty mind,' And follow him 'five steps behind.' Ere they a furlong's space complete, They meet the culprit in the street; The Governor took him by the hand— That lowly man! that Governor grand!— Kindly inquired of his condition, His present prospects and position. The man ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... at a furious speed, I came up Black Barrow Down, directed by some shout of men, which seemed to me but a whisper. And there, about a furlong before me, rode a man on a great black horse, and I knew ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... entire pasture. The cultivable or arable land was divided into several—usually three—great grain fields. Ridges or "balks" of unplowed turf divided each field into long parallel strips, which were usually forty rods or a furlong (furrow-long) in length, and from one to four rods wide. Each peasant had exclusive right to one or more of these strips in each of the three great fields, making, say, thirty acres in all; [Footnote: In some localities it was usual to redistribute these strips every year. In that way ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... estimate, be at least fifty miles in longitudinal extent; measured laterally, from the spectator forwards, at least twenty. . . The real area must rather exceed than fall short of a thousand square miles: the fields into which it is laid out are small, scarcely averaging a square furlong in superficies. . . With these there are commixed innumerable cottages, manor-houses, villages, towns. Here the surface is dimpled by unreckoned hollows; there fretted by uncounted mounds; all is amazing, overpowering multiplicity—a multiplicity which neither the pen nor the pencil can adequately ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... in three heats: — Ah, my sonny, The horses in those days were stout, They had to run well to win money; I don't see such horses about. Your six-furlong vermin that scamper Half-a-mile with their feather-weight up; They wouldn't earn much of their damper In a race like ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... the quarter-post and a furlong beyond before either could pull up. Pop was pale and triumphant, and breathing ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... of the wood left a fair green plain betwixt it and the water, whiles more than a furlong across, whiles much less; and whiles the trees came down close to the water-side. But the place whereas they came from out the wood was of the widest, and there it was a broad bight of greensward of the fashion of the moon seven nights old, and ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... that his pulse did beat more than three quarters of an hour after he was dead, as strongly as if he had been still alive." In 1580 a strange apparition happened in Somersetshire—three score personages all clothed in black, a furlong in distance from those that beheld them; "and after their appearing, and a little while tarrying, they vanished away, but immediately another strange company, in like manner, color, and number appeared in the same place, and they encountered one ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to pass. At length, a mile in advance, we saw a band of bulls. Some were scattered grazing over a green declivity, while the rest were crowded more densely together in the wide hollow below. Making a circuit to keep out of sight, we rode toward them until we ascended a hill within a furlong of them, beyond which nothing intervened that could possibly screen us from their view. We dismounted behind the ridge just out of sight, drew our saddle-girths, examined our pistols, and mounting again rode over the hill, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... rowed about a hundred yards ahead of the boats in the race, so that he could have a good view of that curious pastime. If the eight-oars neared him, with a few rapid strokes of his flashing paddles his boat shot a furlong ahead; then he would wait, surveying the race, and sending up volumes of odor ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A furlong or more away they halted and took counsel, pointing to me with their spears as though they feared me. We stood quite still, though some of our generals urged that we should charge, but this I counselled Huaracha not to do, who desired that the Quichuas should break ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... have those whom you love looking to you for help and to be unable to give it? But perhaps it won't come to that. Perhaps my father may hold his own for years. Come what may, I am bound to think that all things are ordered for the best; though when the good is a furlong off, and we with our beetle eyes can only see three inches, it takes some confidence in general principles to pull ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... one of the men, "I mind that well. They were Tom Furlong and Jim Spencer. But that there boat was a good-sized fishing boat; an such a boat as that might ride ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... tale, could outmatch the waking realities which were to rise upon the vision of Pierre Chouteau. Where, in his youth, he had climbed the woody bluff, and looked abroad on prairies dotted with bison, he saw, with the dim eye of his old age, the land darkened for many a furlong with the clustered roofs of the western metropolis. For the silence of the wilderness, he heard the clang and turmoil of human labor, the din of congregated thousands; and where the great river rolls down through the forest, in lonely grandeur, he saw the waters lashed into foam beneath ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... banks more and more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich, more profuse, and more sombre foliage. The water increased in transparency. The stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than a furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage, a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor—the keel balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark which, by some ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... dwellers of my savage town Set saddle on your steeds, and gallop down To watch the heads, and gather what is cast Alive from this Greek wreck. We shall make fast, By God's help, the blasphemers.—Send a corps Out in good boats a furlong from the shore; So we shall either snare them on the seas Or ride them down by land, and at our ease Fling them down gulfs of rock, or pale them high On stakes in the sun, to ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... in the stern of the little skiff which they used on such occasions, trimming his fishing-tackle, and, from time to time, indicating by signs to Graeme, who pulled the oars, which way he should row. When they were a furlong or two from the castle, Roland rested on the oars, and addressed his companion somewhat abruptly,—"I have something of importance to say to you, under ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... a surprise when Bandmaster drew alongside, but he considered this effort a flash in the pan, anticipating the horse's falling back. At the end of another furlong Bandmaster still stuck to his work, and Colley appeared to ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... for a furlong, and then Ariel paused on the edge of the Xingu. Her lover saw the reason: a small canoe ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... number of rifles, which he put, with ammunition, into the hands of some of the more stalwart negroes. These he sent to their cabins, which lay at a distance of about a furlong and a half on various sides of the house. The men had orders to fire on any advancing enemy, and then to fall back at once on the main building, which was now barricaded and fortified. One lad was told to lurk in a thicket below ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... likeness is identity on tea-cups—is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in a right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infallibly land her in the midst of a flowery mead—a furlong off on the other side ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... latitude 8 deg. 25' north, longitude 22 deg. 4' west, we found a current setting to the southward, which, the next day in latitude 7 deg. 58', longitude 22 deg. 13', shifted to the N.N.W. 1/4 W. at the rate of one mile and a furlong an hour. The variation here, by the mean of several azimuths, appeared to be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... A furlong or two farther on the well-known ravine opened,—dark, silent, profound, with its shaggy sides, one in shadow and the other in the sun, and its little embowered brook trickling far down there amid mossy stones;—as lonesome, wild, and solitary as if no ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... evening, about an hour before dinner, Silverbridge and Lady Mabel were seated together on the bank of a little stream which ran on the other side of the road, but on a spot not more than a furlong from the hall-door. She had brought him there, but she had done so without any definite scheme. She had made no plan of campaign for the evening, having felt relieved when she found herself able to postpone the project of her attack till the morrow. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... had to be carried out very cautiously. I found out where the family lived, and went there. On arriving I went to the Hall, and offered myself as music-teacher. It was in an out-of-the-way place, and Sir Henry Furlong, Lady Chetwynde's brother, happened to have two or three daughters who were studying under a governess. When I showed him a certificate which the Earl here was kind enough to give me, he was very much impressed by it. He asked ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... saw in my dream that he made haste and went forward, that if possible he might get lodging in the house called Beautiful that stood by the highway side. Now, before he had gone far he entered into a very narrow passage which was about a furlong off from the porter's lodge, and looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way. Then was he afraid, and thought also to go back, for he thought that nothing but death was before him. But the porter at the lodge, whose ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... to Jericho: Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labor un-repaid? I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone On many a flinty furlong of this land. Also, the country-side is all on fire With rumors of a marching hitherward: Some say Vespasian comes, some, his son. A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear; Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... nature of the ground rendered progress easy, and he paused after going about a furlong, believing he had advanced sufficiently far to accomplish ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... it 'long the cover side, A furlong "mesh an'-pin"; We sent the lurcher rangin' wide To drive the rabbits in; A soft, sweet night in late July We lay among the bracken 'igh That 'eld the mid-day sun, While mute an' wise ole Toby ranged enjoyin' of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... the locusts. And now they are rushing upon a considerable tract of that beautiful region of which we have spoken with such admiration. The swarm to which Juba pointed grew and grew till it became a compact body, as much as a furlong square; yet it was but the vanguard of a series of similar hosts, formed one after another out of the hot mould or sand, rising into the air like clouds, enlarging into a dusky canopy, and then discharged against the fruitful plain. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... span; mileage; distance &c 196. line, bar, rule, stripe, streak, spoke, radius. lengthening &c v.; prolongation, production, protraction; tension, tensure^; extension. [Measures of length] line, nail, inch, hand, palm, foot, cubit, yard, ell, fathom, rood, pole, furlong, mile, league; chain, link; arpent^, handbreadth^, jornada [U.S.], kos^, vara^. [astronomical units of distance] astronomical unit, AU, light- year, parsec. [metric units of length] nanometer, nm, micron, micrometer, millimicron, millimeter, mm, centimeter, cm, meter, kilometer, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... abatis. Over and through all swept the smiting, powdery, seething storm of waters; the air was like a sea, tossing and foaming; we could only see through it by snatches, to cry out that this and that had happened. Down below us, the roof was lifted from a barn, and crumpled up in a heap half a furlong off, against some rocks; and the hay was flying in great locks through ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... by a neck," said her father. "I congratulate you, Snowden. But that 's a great horse. It 's well that it was not a furlong farther." ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... marines, shone like a musquet. The grass-cutters, upon seeing them approach, drew together, and repaired to the main body. The Indians, being encouraged by this appearance of a flight, pursued them; they stopped however when they were within about a furlong of them, and after shouting several times went back into the woods. In the evening they came again in the same manner, stopped at the same distance, shouted and retired. I followed them myself, alone and unarmed, for a considerable ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... saddle-horses back to the willows and picket them. The rest to the stables and bring out the working beasts. The plows are by the corral, and the first team that comes up is to be harnessed to each in turn. Then start in, and turn over a full-depth furrow a furlong ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... on the same side of the way with the Queen's Elm public-house, and distant about a furlong from it, as seen from the road, appears a noble structure with a magnificent portico. [Picture: Chelsea Park Portico] The ground now called Chelsea Park belonged, with an extensive tract of which it formed the northern part, to the famous Sir ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... carry'd near a Mile farther, where, just as 'twas dark, they lighted from the Coach, Don Henrique, ordering the Servants not to stir thence till their Return from their private Walk, which was about a Furlong, in a Field that belong'd to the Convent. Here Don Antonio told Don Henrique, That he had not acted honourably; That he had betray'd him, and robb'd him at once both of a Friend and Mistress. To which t'other returned, That he understood ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... respecting the course to be taken to find those of whom he was in quest. Soon, however, appearing to come to a determination, he struck out into the main street, and, with a quick step, proceeded on, perhaps a furlong, when he suddenly stopped short, and exclaimed, "Hold up, Bart. What did that sly judge say about searching in folks' sleighs, for—what was that word now?—But never mind, it meant guns. And what did the sheriff say about a dozen flint-and-steel ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... to a furlong the distance from Noningsby to Orley Farm, and knew also that the station at Hamworth was only twenty-five minutes from that at Alston. She gave no immediate answer, but threw up her head and shook her nostrils, as though she were preparing for war; and then Miss Martha Biggs ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... his fists and lost color, for Cadet Furlong, without a word, had turned on his heel and ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... that his own death was near at hand. In one hand he took his horn, and in the other his good sword Durendal, and made his way the distance of a furlong or so till he came to a plain, and in the midst of the plain a little hill. On the top of the hill in the shade of two fair trees were four marble steps. There Roland fell in a swoon upon the grass. There a certain Saracen spied him. The fellow had feigned death, and ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... take a fright; so down the lane I trundled, Where Goodman Dobson's crazy mare was founder'd, And where the flints were biggest, and ruts widest, By ups and downs, and such bone-cracking motions We flounder'd on a furlong, till my madam, In policy, to save the few joints left her, Betook her to her feet, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... the faint sickly breeze, and the sluggish fog banks crept along the dull clay—coloured motionless surface of the tepid water. The sea view was quite shut out—I looked all round and could discern no vestige of the entrance. Right ahead there was about a furlong of land cleared at the only spot which one could call a beach,—that is, a hard shore of sand and pebbles. Had you tried to get ashore at any other point, your fate would have been that of the Master of Ravenswood; ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... At the furlong pole beyond, Tay Ho's hooded head for the first time showed in front—only to be instantly eclipsed by the white star of Aldegonde. Aramis began to hang—the angry roar of his backers told he was out of it. Simultaneously, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... an advancing civilization demand a greater precision and accuracy in the use of words having to do with weight, measure, number, size. Almost all such words as 'acre', 'furlong', 'yard', 'gallon', 'peck', were once of a vague and unsettled use, and only at a later day, and in obedience to the requirements of commerce and social life, exact measures and designations. Thus every field was ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... complaint. For my part, I have my hands full just now, and after until the feast, and shall wait until my lord summon me. But I trust his judgment, knowing him to be a very Solomon.' Then, turning to the culprit, 'You know my lord's chateau, of course? My guards will take you there.' 'The devil a furlong know I of this accursed spot,' answered Tibbald viciously, 'seeing that I arrived here a good hour after dark, and by a road as heathenish ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it was Offa's last hunt of the season; and that is likely, seeing that the time grew late. If it was, there is no doubt that he meant it to be his greatest also. Mile by mile, and presently furlong by furlong, as we went the game grew thicker, until the covers and thickets seemed alive with deer which tried to break back, and the undergrowth on either hand of me rustled and crackled with the wild rush of smaller ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... astonishing acquisition of nervousness excepted. Apres la soupe (noon) we were conducted en haut, told to leave our spoons and bread (which we did) and—in company with several others whose names were within a furlong of the last man called—were descended to the corridor. All that afternoon we waited. Also we waited all next morning. We spent our time talking quietly with a buxom pink-cheeked Belgian girl who was in attendance as translator for one ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... a putting several ideas together, though of the same kind. Thus, by adding several units together, we make the idea of a dozen; and putting together the repeated ideas of several perches, we frame that of a furlong. ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... was a mare, and a right good mare; But when she wan the Annan water, She couldna hae ridden a furlong mair, Had a thousand ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... Forrest, watching her with cunning eyes, said that the trap was closed indeed and the key in his possession. Whirlwind, a magnificent chestnut four-year-old, came striding up the hill as though the last furlong of the mile and a half he had galloped were his chief delight. He was a winner by a short head as they passed the post, and old John Farrier could not ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... be our duty, sir, to search for a will. If Sir Wycherly has actually died intestate, it will be time enough to inquire into the question of the succession at common law. I have here the keys of his private secretary; and Mr. Furlong, the land-steward, who has just arrived, and whom you see in the room, tells me Sir Wycherly was accustomed to keep all his valuable papers in this piece of furniture. I shall now proceed ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sun, but the muletto's back: however, we pleased ourselves we should have one more meal of it before it was too bad to eat; so, having travelled about three miles from the river, we took up our lodging on a little rising, and tied our muletto in a valley about half a furlong below us, where he made as good a meal in his way as we ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... own safety. But the buffaloes were close at hand. They were sweeping on like a whirlwind. The Indians could only ride on, and trust to clear them. But their pathway was wide. It reached to within a furlong of where Tom was riding. They never paused; some of the animals in the advance might have veered to the right or left on seeing the Indians, but the pressure from behind prevented. The savages saw their fate, and it inspired them ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... of an egg, And scarcely ten years had gone by, When Theseus beginning to beg, Decoyed the young chicken to fly. When Tyndarus heard the disaster, He crackled and thunder'd like Etna, So out gallop'd Pollux and Castor, And caught her a furlong from Gretna. Singing rattledum, Greek Romanorum, And hey classicality row. Singing birchery, floggera, borum, And folderol whack ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... tender rootes of cannes or Riedes. Other eate flesshe, milke, and chese. Meroe, was in time past the heade citie of the kyngdome, whiche stondeth in an Isle of the same name facioned like a shielde, stretching it self thre thousand furlong alongest by Nilus. Aboute that Islande do the cattle masters dwelle, and are muche giuen to hunting, and those that be occupied with tilthe of the grounde haue also mines of gold. Herodotus writeth that thethiopians named Macrobij, do more estieme latten then thei do golde ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... words in such order as not to produce a single German sentence. He doffed his cap to every woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and complimented her in his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and sat it upon a nest. "The good-wife will say, 'Alack, here is Beelzebub a hatching of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... defenders of Steens to deal with but a sympathetic mob outside, and likely enough a large one. Nothing of the sort! They had overtaken indeed a few stragglers on the road: a knot of boys had kept pace with them and halted a furlong behind, climbing the hedges and waiting to see the fun. But Steens itself stood apparently desolate. In the fields around not even a stray group of sightseers could Sir John perceive. It puzzled him completely; and the Sheriff, after demanding in gently satirical ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... awhile and breathed us, and handled our weapons some half a furlong from the alien host. They had no earth rampart around them, for that ridge is waterless, and they could not abide there long, but they had pitched sharp pales in front of them and they stood in very good order, as if abiding an onslaught, and moved not when they saw us; for that ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... sometimes to the ancient worlds of China and Japan. He became an expert in nautical terms. He walked in knots, and even ordered a new carpet in fathoms—after the shop-keeper had demonstrated, by means of his little boy's arithmetic book, the difference between that measurement and a furlong. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the silt and sand Were gathered day by day, Till not a furlong out from land A shoal had barred ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke
... gave the launch a little more power, and it became clear to all that the pursuer was picking up the ground, or rather water, that she had lost. Then for several minutes no difference in speed was perceptible. A space of a furlong separated the two when they shot past the point of land bearing the odd name of Thomas Great Toe, which is on the western side of the lower part of Westport, some two miles above Goose Neck Passage. Here the water is a mile in width, and is filled with ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... and Bragton gate were nearly opposite, the latter being perhaps a furlong nearer to Dillsborough. The attorney when he got to the gate stopped a moment and looked up the avenue with pardonable pride. The great calamity of his life, the stunning blow which had almost unmanned him when he was young, and from which he had ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood A furlong from ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... have out the oars. While this was doing the creature appeared again with a glowing mass of fused metal (massam igneam de scoria) in pincers, which he hurled at them. Where it struck the water about a furlong from them, it made the sea boil and hiss. They had only escaped about a mile when they saw beings swarming out upon the shore, throwing about molten masses, some after them and some at one another, and ...
— Brendan's Fabulous Voyage • John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
... or bent of the hill, then, we had our mid-day meal; somewhat early for dinner, if that mattered, but we had been stirring early: the slender stream of the Thames winding below us between the garden of a country I have been telling of; a furlong from us was a beautiful little islet begrown with graceful trees; on the slopes westward of us was a wood of varied growth overhanging the narrow meadow on the south side of the river; while to the north was a wide stretch of mead rising very gradually from ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... yard the speed increased, and yard by yard the black stallion drew ahead. Now in front of them lay a furlong or more of bad ice encumbered with lumps of frozen snow that had not been cleared away, which caused the sleigh to shake and jump as it struck. Lysbeth ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Thin Feu'd the land and fenced it in, And laid his broad foundations down About a furlong ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... servant woman; 4. a boy, twelve or fourteen years old. The danger was, that out of four persons, scattered by possibility over a house which had two separate exits, one at least might escape, and by better acquaintance with the adjacent paths, might succeed in giving an alarm to some of the houses a furlong distant. Their final resolution was, to be guided by circumstances as to the mode of conducting the affair; and yet, as it seemed essential to success that they should assume the air of strangers to each other, it was necessary that they ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood, A furlong from their door. ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... never miss, children would kiss our hands And women weep in gratitude. Suppose A man fell wounded at your gates, you'd not Pass on and smile and leave him there to die. And can a few short miles of distance blind you? Miles, nay, a furlong is enough to close The gates of mercy. Must we thrust our hands Into the wounds before we can believe? Oh, is our sight so thick and gross? We came, We saw, we conquered with the Conqueror. We gave ourselves broad lands; ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Ellen Jewett, who did?" I do not believe that ever before was presented so shameful an instance of perverted justice, or so striking an illustration of the "glorious uncertainty of the law." It is rather singular that Furlong, a grocer, who swore to an alibi in favor of Robinson, and who was the chief instrument employed to effect the acquittal of that young man, some time afterwards committed suicide by drowning, having first declared that his conscience reproached him ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... Not a furlong farther, I came suddenly upon a house by the roadside, and a man coming out of the door with a light at the same moment enabled me to see "Vendeglo" on a small signboard. Good-luck: here, then, was an inn, where at least shelter was possible; and shelter ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, 25 A furlong from the castle gate? She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport The Finder sendeth out, to seeke out nimble Wat,— Which crosseth in the field, each furlong every flat, Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found: Then viewing for the course which is the fairest ground, The greyhounds forth are brought, for coursing then in case, And, choycely in the slip, one leading forth a brace; The Finder puts her ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... brought them to the top of the hill, and they both looked eagerly before them. A furlong away, standing perfectly still in the middle of the lane, their horses' heads facing the turnpike, were three mounted men. It required no second glance to identify the watchers. Colonel Bill's eyes blazed, and his right ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... ft. &c. cubic foot,&c. na. nail. cwt. hundredweight. oz. ounce. d. (denarius), penny. pk. peck. deg. degree. po. pole. dr. drachm or dram. pt. pint. dwt. pennyweight. q. (quadrans), farthing. f. franc. qr. quarter. fl. florin. qt. quart. ft. foot. ro. rood. fur. furlong. Rs.4 rupees. gal. gallon. s. or / (solidus), shilling. gr. grain. s. or sec. second. h. or hr. hour. sc. or scr. scruple. hhd. hogshead. sq. ft. &c, square foot, &c. in. inch. st. stone. kilo. kilometre. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sparkling sun of August shone; The wind was in the West; Your gown and all that you had on Was what became you best; And we were in that seldom mood When soul with soul agrees, Mingling, like flood with equal flood, In agitated ease. Far round, each blade of harvest bare Its little load of bread; Each furlong of that journey fair With separate sweetness sped. The calm of use was coming o'er The wonder of our wealth, And now, maybe, 'twas not much more Than Eden's common health. We paced the sunny platform, while The train ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... an agent in Jamaica, and he turned into the big inn at the junction of the London road to write a letter to his agent bidding him house me and employ me as an improver. For fear of compromising him we waited in the shadow of trees a furlong or two down the road. He came at a trot, gave me the letter, drew me aside, and began upbraiding himself again. The ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... for old Englishmen, call deep Mire, Hocks: Or may be from Grates set in Rivers or Waters before Floodgates, which are call'd Hecks; neither is it unlikely but that the Danes made some Use of this Fort, for a Parcel of Ground near thereunto is called Dane-Furlong to this Day. Some of these Conjectures may be true, but this is certain, that Offa, a Saxon King, of the Mertians about 795, founded the Monastery of St. Albans, in Memory of St. Alban, and that Sexi an ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... A furlong of fetid, black fen, with gelid, green patches of pond, Lies dumb by the horns of the glen—at the gates of the horror beyond; And those who have looked on it tell of the terrible growths that are there— The flowerage ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... all could see there was nothing to be done. The shack was completely enveloped in names. There were not half a dozen practicable water-pails in the tribe, and anyhow the fire was a good furlong from the river. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... popular piece was played, called Nostradamus; as two persons can only pay at once no more are suffered to enter at a time; hence they form in pairs behind each other until they extend sometimes, the length of a furlong; they remain very quiet occasionally for hours, the first comers standing close to the doors, and as others arrive they regularly take their station behind the last persons of the queue, as it is styled. I remember an Englishman coming ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... parts; then will 10,000 of these parts be an imperial inch, 12 whereof make a foot, and 36 whereof make a yard.' All other measures of linear extension are to be computed from this. Thus, 'the foot, the inch, the pole, the furlong, and the mile, shall bear the same proportion to the imperial standard yard as they have hitherto borne to the yard measure in general use.' For the determination of weights, take a cube of an imperial inch of distilled ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... had encamped was about a furlong from the river, and to the latter all three made their way without special care or haste. Jack Carleton felt complimented that Deerfoot meant he should bear them company in the renewal of the effort to ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... without comment or interpretation, some of the fundamental beliefs of the largest body of human beings now under one flag in Christendom. It is but a beginning. The field is barely platted. It must be explored to the last furlong and all its fantastic and fascinating treasures unearthed and examined before ever there can be any accurate understanding of the mind of the ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... bitter dew, What parching torment of unresting day Falls on the garden of my deathless bay: Hands that have gathered it and feet that came Beneath its shadow have known flint and flame; Therefore I love them; and they love no less Each furlong of the road of past distress. —Ah, Faithful, tell me for what rest and peace, What length of happy days and world's increase, What hate of wailing, and what love of laughter, What hope and fear of worlds to be hereafter, Would ye cast by that crown ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... dozen, and not two. A long time ago the dwellers in a far country used now and then to find a procession of prodigious footprints stretching across the plain—footprints that were three miles apart, each footprint a third of a mile long and a furlong deep, and with forests and villages mashed to mush in it. Was there any doubt as to who made that mighty trail? Were there a dozen claimants? Where there two? No—the people knew who it was that had been along there: there was only ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... their breath before the flood; Now, to the wonder of all people, A church is left without a steeple; 420 A steeple now is left in lurch, And mourns departure of the church, Which, borne on wings of mighty wind, Removed a furlong off we find; Now, wrath on cattle to discharge, Hailstones as deadly fall, and large, As those which were on Egypt sent, At once their crime and punishment; Or those which, as the prophet writes, Fell on the necks of Amorites, 430 ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... plans, and she was so loth to leave him that he was forced to remind her that they had passed the home of Lucy Gaines a full furlong or more. He left her at the door, his heart exultant, hers ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon |
