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Tinkle   /tˈɪŋkəl/   Listen
Tinkle

verb
(past & past part. tinkled; pres. part. tinkling)
1.
Make or emit a high sound.  Synonyms: chink, clink, tink.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tinkle" Quotes from Famous Books



... he could escape notice. Often at night, when all were asleep, he would steal away to the garret and work at the spinet, mastering difficulties one by one. The strings of the instrument had been wound with cloth to deaden the sound, and thus made only a tiny tinkle. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... of the past months overwhelmed her. She wept as if her heart would break and there was a great silence all around which the tinkle of a little brook over its pebbly bed only seemed to intensify. Presently she had no more tears left and she dried her eyes and sat upright and was suddenly aware of a great interior light, pitiless and clear beyond all dayshine. And in it she saw herself with a vision more ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... vanished; and I hear—I hear the pensive music of the horse-car bells, which in some alien land, I am sure, would be as pathetic to me as the Ranz des Vaches to the Swiss or the bagpipes to the Highlander: in the desert, where the traveller seems to hear the familiar bells of his far-off church, this tinkle would haunt the absolute silence, and recall the exile's fancy to Charlesbridge; and perhaps in the mocking mirage he would behold an airy horse-car track, and a phantasmagoric horse-car moving slowly along the edge of the horizon, with spectral passengers closely ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... harp will never please Or fill my craving ear; Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, Free, peremptory, clear. No jingling serenader's art, Nor tinkle of piano strings, Can make the wild blood start In its mystic springs. The kingly bard Must smite the chords rudely and hard, As with hammer or with mace; That they may render back Artful thunder, which conveys Secrets of the solar ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... cold country; and the little brown baby, who wore nothing but a string of beads, because she lived in the warm country. Manenko, too, lives in a warm country, and wears no clothes; but on her arms and ankles are bracelets and anklets, with little bits of copper and iron hanging to them, which tinkle as she walks; and she also, like the brown baby, ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... the song of the brook came up into Diamond's ears, and grew and grew and changed with every turn. It seemed to Diamond to be singing the story of its life to him. And so it was. It began with a musical tinkle which changed to a babble and then to a gentle rushing. Sometimes its song would almost cease, and then break out again, tinkle, babble, and rush, all at once. At the bottom of the hill they came to a small river, into which the brook flowed with a muffled but merry sound. Along the surface ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... branches changed the shape of the bright patches on the grass where shadow and light met. The walls of the valley waved upward, dark below and growing paler, to shine faintly at the rounded rims. And there was a tiny, silvery tinkle of ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... packet-boat first gave symptoms of animation, in the shape of a few vigorous puffs from the boiler, which were responded to by the Royal George, whose rope was slipped without the usual tinkle of the bell, and she shot out to sea, closely followed by the Frenchman, who was succeeded by the other English boat. Three or four tremendous long protracted dives, each followed by a majestic rise on ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... rose he was already in the garden. Lingering at first in the shadow of an olive tree, he waited until the moonbeams fell on the wall and its crests of foliage. But nothing moved among that ebony tracery; his ear was strained for the familiar tinkle of the guitar—all was silent. As the moon rose higher he at last boldly walked to the wall, and listened for any movement on the other side of it. But nothing stirred. She was evidently NOT ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... in the solid mass of smoke. There were shouts of people outside, too, and the squeaking and scampering of rats through the walls. Out of my window I could see one great cloud of red sparks. They had burst out after a heat explosion and I heard the rattle and tinkle of a broken window above ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... week of December, the russet and amber-coloured leaves still cling to the branches of the huge old lime-trees of Lorette, and my lonely feet on the thick carpet of dead leaves below made the sole sound I heard there except the ceaseless musical tinkle of chisel and stone from the distant granite quarries—a succession of notes altogether rural in suggestion—like the tinkle of many sheep-bells. Even in that first week of December I could sit in the open air there, ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... a wry windless on the top; and clambering up, we could look into an open shaft, leading edgeways down into the bowels of the mountain, trickling with water, and lit by some stray sun-gleams, whence I know not. In that quiet place the still, far-away tinkle of the water-drops was loudly audible. Close by, another shaft led edgeways up into the superincumbent shoulder of the hill. It lay partly open; and sixty or a hundred feet above our head, we could see the strata propped apart by solid wooden wedges, and a pine, half undermined, precariously ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... demnition long time you have kept me ringing at this confounded old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every tinkle of which is enough to throw a strong man into blue convulsions, upon my life and soul, oh demmit,'—said Mr Mantalini to Newman Noggs, scraping his boots, as he spoke, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... The room was electric, sensitive and excited. It was flooded with a soft light; it was full of the perfume of flowers. The brilliant coloring of silks and satins, and the soft miracle of white lace blended with the artistically painted walls and roof. The aroma of delicate food, the tinkle of crystal, the low murmur of happy voices, the thrill of sudden laughter, and the delicious accompaniment of soft, sensuous music completed the charm of the room. To eat in such surroundings was as far beyond the famous flower-crowned feasts of Rome and Greece as the east is from the west. It was ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... The barren and monotonous prospect, the high-keyed air and the perpetual winds, thinned and wore out the fragile form of Mrs. Buford. This impetuous, nerve-wearing air was much different from the soft, warm winds of the flower-laden South. At night as she lay down to sleep she did not hear the tinkle of music nor the voice of night-singing birds, which in the scenes of her girlhood had been familiar sounds. The moan of the wind in the short, hard grass was different from its whisper in the peach trees, and the shrilling of the ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... half-mile above the dam, where the water flowed very quietly past the edge of some thick alders. There were pickerel in that water. Tim knew the place of old; and he drew near softly, to make a cast. The bright troll fell with a tinkle on the still surface, and he drew it temptingly past ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... recognized that voice quite as well as the other. Then there was a quick pull of the bell, the sound tinkling far back in the still house. Then came two sharp pulls after the pause of a moment, and then a fourth after another pause. Not until the fourth tinkle had been heard was there any other sound within the house. Then a door was heard to open and shut, and feet were heard in the hall. The man's voice said "All right!" and the carriage drove away. An inner door opened, but the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... quietly waited and looked when the helpless and hopeless orgie of 1789 began. The Past from which he emerged, the Future which he evoked, both loom larger than human in the shadow of that colossal figure. What a silly tinkle, as of pastoral bells in some Rousseau's Devin du Village, have the 'principles of 1789,' when the stage rings again with the stern accents of the conqueror, hectoring the senators of the free and imperial city of Augsburg, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... with a newspaper, by the window when the floor bell once more sounded. It was a short, energetic tinkle. The servant came in and announced, with a face ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... were tufted with grass; moss had shown itself on pedestal and cornice, and signs of long neglect and decay were apparent in its discolored and weather-worn marble. A few feet in front of the steps a fountain, fed from the great ponds at the other side of the chateau, was making a constant tinkle and splashing in a wide marble basin, and the jet of water glimmered like a shower of diamonds in the broken moonlight. The very neglect and half-ruinous state of all this made it only the prettier, as well as sadder. I was too intently ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... except an occasional fledgling, killed in its cradle, or a lizard, or small tree-frog detected, in spite of its green colour, among the foliage? I would roast the little green minstrel on the coals. Why not? Why should he live to tinkle on his mandolin and clash his airy cymbals with no appreciative ear to listen? Once I had a different and strange kind of meat; but the starved stomach is not squeamish. I found a serpent coiled up in my way in a small glade, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... away before her gleaming in the sunlight tinder a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and for the first time she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow at the foot of it, where there had been another sloo. It had, however, evidently dried up weeks ago, and as there were men and horses ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... had lapsed into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of this sightless and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur's rowels, the dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which in spite of its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent a ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... all, mingled with all—always, everywhere—the brattle of cornet and trombone, the whang of piano, the wail of violin, the tinkle of the noble harp, an aristocrat in base ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... Winston had set out with every man he had to harvest it. Already a line of loaded wagons crawled slowly across the prairie, and men and horses moved half-seen amid the dust that whirled about another sloo. Out of it came the trampling of hoofs and the musical tinkle of steel. ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... they now marry among themselves. They worship the Gond god, Bura Deo, their own elders serving as priests. At their performances the men play and dance, wearing hollow anklets of metal with little balls of iron inside to make them tinkle. The women are dressed like Hindu women and dance without ornaments. Their instrument is called Tuma or gourd. It consists of a hollow piece of bamboo fixed horizontally over a gourd. Over the bamboo a string is stretched secured to a peg at one ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... shady spot, enlivened by the songs of the wild birds who built their nests in the trees, and the musical tinkle of a little waterfall that came tumbling down from the heights above not half-a-dozen yards ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... almost startling. She felt as if some one had touched her, though she realised In a moment that this was impossible; for she was still alone. No one was in sight. Only from the arbour a few feet away there came the sound of voices, and the tinkle of tea-cups. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... long and uncomprehendingly at it; then with a sigh of baffled interest he folded it carefully and placed it in his pocket. As he did so, there came a sudden sharp report from outside, the tinkle of a broken window pane, and a bullet, whistling past his ear, embedded itself ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... needed not the exclamation of Sibby to reveal the truth. It was only an exclamation, it would have been a shriek if Felix had not grasped her wrist with a peremptory grasp. But that bell had been enough; there had been a sound of dismay in the very tinkle, and Sister ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... either thing: to stay in the night splendor longer, or to go in. It ended in their going in. Outside, the moon wheeled on in her long southerly circuit, the stars trembled in their infinite depths, and the mountains abided in awful might. Within was a piano tinkle of gay music, and demi-toilette, and demi-festival,—the poor, abridged reproduction of city revelry in the inadequate parlor of an unpretending ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... Reginald Maltravers suddenly springing upright and hopping towards him on one end with a series of stiff jumps that would send drops of moisture flying from the cracks and seams and make the ice inside of it clink and tinkle. And the mournful Elmer, now drowsing callously over his charge, was not an invitation to be blithe. If Cleggett himself were so affected (he mused) what must be the effect of the box of Reginald Maltravers upon sensibilities as ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... heats. Overhead a red squirrel barked and frisked, and across the pale-blue sky, feathered nomads, teal or mallard, moved swiftly en echelon, their quivering pinions flashing like silver, as they fled southward. On a distant hillside cattle browsed, and sheep wandered; and the drowsy tinkle of bells, as the herd wended homeward, seemed a nocturne of rest, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... gong through the house. Doors were opened all along the corridor; light steps passed Priscilla's room. She heard the rustle of silk and the sweet, high tinkle of girlish laughter. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... feel better, drawn into the kindly old times by the tinkle of that harmless old woman's ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... near him, but never a face took on familiar lines. An Adriatic liner loomed up gray and shadowy behind them, and some of the crew were leaning idly over the rail. The song stopped. The man with the tambourine sallied forth. Out of the momentary silence came the indistinct tinkle of the piano in the barge beyond; some one over there was bellowing the toreador's song. This died away amid a faint patter of applause. How clear all the sounds were! thought Merrihew. The tenor of the ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... more she had passed into a hillside clearing. She heard a tinkle of bells. Below her, down the mountain slope, were other clearings broken by patches of woods. A mile or two down lay the valley and the farmhouses. That way also her enemies were. Not a merciful heart in all that lovely valley. She hesitated; ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... sledges with the bells— Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... spire like an angel's forefinger pointing from the grass to heaven, and the lads in their clean smock-frocks like snow, and the wenches in their white stockings and new shawls, and the old women in their scarlet cloaks and black bonnets, all going one road, and a tinkle-tinkle from the belfry, that would turn all these other sounds and colors and sweet smells holy, as well as fair, on the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... Blondel, the Troubadour, "When I hear the battle roar, And the trumpet-tones of war, Can I tinkle my guitar?" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... Hugh sorrowed and scrimped, the more he gained; and word of his fellows' hardships struck his broad, loose ears with a pleasant tinkle. While on his journeys he stayed at common lodging-houses, and he did not give back to his employers any of the money which was allowed him to stay at hotels. Some folk despised him, some mocked him, and many nicknamed him "the ten-pound ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans

... Henry VIII. In these half-village half-towns you may chance on a busy market day to come across a great building abutting on the street, and may listen to the organ and the chant; there is incense and gorgeous ceremony, the golden tinkle of the altar-bell. Bow your head, it is the host; cross yourself, it is the mass. The butcher and the dealer are busy with the sheep, but it is a saint's day. By-and-by no doubt we shall have a village Lourdes at home, and miracles and pilgrimages and offerings and shrines: ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... tinkle, not unlike a rippling brook, and appeared to be in honor of Master Knops, who listened with pleased attention, and ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... gave the bell handle a vigorous pull, but not the faintest tinkle reechoed through the interior. We waited. There wasn't a sound of any one inside approaching through the hall. I was fully prepared to be admitted by the same unseen agency that had moved the gate. But when, quite suddenly, the door opened, I was aware of ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... ornaments. He had a tinselled turban on his head. His body was rubbed over with a yellow paste, made, most probably, from the sandal-wood. Around his ankles were rings, hung with little bells, which he made to tinkle, as he was swinging, by striking his legs together. He wore a dark or black pair of pantaloons, which came a little below the knees, and which had a border of gold around them. He held a handkerchief in one hand, and a knife somewhat resembling a dagger, in the other. These ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... so we will, in accordance with the repeated suggestions we have received during the last ten days from all the vetturini in Rome. Easter is gone by, the Girandola went off last week, the English are going, and so is our bell, tinkle! tinkle! tinkle!—as if its wire had a touch of vernal ague—while the old delf plate in the hall is filled and running with cards, every pasteboard parallelogram among them with two P's and a C in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... shipping ports upon mules, each animal carrying two bales; and it is a pretty sight to witness, say 150 mules at a time, crossing mountains and rugged paths with their burdens, followed by perhaps fifty camels laden with cotton, marching to the merry tinkle of the bells on their necks. When the tobacco reaches the shipping port the troubles of the exporter are intensified. The bales are first taken to the Custom House, and there weighed. The weights thus arrived at are compared with the quantity received from the interior, and if there ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... We sat for a long time in silence. My thoughts turned slowly and sullenly in a heavy, impotent anger. A small bird chirped plaintively from the thicket near at hand. Except for the tinkle of our little stream and the muffled roar of the distant river, this was the only sound to strike across the dead black silence of the autumn night. So persistently did the bird utter its single call that at last it aroused even my downcast attention, so ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... the right season of the year, split so as to have a full inch thickness towards the bark, and a quarter-inch towards the heart. They were then laid for weeks under one of the falls in Wine Brook, where the musical tinkle, tinkle of the stream fell on the wood already wrought upon by years of sunshine ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... him down the stairs, across the lawn, and out on the lonely beach, where the quiet moon and the passionless stars dropped down their crystal rain. The sweet south wind blew up cool from the sea, and afar off the tinkle of a sheep-bell stirred the silence of the night. The lamp in the distant lighthouse gleamed like a spark of fire, and at their feet broke the tireless billows, white as ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... all its little details—himself in his chair and Cazi Moto squatting before the three bottles set up before them, carefully tracing in the sand with a stick the characters on the labels; the Leopard Woman's sudden dash forward; the tinkle of smashed glass, and her voice panting with excitement: "I will read your labels for you now— the bottle you hold in your hand! It is atropin, ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... was cold, ill, and dreary, but by day I revelled in life —I can find no better expression for it. The brilliant warm sunshine beating in at the open windows and at the door upon the balcony, the shouts below, the splash of oars, the tinkle of bells, the prolonged boom of the cannon at midday, and the feeling of perfect, perfect freedom, did wonders with me; I felt as though I were growing strong, broad wings which were bearing me God knows whither. And what charm, what ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... 'that the old witch on the island has a goat with golden horns from which hang bells that tinkle the sweetest music. That goat I must have! But, tell me, how am I to get it? I would give the third part of my kingdom to anyone who would bring ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... upraised arms wide wicker trays, overflowing with odorous blossoms tied into clusters and wreaths,—and there were countless numbers of curious little open square carts to which mules, wearing collars of bells, were harnessed, the tinkle- tinkle of their constant passage through the throng making incessant merry music. These vehicles bore the names of traders,— purveyors in wine and dealers in all sorts of provisions,—but with the exception of such necessary business caterers, the streets ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... hymn ceased the organ began to play again, and the car once more resumed its march. The Custodia trembled from base to summit, and the motion made a quantity of little bells hanging on to its Gothic adornments tinkle like a cascade of silver. Gabriel walked along holding on to one of the crossbeams, with his eyes fixed on the pilots, feeling on his legs the movements of those who pushed this scaffolding, so similar to the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... nor the white escarpment of the cliffs beyond, that the sea had worked so many centuries to plunder from the rounded pastures of the sheep above. He no longer heard the music of the waves on the shingle, nor the cry of the sea-bird that swept over them, nor the tinkle of the sheep-bell the wind knows how to carry so far in the stillness of the morning, nor the voices of the fisher-children playing in the boats that one day may bear them to their death. His mind was far away in the Indian heat, parching ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... during the three days of the Christmas festivity. Strictly speaking, it should be the trunk of an old oak-tree which had never been lopped and had been felled at midnight. It was placed on the hearth at the moment when the tinkle of the bell announced the elevation of the host at the midnight mass; and the head of the family, after sprinkling it with holy water, set it on fire. The remains of the log were preserved till the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... A distant tinkle of a bell made all her nerves suddenly quiver. Her father was awake then? He had heard the noise, and was ringing his bell to ask for an explanation ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... laughter, she disappeared in the lake. A cry of horror ascended from the boats. They had never seen the princess go down before. Half the men were under water in a moment, but they had all, one after another, come up to the surface again for breath, when,—tinkle, tinkle, babble and gush, came the princess' laugh over the water from far away. There she was, swimming like a swan. Nor would she come out for king or queen, chancellor or daughter. But though she was obstinate, she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that was because ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward through ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... for the entertainment! Escamillo is the man who kills bulls and makes love to all the pretty girls he sees. Everybody wants to get a peep at him. The air is full of excitement. Everybody, wine-sellers, orange-girls, all dance and twirl about, and donkeys' bells tinkle, and some are eating, and some are drinking. The Alcalde is to attend, and all the fine ladies and gentlemen of ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... far away, came a faint tinkle of bells; so faint, at first, that I thought it was but fancy, then distincter. It was even more eerie than the silence, I thought, though I knew it could come but from some passing sleigh. All at once that ceased, and again my duller ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... repose unbroken by dreams. Such were the primitive migrations of the early settlers of our country. We love to meditate on them, for we have shared them. We have fed from this table in the wilderness. We have shared this mirth. We have heard the tinkle of the bells of the flocks and herds grazing among the trees. We have seen the moon rise and the stars twinkle upon this forest scene; and the remembrance has more than once marred the pleasure of journeyings in the midst of civilization ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... "Now, Tinkle," and Walter moved as if to take her hand, "haven't we assured you that the cottage expressly desired to be left alone to-night, and that ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose

... are the voices of an unknown tower; they are loud in their own language. The spirit of place, which is to be seen in the shapes of the fields and the manner of the crops, to be felt in a prevalent wind, breathed in the breath of the earth, overheard in a far street-cry or in the tinkle of some black-smith, calls out and peals in the cathedral bells. It speaks its local tongue remotely, steadfastly, largely, clamorously, loudly, and greatly by these voices; you hear the sound in its dignity, and you know how familiar, how childlike, how ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... Tinkle-chink! THREE HA'PENCE! If the vulgar fractions followed, Big fleas have little fleas! It flashed upon me there,— Like the snakes of Pharaoh which the snakes of Moses swallowed All the world was playing at the tortoise and the hare: Half the smallest atom is—my soul was getting tipsy— ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... Leipsic days with the present. Then he had but to raise his arm and from a hundred instruments and five hundred voices would vibrate sounds of beauty, of colour, of joy, in harmony and rhythm. Now when he beat time some dirty-fingered little pupil would tinkle out sounds that nearly drove him mad with their monotony. Von Barwig had been compelled to sell his good piano and rent one on the installment plan; a cheap tin-pan affair, with a sounding board that sent forth ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... the tinkle of a mandolin. It came, apparently, from the room nearer the front door. The two foreigners began to hum softly to ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham

... afternoon he began work on another tale. It was his purpose to complete four or five stories before he sent any away. But to-day he did not get beyond half a dozen desultory start-offs. From McClintock's came an infernal tinkle-tinkle, tump-tump! There was no composing with such a sound hammering upon the ear. But eventually Spurlock laughed. Not so bad. Battle, murder, and sudden death—and an old chap like McClintock tuning his piano in the ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... cavalry regiment under canvas thereon. It is not yet "Lights out," and on the right hand the semi-transparent tents and bivouacs glow like giant Chinese lanterns inhabited by shadow figures. From an Officers' mess tent comes the tinkle of a gramophone, rendering classics from "Keep Smiling." In a bivouac an opposition mouth-organ saws at "The Rosary." On the left hand is a dark mass of horses, picketed in parallel lines. They lounge, hips drooping, heads low, in a pleasant after-dinner doze. The Guard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various

... give his good old friend no conscious satisfaction. The doctors, the nurses, the servants, Mrs. Lendon, and above all the settled equilibrium of the square thick house, where an immutable order appeared to slant through the polished windows and tinkle in the quieter bells, all these things represented best the kind of supreme solace to which the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... being left to the direction and mastery of Time, would proceed to a happy conclusion as a matter of course. There would be a conjunction of the light of the moon, for example, with the soft, love-lorn weather of June—the shadows of the alders on the winding road to Squid Cove and the sleepy tinkle of the goats' bells dropping down from the slopes of The Topmast into the murmur of the sea. There had been just such favorable auspices of late, however—June moonlight and the music of a languorous night, with Dickie Blue and pretty Peggy Lacey meandering the shadowy ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... shingled roofs of Harry's dwelling. We have long been partners—all the Winnipeg dealers know the firm of Lorimer & Lorraine, and how they send their wheat in by special freight train. Then there is a stretch of raw breaking, and the tinkle of the binders rises out of a hidden hollow, as tireless arms of wood and steel pile up the sheaves of Jasper's crop—Jasper takes a special pride in forestalling us. The dun smoke of a smudge-fire shows ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... every detail of the scene came back to me again. I was standing on snowshoes, looking out over the frozen river, when Keeonekh appeared in an open pool with a trout in his mouth. He broke his way, with a clattering tinkle of winter bells, through the thin edge of ice, put his paws against the heavy snow ice, threw himself out with the same wriggling jump, and ate with his back arched—just as I had seen him ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long

... off obliquely to a little enclosed garden, which lay beyond the corner of the house in some arbitrary and independent way, not adjoining it at all. It was a sweet bit of country, soft and mellow under the summer sun; still as grasshoppers and the tinkle of a cowbell could make it; and very far from most of the improvements of the nineteenth century. But the smell of the pasture and the fragrance that came from the fresh shades of the wood, and the freedom of the broad fields of pure ether, made it rich ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... door-bell rang—a feeble, broken tinkle reminiscent of an original economy—and Mr. Bingle laid down his salad fork with a sigh. The children started violently and a scared, uneasy look ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... do take a chance just to test the serene confidence which we think is so safely nailed down within us. The very thought of it makes the "caution bell" tinkle in our ears—but caution is a species of cowardice, after all, we say—a man of courage may dare anything once. And just at the moment we waver who comes along but our old friend Self-indulgence!—the ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... large troops," says Charles Darwin, "are turned into one field to graze in the morning, the muleteer has only to lead the madrinas a little apart and tinkle their bells, and, although there may be 200 or 300 mules together, each immediately knows its own bell, and separates itself from the rest. The affection of these animals for their madrina saves infinite trouble. It is nearly impossible to lose an ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... their enchanted regions. How the mind is filled with their vast solitude! How the inward eye is fixed on their silent, their sublime, their everlasting peaks! How our hearts bound to the music of their solitary cries, to the tinkle of their gushing rills, to the sound of their cataracts! How inspiriting are the odors that breathe from the upland turf, from the rock-hung flower, from the hoary and solemn pine! How beautiful are those lights and shadows thrown abroad, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... a light sleeper, and the arrival of the first shell awakened me. Kicking off my blankets, I sat up in bed just in time to catch the swift ebb of a heavy concussion. A piece of glass, dislodged from a broken pane by the tremor, fell in a treble tinkle to the floor. For a minute or two there was a full, heavy silence, and then several objects rolled down the roof and fell over the gutters into the street. It sounded as if some one had emptied a hodful of coal onto the house-roof from the height of the clouds. Another silence followed. Suddenly ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... slanted a little, or had even fallen, and some of the inscriptions were hidden by moss. The place was full of shadowy silence, only broken by the rustle of the leaves and small bird-cries, or, from down in the valley, the faint tinkle of a cow-bell. Cypresses stood dark against the blue sky, swaying a little in the soft wind, and from the top of one of them flew suddenly a brown hawk, his shadow floating from the green dusk under the trees out ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... shown that his trunk was no common trunk. He said right out that probably the only two keys in all the world that would open that lock was the two hanging inside. He never passed the trunk without rocking it to hear their sad tinkle. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... its heavy, monotonous noise, and the brisk, lively tinkle of the muffin-bell, have something in them, but not much. They will bear dilating upon with the utmost license of inventive prose. All things are not alike conductors to the imagination. A learned Scotch professor found fault with an ingenious friend and arch-critic for cultivating ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... Excellency; and I heard him tell the soldier not to give him any soup. We swapped commonplaces, I telling him what my business there was; and for a little while he plied his knife and fork busily, making the heavy gold curb chain on his left wrist tinkle musically. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... another sound also, as faint and sweet as if it were the ringing of little crystal bells. Georgina, on the other side of Barby, heard it too, and they looked at each other questioningly. Then Richard discovered where the tinkle came from, and pointed upward to call her attention to it. There, from the center of the ceiling swung a great, old-fashioned chandelier, hung with a circle of pendant prisms, each one as large and shining as the one Uncle Darcy had ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... stream of indescribable coaxing and drolling. The owner of that voice had imagination and humor which could charm with absolute control her companion's lighter nature, as it betrayed itself in a gay tinkle of amusement and a succession of nervous whispers. Langbourne did not wonder at her subjection; with the first sounds of that rich, tender voice, he had fallen under its spell too; and he listened ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... through the leaves of a poplar, like a diamond in a woman's tresses; and under the window the black stretch of the lawn crossed by a band of a lighter shade, which was the sand of the path. The only sound to be heard was the faint tinkle of the water falling into ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... stables, with a low, vine-covered fence between. There have been darker nights, yet I could distinguish merely the dim outlines. Still feeling her clasp on my arm I came to a halt, startled into absolute silence by the approach of the relief guard. The sturdy tramp of feet, and the slight tinkle of bayonets against canteens, told plainly the fellows had turned our way, although, crouched where we were, we could at first see nothing. I drew my revolver, my other hand clasping hers, and waited breathlessly. The little squad came trudging down ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... not see the face of the priest at the altar. His voice was unfamiliar. The tinkle of the bell sounded from an infinite distance. The sound of footsteps came down the aisle. It must be some one carrying the plate for the offering. As he advanced slowly she could hear the clink of the coins dropping into it. Mechanically she put her hand in her pocket and drew out the little ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... the silence at first seeming tremendous; then, faint but distinct, he heard the tinkle and slide of the brazen rings ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... circumstances of Elspie and old McKay were at the worst is an open question; but there can be no doubt that they began to mend just about that time, for the girl had not quite got rid of her disconsolate feelings when the faint but merry tinkle of sleigh-bells was heard in the ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... cheese in the rough pine verandah, seated on a homely bench, with the soft pleasant smell of cows from beneath, and the melodious chiming tinkle of many sweet-toned bells—not the wretched tin or iron jangling affairs secured to sheep or kine in England, but tuneful, well-made bells, carefully strapped to the necks of the cattle, and evidently appreciated by the wearers, several ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... remark about blight on the rose trees—the absence of it this year—and ventured it. He had again an absurd vision of dropping it into an enormous cavern, as a pea into an immense bowl, and it seemed to tinkle feebly and forlornly, as a pea would. "No ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... a pleasant trotting tinkle of bells by the green parkside of Piccadilly, and sweet is it to hear the sirens singing, and to see them combing their gilded locks, on the yellow sands of Piccadilly Circus—so called, no doubt, from the number of horses and the skill of their drivers. Here are the whirling ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... untinged with splenetic anger. The chorale of the trio is admirably devised and carried out. Its piety is a bit of liturgical make-believe. The contrasts here are most artistic—sonorous harmonies set off by broken chords that deliciously tinkle. There is a coda of frenetic movement and the end is in major, a surprising conclusion when considering all that has gone before. Never to become the property of the profane, the C sharp minor Scherzo, notwithstanding its marked asperities and agitated moments, ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... banks of snow on either side of the smooth track, John gave himself up to thinking about the subject which now so often engrossed his mind. Wrapped closely in his furs, with the cutter skimming along the ice, these thoughts found a pleasant accompaniment in the silvery tinkle of the bells which jingled around his horse's neck. As a general thing, he met no one on the icy road from the mine to the village. Sometimes there was a procession of sleighs bearing supplies for his own mine and those beyond, and when this procession was seen, ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... the colour of the autumnal woods below. I could hear the ploughmen shouting to their horses, the uninterrupted carol of larks innumerable overhead, and, from a field where the shepherd was marshalling his flock, a sweet tumultuous tinkle of sheep-bells. All these noises came to me very thin and distinct in the clear air. There was a wonderful sentiment of distance and atmosphere about the day and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to the telephone, lifted the receiver, and, hearing no tinkle, blew into the transmitter with the receiver at his ear. Hearing nothing, he hung ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... pine-trees, to fling itself with a final leap and flash (such light-hearted self-immolation) into the ornamental pond at the bottom of the lawn. It is a pretty brook, and pleasing to the ear, with its purl and tinkle of crisp water. ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... him more than to expatiate upon her loveliness, the soft white beauty of her hands, the "cunning" little puckers around her lips, her bright tender eyes, the angelic texture of her robes, and the musical tinkle of her voice. But Leonidas had no confidant, and what healthy boy ever trusted his sister in such matter! "YOU saw what she was like," he ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... stored neatly in a basket in my hand. The air was deliciously cool and full of that strange quiet which follows soothingly on the skirts of a broiling midsummer afternoon. Far away—the sound seemed almost to come from another world—the tinkle of a sheep bell made itself heard, deepening the silence. Alone in a sky of the palest blue there twinkled a small ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... canoe followed along under the stern till he saw the chance of climbing up the rudder to the cabin window. He stole the pillow off the commander's bed, two shirts, and two bandoliers (ammunition-belts), the tinkle of which betrayed him. The mate saw him making off with his plunder and shot him, whereupon the other Indians paddled off at top speed, some even leaping from their canoes to swim ashore. A boat put out and recovered ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... which, descending from above the ankle, compressed the foot in various parts, and partly in shells and little jingling chains, which depended so as to strike against clappers fixed into the metallic belts. The pleasant tinkle of the golden belts in collision, the chains rattling, and the melodious chime of little silver ankle-bells, keeping time with the motions of the foot, made an accompaniment so agreeable to female vanity, that the stately daughters of Jerusalem, with their sweeping trains flowing after them, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... hotel, where I engaged the state rooms and locked myself up. And what, my dear Chamisso, do you think I did then? I pulled masses of gold out of the bag, covered the floor of the room with ducats, threw myself upon them, made them tinkle, rolled over them, buried my hands in them, until I was exhausted and fell to sleep. Next morning I had to cart all these coins into a cupboard, leaving only just a few handfuls. Then, with the help of the host, I engaged some servants, a certain Bendel, a good, faithful ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... across the river. He was pushing the stern of the boat foremost so that he could feast his eyes. He was making so little speed that the only sounds were the choked sob of the water where the boat cleaved it gently and the tinkle of the drops that fell from the lazy oars with something of the delicate ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... and polished gold. The tilted roof was of sea- green porcelain, and the jutting eaves were festooned with little bells. When the white doves flew past, they struck the bells with their wings and made them tinkle. ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde

... ivory whiteness by the lights of door and window. A low line of hills loomed beyond, painted of silver gray against the backdrop of starry sky and the pallor of moon mists. From the porch came the desultory tinkle of a banjo and the voices of young people singing and in a pause between songs more than once the boy heard a laugh—a laugh which he recognized. He could even make out a scrap of light color which must be her dress. Such were the rewards of his night ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... hill, with a few pines near enough for me to hear their oceanic murmur. It is only necessary for me to shut my eyes, to hear every variety of water sounds. The pine gives me the long, majestic swell and retreat of the sea waves; the birch, the silvery tinkle of a pebbly brook; the acacia, the soft fall of a cascade; and all mingled together, a sound of many waters most refreshing to the sense. I thank heaven that we possess a hilltop. No amount of plains could compete with the value of this. To ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... sitting in the room that had been bare when first I saw it; there were basket-chairs and a table in it now, all meant ostensibly for me; and hence Raffles would slip to his bed, with schoolboy relish, at every tinkle of the bell. This afternoon we felt fairly safe, for Theobald had called in the morning, and Mrs. Theobald still took up much of his time. Through the open window we could hear the piano-organ and "Mar—gar—ri" a few hundred yards ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... and down the rich red loam, the steers Strained their strong shoulders in the creaking yoke, Dragging the plows; the fat soil rose and rolled In smooth dark waves back from the plow; who drove Planted both feet upon the leaping share To make the furrow deep; among the palms The tinkle of the rippling water rang, And where it ran the glad earth 'broidered it With balsams and the spears of lemon-grass. Elsewhere were sowers who went forth to sow; And all the jungle laughed with nesting-songs, And all the thickets rustled ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... her lip quiver as she read, but when she looked up again and spoke, I thought I must have been mistaken in that fancy, or else her emotion had been due to another cause than that I had imagined. For there was no change in the ungentle glittering eyes; no softening in the dry tinkle of the voice that delivered the Signora's answer. "I am sorry I can do nothing for your friend. You will tell her I have read her letter, and that I leave this place tomorrow morning." She inclined her head as she said this, I suppose by way of indication that the Herr might accept his ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... there are engagements. Every morning came Merkle, the embodiment of the established routine, the herald of all that the world expected and required Benham to be and do. Usually he awakened Benham with the opening of his door and the soft tinkle of the curtain rings as he let in the morning light. He moved softly about the room, gathering up and removing the crumpled hulls of yesterday; that done he reappeared at the bedside with a cup of admirable tea and one thin slice of bread-and-butter, reported on the ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... for aspens frail That tinkle with a silver bell, To warn the Zephyr of their love, When danger is at hand, and wake The neighbouring boughs, surrendering all Their prophet harmony of leaves, Had caught his earliest windward thought, And told it trembling; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... monotonous hills, and both before and behind were more lonesome hills, more dreary fields, and black masses of woodland. Not one homely roof was visible in the hard, white moonlight, nor the glimmer of a lamp, nor a waft of chimney-smoke; not even the tinkle of a sleigh-bell or a foot-step was to be heard. The silence seemed whispering to the hills. One star glimmered in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... they heard the tinkle of the little bell. Regina at once left his side to go and open the door. It was not till she had left the room that Marcello rose, asking himself suddenly why it had not occurred to him to go himself. He realised that he had always allowed her to wait on him without question. Yet if she ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... Tinkle, tinkle go the bells, King and prince and silver knight March through stories grandma tells When the winter ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice

... landmarks. He knows that to find the threadlike entrance to the bay you bring the flag-staff over Cart-wright's barn. He has vague theories of his own as to the annual shifting of the channel. He knows where to take the city children to look for tinkle-shells and mussels. He knows what winds bring in the scallops from their beds. He knows where to dig for clams, and where to tread for quahaugs without disturbing the oysters. He has a good deal of fragmentary lore ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... are mysterious; outside the walls, there are carven, gloomy palaces that once re-echoed to the tinkle of stringed instruments and the love-songs of some sultan's favorite—now fallen into ruins, or rebuilt to stable horses or shelter guns and stores and men; but eloquent in all their new-smeared whitewash, or in crumbling decay, of long-since dead intrigue. No places, those, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... the carpet, and the lips, just showing beneath the edge of the mask, grew tight with pain. Then he leaned forward, crouched once more, his head and shoulders inside the outer door, like some strange animal burrowing for its prey. Faint, musical, like some far distant tinkle, came the twirling of the dial—and then, suddenly, he drew back sharply, his hand shot to his pocket, whipped out his automatic, and, motionless there on his knees, every muscle rigid, he listened. There was the piano again, the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... struck a match to discover which was her bell. He guessed right the first time. Maisie heard the tinkle and knew what it portended. She had not started to disrobe, and after a few moments' hesitation she went down the stairs and ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... the event; for the footpath soon after appeared a little wider and more worn, and the tinkle of a small bell gave the knight to understand that he was in the vicinity of some ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... evening from rioting in my fields. As I walked down the lane I heard the soft tinkle of a cowbell, a certain earthy exhalation, as of work, came out of the bare fields, the duties of my daily life crowded upon me bringing a pleasant calmness of spirit, and I ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson

... stillness fell on the room that one could hear the sounds of the forest, the tinkle of the rain on the window-panes, the crackling of the pine boughs in the fireplace. And then a low door behind the railing opened with a creak, and there appeared the old grey head of a Jew, dressed in his praying gown, and singing in a low voice, while behind him shone a room lighted with small ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... enough, and now and then the voice of a bird was heard, and from the woodland pastures far-away the tinkle of sheep-bells fell pleasantly on the ear. But these sounds in no way jarred on the Sabbath stillness; and as Christie followed her sister along the narrow path that led them by a near way across the fields to the half-mile ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... upon me out of its grave, unblinking eye as it did forty years ago when we children sang to it in the street the song about the Pyramids and Pharaoh's land. The town lay slumbering in the sunlight and the blossoming elders. The far tinkle of a bell came sleepily over the hedges. Once upon a time it called the monks to prayers. Ashes to ashes! They are gone and buried with the dead past. To-day it summons the Latin School boys to recitations. I shuddered ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... hair, The exciting moisture of his lips induces langour in her limbs, Her earrings bruise her cheeks while dancing with the motion of her head, Her girdle by the tremor of her moving hips is made to tinkle, She utters senseless sounds, through fever of her love, He decorates with crimson flowers her curly tresses, curls which are upon her lively face a mass of clouds, Flowers with crimson flashings lovely in the forest of her tresses, haunt ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... was that? Through the clear, thin air came the sound of silvery bells, clink, clink, a-tinkle-inkle, clink-a-tinkle, clink, clink, as the dogs trotted on some distant trail. Were they approaching? Five minutes later, Donald was sure they were, and with a few swift kicks scattered his fire. Then, he ran down to the water's edge, and removed his fish and home-made line, finally retreating ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... stood open, but no one was looking out for them. They could hear the tinkle of a piano in the distance. Then a servant appeared, followed by a stout lady, who came forward to greet them in a hurried, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... front door, she could see the bars of lamplight on the deserted veranda, and hear from the open windows of the living-room a hum of conversation in which Jane seemed to be taking a leading part. Then came the tinkle of the old piano and Mary's voice, singing, or attempting to sing, for it was soon apparent that her voice sagged pitifully on ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... ran up the steps, having nodded farewell to the old watchman, and the next minute pressed the electric bell. Somewhere in the far interior of the gloomy mansion he could hear the tinkle of the answering summons. The sailor, as he waited for the door to open on he knew not what, reached back with his weather-beaten hand to his hip pocket. He nodded with satisfaction as his fingers encountered the butt of a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... an anxious tone, as if something were happening that he could not understand. The sea boomed along the shore beyond the marshes; the men could hear the rote of a piece of pebble beach a mile or two to the southward; now and then there was a faint tinkle of sleigh-bells. The fields looked wide and empty; the unusual warmth of the day before had been followed by clear cold. Suddenly a straggling company of women were seen coming from the next house. The men at the barn flapped their arms, and one of them, the youngest, danced a little ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... but the tinkle of his own bell told him that the stranger had rung off. He laid his cigar-case on the writing-table, slipped his cigarette-case into his pocket, satisfied himself that he had his latch-key, and put on a dark overcoat. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... profusely in their forests. Thus favored by nature, they spent much of the day in repose, while in the evenings they danced gayly in their fragrant groves with songs or the rude music of their drums. After the coming of the Spaniards the clear tinkle of the hawk's bells as they danced gave them the deepest delight, and for those musical toys they were ready ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... tree, the rude chant of the negro strikes the ear in the grotesque and characteristic framework of the 'Bananier,' the plaintive melody of 'La Savane' sighs past on the evening breeze, Spanish eyes flash out temptingly from the enticing cadence of the 'Ojos Criollos,' and Spanish guitars tinkle in the soft moonlight of the 'Minuit a Seville,' and Tropical life awakes to melody under the touch of the Creole poet of the piano, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... street I hear The tinkle of a bell, It's first far off, and then quite near; It's passing, I ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... elbow, Mr. Van Wyk stopped short. The overhanging eaves, descending low upon the lighted front of the bungalow, threw their black straight-edged shadow into the great body of the night on that side. Everything was very still. A tinkle of cutlery and a slight jingle of glasses were heard. Mr. Van Wyk's servants were laying the table for two on ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... light of the noonday coming through the shades Marcia's color did not show as it flew into her cheeks. Her hands grew weak and dropped upon the keys with a soft little tinkle of surprise and joy. She sprang up and came a step toward him, then clasped her hands against her breast and stopped shyly. David coming into the room, questioning, wondering, anxious, stopped midway too, and for an instant they looked ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... is the way the rain comes down: Tinkle, tinkle, drop by drop, Over roof and chimney top; Boughs that bend, and skies that frown— This is the way ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... battlements the sentries walked, pacing to and fro in regular march, with regular changes, all through the night hours. Half after midnight! 'All's well!' Three-quarters, and still 'All's well' sounded with the clash of steel and a tinkle of silvery chimes. One o'clock struck,—and the drifting clouds in heaven cleared fully, showing many brilliant stars in the western horizon,—and a sentry passing, as noiselessly as his armour and accoutrements would permit, along the walled battlement which protected and overshadowed ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... it happened no one seemed to know, but suddenly the long pole slipped and there was a crash and tinkle of glass. Nearly every one jumped in his or her seat, and ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope

... of a week Johnnie Green was able to milk quite well. When he sat down beside the Muley Cow he could play a merry tune as he made the tiny streams of milk tinkle against the bottom of the milk pail. And he managed to milk the Muley Cow while his father was milking ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... yonder fell, The tinkle of that cattle-bell, Came, and have never come before, Go, ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... in the main room of the Roussillon cabin—you could scarcely find them separated during those happy days—and Alice was singing to the soft tinkle of a guitar, a Creole ditty with a merry smack in its scarcely intelligible nonsense. She knew nothing about music beyond what M. Roussillon, a jack of all trades, had been able to teach her,—a few simple chords to accompany her songs, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... good-nights. The oblong of light from the upper window faded suddenly from the lawn. Somewhere from the big closet at the back, lately filled with slip-covers and new tires, Agnes hummed over the subdued click and tinkle of dishes and silver, and he could hear Nancy's feet coming carefully down the steep, unfamiliar stairway. Presently she joined him in the soft early darkness of the doorway, silently took the wide arm of his porch- chair, and leaned ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... shipping in the Canal. From the Bar la Poste came orchestral strains—"Ai nostri monti"—performed by a piano indoors and two violins on the pavement. The sounds contended with a thin, scattered strumming of cafe mandolins, the tinkle of glasses, the steady click of dominoes and backgammon; then were drowned in the harsh chatter of Arab coolies who, all grimed as black as Nubians, and shouldering spear-headed shovels, tramped inland, their long tunics stiff with coal-dust, like a band of chain-mailed Crusaders lately caught ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... man. But now the suggestion of revenge had seized hold upon her frightened imagination. What if this stranger had been deputed to take vengeance upon her for all her other victims? And if this was revenge, then worse things yet were in store for her. The tinkle of the horses' bells cut through the rumbling of the wheels; the sharp, shrill sound struck upon her like a cry of anguish, and in her terror she was ready to risk everything in a leap from the carriage. But no sooner did she relax ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... at once. Netty was not the Netty of an hour ago, or she would have coaxed him out of it. But she did not notice it now in her abstraction. She had risen at the tinkle of the bell, and seated herself in a chair. Presently a nose, with a great pimple on the end of it, appeared at the edge of the door, and a weak, piping voice said, reckless of the proper tense, "There was a woman ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... a hill of pine-trees, lies below you; beyond the water is the blue reek of wood-fires; open grass runs to the edge of the lake, a light green rim to the dark of the pines. So do the little emerald tarns lie like saucers full of sky and trees in pockets of the Alps. The illusion wants but the tinkle of cowbells: it would be pleasant to present bells ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... as empty as his own and today there emanated from them the clash of silver—not the tinkle of light nickels and dimes, but the substantial clatter of halves ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... by the plate struck a fine clean ball with a click and threw the bat with a resounding ring on the hard ground as he made for a home run. Billy started and looked keenly at the bat, for somehow the ring of it as it fell sounded curiously like the tinkle of silver. Who said thirty pieces of silver? Billy threw a furtive look about and a cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. Queer that old Bible story had to stick itself in. He could see the grieving in the Master's eyes as Judas ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... log's burn red; she lifts her head For sledge-bells tinkle and tinkle, O lightly swung. 'Youth was a pleasant morning, but ah! to think 'tis fled, Sae lang, lang syne,' quo' her ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... a faint crash and a tinkle of glass as the bottle of red ink struck the penthouse roof just over the beast's head and deluged it with its vermilion contents. Eset reared, shook her neck, gave a defiant grunt and swiftly withdrew her ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... a tinkle of feet; the girl had gone. In a moment she returned, and balancing herself on one foot, she lisped very sweetly: "I should like by and by to have you give me the head of Iohanan—" she looked about; in the distance ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... dear little home in Good-Children street— My heart turneth fondly to-day Where tinkle of tongues and patter of feet Make sweetest of music at play; Where the sunshine of love illumines each face And warms every heart in ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field

... slipping from him now. Suddenly she darted to the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she smote a pane with all her might. There was a smash of shivering glass, followed an instant later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the hand that she still held out covered itself ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... Ganoway chases a deer into a cave. The hunter follows and in the darkness brushes against shrubs which tinkle. He breaks off some branches. Cave opens again on the river bank, and he finds his dog and the dead deer at the entrance. He sees that fruits on the branches he carries are agate beads. Returns, but fails to find more. His townspeople go with him to seek the wonderful tree, but part of ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... There was a tinkle of falling glass; I looked up and saw that the window was shattered. The muslin curtain in front of it had been torn down by the passage of the brick, and the street without was visible from where I sat. ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... that ties newly formed must so soon be broken. In others it found an expression more buoyant. Merry voices of shuffleboard players drifted forward. Young couples paced the deck and leaned over the rail to watch the phosphorescent glow. The open windows of the smoking-room gave forth the tinkle of glasses and the low rattle of chips. All sounds blended ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... became a sounding-board, the harp a mere subservient tinkle, and my small, excitable frame would thrill and vibrate under the waves of my unconscious father's voice; and oh, the charming airs ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... wild and desolate gorge, barren, rocky and windswept; the tinkle of clear water ran down over the grey boulders out of sight and dropped down the face of the cliff into the sea; brown and grey lay the hillsides and rocks under the glaring noonday sun; there was no living soul in sight, no ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... Camels and horses. A great plain. A black romance. An oasis. Youldeh. Old Jimmy. Cockata blacks. In concealment. Flies, ants, and heat. A line of waters to the east. Leave depot. The camels. Slow progress. Lose a horse loaded with water. Tinkle of a bell. Chimpering. Heavy sand-dunes. Astray in the wilds. Pylebung. A native dam. Inhuman mutilations. Mowling and Whitegin. The scrubs. Wynbring. A conspicuous mountain. A native ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... but her voice made Sara's heart quiver, for in the sound of it she seemed to hear the temple-bells, and the fairy hand-organ she had heard in the steep street at Zinariola, and the drowsy tinkle of the fountain in the Butterfly Palace, and the little Laughs that leaped about the mountain, and the morning and evening sheep-bells, all gathered together into one sound that seemed to say that presently she would have to say good-by to Avrillia. But Avrillia, seeing her ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... Visp to Zermatt, horror of the Matterhorn hung over me like a pall. I even found something sinister in little Zermatt when we got there—Zermatt that now I love so, with the rushing, icy river, the cheerful smell of wood smoke, the goats that in the early morning wake one with the tinkle-tinkle of the bells through the street, and the quiet-eyed guides that sit on the wall in the twilight and ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... climbed the fo'c'sle steps and sat down on the anchor. At Lashnagar she had always seen ghosts walking on the sea at nightfall. Now they rose out of the swirling water, passed in and out swaying among the lights of the ship. From under her feet in the crew's quarters came the tinkle of a mandoline playing "La Donna ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles



Words linked to "Tinkle" :   sound, tink, tinkly, go



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