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verb
Moat  v. t.  To surround with a moat.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Moat" Quotes from Famous Books



... dug up in the moat of Holdernesse Hall. They are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below with a cloven foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. They are supposed to have belonged to some of the marauding Barons of Holdernesse ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the stately stir, And bending to your silken flowing, One day, my banner-poles, ye creak Naked beneath the high winds blowing! One day ye fall across the wall And moulder in the moat's green bosom, While in the cleft the wild tree left Bursts into spikes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... was then forced to retrace his steps, and that through a country devastated by inundation and heavy rains. He passed through Mourzan, Kea, and Modibon, where he regained his horse; Nyara, Sansanding, Samea, and Sai, which is surrounded by a deep moat, and protected by high walls with square towers; Jabbea, a large town, from which he perceived high mountain ranges, and Taffara, where he was ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... having on one side the sea, and on the other the celebrated bay, generally called the Groyne. It is divided into the old and new town, the latter of which was at one time probably a mere suburb. The old town is a desolate ruinous place, separated from the new by a wide moat. The modern town is a much more agreeable spot, and contains one magnificent street, the Calle Real, where the principal merchants reside. One singular feature of this street is, that it is laid entirely with flags of marble, along which troop ponies and cars as if ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... spires of three churches, the walls of four convents, with the trees of their adjacent gardens, and, conspicuous at the lower end, a high mound of earth, crowned by a redoubt, where a few cannon were mounted. The whole was surrounded by a shallow moat and a bastioned stone wall, made for defenceagainst Indians, and ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... carnage by the gate, Some storming, some defending. These without, In sight of parents, weeping at their fate, Roll down the moat, swept headlong by the rout, Or charge the battered doorposts with a shout. The very matrons, at their country's call, Their javelins hurl. Charr'd stakes and oak-staves stout Serve them for swords. Forth rush they, one and all, Fir'd by Camilla's deeds, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... a stone edifice with battlements and a round tower at one corner, and a gate which looked as if it might have had a portcullis, and narrow windows in a portion of it, and a cannon mounted upon a low roof, and an excavation called the moat,—but which was now a fantastic and somewhat picturesque garden,—running round two sides of it. In very truth, though a portion of the castle was undoubtedly old, and had been built when strength was needed for defence and probably for the custody of booty,—the battlements, and the round tower, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... Dutch painters are perfectly contented with their flat fields and pollards;[96] Rubens, though he had seen the Alps, usually composes his landscapes of a hayfield or two, plenty of pollards and willows, a distant spire, a Dutch house with a moat about it, a windmill, and a ditch. The Flemish sacred painters are the only ones who introduce mountains in the distance, as we shall see presently; but rather in a formal way than with any appearance of enjoyment. So Shakspere never speaks of mountains with the slightest joy, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... of the new dawn was seen. For in no way save by a great upheaval and change could the nation break away from that iron feudal system which held her limbs. But now it was a new country which came out from that year of death. The barons were dead in swaths. No high turret nor cunning moat could keep out that black commoner ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... perhaps a little after the birth of Champlain, the town was fortified, and distinguished Italian engineers were employed to design and execute the work. [2] To prevent a sudden attack, it was surrounded by a capacious moat. At the four angles formed by the moat were elevated structures of earth and wood planted upon piles, with bastions and projecting angles, and the usual devices of military architecture for the attainment of strength ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... Chantilly in 1772, became, without just reason, suspected in connection with the Cadoudal-Pichegreu plot, and was seized by a squadron of cavalry at the Schloss Ettenheim in the Duchy of Baden and conducted to Vincennes. Here, after a summary judgment, he was shot at night in the moat behind the guardhouse. The obscurity of the night was so great that a lighted lantern was hung around the neck of the unfortunate man that the soldiers might the better see the mark at which they ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... said urgently, "and let me tell you what has happened. If I have been asleep, I have dreamed it; if I was awake, I have experienced a very extraordinary thing, the moat extraordinary ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... his friend's arm, and they pressed on. The shadow behind them advanced when they advanced and stopped when they stood still. Through the pleasure garden the pair proceeded with hurried steps, through the gate at the castle moat they entered upon the Willow-bank suburb, then down the deserted little streets of wretched huts. They reached the great Willow-bank meadow without the walls, passing through a gate not far from ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... the winds and waves. The form in which the city was built was that of a Macedonian chlamys, or cloak; the two ports, one of which only was built by Alexander, though both (as has been already observed) were projected by him, were formed and divided from each other by a moat a mile long, which stretched from the isle of Pharos to the continent: that harbour which lay to the north was called the Great Harbour, and the other, to the west, was called Eunostus, or the Safe Return. In order to secure the vessels from the storms of the Mediterranean, even ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... windows of the dining-room where the cours was held, we could look down the driveway and see all the children of the neighborhood standing on the wall of the moat, craning their necks in the hope of catching a glimpse of what was going on in the chateau. It was evidently an interesting diversion, for every afternoon they reappeared, in spite of George's threats to send for the gendarmes. ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

... a good deal of merriment going forward at Windsor in these olden days. I have a dim recollection of having danced in the little garden which was once the moat of the Round Tower, and which Washington Irving has been pleased to imagine existed in the time of James I. of Scotland. I have a perfect remembrance of a fete at Frogmore, about the beginning of the present century, where there was a Dutch fair,—and haymaking very agreeably ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various

... the action with another half smile, but did not stir from his entrenchment, remaining as if hedged about with an inviolable fortress of exclusiveness. Yet I knew that my Chinook salutation would be a drawbridge by which I might hope to cross the moat ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... portcullis let down to keep out all assistance; and the Horse Guards to have been surprised in the inns where they were quartered, several ostlers having been gained for that purpose. The Tower was accordingly viewed, and its surprise ordered by boats over the moat, and from thence to scale the wall. One Alexander, not yet taken, had likewise distributed money to these conspirators; and, for the carrying on the design more effectually, they were told of a Council of the great ones that sat frequently in London, from whom issued all orders; which Council ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the lawn, passing between the sentinel pines and crossing the moat by the narrow footbridge. She climbed the railing with all the ease of nineteen years and struck a bee-line across the park. She never raised her eyes from the ground, never paused in her swinging gait, until she reached the brown hush of the ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... of their best Fancies and Images, as well as Names, were borrow'd from the Antient Hebrew Poetry and Divinity, as, were there room for't, I cou'd, I think, render more than probable, in all the most celebrated Strokes of Homer, moat of the Heathen Poetical Fables, and even in Hesiod's blind Theogonia. Their Gods or Devils, which you please, were not near as Antient as the Hebrews. The Word Satan is as ancient as Job; nor can they shew us a Pluto within a long while of him. Ashtaroth, and Astarte, are old ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley

... o'clock in the morning. Every preparation was made on the preceding day, and four strong columns told off for the assault. Two of these were to attack by the breaches, the other two at the gates. Rafts were prepared to enable the party attacking by the new breach to cross the moat, while the columns advancing against the gates were to be preceded by elephants, who, with iron plates on their foreheads, were to charge and ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... has ever since his embassy at Rome been his constant companion and now resides with him in England. No men in Europe are more constant in their attachments than the Venetians. Pesaro is the sole proprietor of one of the moat beautiful and magnificent palaces on the Grand Canal at Venice, though he now lives in the outskirts of London, in a small house, not so large as one of the offices of his immense noble palace, where his agent transacts his business. The husband of Pesaro's chere amie, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... a few hundred yards northwest of where it joined the Susquehanna, for the water that filled the moat encircling three sides of the prison. The union of the two rivers formed the water barrier on ...
— Take the Reason Prisoner • John Joseph McGuire

... as when, of yore, In Tower encircled by a moat, The lion-hearted chieftain wore A corselet for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various

... time, it being one of a line of beacons to and from different places. I had once or twice walked to this high place to enjoy the fine prospect. On Sunday last I had gone there and extended my walk down the hill to a place where the road, after passing a pretty old entrance-gateway, moat, and old hall, dips very prettily down to bridge over a small stream. This bridge (Cobb's Brow Bridge) is covered with ivy, and is very picturesque. Just before the road rather abruptly descends there are, on the right hand side of it, a number of remarkably old and noble ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... from the woods he saw that the road led through the remains of an ancient wall, and across a bridge over a moat which was partly filled up. In the cleared space in front of the wall several soldiers were standing and near them were two hussars. The hussars rode forward, as if they would prevent the flight of the horse, but ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... penetrated the wood in every direction; streams bubbling up from springs, and forming little cascades where their course was checked by granite boulders, lent an additional charm. Towards the centre of the forest these streams united to form a lake, or rather a natural moat, surrounding an island in the midst of which stood a gigantic oak. This was the only tree on the island; round it, at even distances, were placed twelve stones, beyond which a meadow glittering with varied hues extended ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... other Eden, demi-paradise; This fortress, built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world; This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed spot, this earth, this realm, this England, Dear for ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... a very slight heel (thanks to a pair of small bilge-keels on her bottom) in a sort of trough she had dug for herself, so that she was still ringed with a few inches of water, as it were with a moat. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... enemy had descried our movements, and the ramparts and walls and also the top of the breaches were alive with men, who poured in a galling fire on our troops Soon they reached the outer edge of the moat, and amidst a perfect hailstorm of bullets, causing great havoc among our men, the scaling-ladders were let down. The ditch here, 20 feet deep and 25 feet broad, offered a serious obstacle to the quick advance ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... Tower-bank, on the edge of the dock, having first, it is scarcely necessary to state, taken care to clear them of their inhabitants. The powder deposited, the trains were fired, and the buildings blown into the air. At this time the whole of the western side of the Tower Moat was covered with low wooden houses and sheds, and, mindful of the king's instructions, Lord Argentine suggested to Lord Craven that they should be destroyed. The latter acquiescing, they proceeded ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... valley in Somersetshire, arose the ancient Keep, built of gray stone, and strongly fortified; but the defences were kept up rather as appendages of the owner's rank, than as requisite for his protection; though the moat was clear of weeds, and full of water, the drawbridge was so well covered with hard-trodden earth, overgrown at the edges with grass, that, in spite of the massive chains connecting it with the gateway, it seemed permanently fixed ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... find it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to reach its summit, though there is the temptation of marabou-nests and feathers, which are highly prized. There is a small lake reported to exist on its southern end, and, during the rainy season, a sort of natural moat is formed around the bottom. What an acquisition this would have been in feudal times in England! There is land sufficient for considerable cultivation on the top, with almost perpendicular sides more than a thousand ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... whose aspect proclaimed it to be the abode of a Saxon franklin of some importance. It would not be called a castle, but was rather a fortified house, with a few windows looking without, and surrounded by a moat crossed by a drawbridge, and capable of sustaining anything short of a real attack. Erstwood had but lately passed into Norman hands, and was indeed at present owned by a Saxon. Sir William de Lance, ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... moat, and Christabel Took the key that fitted well; A little door she opened straight, 125 All in the middle of the gate; The gate that was ironed within and without, Where an army in battle array had marched out. ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... appeared on the opposite side of the moat with the mules. The travellers crossed the ditch upon a drawbridge of only two planks breadth, the narrowness of which was matched with the straitness of the postern, and with a little wicket in the exterior palisade, which gave access to the forest. No sooner had they reached the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... ships at anchor—all underwent a search. Hunting parties invaded the woods. Scorpions were unnested, and bats and owls made unhappy by daylight where daylight had never been before. Convents and monasteries were not exempt. The sea was dragged, and the great moat from the Golden Gate to the Cynegion raked for traces of a new-made grave. Nor less were the cemeteries overhauled, and tombs and sarcophagi opened, and Saints' Rests dug into and profaned. In short, but one property in Byzantium was respected—that ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... send forth their men whom they had divided into five bands. Some kept beside the wood; others came along the river; the third placed themselves in the plain; and the fourth were in a valley; and the fifth battalion spurs along the moat that surrounded a rock, for they thought to swoop down impetuously among the tents. But they have not found a road that they could follow, or a way that was not barred; for the king's men block their way as they very proudly defy ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... April would be allotted; and Owen imagined Harding walking under immemorial elms gladdened by great expanses of park and pleased in the contemplation of swards which had been rolled for at least a thousand years. "A castellated wall, a rampart, the remains of a moat, a turreted chamber must stir him as the heart of the war horse is said to be stirred by a trumpet. He demands a spire at least of his hostess; and names with a Saxon ring in them, names recalling deeds of Norman chivalry awaken remote sympathies, inherited ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... for the reason that I have already stated. On the western side, which is towards (Portuguese) India, it is surrounded by a very beautiful river, and on the other, eastern side the interior of the country is all one plain, and along the wall is its moat. This Darcha has a pagoda, which is the monument I speak of, so beautiful that another as good of its kind could not be found within a great distance. You must know that it is a round temple made of a single stone, the ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... ambush there, and waylay an unwary traveller. We were to call upon him to surrender his arms, and then bring him home and put him in the deepest dungeon below the castle moat; then we were to load him with chains and send ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... heirs, or by those who have peacefully purchased from the heirs, of their ancient lords; and the insensible gradations by which the feudal guard-room has softened down into the modern drawing-room, and the feudal moat into the flower-garden, are emblematic of the continuous and comparatively tranquil progress of English history. In France, how different! Scarcely eighty years have passed since the Chateau de Montgomeri was proud and gay; since the village idlers gathered here to see its lord, and his little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... quarter and half a mile, till at length we climbed the debris of a mighty wall that once had encompassed the city, and by the moonlight saw beneath us a vast hollow which clearly at some unknown time had been the bed of an enormous moat and ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... along; the mount, though not steep, was full two miles in circumference, from base to brow occupied by the castle, which was erected in that massive yet irregular form peculiar to the architecture of the middle ages. A deep, broad moat or fosse, constantly supplied by the river, defended the castle wall, which ran round the mound, irregularly indeed, for there were indentations and sharp angles, occasioned by the uneven ground, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... He spreads himself like a peacock on a lawn. He perks himself like a sparrow on a paling. He crows amidst his attorneys and all the satellites of the court like a cock among his hens. He puts his hands this way and that, settling even the sunbeams as they enter, lest a moat should disturb his intellect or dull the edge of his subtlety. There is a modesty in his eye, a quiescence in his lips, a repose in his limbs, under which lie half-concealed,—not at all concealed from those who have often watched him at his work,—the glance, the ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... was too late. Before he was answered by his followers, we heard the creaking of the hinges and the rattle of the running chains, ending in a thud that told us the drawbridge had dropped across the moat. Then came the loud continuous thunder of many hoofs upon its timbers. Paralysed by fear Ramiro stood where he had halted, turning his eyes wildly in this direction and in that, but never moving one way or ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... scent; the idleness, the traditions, the mannerisms, the stately ennui; the yearning of love, like a spinal marrow, inside of all; the costumes brocade and satin; the old houses and furniture—solid oak, no mere veneering—the moldy secrets everywhere; the verdure, the ivy on the walls, the moat, the English landscape outside, the buzzing fly in the sun inside the window pane. Never one democratic page; nay, not a line, not a word; never free and naive poetry, but involved, labored, quite sophisticated—even when the theme is ever so simple or rustic, (a shell, a bit ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... view, may be regarded as having been, consummated by the deposition and murder of the sovereign of the country. It is equally undeniable that, during its first period, the person who most attracts and rivets attention is the queen. One of the moat brilliant of modern French writers[1] has recently remarked that, in spite of the number of years which have elapsed since the grave closed over the sorrows of Marie Antoinette, and of the almost unbroken series of exciting events which have ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... eastern empire was not strong enough to hold the whole sea, but neither was the Saracen able to gain supreme control. Thus the conditions were the same as in the earlier days of the conflict between Rome and Carthage: the Mediterranean became a moat separating the rivals, though first one and then the other had somewhat more control. The islands became alternately Saracen and Christian. Crete and Sicily were held for centuries before they were ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... that the west gate was half a mile round. "But I know of a way that's not a hundred yards off," says Mr. Esmond; and leading his kinsman close along the wall, and by the shrubs, which had now grown thick on what had been an old moat about the house, they came to the buttress, at the side of which the little window was, which was Father Holt's private door. Esmond climbed up to this easily, broke a pane that had been mended, and touched the spring inside, and the two gentlemen passed in that way, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... was so cold, but I am warmer now," she cried. "And if Maid Betsy A'hannay comes to take me away, I want you to stretch out your hand like this, and say: 'Seneschal, remove that besom to the deep dungeon beneath the castle moat,' as we used to do in our plays before you became a great man. Then I could stay very long and talk to you all through the night, for Maud Lindesay sleeps so sound that ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... before a palace built of emeralds, encompassed by a wide moat, on the banks whereof, at certain distances, were planted such tall trees, that they shaded the whole palace. Before the gate, which was of massive gold, was a bridge, formed of one single shell of a fish, though it was at least six fathoms long, and three in breadth. At the head of the bridge ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... though, amid the daily dust Of moving men, I move a moat Within the sunbeam where we float, With ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... of the walls is a surprise until it is realized that the building is of brick. The southern entrance, by which we approach, is the most imposing part of the ruin. We enter by a wooden bridge across the moat; this replaces the drawbridge. In the recessed chamber behind the central arch a ghostly drum was sometimes heard, and the supernatural drummer was supposed to guard hidden treasure. This legend was made good use of by the smuggling fraternity, the thumping of an empty keg being ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... historian's part, Or too much negligence, or want of art, If he forgot the vast magnificence Of royal Theseus, and his large expense, He first enclosed for lists a level ground, 440 The whole circumference a mile around; The form was circular; and all without A trench was sunk, to moat the place about. Within an amphitheatre appear'd, Raised in degrees; to sixty paces rear'd: That when a man was placed in one degree, Height was allow'd for him above ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... thirteen towers, the entrance to it being on the south side under the Bloody Tower. The Outer Ward is defended by a second wall, flanked by six towers on the river face (see Pl. IX, X and XI), and by three semicircular bastions on the north face. A Ditch or "Moat," now dry, encircles the whole, crossed at the south-western angle by a stone bridge, leading to the "Byward Tower" from the "Middle Tower," a gateway which had formerly an outwork, ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie

... at Alkmaar about thirty years ago, I strolled to the neighbouring village of Heilo, on the road to Limmen, where I saw, surrounded by a moat, the foundations of the castle of Ypenstein. A view of this once noble pile is to be found in the well-known work of Rademaker, Kabinet van Nederlandsche en Kleefsche Oudheden. This place, as tradition tells, once witnessed the perpetration of a violent deed. When the son of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various

... the German castle," answered Harold. "It is here on the Midway Plaisance, and is a reproduction of a castle of the middle centuries. It is viewed by most people who have read of moat-surrounded castles with ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley

... stood along the walk facing Anne of Bretaigne's [Footnote: Anne of Bretaigne: the daughter of Francis II, duke of Brittany; born at Nantes, 1476.] gray old tower, and the pleasant promenade which was once the fosse [Footnote: Fosse: a moat; a ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... water in a broken pitcher to slaken their parched lips. As we proceeded up a rocky hill overlooking the sea, we encountered new sights of wretchedness. Seeing a cabin standing somewhat by itself in a hollow, and surrounded by a moat of green filth, we entered it with some difficulty, and found a single child about three years old lying on a kind of shelf, with its little face resting upon the edge of the board and looking steadfastly out at the door, as if for its mother. It never ...
— A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood • Elihu Burritt

... blessing. Weeping, he gave it, and folded her a last time in his arms. Then, followed by her afflicted women and a great concourse of people, she was led like a lamb to the gates of the city. Here she parted from her companions, the drawbridge was lowered across the deep moat, and alone she passed forth and went towards the lake to meet her destroyer. Now it chanced that just then St. George, in his shining armour, came riding by, and, seeing a fair damsel alone and in tears, he sprang ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... the cottage, all so solid and seemly, so full of endearing character, so like to the 'comf'table' polity of England as we have known it. I gazed away from it to a large-ish castle that the sea was just reaching. A little, then quickly much, the waters swirled into the moat. Many children stood by, all a-dance with excitement. The castle was shedding its sides, lapsing, dwindling, landslipping—gone. O Nineveh! And now another—O Memphis? Rome?—yielded to the cataclysm. I listened to the jubilant screams of the children. What rapture, what wantoning! Motionless ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... the moat which surrounds the massive walls of the imperial palace, open only to those who have the honor of an imperial audience. These walls are of granite laid up without mortar, the corner stones being of unusual size. The visitor may see the handsome roofs ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... of the Dukes of Ferrara, about which cluster so many sad and splendid memories, stands in the heart of the city. I think that the moonlight which, on the night of our arrival, showed me its massive walls rising from the shadowy moat that surrounds them, and its four great towers, heavily buttressed, and expanding at the top into bulging cornices of cavernous brickwork, could have fallen on nothing else in all Italy so picturesque, and so full of the proper dread charm of feudal times, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... drags Their walls asunder for his own. Thus rose A mighty barrier which no ram could burst Nor any ponderous machine of war. Mountains are cleft, and level through the hills The work of Caesar strides: wide yawns the moat, Forts show their towers rising on the heights, And in vast circle forests are enclosed And groves and spacious lands, and beasts of prey, As in a line of toils. Pompeius lacked Nor field nor forage in th' encircled span Nor room to move his camp; nay, rivers rose Within, and ran their ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... neighbourhood made the inhabitants of the adjacent towns and hamlets believe that they had a very sufficient cause for wishing to murder all the Cagots in the Chateau de Mauvezin. But it was surrounded by a moat, and only accessible by a drawbridge; besides which, the Cagots were fierce and vigilant. Some one, however, proposed to get into their confidence; and for this purpose he pretended to fall ill close ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell

... the house from the village. On the left of the manor lay prosperous barns and byres, full of sleek pigs and busy crested fowls. The teams came clanking home across the water-meadows. The house itself became more and more beautiful as I approached. It was surrounded by a moat, and here, close at hand, stood another ancient chapel, in seemly repair. All round the house grew dense thickets of sprawling laurels, which rose in luxuriance from the edge of the water. Then I crossed a little bridge with a broken parapet; and in front of me stood the house itself. I have seldom ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... 209. The moat around the habitation at Quebec was fifteen feet wide and six feet deep, constructed with a drawbridge to be taken up in case of need. Vide ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... the crest of a small eminence, whence they commanded a view of an extensive plain. On their right front, and at the distance of a mile, lay a town, composed of dark buildings of quaint and ancient architecture, surrounded by walls and a moat, and on the battlements of which sentries were stationed; whilst from the church tower the Spanish colours, the gaudy red and gold, flaunted their folds in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... yes, sir, I beg your pardon. Of course there may be instances,' thereby bringing an intense glow of carnation into Alice's cheeks, while the Canon, ready for the occasion, replied, 'And George Johnson considers himself one of them. He will repair the old moat house, I suppose.' ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... were in his favour, for Marietta had spent three miserably unhappy days and nights since she had last talked with Zorzi in the garden. From that time he had avoided her moat carefully, never coming out of the laboratory when she was under the tree with her work, never raising his eyes to look at her when she came in and talked with her father. When she entered the big room, he made a solemn ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... Avenue de l'Imperatrice. What has been done there to render it impregnable to attack will consequently give an idea what has been done everywhere. At the Bois de Boulogne end of the avenue the gate has been closed up by a wall and a moat; behind them there is a redoubt. Between this and the Arc de Triomphe there are three barricades made of masonry and earth, and three ditches. Along the grass on each side of the roadway, the ground has been honey-combed, and in each hole there are pointed stakes. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... seemed to him to be and to happen after the fashion of what he read of, the moment he saw the inn he pictured it to himself as a castle with its four turrets and pinnacles of shining silver, not forgetting the drawbridge and moat and all the belongings usually ascribed to castles of the sort. To this inn, which to him seemed a castle, he advanced, and at a short distance from it he checked Rocinante, hoping that some dwarf would show himself upon the battlements, and by sound ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... defer the dreaded close of our ride to the last possible moment, I proposed an inspection of it. The only portion of the old building left standing in any kind of entirety was two rooms, one above the other. The tower room, level with the bottom of the moat, was dark and damp, and it was the upper one, reached by a little outside staircase, which had been our rendezvous of old. Alan showed no disposition to enter, and said that he would stay outside and hold my horse, so I ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... the knight's house was in a small island encompassed with a vast moat thirty feet deep, and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge. Wherefore Jack employed two men to cut it on both sides, and then dressing himself in his Coat of darkness, putting on his Shoes of ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... rampart and, never stopping to gauge its height, sprang down into the moat, landing upon his feet in the bottom of the dry ditch. Faster still, he flew to the second rampart and scaled it as he had done the first, clambering up by means of projecting ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... been made, from time to time, of late years, to get him out of his study, which had, for the moat part, proved failures. It was a surprise, therefore, when he was seen at the Great Party at the Colonel's. But it was an encouragement to try him again, and the consequence had been that he had received a number of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... got a moat and drawbridge," said Roberta; "then, when we didn't want people, we could just pull up the drawbridge and no one else could get in. I expect Father will have forgotten about when he was a boy if ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit

... in sight at last. Far on the horizon its towers could be seen, and the sun's rays sparkled on the river and on the broad moat which surrounded the walls; but still no enemy was to be seen. The scouts came in with the report that the Hittites had retreated northwards in terror, and King Ramses imagined that Kadesh was going to fall into his hands without a ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... a fantastic roof. Two towers rose behind, and behind the towers was a mass of elms and beeches, now just faintly green. But the great feature was a wide, green river which washed the foundations of the chateau. The building rose from an island in the circling stream, so that this formed a perfect moat spanned by a two-arched bridge without a parapet. The dull brick walls, which here and there made a grand, straight sweep; the ugly little cupolas of the wings, the deep-set windows, the long, steep ...
— The American • Henry James

... tall cherry tree; how shall we gather the cherries? Will the ladder in the barn be big enough? There is a wide stream; how shall we get to the other side? Would one of the wooden planks in the yard reach from bank to bank? From our windows we want to fish in the moat; how many yards of line are required? I want to make a swing between two trees; will two fathoms of cord be enough? They tell me our room in the new house will be twenty-five feet square; do you think it will ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... tide had left a foot or two of narrow shingle between the sea and the wall. He crept along this until, a hundred yards distant, the sea-wall reentered inland around a bastion at the entrance of a moat half filled at high tide by the waters of the bay, but now a ditch of shallow pools, sand, and debris. He leaned against the bastion, and looked over the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... no more To boom within the cavern'd shore, With smoother roll the torrents flow Adown the rocks of Assaroe;[82] Securely, till the coming day, The red deer couch in far Glenvay, And all is peace and calm around O'Donnell's castled moat ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... the assailants, the Romans now crossed the natural moat and bore down on the Teutons. At the same moment the well-designed manoeuvre of Marius, in despatching Marcellus to the fort on Panis Annonae, produced its result. Marcellus had descended the hill, screened by the trees, and ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... "giving himself up to serve Christ and His Church in that charge, had received of the elders the right hand of fellowship." The place licensed for the exercise of Bunyan's ministry was a barn standing in an orchard, once forming part of the Castle Moat, which one of the congregation, Josias Roughead, acting for the members of his church, had purchased. The license bears date May 9, 1672. This primitive place of worship, in which Bunyan preached regularly till his death, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... leading to dark insides. They were all built of tiny stones, such as lay on the beach. Beyond the huts or houses towered the castle, a vast rough structure with towers and arches and buttresses and bastions and glacis and bridges and a great moat all ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... can it be called an uninteresting country, even without the poetic spirit which now breathes about the names of many of its most prominent objects, for the ground bears all the traces of having been the residence of some famous people in early days. "The deep sunk moat, the stony mound," are visible in places where modern taste would shrink at erecting a temporary cottage, much less a castellated mansion; fragments of Roman brick are readily found on ridges which still hint the unrecorded history of a far distant period, and the Saxon rampart and the Roman camp ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... also advised the Abeokutans to erect flanking towers at short intervals round their walls, to dig a moat twenty feet wide and eight deep at a few yards from their foot, and to turn into it the water from the river in order that any future attack might be ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... Salt, placed upon a white stone pedestal in an angle of the wall of the great temple, and showing on each of its sides representations of Thothmes III. of the 18th dynasty, holding the hands of deities, said by some to be the moat curious specimen of Egyptian bas-relief in the Museum; a fractured colossus (14) in black granite, from Thebes, supposed to be part of a statue of Amenophis III.; the colossal head (15) discovered at Karnak by Belzoni in 1818, supposed ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... Fairies, which roamed about the mountains and forests. These were the earth spirits. They also told of the Undine or water-sprite, which inhabited rivers and streams, of Sylphs which were said to dwell in the mists above moat and moor, as air spirits, but not much was said of the Salamanders, as they are, fire spirits, and therefore not so easily detected, or so readily accessible to the ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... at last in sight of London Bridge I knew that Olaf was right, for since the Danes had gained the city they had not been idle. They had built a great fort on the Southwark side of the river, girt with a wide moat, and all the stronger that the walls thus surrounded were partly of timber and stone. The road from across London Bridge runs through this fort, so that one might by no means pass over it until the place was won. And at the ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... at daybreak, I reached Roche-Mauprat. I waited in a moat until the gates were opened, and then slipped up to my room without being seen by anybody. As it was not altogether an unfailing tenderness that watched over me at Roche-Mauprat, my absence had not been noticed during the night. Meeting my Uncle John on the stairs, I led him to believe that I had ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... was reached it justified all that Senorita Estacardo had said of it, though it lacked moat and drawbridge and the other feudal accessories. It was of massive rock and stone, sixty or more feet in length and almost as broad. The lowest floor consisted of two large rooms, with broad openings instead of doors, rough and unfurnished and with walls several feet ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... old place where my father, and his father, and all his predecessors had been born, beyond the memory of man. It is a very old house, and the greater part of it was originally a castle, strongly fortified, and surrounded by a deep moat supplied with abundant water from the hills by a hidden aqueduct. Many of the fortifications have been destroyed, and the moat has been filled up. The water from the aqueduct supplies great fountains, and runs down into huge oblong basins ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... immediately recollected him as attached to Eustace a little before their separation at Dartmoor, and recommended himself to the affectionate creature, by recognising him as one who leaped with him into the moat, and climbed the wall at his side, when Prince Rupert stormed Bristol. Taking him apart, he avowed himself to be a stanch royalist, watching every opportunity to serve a cause he still wore at his heart. He declared that he accepted ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria paid a visit to the Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle—the old tower with fruit-trees growing in the dry moat, and a slip from the weeping-willow which hung over the grave in St. Helena flourishing in its garden, where the Warden of the Cinque Ports could look across the roadstead of the Downs and count the ships' masts like trees in a forest, and watch the waves breaking twenty feet high on the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... Homeliest order in black sky appears, Not less than in the lighted village steads. So do those half-illumed wax clear to share A cry that is our common voice; the note Of fellowship upon a loftier plane, Above embattled castle-wall and moat; And toning drops as from pure heaven it sheds. So thou for washing a phantasmal air, For thy sweet singing keynote of the wise, Laughter—the joy of Reason seeing fade Obstruction into Earth's renewing beds, Beneath the stroke of her good servant's blade - Thenceforth art as their earth-star ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... yet I left her even now Vanquished and faint. She knows the penalty Of her delay: yet what if threats are vain? Am I not now within Petrella's moat? Or fear I still the eyes and ears of Rome? 5 Might I not drag her by the golden hair? Stamp on her? keep her sleepless till her brain Be overworn? Tame her with chains and famine? Less would suffice. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... journey. Towards night signs of civilization began to appear,—the heavy, continuous roar of water was heard; and, presently emerging from the forest, he saw a great river dashing in white foam down precipitous rocks, and on its bank the gray walls of a huge stone building, with flankers, palisades, and moat, over which the British flag was flying. This was the famous Saco Fort, built by Governor Phips two years before, just below the falls of the Saco River. The soldiers of the garrison gave the poor fellows a kindly welcome. Joseph, who was scarcely alive, lay for a long time ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... acre, he observed, was from twenty-five to forty bushels of wheat, and from forty to fifty of oats. He then took us into a neighboring grove, to a place where the pic-nics and holiday feasts of the colony are held: here we paused near a grassy knoll shaded by a sort of awning and surrounded by a moat. This, which bears the name of "The Temple Hill," forms the centre of a number of straight roads, which branch out from it into the woods in the shape of a fan. Not far from it I noticed a dancing ground covered by a circular ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... Warwickshire, on the Ebroke, at the north of the Tame, was the chief seat of the Ardens at one time, but was allowed to go to ruin when the family settled at Park Hall on the south side of the river. It was all levelled except its double moat ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes

... resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the Nation to the States and people moat immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of those States, I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue, I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... the table and upon us, leaping and flying into the plates and drawing Corsican curses from Capriata and Norwegian maledictions from Lee. I did not wait to see them throwing the invaders from the battlements of the table into the moat of salt water and spilt wine below, but quickly, though feebly, climbed to the deck and laid myself beside Pere Olivier, nor could cries that the enemy had been defeated and that "only a few" were flying about, summon me ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... unsettled mood; the gray clouds are swirling in confusion about the white summit of Demavend as we emerge on the level plain outside the ramparts, and fleecy fugitives are scudding southward in wild haste. Imperfect but ridable donkey-trails follow the dry moat around to the Meshed road, which takes a straight course southeastward from the city and is seen in the distance ahead, leading over a sloping pass, a depression in the Doshan Tepe spur of the Elburz range. The road near the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... has taken on a wonderful flavor and I now know how dissolved German tastes. The cook, instead of sending back two miles for water to cook with, has been using water from the moat in which a ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene

... God's troubadour! Beneath His starry walls I'd pour Across the moat such roundelays He'd love me ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... was sinking, I too slept, and as I slept I dreamed. I saw myself once more riding towards Orrain, and not alone, for mademoiselle was by my side. As we rode out of the pine-woods the Chateau stood before us. There was the square keep, with its pepper-box towers, and bartizans overhanging the moat. There were the grey ramparts tapestried in ivy, and the terraced gardens, where the peacocks sunned themselves. All around us were happy faces, and joyous voices welcoming us home—the home to which I had so long been dead; and it was ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... Half of it, you know, fell into the moat during one of the sieges, but linden-trees have grown about it, and it makes a shady nook in which ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade

... spiritual and temporal authority and emoluments of the priory of St. Victor. This was a rich little Benedictine monastery just outside the eastern gate of Geneva, on the little knoll now crowned by the observatory, surrounded with walls and moat of its own, independent of the bishop of Geneva in spiritual matters, and in temporal affairs equally independent of the city: in fact, it was a petty sovereignty by itself, and its dozen of hearty, well-provided monks, though nominally under the rule of Cluny, were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... Adam Kerr of the Moat, but he is commonly called by his companions the Black Rider of Cheviot. I fear, I fear, he comes hither for no good; but if the Lord of Cessford be near, he will not dare offer ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... Tower, Sir Richard Barkley, saluted him kindly at the gate, and begged him to follow him; the keeper still came after and another stepped out and joined them, and the group of four together passed out through the Lion's Tower and across the moat to a little doorway where a closed carriage was waiting. The Lieutenant and Anthony stepped inside; the two keepers mounted outside; ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... here the singing of the wire, which for the last few minutes he had quite forgotten, again struck upon his ear, and retreating to a convenient place he observed its final course: from the poles amid the trees it leaped across the moat, over the girdling wall, and thence by a tremendous stretch towards the keep where, to judge by sound, it vanished through an arrow-slit into the interior. This fossil of feudalism, then, was the journey's-end of the wire, and not the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... Pico waylaid her litter as she was going to a villa of her father's, and carried her to his castle near Mirandola, where he respectfully pressed his suit; insisting that he had a right to consider her as his wife. But the lady escaped by letting herself into the moat by a rope of sheets, and Giovanfrancesco Pico was discovered stabbed in the chest, by the hand of Madonna Medea da Carpi. He was a handsome youth only ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... one of the worst problems of the trenches was vermin. We entered a huge building used in peace-time for the purposes of dyeing. A Jack Johnson had only just exploded in the moat that brought the water to the tanks, but provision was made for trifles of this kind. When we peered over the edge of a steaming vat, it was to discover a platoon of Tommies enjoying the "time of their lives," before they joined the line of naked beings, each scrubbing the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... with another that which they picked up." So many and such sufferings produced incredible dastardliness; and deserters escaped by night, in some cases throwing themselves down, at the risk of being killed, into the city-moat; in others getting down by help of a rope from the ramparts. Indignation blazed forth against the fugitives; they were called rope-dancers; and God was prayed to treat them as the traitor Judas. William of Tyre and Guibert of Nogent, after ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... stormed your castle, and I shouldn't have cared if you hurled defiance from the top turret. I'd have known that, at last, you'd be forced to let down the drawbridge; and I would have crossed the moat and taken you prisoner, and you'd have been so impressed with my strength and ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... equipped with a lantern, hatchet and substantial lunch, they set out for the chateau. The walk was a delightful scramble through the neglected old woods for perhaps half a mile, when a seemingly impenetrable thicket barred the way. M. Gambeau said this was the line of the ancient moat, and they must cut their way through or make a long detour to the rear of the chateau, the side on which he usually approached. The hatchet was plied vigorously, hands were scratched, clothes torn, many a fall taken and many a fight had with the clinging vines, as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... geis for him to depart from the green without giving challenge to single combat.[1] The lad deciphered the writing and put his two arms around the pillar-stone. Just as the pillar-stone was with its ring, he flung it [2]with a cast of his hand[2] into the moat, so that a wave passed over it. "Methinks," spake Ibar, "it is no better now than to be where it was. And we know thou shalt now get on this green the thing thou desirest, even the token of death, yea, of doom and destruction!" [3]For it was the violation of a geis of the sons of Necht Scene ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... day, shortly before daybreak. The palace walls, some sixty yards from the Residency, and separated from it by an unfordable moat, were loop-holed, and soon a fierce fire was opened on the attackers. Mrs. Grimwood sought shelter in the little telegraph office, but bullets were soon crashing through it, and her position was one of extreme danger, but after the first ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... promontory, a light concrete bridge took the pretty little gorge in the leap of a single arch, and landed the eye at the bottom of the front yard of the schoolhouse. Thus the new institution of life was in full view of the schoolmanse veranda, and yet shut off from it by the dry moat of the brook and its ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... arranged for me to have the stable for our practice, for old Hill himself was rather against it, and as he has a prejudice against St. Amory fellows generally, but especially when they're of the Junior School—some of your tribe scuttled his punt for him on the moat, didn't you?—I thought you would not mind humouring the man's amiabilities. The Coon and he talk rot—sporting rot—and it would only bore you ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... Jupiter under the form of a serpent. The prophet bought the largest and finest serpent he could find, and conveyed it secretly with him into Asia. When he came to Abonotica, he found the temple that was built surrounded with a moat; and he took an opportunity privately of sinking a goose-egg, which he had first emptied of its contents, inserting instead a young serpent just hatched, and closing it again with great care. He then told his fellow-citizens that the God was arrived, and hastening to the moat, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... rays of the sun. Its sides were steep and precipitous, and at first the members of the party began to fear that they should be unable to mount the steep escarpment of eight or ten feet high, which formed its base, which was further defended by a moat of mingled sludge and rounded fragments, cemented by ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... explained at the moment; nor, indeed, till the next scene, when it is quite apparent; for if one sees an impregnable castle, rigidly guarded by supernumeraries, with an impassable river, bristling with chevaux-de-frise it is impossible to get over, and a moat that it would be death to cross, a prison-escape may be surely calculated upon. In the present instance, this formulary is not omitted, for Wilhelm jumps into the river from a bridge which he has contrived to reach. Though several ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... and corn, and faggots of vines landed. Their surprise became horror when they saw the captives and the cattle alike slaughtered as they landed. Their bodies were brought forward under cover of the shields and thrown into the moat, in which, too, were cast the hay, straw, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... are visible at a considerable distance along the coast. The principal remains consist of a massive wall, flanked with pyramidal bastions at regular intervals, and with the traces of gateways, draw-bridges and towers. It was formerly surrounded by a deep moat. Within this space, which may be a quarter of a mile square, are a few fragments of buildings, and toward the sea, some high arches and masses of masonry. The plain around abounds with traces of houses, streets, and court-yards. Caesarea was one ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... through the night the sweet strains float Like wind-blown rose-leaves, note by note, Over the great wall and the moat, ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall

... sumptuous tasteless column and image recently erected at Rome there is a very wide margin of disputable ground, of which I shall say no more in this place. But to return to the antique conception of the "Donna orante" or so-called Virgin Mother, I will mention here only the moat remarkable examples; for to enter fully into the subject would ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... have formed part of the old City wall, which at first ended at Baynard Castle. The rampart advanced to Mountfiquet, and, lastly, to please and protect the Dominicans, was pushed forward outside Ludgate to the Fleet, which served as a moat, the Old ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... strike a match. Beneath me I heard a noise as of someone fumbling with bolts. Then a door creaked on its hinges and there was some light. When I reached the doorway I caught sight of the figure of Miss Holmes flitting across a hollow garden that was laid out in the bottom of the castle moat which had been drained. The garden, as I had observed when we walked through it on the previous day on our way to the first covert that we shot, was bordered by a shrubbery through which ran paths that led to the back ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... the Scottish officers alone, Captain Innes and Lieutenant Lumsden, succeeded in breaking their way down a side lane, and thence, rushing to the wall, leapt down into the moat, and swimming across, succeeded in making their escape, and in carrying the news of the massacre to the camp of Gustavus, where the tale filled all with indignation and fury. Among the Scotch regiments deep vows of vengeance were interchanged, and in after battles the ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... rebelled; I was bitter. I strove To outwit the great Cosmic Forces, above, Or beyond, or about us, who guide and control The course of all things from the moat ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... window bars, protected (except against some stray murder by one of the Estensi themselves), by the duke's well-organized police; houses with well-trimmed gardens, like so many Paris hotels; and with the grand russet brick castle, military with its moat and towers, urban with its belvederes and balconies, in the middle, well placed to sweep away with its guns (the wonderful guns of the duke's own making) any riot, tidily, cleanly, without a nasty heap of bodies and slop of blood as in the narrow streets of other towns ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... discharge their culverins and a few arrows. The captain, seeing that they would not listen to reason, ordered them to be fired upon. The skirmish lasted in one place or the other about three hours, since the Spaniards could not assault or enter the fort because of the moat of water surrounding it. But, as fortune would have it, the natives had left on the other side, tied to the fort, a small boat capable of holding twenty men; and two of our soldiers threw themselves into the water and swam across, protected by our arquebusiers from the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... to south-east being about 256 yards long, the west side 143 yards, and the south side 200 yards. Two sides are very steep, and the south side, which slopes gradually to the town, is defended outside the wall by a wide moat ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley

... old Durham's lion banner float O'er the proud bulwark, that, with giant pride And feet deep plunged amidst the circling moat, The efforts of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... the noise of the keys; he remained on horseback, feeling no inclination to dismount, and sat looking at the bars, at the buttressed windows and the immense walls he had hitherto only seen from the other side of the moat, but by which he had for twenty ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... unto death the knight fled, and Owen pursued him till they came to a splendid castle. Here the knight dashed across the bridge that spanned the moat, and entered the gate, but as soon as he was safe inside, the drawbridge was pulled up and caught Owen's horse in the middle, so that half of him was inside and half out, and Owen could not dismount and ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... was her reply, with feigned unconcern. "Enid enjoyed herself immensely," she went on quickly. "She didn't bathe, so I told her to make a sand castle. She was delighted, especially when the water came in under the moat." ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... himself, pitched the tyrant out of the window, and turned to join the lady, victorious, but with a bump on his brow, found the door locked, tore up the curtains, made a rope ladder, got halfway down when the ladder broke, and he went headfirst into the moat, sixty feet below. Could swim like a duck, paddled round the castle till he came to a little door guarded by two stout fellows, knocked their heads together till they cracked like a couple of nuts, then, by a trifling ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott



Words linked to "Moat" :   trench, fosse



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