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Uncle Max followed him out into the hall, and they stood so long talking that I lost patience, and went into the kitchen to see Mrs. Drabble. She received me in a resigned way, as usual, and talked without taking breath once while she buttered the hot cakes and prepared the tea-tray. I understood her to say that Mr.
Tudor used to laugh at her, or get out of her way, when he had had enough of it; she only tried it on her master once, but Max stood and stared at her with such surprise and such puzzled good-humour that she grew ashamed and stopped in the very middle of a sentence. But, with all her temper, neither of them could have spared Mrs. Drabble, she made them so comfortable.
Drabble would take no pains to keep her dinner hot. 'If gentlemen like to shilly-shally with their food, they must take things as they find them, she would say; and if her master ever ventured to remonstrate with her, she took care that he should suffer for it for a week. 'We must humour Mother Drabble, Mr. Tudor would say good-humouredly.
'Oh no, was my reply, but I did not volunteer any information as to the contents of the basket. There was certainly a jar of beef-tea that Mrs. Drabble had given me, and a few grapes; but the little store of soap, soda, fine rags, and the two or three clean towels and cloths would have surprised him a little, though he might have understood the meaning of the neat housewife.
Drabble, or any other gossiping person that takes it into her head to tell you, for you could not be much longer at Heathfield without hearing of it, when, as I say, every Jack and Tom in the village knows it, though how it all got about is more than I can say. I tell the colonel, Leah must have had a hand in it: I know it was she who told Tracy. I saw by this time that Mrs.
There was a drabble of dead leaves on the sidewalk which was of wood, and on the roadway which was of macadam and stiff mud. The wind blew sharply, for it was a December day and only six in the morning. Nor were the houses high enough to furnish any independent bulwark; they were low, wooden dwellings, the tallest a bare two stories in height, the majority only one story.
The other forms, such as drabbe, dregg, and dragan, the b and v being analogous to E. draggle, drabble, draught, draft, all equally from dragan. We have a suspicion that dragon is to be referred to the same root. Mr. Sharpness of sight, it is true, was attributed to the mythologized reptile, but the primitive draco was nothing but a large serpent, supposed to be the boa.
His house was large, far too large for an unmarried man, and he was very sociable by nature, so he induced his curate to take up his abode with him; but the two men and Mrs. Drabble, the housekeeper, and the maid under her, could not fill it, and several rooms were shut up. Lawrence Tudor had been a pupil of Uncle Max, and the two were very much attached to each other.
I saw granny trying to eat a piece of bread and dripping that they gave her and then lay it down without a word: no wonder her poor cheeks were so white and sunken. Mrs. Drabble had promised me some more beef-tea, so I warmed a cupful for granny and broke up a slice of stale bread in it: it was touching to see her enjoyment of the warm food.
I thought it better to change the subject: so I began to question him about Mr. Tudor and Mrs. Drabble, the latter being the ruling power at the vicarage; and he fell upon the bait and swallowed it eagerly, so my vexation passed unnoticed. Uncle Max did not live quite alone.
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