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Tumble-down   Listen
adjective
Tumble-down  adj.  Ready to fall; dilapidated; ruinous; as, a tumble-down house. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tumble-down" Quotes from Famous Books



... take to, because their cruel mothers and fathers will not; all who are untaught and brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by ill usage or ignorance or neglect; all the little children in alleys and courts, and tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and measles, and scarlatina, and nasty complaints which no one has any business to have, and which no one will have some day, when folks have common sense; and all the little children who have been ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... and fixtures, with the stock of ales and spirits, of a small inn in the center of a lonely little village, perched on the summit of a hill, and called Mount Stanning. It was not a very pretty house to look at; it had something of a tumble-down, weather-beaten appearance, standing, as it did, upon high ground, sheltered only by four or five bare and overgrown poplars, that had shot up too rapidly for their strength, and had a blighted, forlorn look in consequence. The wind had had its own way with the Castle ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... and the laborers. Think of Kit Downes, uncle, who lives with his wife and seven children in a house with one sitting room and one bedroom hardly larger than this table!—and those poor Dagleys, in their tumble-down farmhouse, where they live in the back kitchen and leave the other rooms to the rats! That is one reason why I did not like the pictures here, dear uncle—which you think me stupid about. I used to come from the village ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... Lorenzo Marquez. Through the kindness of one of his native or half-breed wives, who could talk a little Dutch, I managed, however, to get a lodging in a tumble-down house belonging to a dissolute person who called himself Don Jose Ximenes, but who was really himself a half-breed. Here good fortune befriended me. Don Jose, when sober, was a trader with the natives, and a year before had acquired from them two good buck wagons. Probably they ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... good, an' lubly, an' happy; fur don't yer see de birds neber sung, 'I wush you wuz,' 'I wush dey had," but all de time 'I wush I wuz,' 'I wush I had.' At last, one day dar come inter de gyarden er po' little cripple gal, who lived 'way off in er ole tumble-down house. She wuz er little po' white chile, an' she didn't hab no farder nor mudder, nor niggers ter do fur her, an' she had to do ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... stumbled on it—a tumble-down coffee house, with A. Kuprasso above the door in queer amateur lettering. There was a lamp burning inside, and two or three men smoking at small ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... dooryard oaks. They were not afraid of the strong-limbed, duck-clad stranger, whose manner was the manner of the town folk, but whose speech was the gentle drawl of the mountain motherland. Once he had eaten with them in the single room of the tumble-down cabin; and again he had made a grape-vine swing for the boys, and had ridden the littlest girl on his shoulder up to the steep-pitched corn patch where her father was plowing. We may bear this in mind, since it has been said that there is hope still for the man of whom children ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... a halfpenny apiece, and the boat almost too much crowded for standing-room. This part of the river presents the water-side of London in a rather pleasanter aspect than below London Bridge,—the Temple, with its garden, Somerset House,—and generally, a less tumble-down and neglected look about the buildings; although, after all, the metropolis does not see a very stately face in its mirror. I saw Alsatia betwixt the Temple and Blackfriar's Bridge. Its precincts looked very narrow, and not particularly distinguishable, at this day, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... with spaces of liquid blackness in it, and a red or green light burning here and there. It was still raining, and the clouds were heavy in the south and west. We stopped almost at the river-side, before a tumble-down-looking little public-house, and here Brunow alighted hastily. A hulking fellow leaned against the door-jamb smoking a short pipe; and Brunow addressing an inquiry to him, he jerked his thumb towards the river, and answered: "Just got steam up. ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... what or who they are. They've only just come here and from goodness knows where. And they live in that little tumble-down house in Mullen ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... courtyard, shunned by some, glared at by others, but watched by all, and practically at the mercy of the first casual ragamuffin with a chopper, in there. He took possession of a small tumble-down shed to sleep in; the effluvia of filth and rotten matter incommoded him greatly: it seems he had not lost his appetite though, because—he told me—he had been hungry all the blessed time. Now and again "some fussy ass" deputed from the council-room would ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... know, any more than you do. The first time I saw him, was in an old tumble-down building, where the wind played hide and go seek through the timbers; and where more men, women, dogs and children were huddled together, than four walls of the like size ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... moored a little way out from the shore—looking down upon them through a cleft in the rocks. The village itself we did not see, but skirted it upon high ground and came down to the foreshore a short two miles beyond it; where we found a beach and a spit of rock, and on the spit a tumble-down tower standing, as lonely as a combed louse. Above the beach ran a tolerable coast road, which divided itself into two, after crossing a bridge behind the tower; the one following the shore, the other striking inland up the devil of a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... only in her shift, she thrice crossed the King's Highway and was thus married to avoid payment of her first husband's debts. It is not far from the old Church Foundation of St. Paul's of Narragansett, and the tumble-down house of Sexton Martin Read, the prince of Narragansett weavers in ante-Revolutionary days. Weaver Rose learned to weave from his grandfather, who was ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... he sat beside her, reading, as quiet as a mouse, so that she might sleep if the tumble-down Empire sofa did but woo her that way, she suddenly put up her arm and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... 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 ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... plain that stretched away for miles on every side there was not a particle of shade; even the creek ran north and south, so that the hot sun sought out every nook and corner, and the bark-roofed hut, with its few tumble-down outbuildings, was ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... I'd seen any. I felt as if I was going to a new world. None of us spoke for a bit. Jim pulled up at a small hut by the roadside; it looked like a farm, but there was not much show of crops or anything about the place. There was a tumble-down old barn, with a strong door to it, and a padlock; it seemed the only building that there was any care taken about. A man opened the door of the hut and ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... a child. "Can't you see it for yourself? I—I am a mere guttersnipe compared to the de Vignes. They live in a great house with lots of servants and cars. They never do a thing for themselves. I don't suppose Rose could do her hair to save her life. While we—we live in a tumble-down, ramshackle old place, and do all the work ourselves. I've never been away from home in my life before. You see, we're poor, and Billy's schooling takes up a lot of money. I had to leave school when he first went as a boarder. And ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... the darkness ahead. Presently the boys were able to see that it came from a lantern held by some man standing in the open doorway of the old house. A moment later four others appeared from within and came out to the tumble-down porch. Bob and Hugh looked on with bated breath. What ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... admirably adapted for concealment. On a small level place surrounded by high cliffs stood a tumble-down house. It was shut in from view from every point except the single one ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... verandah and towards the house. Far to the right, in among the trees, a glimpse is caught of the lower part of the new villa, with scaffolding round so much as is seen of the tower. In the background the garden is bounded by an old wooden fence. Outside the fence, a street with low, tumble-down cottages. ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen

... the "Victoria" pattern, to furnish the entire illumination of the apartment. That book-shelves lined the rectangular portion of this strange study I divined, although that end of the place was dark as a catacomb. The walls were wood-panelled, and the ceiling was oaken-beamed. A small book shelf and tumble-down cabinet stood upon either side of the table, and the celebrated American author and traveller lay propped up in a long split-cane chair. He wore smoke glasses, and had a clean-shaven, olive face, with a profusion of jet-black hair. He was garbed in a dirty red ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... a palace hard by, to which Bonpre had been invited, and where he would have been welcome to stay as long as he chose,—the house of the Archbishop of Rouen—a veritable abode of luxury as compared with the Hotel Poitiers, which was a dingy little tumble-down building, very old, and wearing a conscious air of feebleness and decrepitude which was almost apologetic. Its small windows, set well back in deeply hollowed carved arches had a lack-lustre gleam, as of very ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... side of the fence, an old and long neglected apple orchard, a tumble-down log barn, and the wreck of a house with the fireplace and chimney standing stark and alone, told the story. The place was one of those old ranches, purchased by the Power Company for the water rights, and deserted by those who once had called it home. From the gate, ancient ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... and orchards. We were still on home ground, for my father's vegetable garden and orchard were here. After a long straight stretch, the path suddenly took an abrupt turn, widening into a cart road, then to a tumble-down wharf, and there ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... entirely too tumble-down to use,' said one of the men, sadly; and I knew he was right, for I had ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... few now left who have enjoyed a night in one of these old tumble-down rooms, with A.S. Clayton, O.H. Prince, A.B. Longstreet, and John M. Dooly. Here and there one, old, tottering, and gray, lives to laugh at his memories of those chosen spirits of fun. Yes, that is the word—fun—for these ancients ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... light upon some twisted root-trunk, to which the shadows have given outstretched arms. The vague feelings, too, so absolutely unaccountable, that the sight of a lonely gate, or weir, or park-railing, or sign-post, or ruined shed, or tumble-down sheep-fold, may suddenly arouse, when we feel that in some weird manner we are the accomplices of the Thing's tragedy, are feelings that Dickens alone among writers seems to understand. A road with no people upon it, and the ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the dbris of many generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary new one, that is not half finished, and never will be, and good enough for it, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... "Three-legged Wood-wife." This was because of a wooden staff on which she leaned to eke out the failing strength of her own limbs. The wood-wife was both feared and hated by the people, amongst whom she bore the character of a very malicious witch. The king's daughter hated not only her, but her tumble-down house, and had sent again and again, with large offers of gold, to try and purchase the cottage. But the wood-wife laughed spitefully at the messengers, and only replied that the cottage suited her, and that for no money would she ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... a picture of the saucy girl while she was trying to stop yours," said Jasper. "So she didn't do much harm, after all. Oh, here is a splendid group! See them standing by that old tumble-down house, Polly," he ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... Harpville, on the east bank of the Stony creek. A rudely constructed platform extends over a washed-out ditch, partially filled with debris. In the vicinity is a large barn and several smaller outhouses, thrown in a tumble-down condition. Piled against them are beams and rafters from houses smashed into kindling wood. All about the station are boxes, empty and full, scattered in confusion, and around and about these crowds are ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... hanging around as usual, watching us furtively. Ned was one of the hopeful members of a family that lived in a tumble-down shanty just across the road from the Carrolls. They were wretchedly poor, and old Brooke, as he was called, and Ned were employed a good deal by Mr. Carroll—more out of charity than anything else, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... find these birds a special infliction, and complained of the invasion of his premises by "them paycocks." The word "pea" is always rendered "pay" in Worcestershire, and, like "tay" for "tea," is probably the old correct pronunciation. I lately saw a notice on some tumble-down premises near Southampton, "Pay and bane stiks for sale." Another notice, not too happily composed, is to be seen at a Forest village; after the owner's name, "Carpenter, builder ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... lamented remains. The monument and vault in the church were then, alas! all that remained of my vast possessions; for my father had sold every stick of the property to one Notley, an attorney, and we received but a cold welcome in his house—a miserable old tumble-down place it was. [Footnote: In another part of his memoir Mr. Barry will be found to describe this mansion as one of the most splendid palaces in Europe; but this is a practice not unusual with his nation; and with respect to the Irish principality claimed by him, it is known that Mr. Barry's ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... We never sleep much, for it was 'most as light as day, and the smell of smoke was terrible. We could see people runnin' in certain parts of Columbia, sometimes. Next mornin' we look over the city from the bluff and only a few houses was standin' and hundreds of tumble-down chimneys and the whole town ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... see the various changes that have taken place in this "good old town" I am sometimes lost in wonderment. Narrow, inconvenient, ill-paved streets have been succeeded by broad thoroughfares—old tumble-down houses have been replaced by handsome and costly buildings, while the poor little humble shops that once were sufficient for our wants have been completely eclipsed by the gigantic and elegant "establishments" of ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... though by magic, and they crossed a paved patio, or courtyard, to a house beyond, a tumble-down place of Moorish architecture. ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... a brisk run, and Jim still sat upon the stone watching him until he disappeared somewhere among the angles of the tumble-down buildings that ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... fountains in the assault of the wind. In this young wood of Taahauku, all these hues and combinations were exampled and repeated by the score. The trees grew pleasantly spaced upon a hilly sward, here and there interspersed with a rack for drying copra, or a tumble-down hut for storing it. Every here and there the stroller had a glimpse of the Casco tossing in the narrow anchorage below; and beyond he had ever before him the dark amphitheatre of the Atuona mountains and the cliffy bluff that closes it to seaward. The trade-wind moving in ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... including silks, broadcloths, groceries, plows, and schoolbooks. On either side of Main-st. was a hard-beaten path, which served for a sidewalk. On the south side of the street stood a number of dingy rookeries, in a half tumble-down condition. Pigs and cows roamed at large, and were only known to be home at supper-time, when old brindle, in more instances than one, might have been seen peering through the front window with a covetous look upon the family group ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell

... on a door of a tumble-down shack. Cautiously it was opened a few inches. There was ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... returned her father, "they would sell me that tumble-down place in the hollow they call the Old House of Glaston. I shouldn't mind paying a good sum for it. What a place it would be to live in! And what a pleasure there would be in the making of it once more habitable, and watching ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... baron in order that it might be used for protection to the castle which has been built on and attached to it. If I remember rightly, this was done by one of the Frangipani, and a very lovely ruin he has made of it. I know no castellated old tumble-down residence in Italy more picturesque than this baronial adjunct to the old Roman tomb, or which better tallies with the ideas engendered within our minds by Mrs. Radcliffe and "The Mysteries of Udolpho." It lies along the road, protected on the side ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... called the Brawner House; it has a bar in the nethermost cellar, and its patrons, carousing in that imperfect light, look like the denizens of some burglar's crib, talking robbery between their cups; its dining-room is dark and tumble-down, and the cuisine bears traces of Caffir origin; a barbecue is nothing to a dinner there. The Court House of Port Tobacco is the most superflous house in the place, except the church. It stands in the center of the town in a ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... do strand me, Hester!" replied her brother. "How you could see anything pathetic, or pitiful as you call it, in that disreputable old humbug, I can't even imagine. A more ludicrous specimen of tumble-down humanity it would be impossible to find! A drunken old thief—I'll lay you any thing! Catch me leaving a sov where he could spy the shine ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... dance-hall came the rattle of a tinny piano, the squeak of a raspy violin, a high-pitched, hectic burst of laughter; while, flanking the street on each side, like interjected inanimate blotches, rows of squalid tenements and cheap, tumble-down frame houses silhouetted themselves in broken, jagged points against the sky-line. And now and then a man spoke to her—his untrained fingers fumbling in clumsy homage at the brim ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... The balconies were erected on the outside of the dilapidated houses which overlook the Tiber and facing the Castel St. Angelo. How they ever managed to make this passage is a mystery! In the daytime one could not see the possibility of cutting through the labyrinth of these forlorn tumble-down houses. We sat trembling for fear that the shaky planks would suddenly give way and plunge us into the whirling Tiber under our feet. The fireworks were the most gorgeous display of pyrotechnics I ever ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... and it gave us a queer thrill to hear the constant boom-boom of the guns like a continuous thunderstorm. We began to feel fearfully hungry, and stopped beside a high bank flanking a canal and not far from a small cafe. Bunny and I went to get some hot water. It was a tumble-down place enough, and as we pushed the door open (on which, by the way, was the notice in French, "During the bombardment one enters by the side door") we found the room full of men drinking coffee and smoking. I bashfully ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... stream was covered with watercress: this was green where the water was fresh, a bright yellow as far as the salt tide had prevailed. Between where they stood and the distressed waters of the bay was a stretch of yellow sand. A little to their right was a dismantled, tumble-down cottage, which served to emphasise the romantic remoteness ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... Christ's kingdom visited St. Louis, they found it a place of two thousand inhabitants,—"a tumble-down French village,—built mainly of wooden slabs and poles set vertically, and well daubed with mortar mixed with straw, though there were many log houses." In a school-room they delivered the first Presbyterian or Congregational sermons ever preached ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker

... day, more than thirty years before, when it was brown and oozy underfoot and there was nothing neat about it at all, and the mellow cry of well-fed cattle came from the dark doors of tumble-down sheds, and she was standing in the sunshine with two of the Berkshire piglets in her arms. She had brought them out of the stye to have a better sight of their pretty twitching noses and their silken bristles and their playfulness, which was unclouded, as it is in the puppy by a genuine ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... the house. The little town lay quiet, except for the rhythmic noises coming from the big Massey Steel Mills. Suzanna looked in their direction and stood a moment watching the sparks coming from the big round chimneys. Over across fields were the tumble-down cottages occupied by the employees of the Massey Steel Mills. Suzanna did not often go in their direction. The squalor made her unhappy and set in train so many questions she was ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake

... looked, and felt. She hung over him, and sprinkled him with Eau-de-Cologne; then as his hair teased him by falling into his eyes, he asked her to cut the front lock off. There was something sad in doing this, for that 'tumble-down wave,' as Charlotte called it, was rather a favourite of Amy's; it always seemed to have so much sympathy with his moods, and it was as if parting with it was resigning him to a long illness. However, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... an old tumble-down lodge at the gates. It was inhabited by a very poor man, who, for the sake of getting a shelter over his head, now and then undertook to clean up and do odd jobs in the Rosendale gardens. Mrs. Bertram thought it well to have some one in the lodge, and she was pleased with the economical arrangement ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... busy with her own sensations, her glance still following the blue-clad figure along the shore and out on to the tumble-down wooden jetty, failed to remark his embarrassment and thus gave him time to recover ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... lad!" I exclaimed in some excitement. "Your master's life hangs upon your speed—hold, wait! do you remember that old tumble-down shed we passed on our way here; the one which had ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... Elaine, acompanied by "Weepy Mary" and her "son," had arrived at the little tumble-down station and had taken the only vehicle in sight, a ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... "the wind," and kubeda, "beaten," signifying "Wind-beaten;" and this seems credible, for violent storms are prevalent along the coast. The town is essentially European in character. One can scarcely realize that only fifty years ago a tumble-down Persian settlement stood on the spot now occupied by broad, well-paved, gas-lit streets, handsome stone buildings, warehouses, and shops. Baku has, like Tiflis, a mixed population. Although Russians and Tartars form its bulk, France, Germany, Italy, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... At the top of the hill, reluctant to go back to the town that lay beyond, he stood contemplating the ancient school building that held so bravely its commanding position, and looked so pitiful in its shabby old age. Then passing through a gap in the tumble-down fence, and crossing the weed-filled yard, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... had any spending money. Todd might have by and by when school was out, and he began selling fly-paper again, as he had done the summer before; but it was understood in the tumble-down little cottage that Todd called home that every penny thus earned was to be saved toward the purchase of a ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston

... of that dreamy and contemplative mood. He began to make inquiries about distance and so forth. The driver of a four-wheeled cab, his purple bemuddled face lighting up with a dull sort of humour, gave him a facetious invitation to get inside the tumble-down old vehicle. The conductors of one or two passing omnibuses hailed him; and he gathered from their 'Benk! Benk!' that at least he was in the right direction. But he was not going to spend money ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... 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

... many stirring deeds, from the market-places with the narrow gables heaped up in piles around them, from the belfries soaring to the sky, from the winding streets and the narrow lanes, in which the houses almost touch each other from the tumble-down old hostelries, from the solemn aisles where the candles glimmer and the dim red light glows before the altar, from the land of Bras-de-Fer, and Thierry d'Alsace, and Memlinc, and Van Eyck, and Rubens, the land which was at once the Temple and the Golgotha of Europe, ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... and vines have sprung up under shelter of the tumble-down fences that I was very anxious to see what pictures would paint themselves if the canvas, colour, and brushes were left free for the season through. Already we have had our money's worth, so that everything beyond will be an extra dividend. The bit of marshy ground has been ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... page. No doubt, in his lordship's day, these were the only comfortable bedrooms in the Abbey; and by the housekeeper's account of what Colonel Wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, tumble-down condition, inside and out, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... be seen in warm weather, contemplating their undeniable boots in dusty warehouse doorways; which appeared to be the hardest work they did, except now and then carrying pens behind their ears. A dim, dirty, smoky, tumble-down, rotten old house it was, as anybody would desire to see; but there the firm of Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son transacted all their business and their pleasure too, such as it was; for neither the young man nor the old had any other residence, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... down and kiss the border of our coats, as in the days of the serf system. We are stationed here in Poland, about eight kilometers from the so-called road, in a so-called village far from all civilization. The village consists of a number of tumble-down cottages, with rooms which we should not consider fit for stables for our horses. The rain is streaming down unceasingly, as if Heaven wished to wash away all the sins of the world. Our horses sink into the mud ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... coaches passing, and he shouted to them at the top of his voice, but no one took the slightest notice of him. At length the driver of a tumble-down looking vehicle, with a superb coat of arms on the panel, made a signal in return and ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... house, you see," said Mason, turning to the map, and dismissing the sorrows of the old lord of Neopalia. "About the middle of the island, nearly a thousand feet above the sea. I'm afraid it's a tumble-down old place, and will swallow a lot of money without looking much better for the dose. To put it into repair for the reception of the future Lady Wheatley ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... become a recognised form of fraud among less scrupulous members of the trade. An oak chest bearing every superficial mark of age that a clever workman can give it (and the profession of wormholer, is now, I believe, recognised) is deposited in a tumble-down, half-timbered home in a country village, whose occupant is willing to take a share in the game; a ticket marked "Ginger-beer; sold Here" is placed in the window, and the trap is ready. It is almost beyond question that everyone who bids for this chest, which ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... being who is quite unable to recognise architectural merit. He sees everything to please him if the background of his group be sufficiently tumble-down and derelict. If this be incorrect, how could such swarms of artistic folk paint and actually lodge in Staithes? The steep road leading past the station drops down into the village, giving a glimpse of the beck crossed by its ramshackle wooden foot-bridge—the view one has ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home

... Roman church stifling dirty smell. These Roman churches, all save the basilicas, are inconceivably ill kept, frowsy, musty, tawdry, sluttish: they belong not to God, but to Rome—the same barbarous Rome of the tumble-down houses, the tattered begging people, the whole untidy squalor of its really Roman parts. Nothing swept and garnished; nothing evincing one grain of past or present reverence—a down-at-heel indifferent idolatry. At last the crowd streamed out, Mass being over, and I entered—and, oh wonder! ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... I thought as how you'd been in some break-neck tumble-down country, zur, for Tit's knuckels showed she'd had a somerset ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... had the manager on board and three or four pilgrims with their staves—all complete. Sometimes we came upon a station close by the bank, clinging to the skirts of the unknown, and the white men rushing out of a tumble-down hovel, with great gestures of joy and surprise and welcome, seemed very strange—had the appearance of being held there captive by a spell. The word ivory would ring in the air for a while—and on we went again into the silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, between ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... astonished 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 ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... steps, and because of the look he had read in her eyes, he paused again, yet followed doggedly nevertheless. She led him down Holborn Hill past the Fleet Market, over Blackfriars Bridge, and so, turning sharp to the right, along a somewhat narrow and very grimy street between rows of dirty, tumble-down houses, with, upon the right hand, numerous narrow courts and alley-ways that gave upon the turgid river. Down one of these alleys the fluttering cloak turned suddenly, yet when Barnabas reached the corner, behold the alley was quite deserted, save for ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... earth was loosely thrown in, and the party went away. There is no more melancholy spot to me than a Turkish cemetery. The graves are squeezed tightly together, and the headstones, generally in a tumble-down state, are shaped like a coffin standing on end, or like a round hitching-post with a fez cap carved on the top. Weeds and rank wild-flowers cover the ground, and over all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... house. It was an old tumble-down shack. It was made of long twigs and branches, daubed over with mud. The roof was made of palm leaves. It was not nearly as nice a home as the one on Mission Hill in Duke Town. When Mary went inside, she found that it was whitewashed and somewhat ...
— White Queen of the Cannibals: The Story of Mary Slessor • A. J. Bueltmann

... poor and without a family to help her. In spite of her great age, she went to work as well as she could, in different places, but could scarcely exist on her earnings. Her house near the site selected for the new palace was old and in a tumble-down condition. They tell that one day having gone a long distance to find work she fell ill and remained a long time without being able to return to her house. Then the architects who were building the palace said, "We must not let this hovel remain standing so near the King's palace." ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... title,—a goodly sum, which not only sufficed to pay off the mortgages on Neesdale Park but bestowed on its owner a surplus which the practical knowledge of country life that he had acquired enabled him to devote with extraordinary profit to the general improvement of his estate. He replaced tumble-down old farm buildings with new constructions on the most approved principles; bought or pensioned off certain slovenly incompetent tenants; threw sundry petty holdings into large farms suited to the buildings he constructed; purchased here and there small bits ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... responsibilities. He wrote one day to Charles Sumner: "What you quote about the pere de famille is pretty true. It is a difficult role to play; particularly when, as in my case, it is united with that of oncle d'Amerique and general superintendent of all the dilapidated and tumble-down foreigners who pass this way!" The regulation of such a house in New England was far more difficult than it is at present, and Cambridge farther away from Boston, with its conveniences and privileges, than appeared. What anxieties ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... said, "but not diplomats. They are Taoist priests, and the chances are that they have a tumble-down temple in this vicinity. They are not very popular ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson

... three miles or so through orange groves and sandhills to the town, a wretched tumble-down-looking place, half choked up with sand. Here, as it was now dark, we took shelter in a house called an inn, but, except in the public hall, where the eating and drinking went on, not a room contained a particle of furniture, so that we had to lie down on the floor and be devoured ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... be so thoughtless as to suppose that we slept, that night. Higbie and I went to bed at midnight, but it was only to lie broad awake and think, dream, scheme. The floorless, tumble-down cabin was a palace, the ragged gray blankets silk, the furniture rosewood and mahogany. Each new splendor that burst out of my visions of the future whirled me bodily over in bed or jerked me to a sitting posture just as if ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... clerical secretary, and followed at a respectful distance by his two attendant footmen with their threadbare liveries. At last, out of the dreary waste, at the end of the interminable ill-paved sloughy road, the long line of the grey tumble-down walls rises gloomily. A few cannon-shot would batter a breach anywhere, as the events of 1849 proved only too well. However, at Rome there is neither commerce to be impeded nor building extension of any kind to be checked; the city has shrunk up until its precincts are a world too wide; and ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... the army then at Rolla, in Central Missouri, but discovering no signs of action in that direction made his way to Cairo where General Grant was in command. General Grant's headquarters were in the second story of a tumble-down building. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... Beggar's Stile. We climbed up the steep carriage-drive to the lodge, passed through the big iron gates, turned sharply to the left, and went down the road which the park palings border and the elms behind them shade, past the little copse beyond the park, till we came to a tumble-down gate with a stile beside it in the hedgerow; and this was Beggar's Stile. It was just on the brow of the little hill which sloped gradually downward to the village beneath, and commanded a wide view of the broad shallow valley and ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer

... temple," Pei Ming explained, "really faces south, and is all in a tumble-down condition. I searched and searched till I was driven to utter despair. As soon, however, as I caught sight of it, 'that's right,' I shouted, and promptly walked in. But I at once discovered a clay figure, which gave me such a fearful start, that I scampered out again; for it looked as much ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... He is not a client of mine, but I have my eye on him. His earthly possessions consist of about five acres of land, a tumble-down hut near by, and a double-barrelled shotgun, and he lost his secretaryship when the new administration made its clean sweep of the offices. They said he was going to marry a ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... Some came because they were orphans; some because they were not. Thus, poor Sammy. The home from which he came was past description. From the outside it looked like a tumble-down shed. Inside there appeared to be but one room, which measured six by twelve feet, and a small lean-to. The family consisted of father and mother and three children. The eldest boy was about twelve, then came ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... to-night is near the ruins of a very old fort, and ever since we got here, the men have been hunting rattlesnakes that have undoubtedly been holding possession of the tumble-down buildings, many snake generations. Dozens and dozens have been killed, of all sizes, some of them being very large. The old quarters were evidently made of sods and dirt, and must have been dreadful places to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... attracted by Mr. Clayton, who was at that time senior tutor, and among the sizars of St. John's. Behind the then chapel of this last-named college was a 'labyrinth' (this was the name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms," and here dwelt many Simeonites, "unprepossessing in feature, gait, and manners, unkempt and ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described. Destined most of them for the Church, the Simeonites held themselves to have received a very loud call to the ministry ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... idea of what it is staring at. As the equipage dashingly approached the busy centre of Hanbridge, the region of fine shops, public-houses, hotels, halls, and theatres, more and more of the inhabitants knew that Iris (as they affectionately called her) was driving with a young man in a tumble-down little victoria behind a mule whose ears flapped like an elephant's. Denry being far less renowned in Hanbridge than in his native Bursley, few persons recognised him. After the victoria had gone by people who had heard the news too late rushed from ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... the subject of gallantry, and set them such a good example on two occasions, that it would be bathos to saunter back, hands in pockets, and confess I knew nothing of the lady's fate and had been daunted by the first night alone in the forest. Besides, how dull it would be in that beautiful, tumble-down old city without Heru, with no expectation day by day of seeing her sylph-like form and hearing the merry tinkle of her fairy laughter as she scoffed at the unknown learning collected by her ancestors in a thousand laborious years. No! I would go on for certain. ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... 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. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... escaped the accusation that we use the poor simply as a means of self-improvement. An old Irish woman in a tumble-down tenement house once said to me: 'Ye'll have no chance to work out your salvation doing for me.' I believe that there are many of the poor who more or less consciously have the same idea. They think that we make visiting them a sort of penance, and they resent it. I am not sure that ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... Board examinations took place at the St. Katherine's Dock House on Tower Hill, and he informed us that he had a special affection for the view of that historic locality, with the Gardens to the left, the front of the Mint to the right, the miserable tumble-down little houses farther away, a cabstand, boot-blacks squatting on the edge of the pavement and a pair of big policemen gazing with an air of superiority at the doors of the Black Horse public-house across the road. This was the part of the world, he said, his eyes first took notice of, on the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... the glorious sunshine the old Barnes house did look, as their guide said, more "lifelike and cheerful." A big, rambling, gray-gabled affair, of colonial pattern, a large yard before it and a larger one behind, the tumble-down shed in which General Jackson had been tethered, a large barn, also rather tumble-down, with henhouses and corncribs beside it and attached to it in haphazard fashion. In the front yard were overgrown clusters of lilac and rose ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... church is hemmed in, and for the most part concealed, by tumble-down houses, forming a labyrinth of narrow winding passages about the walls, and even encroaching upon them—a bit of old London which has escaped the modern spirit of improvement, and would appear to be full of suggestive material for ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... Craigengelt, "but I know the reason now of his unmannerly behaviour at his old tumble-down tower yonder. Ashamed of your company?—no, no! Gad, he was afraid you would cut in ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... once three orphan children, the oldest of whom was perhaps ten years old, and the others but little things, almost babies. They had a tiny little tumble-down house to live in, but very little to eat. Said the eldest to his little brother and sister, "I will go yonder on the sands laid bare by the falling tide, and it may be that I shall find something that we can eat." The little children begged to ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,

... him, framed in the doorway from which streamed the glare from a big reading lamp, the man of mystery—the fellow who had escaped from the tumble-down tenement—the man he and Bailey had pulled ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis

... tumble-down town walked every type of Gallipoli campaigner: British Tommies, grousing and cheerful; Australians, remarkable for their physique; deep-brown Maoris; bearded Frenchmen in baggy trousers; shining and grinning African negroes from ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... a tumble-down cabin and trading-store on the top of a high and steep bank, which had yet been flooded at times, the people seeking shelter on an immense hill which overlooked it. Above an island close by is the discharge of the Clearwater River, ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... extremely common to style the tumble-down-dick exploits or posture masters, balancers, conjurers, &c. an art. To ridicule such an abuse of the term by applying it to mere adroitness, skill in trifles, and labour-in-vain performances, Quinctilian gives us this merry instance—"Qualis ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various

... closely than ever to my studies—indulged in a passing mania for genealogy and heraldry—began a collection of local geological specimens, all of which I threw away at the end of the first fortnight—and took to rearing rabbits in an old tumble-down summer-house at the end of the garden. I believe that from somewhere about this time I may also date the commencement of a great epic poem in blank verse, and Heaven knows how many cantos, which was to be called the Columbiad. It began, I remember, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... come and play; Pan's own pipes, if you hear aright, Charm you on as you go your way; And all the Arcady folk of yore Make songs of the days that used to be, Which carry perhaps to the cottage door, The cottage that doesn't belong to me. But it's miles from town And it's tumble-down, And the woodwork's done and the slates are brown; No one could really live in the cottage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various

... 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? Look! ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... renovating my father's large workroom. That delightful, tumble-down old place has lost its moss-grown tiles and the green weather-stains we have known all our lives on the high whitewashed wall, opposite which we sit, in the little sculptor's yard, for the coolness, in summertime. Among old Watteau's work-people came ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... burning upstairs in the "Herald" office. From the street a broad, tumble-down stairway ran up on the outside of the building to the second floor, and at the stairway railing John turned and shook his companion warmly by ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... Such a tumble-down shanty as that. It was not fit for decent people to live in, and mercy knew she was glad her sojourn there ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... the last bridge, a village of 800 people, on a narrow ledge between an abrupt hill and the Hirakawa, a most forlorn and tumble-down place, given up to felling timber and making shingles; and timber in all its forms—logs, planks, faggots, and shingles—is heaped and stalked about. It looks more like a lumberer's encampment than a permanent village, but it is beautifully situated, and unlike any ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... the red Necessidades Palace, and the Estrella, whose dome and domelets, built to mimic St. Peter's, look only like hen and chickens. Then in due time came the Carmo Church, still unrepaired since 1755; Blackhorse Square, still bare of trees; the Government offices, still propped to prevent a tumble-down, and the old Custom House, still a bilious yellow; the vast barrack-like pile of S. Vicente, the historic Se or cathedral with dumpy towers; the black Castle of Sao Jorge, so hardly wrung from ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... prophecy of my teacher was my ambition. The privations that I endured, the life I led, I will not recount to you. I performed the most menial service, and worked months like a beast of burden. For want of a shelter, I slept in deserted yards and tumble-down houses. Upon a piece of bread and a drink of water I lived, saving, with miserly greediness, the money which I earned as messenger or day-laborer. At the end of a year, I had earned sufficient to buy an old suit of clothes at a second-hand clothing-store, and present myself to the director of ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... of the town, the thoroughfares are narrow and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and picturesque: being built of wood, with tumble-down galleries before the windows, approachable by stairs or rather ladders from the street. There are queer little barbers' shops and drinking- houses too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old tenements with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders. Some of these ancient ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... to anything happening—yet at about noon of the day that Harley P. Hennage looked over the rail fence into the feed corral at San Pasqual and discovered that Bob McGraw's horse was gone, a man on a tired horse rode up from the south, turned in through the ruined doorway of one of the roofless tumble-down adobe houses, and concealed himself and his horse in the area formed ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... companions thoroughly explored the shore as far as they went on the lower part of the lake. From time to time Prescott consulted his watch. In all the time that they were out they passed only one building, a tumble-down, weather-beaten shack that looked as though it had not been inhabited in twenty years. Not even a vestige of a craft ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... isn't far off. One of the regular old tumble-down streets, given up long ago to cobblers and tinkers of all kinds, and you're going to take tea with a girl who lives in that ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... hut was set apart for our use: a tumble-down yurta of mud with the usual ice-windows, which necessitated the use of candles even on the brightest day. But it contained two rooms and a kitchen, and was weather-proof, so we lived in comparative luxury. Meals were provided for us ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... "show-off" before his little playmates, and after rudely fastening several boards taken from the tumble-down old mill into a crude attempt at a raft, had boldly launched the same. With a pole he had stepped aboard, and then proceeded to "cut capers." Encouraged by the admiration of the other children, he must have become more and more reckless, so that he soon reached a point far enough distant from ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... patiently before the churches until such time as the boy reappeared. It was not the fact of his going into them which disturbed Patrasche: he knew that people went to church: all the village went to the small, tumble-down, gray pile opposite the red windmill. What troubled him was that little Nello always looked strangely when he came out, always very flushed or very pale; and whenever he returned home after such visitations would sit silent and dreaming, ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... train was at rest, and the officers—who had not been seen during the journey—turned out in resplendent plumery. The station—in those days a tumble-down barrack—was already crowded with soldiery. The Caribees were aligned along the track, the officers so bewildered by the confusion that it was by a miracle some of the groups of moving men were not run over by the backing engines. After an interminable ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... Lisbon presents a beautiful appearance when approached from the water, rising, as she does, in terraces which overlook the noble Tagus, and are in turn overlooked by the Sierras, ending in the Peak of Lisbon, at its mouth. Arriving thus, one does not see the filth and squalor, the tumble-down buildings, unpaved streets, or many poor mean houses tucked in among the grander ones. Lisbon has sometimes been called "The Sultana of the West," and the comparison is apt enough, for like many a sultana her first appearance is conspicuously beautiful, but she will not bear too close inspection. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... solemnity on their faces was sublime. One in particular of these winter neighbors, a somewhat speculative thinker with whom I had often conversed, was a firm believer in the cataclysmic origin of the Valley; and I now jokingly remarked that his wild tumble-down-and-engulfment hypothesis might soon be proved, since these underground rumblings and shakings might be the forerunners of another Yosemite-making cataclysm, which would perhaps double the depth of the Valley by ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... am out of place, nor do I feel so, only—do not tell James—there are movements in my heart at times which make me shut my eyes when the lights are brightest, and dream, if but for an instant, of home and the tumble-down gateway where I have so often leaned when someone (you know who it is now, John, and I shall not hurt you too deeply by mentioning him) was saying good-night and calling down the blessings of Heaven upon a head not worthy to ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... Buckingham. Did you never hear of it? About fifteen years ago his property was sold in lots, and the people bought all the farms. You never saw such a stir in the world.' He pointed out the houses on the hill-side which had been built to replace old tumble-down tenements, the red soil appearing under the plough, and cultivation going on with such general activity as had not been witnessed till within these last few years. The appearance of these villages was such as must strike every traveller from another part of ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... that rascally cousin of mine for having taught you," said Russell; "but seriously, isn't it a very moping way of spending the afternoon, to go and lie down behind some hay-stack, or in some frowsy tumble-down barn, as you smokers do, instead of playing racquets ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... a boat with a cabin on it, and sat on its roof on decrepit cane chairs, and the rowers below with makeshift oars gradually pulled us up and down the face of the Ghats—what oars, and what a ramshackle tub of a boat—too old and tumble-down for a fisherman's hen ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... And I making no answer, as thinking it was but some sudden freak, he points out a black dirty-looking dwelling-place, with overhanging windows and a wide gabled roof. 'Yonder it stands, Becky,' he cries; 'number seven John-street, Clerkenwell; a queer dingy box of four walls, my wench—a tumble-down kennel, with a staircase that 'twould break your neck to mount, being strange to it—and half a day's journey from the court-end of town. But that house was once paradise to me; and to look at it even now, though ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... rotting and crumbling away from top to bottom, with its smudgy claret-colored paint, quite moldy. The stationer's and the tobacconist's were still there. In the rear, over some low buildings, you could see the leprous facades of several five-storied houses rearing their tumble-down outlines against the sky. The "Grand Balcony" dancing hall no longer existed; some sugar-cutting works, which hissed continually, had been installed in the hall with the ten flaming windows. And yet it ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... the sitting-room to the right of the hall, deposited the letters and packets which he held on a small, tumble-down sofa already littered with books and papers, and returned to the hall-table for the letter. He tore it open, read it with slightly frowning brows and a mouth that worked unconsciously, then thrust it into his pocket and returned ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... plentifully as blackberries; but as they had signed their names they were his, unless when the seven years had passed they could guess a riddle. The old woman said, 'If you would help yourselves, one of you must go into the wood, and there he will come upon a tumble-down building of rocks which looks like a little house. He must go in, and there he will ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... yards from the gate the road narrowed, and at the corner where the little Rue Poiree strikes off between two rows of tumble-down houses to join the Rue St. Jacques there was somewhat of a block. I had fallen back behind the sumpter horses, and halted for a moment, when I felt a hand rest lightly on my stirrup. I looked down, and, as I live, it ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... suddenly up to a gate with the Royal arms over it; and here we were introduced to as queer an exhibition as the eye has often looked on. This was the state-carriage house, where there is a museum of huge old tumble-down gilded coaches of the last century, lying here, mouldy and dark, in a sort of limbo. The gold has vanished from the great lumbering old wheels and panels; the velvets are wofully tarnished. When one thinks of the patches and powder that have simpered out of those plate-glass windows—the mitred ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... or in time of peace, the worker must be housed somehow or other; he must have some sort of roof over his head. But, however tumble-down and squalid his dwelling may be, there is always a landlord who can evict him. True, during the Revolution the landlord cannot find bailiffs and police-sergeants to throw the workman's rags and chattels into the street, but who knows what the new Government will do to-morrow? Who ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... the nature of a drawbridge. From these a narrow path ran through a marsh, left by the receding river, to a country road of desolate appearance. Here there was a rough enclosure, or corral, with some tumble-down sheds which afforded shelter, on the night of Joseph Louden's disgrace, for a number of shaggy teams attached to those decrepit and musty vehicles known picturesquely and accurately as Night-Hawks. The presence of such questionable shapes in the corral indicated ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... is no joke. The flag must show from every house, or the owner will be dragged to the police station, to pay a fine of twenty-five rubles. What happened to the old woman who lives in that tumble-down shanty over the way? It was that other time when flags were ordered up, because the Grand Duke was to visit Polotzk. The old woman had no flag, and no money. She hoped the policeman would not notice her miserable hut. But he did, the vigilant one, and he went up and kicked the door ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... such creditable results. At a moment's notice an organist and about a hundred singers are called upon to execute a florid piece of music which many have never seen nor heard; the accompaniment is played at sight from a mere figured bass, on a tumble-down instrument two hundred years old, and the singers, both the soloists and the chorus, sing from thumbed bits of manuscript parts written in old-fashioned characters on paper often green with age. No one has ever denied ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... "Your tobacco's prime, the wheat, too, and the fencing is all mended and white-washed. It's not the tumble-down place it was in Gideon's time—you've done wonders with it. The morning-glories were blooming over the porch, and your white cat washing itself in ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston



Words linked to "Tumble-down" :   derelict, tatterdemalion, ramshackle, bedraggled, dilapidated, broken-down



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