Roger was at Cambridge.Osborne had also been from home, and he had not volunteered any information as to his absence.The squire believed that Osborne had been either in Cambridge with his brother, or in London; he would have liked to hear where his son had been, what he had been doing, and whom he had seen, purely as pieces of news, and as some diversion from the domestic worries and cares which were pressing him hard; but he was too proud to ask any questions, and Osborne had not given him any details of his journey.This silence had aggravated the squire's internal dissatisfaction, and he came home to dinner weary and sore-hearted a day or two after Osborne's return.It was just six o'clock, and he went hastily into his own little business-room on the ground-floor, and, after washing his hands, came into the drawing-room feeling as if he were very late, but the room was empty.
He glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece, as he tried to warm his hands at the fire.The fire had been neglected, and had gone out during the day;it was now piled with half-dried wood, which sputtered and smoked instead of doing its duty in blazing and warming the room, through which the keen wind was cutting its way in all directions.The clock had stopped, no one had remembered to wind it up, but by the squire's watch it was already past dinner-time.The old butler put his head into the room, but, seeing the squire alone, he was about to draw it back, and wait for Mr Osborne, before announcing dinner.He had hoped to do this unperceived, but the squire caught him in the act.'Why isn't dinner ready?' he called out sharply.'It's ten minutes past six.And, pray, why are you using this wood? It's impossible to get oneself warm by such a fire as this.' 'I believe, sir, that Thomas -- ' 'Don't talk to me of Thomas.Send dinner in directly.' About five minutes elapsed, spent by the hungry squire in all sorts of impatient ways - attacking Thomas, who came in to look after the fire;knocking the logs about, scattering out sparks, but considerably lessening the chances of warmth; touching up the candles, which appeared to him to give a light unusually insufficient for the large cold room.While he was doing this, Osborne came in dressed in full evening dress.He always moved slowly; and this, to begin with, irritated the squire.Then an uncomfortable consciousness of a rough black coat, drab trowsers, checked cotton cravat, and splashed boots, forced itself upon him as he saw Osborne's point-device costume.He chose to consider it affectation and finery in Osborne, and was on the point of bursting out with some remark, when the butler, who had watched Osborne downstairs before making the announcement, came in to say that dinner was ready.'It surely isn't six o'clock?' said Osborne, pulling out his dainty little watch.He was scarcely more aware than it of the storm that was brewing.'Six o'clock! It's more than a quarter past,' growled out his father, 'I fancy your watch must be wrong, sir.I set mine by the Horse Guards only two days ago.' Now, impugning that old steady, turnip-shaped watch of the squire's was one of the insults which, as it could not reasonably be resented, was not to be forgiven.That watch had been given him by his father when watches were watches long ago.It had given the law to house-clocks, stable-clocks, kitchen-clocks - nay, even to Hamley Church clock in its day; and was it now, in its respectable old age, to be looked down upon by a little whipper-snapper of a French watch which could go into a man's waistcoat pocket, instead of having to be extricated, with due effort, like a respectable watch of size and position, from a fob in the waistband? No! Not if the whipper-snapper were backed by all the Horse Guards that ever were, with the Life Guards to boot.Poor Osborne might have known better than to cast this slur on his father's flesh and blood; for so dear did he hold his watch! 'My watch is like myself,' said the squire, 'girning,' as the Scotch say - 'plain, but steady-going.At any rate, it gives the law in my house.
The King may go by the Horse Guards if he likes.' 'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Osborne, really anxious to keep the peace;'I went by my watch, which is certainly right by London time; and I'd no idea you were waiting for me, otherwise I could have dressed much quicker.' 'I should think so,' said the squire, looking sarcastically at his son's attire.'When I was a young man I should have been ashamed to have spent as much time at my looking-glass as if I'd been a girl.I could make myself as smart as any one when I was going to a dance, or to a party where Iwas likely to meet pretty girls; but I should have laughed myself to scorn if I'd stood fiddle-faddling at a glass, smirking at my own likeness, all for my own pleasure.' Osborne reddened, and was on the point of letting fly some caustic remark on his father's dress at the present moment; but he contented himself with saying, in a low voice, - 'My mother always expected us all to dress for dinner.I got into the habit of doing it to please her, and I keep it up now.' Indeed, he had a certain kind of feeling of loyalty to her memory in keeping up all the little domestic habits and customs she had instituted or preferred.But the contrast which the squire thought was implied by Osborne's remark, put him beside himself.'And I, too, try to attend to her wishes.I do: and in more important things.