"Tumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that ye could scrooch out o' bed an' hump yerself over to them? If Pether tries he's sure to tumble over, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... Englishmen out of the New World. Englishmen were bound to get in. Of course the Sea-Dogs preyed on other people too, and other peoples' own Sea-Dogs preyed on English vessels when they could; for it was a very rough-and-tumble age at sea, with each nation's seamen fighting for their own hand. But Spanish greed and Spanish cruelty soon made Spain the one great enemy ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... Henry Greens', who live up the hill in a direct line from here. She is much the same. Chris is at last beginning to walk, but cannot speak a word. I believe they fear he is dumb. He understands very well what is said to him. I never saw a child tumble about more in his attempts to walk, but he does not seem to mind a bit and can walk backwards ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... placed in position the arch will sustain considerable weight, but if it be removed nearly all of the other stones tumble to the floor in a confused heap. Those who do not remember the Sabbath to keep it holy unto the Lord, may manifest some of these divinely appointed elements of character, but every one who conscientiously observes the ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... him, and made the Baal Shem his coachman. But his brother-in-law soon disgusted him again, for, one day, when they were driving together, and Rabbi Gershon had fallen asleep, the Baal Shem, whose pure thoughts had ascended on high, let the vehicle tumble into a ditch. "This fellow is good neither for heaven ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the whole he began to prefer the society of Abdul's black and white goats, which bore a strong resemblance to Abdul himself, by the way, and had more of the spirit of adventure. It was the goat, for example, that taught Sonny Sahib to walk on the extreme edge of the housetop and not tumble over. In time they became great friends, Sonny Sahib and the goat, and always, when it was not too hot, they ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... not succeed," whispered Jeanne Marie, "the worst that can happen to us is what has happened to thousands before us. We shall merely feed the machine, and our heads will tumble into the basket, with this difference, that I shall not be able to make any mark in my stocking. I would rather die all at once on the guillotine and have it over, than be dying here day after day, and hour after hour, having nothing to expect from life but ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... forgotten that he had any luggage at all. Ultimately, he was thrust into some sort of a vehicle, which set him down at the hotel door. Food? Good Heavens, no; but something to drink, and a bed to tumble into—quick. ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the other. "Why, ask for them, to be sure. You'll have to begin with a few blanks, of course, but directly it gets known that you're publishing them during the evening they'll all come in. Bless your soul, I know them! and if the nobs don't tumble to it the snobs will, and they're numerically strong enough to keep any play running. You won't have to worry about the play. As for the back rows of the stalls, where you put the people from the other theatres, why, they'll absolutely push their visiting-cards ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... of the ancient type. We landed and found ourselves in the midst of a forsaken little frontier town. A shambling shack bore the legend, "Store," with the "S" looking backward—perhaps toward dead municipal hopes. A few tumble-down frame and log shanties sprawled up the desultory grass-grown main street, at one end of which dwelt a Mandan Indian family in ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... upon us. None but Theodore, I believe, could have directed that difficult operation; the leather ropes, from long use, were always breaking, and we were very much afraid that some accident might happen, and that, at the very last stage, the ponderous mortar "Sebastopol" would tumble over the precipice. We fancied the rage his Majesty would be in; and our close proximity to him made us earnestly pray that nothing of the kind would occur. The sight was well worth witnessing: Theodore standing on a projecting rock, leaning on his spear, sent his aide-de-camp ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... its Banbury cakes and tumble-down station is passed. Hurrah for the "Flying Dutchman," running easily and smoothly, sixty miles an hour, well within himself. He is not tired, he does not pant or whistle, he goes calmly, swiftly along.... Here is Swindon—what o'clock is it? ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... I apologise. Take that - er topmast of yours away! Here's the man with the bow-string. I wish I were a staff-captain instead of a bloody lootenant. Sperril sleeps below every night. That's what makes Sperril tumble home from the waist uppards. Sperril, I defy you to touch me. I'm under orders for Zanzibar. Probably I ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... some of us go on shore, there is a drunken fight. Knives are drawn, great gashes given, blood runs like rain; the combatants tumble together into a shallow dock, stab in the mud and water, creep out and clench and roll over and over in the ooze, stabbing still, with beast-like, unintelligible yells, and half-intelligible curses. A great, nasty mob huddles round,—doing what, think you? Roaring with laughter, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... at first sight it seemed too prodigious a sacrifice, just as I'd done the right thing when in the face of tribal reasoning and logic I'd gone kiting off to a prairie-ranch and a wickiup with a leaky roof. It was a tumble, but it was a tumble into a pansy-bed. And I was thinking that luck would surely be with me a second time, though thought skidded, like a tire on a wet pavement, every time I tried to foresee what this newer change would ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... to want me, Mrs Desmond," he said, elaborately ignoring Wyndham's remark, "but I'd better not stop to-night. You won't be fit for much talking after that nasty tumble." ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... be sure! As the son of plain honest parents, they would have given the poor lad the cold shoulder; now, however, they will all behave with a courtesy that will charm my young friend. I never thought that old sand-hole and its tumble-down hut would turn out ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Dear Lord, when I getsh to be a little boy anzel up in hebben, don't let growed-up anzels come along whenever I'm doin' anyfing nice for 'em, an' say 'don't,' or tumble me down in heaps of nashty old black ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... destinies overtake me. I am prepared to receive them. Death, or any of the thousand ills that fortune stores for them she hates, could not come in a more welcome hour.—Oh Imogen, lovely, adorable Imogen, how vain has been my authority, how vain the space of my command! Let then my palaces tumble into ruin—Let that wand which once I boasted, shivered in a thousand fragments, be cast to all the winds of heaven! I will glory in desolation and forlornness. I will wrap myself in my poverty. I will retire to some horrid cave in the midst of the untamed desart, and shagged with horrid shades, ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... reached a row of tumble-down stables directly in the rear of the prison, and shut out from the open ground by a decrepit fence, broken here and there by negroes too lazy to pass out into the street to reach the river. The horsemen had turned into this lane-like highway—evidently ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... business at length, and for the while this inquiry must end. Captain Murray, look to your company. You, Major, see that the lads tumble out quick to the alarm-post. One moment!"—and Captain Murray halted with his hand on the door—"It is understood that for the present no word of to-night's affair passes our lips." I turned to Mr. Mackenzie and answered the question I read in the lad's ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... she was annoyed with him, began to dislike him, grew to hate him. She looked on him as a painter might upon a picture, or a poet, upon a poem, which he had only succeeded in getting into an irrecoverable mess. In the hearts of witches, love and hate lie close together, and often tumble over each other. And whether it was that her failure with Photogen foiled also her plans in regard to Nycteris, or that her illness made her yet more of a devil's wife, certainly Watho now got sick of the girl too, and hated to know her ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... had learned no other thing Than to tumble, dance and spring: Leaping and vaulting, that he knew, But nothing better could he do. He could not say his prayers by rote; Not "Pater noster", not a note, Not "Ave Mary," nor the creed; Nothing to help his ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... wild bull the prizefighter was at him again. He beat down the cowpuncher's defense and mauled him savagely with all the punishing skill of his craft. Steve was a man of his hands. He had held his own in many a rough-and-tumble bout. But he had no science except that which nature had given him. As long as a man could, he stood up to Harrison's trained skill. When at last he was battered to the ground it was because the strength had all oozed ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... along fast now under the cover of a hedge which paralleled the road when a voice called out "Halt!" In a step or two I came to a stop. A large fellow climbed over the hedge, and, coming on the road, fell, or rather stumbled over himself, into the ditch. I was afraid he was drunk, and that this tumble would add vexation to his spirits; but he was only tired and over-weighted, carrying a big knapsack and a gun, a number of articles girdled around his waist, along with too much avoirdupois. It seems that even in this conquered territory the Germans ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... my arm. 'Stop,' she said; 'look down there! That is what I like! It is a cot and a rill. You see that cot—not much of a house, to be sure, but it would do. And there, just near enough for the water to tumble over rocks and gurgle over stones to soothe one to sleep on summer nights, is the rill—not much of a rill, perhaps, but I think it could be arranged with a shovel. And then, all the rest is enchanting. I had been looking at it for some time ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... realize how unfit my sister is for rough and tumble. She's not one of this new sort of woman. She's always been looked after, and had things done for her. Pluck she's got, but that's all, and she's bound to come ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... emptied his revolver into him, and so did I; but the old fellow sullenly stood still there on top of the sand hill, bleeding profusely at the nose, and yet absolutely refusing to die, although he would repeatedly stagger and nearly tumble over. ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... darted toward it, tumbling several times on the way, as he often did tumble, poor boy! and pick himself up again, never complaining. Snatching it to his breast, he hugged and kissed it, cobwebs and all, as if it had been something alive. Then he began unrolling it, wondering each minute what would happen. What did happen was so curious that ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... good as they made them, too. I never saw him take water in my life, and personally I know that for nineteen years they tried to find a man to whip him. They couldn't do it. He was a terrible rough-and-tumble fighter, and many a tough citizen have I seen him do up. George was a great 'butter.' He could use his head with terrible effect. One night at New Orleans a stevedore tackled him. It was a set-up job. The stevedore ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... believing that I should have light enough when I got near the fire. On I went; in my eagerness I should have broken my nose by tumbling over bits of stone, had I not brought myself up with my stick. As it was, I got an ugly tumble, and hurt my knee not a little. I picked myself up and on I went. My fall taught me the prudence of caution, and once more I went forward not quite so rapidly as before. To my great joy I at last saw my fire still blazing ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... a tight elastic, or ribbon, or something, around it, right at the crown. It makes a lot of little waves and curls that tumble around—well, ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... building as possible when the car stopped, as he felt sure would be the case. Probably the men would not linger long, once they had rushed inside and taken a look around. Not finding him there they would be likely to "tumble to the game," as Josh put it, and hasten outside again in order to avoid any backset to their pursuit of the shrewd ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... people, entirely without experience or training in self-government, should make mistakes was quite as inevitable as it is that a child in learning to walk will tumble down and bump its little nose. In addition to the inevitable mistakes, there have been occasional instances of deplorable misconduct on the part of individuals and of political parties. For neither mistakes nor misconduct can we criticize or condemn them without a similar criticism ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... the men clung to the boat, but he attempted to gain the shore by himself. I was about to tumble the pigs out of my boat, and to go off in her to his assistance, when three of the natives darted out through the foaming seas towards where he was struggling. Every instant I expected he would disappear, but they quickly reached him, and supporting him in their arms, ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... upon the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, Down tumble cradle and ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis
... young eagles can fly the old birds tumble them out and tear the down and feathers from their nest. The rude and rough experience of the eaglet fits him to become the bold king of birds, fierce and expert in ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... her sister, opening her eyes only to close them at once. "I'm awake, but it's the queerest thing. So long as I keep my eyes closed I'm quite comfortable, but when I open them I feel as if I were in a high swing just ready to tumble out; and when Texas gets to pitching around in his cage, and hanging fairly upside down, and whirling around like a crazy thing, it makes ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... England. There are serenades and suppers and much gallantry among the myrtles overhead; and meanwhile the foundation shudders underfoot, the bowels of the mountain growl, and at any moment living ruin may leap sky-high into the moonlight, and tumble man and his merry-making in the dust. In the eyes of very young people, and very dull old ones, there is something indescribably reckless and desperate in such a picture. It seems not credible that respectable married people, with umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit of supper within ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you now," said Burke, his eyes glistening, "you might tumble overboard backwards if I did! Gentlemen," he cried, turning to his crew, "you're a royal lot! And if any of you ever ask me to stand by you, I'll do it while there's breath in my body! And now, madam," said he, his doubt and perplexity gone and his face animated ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... eyes, the garden appeared almost as well planted as her own, and from the chimney of the tumble-down cabin a lazy curl of smoke rose. Under the dark pine clump the outlines of a narrow mound could be plainly seen, and beside it lay a spade and a spray of ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... enemy, and took hold of the anchor cable. As he did so Steve whipped his revolver into sight and flattened himself against the bulkhead. A sharp report broke the silence and a bullet sang its way across the Follow Me's bow. The man dropped the rope and sprang back along the roof to tumble frightenedly into the cockpit. From the cabin of the Adventurer floated up the acrid smoke of Wink's revolver. The man at the stern of the ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the youth, which the Gouernour carried with him for an interpretour and a guide, began to fome at the mouth, and tumble on the ground, as one possessed with the diuell: They said a Gospell ouer him; and the fit left him. And he said, that foure daies iournie from thence toward the Sunne rising, was the Prouince that he spake of. The Indians of Patofa said, that toward that part they knew no habitation; ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... small-scale agriculture. Usually the town itself was inclosed by strong walls, and admission was to be gained only by passing through the gates, where one might be accosted by soldiers and forced to pay toll. Inside the walls were clustered houses of every description. Rising from the midst of tumble-down dwellings might stand a magnificent cathedral, town-hall, or gild building. Here and there a prosperous merchant would have his luxurious home, built in what we now call the Gothic style, with pointed windows and gables, and, to save space in a walled ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... kinds of charming affairs too; but when I hear people talk as if that was the whole life, it makes my hair rise, you know, because I am sure that as they get to know me better and better they will see how I fall short of that kind of an existence, and I shall probably take a great tumble in their estimation. They might even conclude that I can not paint, which would be very unfair, because I can paint, ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... able. Different indeed from those I was wont to spend at home. No delicious hours in our pet hostelries; no Sundays with music and an open window looking out upon the river; no rollicking evenings in some dear old tumble-down studio; no midnight rambles towards home down the Fulham Road, where the ghostly women walk; no cosy talks round the fire when the fog lies white against the glass, while the candle-light glows on ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... always, kind and affectionate. He rather vaguely apologized for his delay in replying to hers, written at the time of Miss Wickham's death. He had been frightfully busy, up at dawn and so tired at night that he was glad to tumble into bed right after supper. His wife, too, had had a sharp spell of sickness. However, she was all right again, he was glad to say. Why did not Nora come out to them? They would be glad to offer her a comfortable home, although ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... o' no use to ye now, for ye canna get awa' from me. I'm nae older than ye are, though I look it, an' I've got the harder muscles. Ye may be makin' your way steadily an' surely to the gates o' hell an' it mayna be possible that I can prevent ye, but I'm not goin' to let ye tumble in by accident so long as I've got ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... she had said. She had left him no loophole. She had the air of a young woman who knew her own mind excellently well. A single word from her to Thomson and the whole superstructure of his ingeniously built-up life might tumble to pieces. He sat with folded arms in a grim attitude of unrest, thinking bitter thoughts. They rolled into his brain like black shadows. He had been honest in the first instance. With ancestors from both countries, he had ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of amusement in the future. At the foot of the castle-hill, along the banks of the Danube was a group of tottering houses; tottering because in spring, when the ice broke up, the Danube roared and dashed among them. Here lived the fiacre drivers. Here were the cab-horses in tumble-down stables. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... few coy mermaids," laughed Jack; "but then our friend here wouldn't find it quite so easy to climb to the top of a palmetto as to tumble overboard." ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... she said aloud, "I am sure I shall keep to my old religion, the religion of the non-concessionists. They may be Pharisees or anything else you like, but I fear that if this old religion is subjected to so much retouching and restoring, it will tumble down, and nothing will be left standing. Besides, if we followed these Benedettos, too many things would have to be changed. No, no! However, the man interests me extremely. Now we must try to see him. We must see him! Especially ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... rich and the poor, to consult for a cure, Crowd on to his door in their carts and their carriages, Showin' their tongues or unlacin' their lungs, For divel wan sympton the docther disparages, Troth an' he'll tumble for high or for humble From his warm feather-bed wid no cross contrariety; Makin' as light of nursin' all night The beggar in rags as ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... reached the grade of lieutenant, in time that of captain; fought and ran with his countrymen, at Leuthen, floundered at peril of life in the swamps of Breslau and otherwise got his full share of the war's rough-and-tumble. From time to time, as the chance came to him, he visited his young wife ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... horrible black pit! Hilda shivered again at the thought of it, and then laughed at her own cowardice. She turned and gazed at the waterfall, creaming and curling over the rocks, and making such a merry, musical jest of its tumble into the pool. "Oh, lovely, lovely!" she cried, kissing her hand to it. "Bubble, do you know that Hartley's Glen is without exception the most ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... for the cat in the case! Left me till the last, left me sitting on an empty shell! The mice have made away with the cheese from under me. They have engineered a combine! There's a syndicate a-forming! It's for me to tumble down among 'em when the shell caves. I was ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... of the trappers! Oh to be as in this book, Chasing things in furry wrappers, Poking from their crevice-nook Loudly though they squeak and grumble, Squirrel fitch and Arctic cat (Editor: "I do not tumble; Will you please explain this jumble?" Author: "I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... with thy divinity Contend with knife and fork and platter, But grant with magnanimity I'm beaten in another matter; Thy heroes, sanguinary wights, Also thy rough-and-tumble fights, Thy Venus and thy Jupiter, More advantageously appear Than cold Oneguine's oddities, The aspect of a landscape drear. Or e'en Istomina, my dear, And fashion's gay frivolities; But my Tattiana, on my soul, Is sweeter ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... with moustache turning grey; grown-up Jill with the first faint "crow's feet" showing—when WE tumble down the hill, and OUR pail is spilt. Ye Heavens! what a tragedy has happened. Put out the stars, turn off the sun, suspend the laws of nature. Mr. Jack and Mrs. Jill, coming down the hill—what they were doing on the hill ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... you're a bit shaky, Harry," said St. Clair, "and I don't wonder at it. If I had been through all I think you've been through I'd tumble off that horse into the ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... handling. One of them we will wrap up in the carpet here, and t'other we can roll into yonder bed-curtain. You shall carry the one and I the other, and, the harbor being at no great distance, we can easily bring them thither and tumble them overboard, and no one will be the wiser of what has happened. For your own safety, as you may easily see, you can hardly go away and leave these objects here to be found by the first-comer, and to arise ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... Nuns and Friers, he caus'd divers feather-beds to be rip'd, and all the feathers to be thrown in a great Hall, whither the Nuns and Friers were thrust naked with their bodies oil'd and pitch'd, and to tumble among the feathers.' Howell speaks as if the thing were new to him, and I know not if the 'boisterous' Bishop was the inventor of it, but I find it practised in England ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... can get nothing said. The meaning that is in him shapes itself into no form of composition, is stated in no sequence, method, or coherence;—they are not shaped at all, these thoughts of his; flung-out unshaped, as they struggle and tumble there, in their chaotic inarticulate state. We said "stupid": yet natural stupidity is by no means the character of Mohammed's Book; it is natural un-cultivation rather. The man has not studied speaking; in the haste and pressure of continual fighting, has not time to mature ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... the other, and drop onto the floor. Sometimes when hanging only by two hands, it would loose one, and cross it to the opposite shoulder, grasping its own hair; and, as this seemed much more agreeable than the stick, it would then loose the other and tumble down, when it would cross both and lie on its back quite contentedly, never seeming to be hurt by its numerous tumbles. Finding it so fond of hair, I endeavoured to make an artificial mother, by wrapping up a piece of buffalo-skin ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... natural ferocity of his temper. His wife must have a pleasant time. I wonder if he sleeps well, or enjoys Herzain's essays on Russian aristocracy? But make way, ye pedestrian rabble, for here comes a secretary of legation on horseback—make way, or he will tumble off and inflict some bodily injury upon you with the points of his waxed mustache! I know he must be a secretary of legation by the enormous polished boots he wears over his tight breeches, the dandy parting of his hair, the supercilious stupidity ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... companion, to have him refer to the great firm of D. McCunn, so that the innkeeper might be ashamed of his suspicions. What nonsense to imagine that a noted and wealthy Glasgow merchant—the bagman's tone was almost reverential—would concern himself with the affairs of a forgotten village and a tumble-down house! ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Winchester, I had three more years of school before me, having as yet endured nine. My father at this time having left my mother and sisters with my younger brother in America, took himself to live at a wretched tumble-down farmhouse on the second farm he had hired! And I was taken there with him. It was nearly three miles from Harrow, at Harrow Weald, but in the parish; and from this house I was again sent to that school as a day-boarder. Let those who know what is the usual appearance and ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... morning as they drew near to Weston. There in the morning light they saw the broken lock with a weir beside it, and over the weir a tumble of flashing water; an islet or two, red with stalks of loosestrife; a swan bathing in the channel between. And there, early as they came, Sam Bossom stood already on the lock-bank; but not awaiting them, and not alone. For at a distance of six paces, perhaps, stood the girl of the blue sun-bonnet, ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on his rounds and stayed longer at each, so sometimes for months at a time he never got around to the shabby place on the hill at all. But the boy believed that he did understand this and often he smiled to himself over it, without any bitterness—just smiled half wistfully. He lived alone in the tumble-down old house and did his own cooking and—well, even a most zealous man of the gospel might have beamed more heartily upon better cooks than was Denny, without ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... weighed without his boots, fifteen stones! No one ever knew how Pollock did it;—more especially as all the world declared that he was as ignorant of hunting as any tailor. He could ride, or when he couldn't ride he could tumble,—men said that of him,—and he would ride as long as the beast under him could go. But few knew the sad misfortunes which poor Pollock sometimes encountered;—the muddy ditches in which he was left; the despair with ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... preparations he had seen on the journey, reminding her of Christmas feasts and games which she must have known in her youth, when she lived at peace with mankind. "I'm sorry for your children, who can never run on the village street in holiday dress or tumble in the Christmas straw," ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... dirty, daring Roman boys, grasping the falling flowers or confetti. From a balcony, some wealthy forestiero ('Ugh! how rich they are!' grumbles the coachman) scatters baiocchi broadcast, and down in the dirt and mud roll and tumble the little ragamuffins, who never have muffins, and always have rags—and 'spang!' down comes a double handful of hard confetti on Caper's head, as he rides by in an open carriage. He bombards the window with a double handful of white buckshot; but a woman in full Albano costume, crimson ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... disadvantage; it does not front on nature, or art, or the common conditions and industries of men in town or country. If it does not actually of itself turn, it presents everything the wrong side outward. In cities, it reveals the ragged and smutty companionship of tumble-down out-houses, and mysteries of cellar and back-kitchen life which were never intended for other eyes than those that grope in them by day or night. How unnatural, and, more, almost profane and inhuman, is the fiery locomotion of the Iron Horse through ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... Tad. "We'll overhaul him if you can keep that up. Steady now. Don't slip or you'll tumble me down the hill and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... same tumble-down old shanty we have just passed,—so poor that nobody'd take the gift of it. People said that he'd orter go to the poorhouse, so that when he was sick—which was pretty much all the time—he'd have somebody to take care of him. But he'd got kinder ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... to barber-shops in the city, and not to country places. In the country there is only one barber and one customer at a time. The thing assumes the aspect of a straight-out, rough-and-tumble, catch-as-catch-can fight, with a few spectators sitting round the shop to see fair play. In the city they can shave a man without removing any of his clothes. But in the country, where the customer insists ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... Mortimer was drunk, did not know his words, and went 'fluffing all over the shop.' Kate, excited with champagne and compliments, sang the wrong music on one occasion; and to complete their misfortunes, the Liverpool public did not in the least tumble to Miss Beaumont's rendering of the part of the heroine. The gallery thought she was too fat, the papers said she was not sprightly enough, and on Wednesday night the old Cloches had to be put up. By this failure the management sustained ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... motionless, unconsciously falling into the reverent attitude now so familiar to her; sometimes she would turn to the right and pause at the brow of the hill, where the valley in all its panorama of loveliness lay before her; and sometimes she would walk straight ahead to the old tumble-down gate where she might face the west and watch the rose change to palest amber ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... white in the company officers. At bottom you know, I say they're men. It's just a chance you've got whether you tumble on the good or the bad sort. No good ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... after a few months of inactivity, which holders of speculative securities had spoken of as another healthy breathing spell, the tendency of prices had changed. Had not merely halted, but showed a radical tendency to shrink; even to tumble feverishly. Buyers were scarce, and the once accommodating banks displayed a heartless disposition to scrutinize collateral and to ask embarrassing questions in regard to commercial paper. Rates of interest on loans were ruthlessly advanced, and additional security demanded. A pall of dejection ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... rather straight sheer, 27-inch bulwarks, a moderately full but easy entrance, a fine, long run, and little drag to the keel. The midsection was formed with moderately short and rising floor, round and easy bilge, and some tumble-home in the topside. The stem raked a good deal for a ship-rigged vessel; the post raked slightly. There was a distance of 6 feet between upper and lower deck planks. The stern was of the square transom, round tuck form, as mentioned in the Savannah's register. Lenthall reported ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... Goodkin replied. "You know, that nightshirt thing they wear is about the stupidest idea for a storm-troop uniform I ever saw. Natural target in a gunfight, and in a rough-and-tumble it gets them all tangled up. Ah, there go a couple of coppers to talk to them; that's what they've been waiting on. Now they can beat it without looking like they been run ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... notice! . . . Yes, a nice shiny knob it is, and if you won't come out to the back-yard an' watch while I pin these things on the clothes-line, you must stay here an' study your disobedient face in it. The fire's out, so you can't tumble in an' be burnt to a coal like the wicked children in Nebuchadnezzar: which is a comfort, so far as it goes. Nor I can't send you out to s'arch for your sister, wi' the knowledge that it'll surely end in her ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... his daughter's household. "Faith, the roar and tumble of the whelps brings back to me me own wife and childer. Them was good days. 'Twas hard skirmishin' some weeks for bacon and p'taties, but I got 'em someway, and you ate ivery flick of it—snappin' and snarlin', but happy as ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... better when he heard his father say this, but still he was afraid lest perhaps his plaything might have been broken in the tumble. ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... red central chimney with underground furnaces all round, which opened like the fiery graves where Dante placed the bad Popes; and how dreadfully afraid I was that Dora would tumble into one of them, so that I was glad to see her held fast by the fascination of the never-superseded potter and his wheel fashioning the clay, while Mr. Yolland discoursed and Harold muttered assents to some wonderful scheme that was to economise ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you are a scholar, you might keep school, but I don't believe there's half-a-dozen kids on the diggin's. They'd be of no mortal use except to tumble down shafts. Fact is, if you are really hard up, you can be a peeler. Up at the camp they'll take on any useless loafer wot's able to carry a carbine, and they'll give you tucker, and you can keep your shirt clean. But, mind, if you do join the Joeys, I hope ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... faces and sneers, And the monarch doth laugh At the loon without ears. There are others who bear Burning brands from the fire Stick a torch 'neath their belt, Yet ne'er singe their attire; Some that dance on their heels, Or that tumble and spring— O 'tis gay in the hall Of high ...
— The Nightingale, the Valkyrie and Raven - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... "I is to tumble the poppenoddles," cries the bullet-headed gentleman. And presently the rustic young gamester is tossing ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... may be surprised at the easy manner in which Andy slipped through his fingers, after having slipped through the roof of his conservatory; but as between two stools folks fall to the ground, so between two rages people sometimes tumble into safety. O'Grady was in a divided passion—first his wrath was excited against Furlong for his blunder, and just as that was about to explode, the crash of Andy's sudden appearance amidst the flower-pots (like a practical parody on "Love among the roses") called ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... said in a husky voice. "That man that comed over on the stage with you give a description of him, this mornin', 't made 'em tumble to him after we had throwed 'em off the track. If I ever git a show at him! They knows 'twas Bill. That little devil ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Alvise's fat mother gabbling dialect in a shrill, benevolent voice behind the bullfights on her fan; the unshaven village priest, perpetually fidgeting with his glass and foot, and sticking one shoulder up above the other. And now, in the afternoon, I felt as if I had been in this long, rambling, tumble-down Villa of Mistra—a villa three-quarters of which was given up to the storage of grain and garden tools, or to the exercise of rats, mice, scorpions, and centipedes—all my life; as if I had always sat there, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... And now, if we can save them from submarines, those that know will know how vital our help was. Again, the submarine is the great and grave and perhaps the only danger now. If that can be scotched, I believe the whole Teutonic military structure would soon tumble. If not, the Germans may go on as long as they can feed their army, allowing ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... said Jim; 'I'd have the hobbles on you by this time, and you'd have got "fitted" to rights. I wish I'd gone into the police sometimes. It isn't a bad game for a chap that can ride and track, and likes a bit of rough-and-tumble now and then.' ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... all. I shall be very glad. Your mountain air is drugging me, Mrs. Durgin. I shall have to say good-night, or I shall tumble asleep before I get upstairs. Oh, I can find the way, I guess; this part of the house seems the same." He got away from them, and with the lamp that Jackson gave him found his way to his room. A few moments later some one knocked at his door, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... It is the mower in the field whetting his scythe. He is going to cut down the grass. And will he cut down all the flowers too? Yes, everything. Now we must make hay. Where is your fork and rake? Spread the hay. Now make it up into cocks. Now tumble on the haycock. There, cover Harry up with hay. How sweet the hay smells! Oh, it is very hot. No matter; you should make hay while the sun shines. You must work well. See! all the lads and lasses are at work. They must have some beer, and bread and cheese. Now put ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... stood in the entrance of his damp den, "there are worse places than my cave after all. But what I want is firewood. Lord! that flash almost blinded me. Rumble—grumble—tumble—crash—bang! Go it; never mind me. You aren't frightening me worth tuppence. I rather like a little electricity and aqua pura." In answer there was a dazzling flash, followed by a terrific clap of thunder which seemed to burst almost above ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... old head!" answered Ted, determinedly. "I'm watching to see who comes along. Do you suppose I'd let Mrs. Burton, or the rector tumble into the tub? What d'you take me ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... thought it contained some bold strokes happily conceived, then a third to elucidate the two first, eventually the whole five acts from start to finish. He acted the words as he read, modulating his voice to suit the various characters, stamping and storming, and to adjust his black skullcap—it would tumble off at the pathetic parts—dealing himself a succession of sounding slaps on the crown ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... had two pretty large black eyes on either side of the head EE, from one of which I could see a very bright reflection of the window, which made me ghess, that the Cornea of it was smooth, like those of bigger Insects. Its motion was pretty quick and strong, it being able very easily to tumble a stone or clod four times as big ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... coat is thin and fragile and at maturity peels off, leaving an inner coat firm, papery, and elastic, just such a coat as is suitable for the dispersion of its spores. Leaving its moorings at maturity, it is blown about the fields and woods, and with every tumble it makes it scatters some of its spores. It may take years to accomplish this perfectly. The species of the Lycoperdon do not leave their moorings naturally; their spores are dispersed through an apical mouth by a collapse of the walls of the peridium, ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... most striking feature of antiquity met thus far on our journey were curious stone terraces built across the small gullies. They are called trincheras (trenches). Some of them do not appear to be very old, and many present the appearance of tumble-down walls, but the stones of which they are constructed were plainly used in their natural state. Although many of the boulders are huge and irregular in shape, they were used just as they were found. The building material always conformed to the surroundings: ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... time," said Laura, her eyes twinkling, "she was upstairs straightening up the store-room when she pretended to have a tumble. You know she weighs ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... Love me little, love me long: let music rumble, Whilst I in thy incony [173] lap do tumble. ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... sir; bit of a tumble, that's all, sir. Don't you be skeared. I arn't going to make no row about it. No, no, sir, please," continued the boatswain, "not yet. I don't feel fit to be boarded. Just you go and give your orders to make that ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... sound, so passing sweet elsewhere, seemed to issue from the yawning portal, leaving him to fancy the interior a lumber of floors, galleries, and roofs in charred tumble down. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... after dark, and a queer little tumble-down phaeton took us to the inn chosen because of its German-speaking landlord. Here I spent two days waiting for the Moscow Express. After I had started my invaluable Wang off on his journey back to Peking by way ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... Mack, eyes only for Frank, charged savagely, intending to brush Dave aside and keep on going until he had brought Frank to the ground with a diving tackle. What actually happened was extremely jolting to Mack. He hit Dave but did not tumble him. Instead it was he who rebounded and Dave continued on. Mack, rolling over, painfully, saw Dave go on down the field to bowl quarterback Alf Rigsbee, playing safety, out of the way and leave Frank with a clear ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings: Sceptre and Crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... sports. A committee is appointed. Sir Redvers Buller becomes President. A two days' meeting is arranged, and on successive afternoons the more energetic passengers race violently to and fro on the decks, belabour each other with bolsters, or tumble into unforeseen troughs of water to their huge contentment and the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the tumble-down stables, near which a squealing white stallion with long, red-dyed tail was tied to a peepul tree. Its rider, a blue-coated sowar, or cavalryman, with bare feet thrust into heelless native slippers, sat on the ground ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... name. 'Mrs. Furnival's compliments, and hopes Mr. Staveley will recover the use of his legs.' And the man would bring back word: 'The doctor hopes he may, miss; but his left eye is gone for ever.' It is not everybody that can tumble discreetly. Now you, I ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... speaker he had ever heard. 'And, pray, who is this John Clare?' asked the tall aristocratic-looking gentleman. 'He is ...' began Mr. Drury, but suddenly stopped short, seeing a whole row of his books tumble to the ground. John Clare, in his terrible excitement, had pressed too close towards an overhanging shelf of heavily-bound folios and quartos, which came down with a tremendous crash. It seemed as if ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... had time to observe what had escaped their notice in the rough-and-tumble of the melee. As the men crowded round Gleeson, like bees round a sugar-bag, thirsting to wreak their vengeance upon him for introducing into the community weapons which were not possessed by all, they forgot the prostrate Walker, as well as Peters ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... cannot give the bottomless vision of this long descent. We went in a little rocking Ford car down steep and jagged roads among ribbed and columned cliffs; but the roads below soon failed us altogether; and the car had to tumble like a tank over rocky banks and into empty river-beds, long before it came to the sinister and discoloured landscapes of the Dead Sea. And the distance looks far enough on the map, and seems long enough in the motor journey, to make a man feel he has come to another ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... wear the form of man, and yet fly in the face of all the laws of human nature:—and all this, in the hope of getting a belly-god burgess through a needle's eye! Oh, let him stick, by all means; and let his polity tumble in the dust; and let his epitaph and all his literature (of which my own works begin to form no inconsiderable part) be abolished even from the history of man! For a fool of this monstrosity of dulness ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... be under earth Do all press upwards and do come to rest Upon the earth, in some way upside down, Like to those images of things we see At present through the waters. They contend, With like procedure, that all breathing things Head downward roam about, and yet cannot Tumble from earth to realms of sky below, No more than these our bodies wing away Spontaneously to vaults of sky above; That, when those creatures look upon the sun, We view the constellations of the night; And that with us the seasons of the sky They thus alternately divide, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... old in rough and tumble, was already rolling out. Before the inertia of his fall had given way, his right hand, only a split second before in the grip of the other, was fumbling for the 9 mm Noiseless ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... eats with me when he heat anywhere. I tell 'im 'e hought to have my appetite, if he wants to keep up his spiritual strength. The body is the foundation of the soul, no? Well, you let that foundation tumble hin, and then where you got you' soul, heigh? But Father Etienne speaks very good English. Heducate at Rome. I am the only other educated man at Haha Bay. You don't 'appen to have some papers in you' bag? French? English? It is ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Granice, discouraged. "And even if I hadn't been, I know the garage was just opposite Leffler's over there." He pointed across the street to a tumble-down stable with a blotched sign on which the words "Livery and Boarding" ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... horse in the tumble-down stable, the roof was half off, the rafters hanging down, the walls crumbling—an old place. It had been in the family of Jean Baptistine for many years. He was a lone man, no wife, three sons fighting, and his daughter—ah well, she was where no harm could come to her. She had saved her honor ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould |
