"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 black coat, drab trousers, 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 dinner was ready.
"It surely isn't six o'clock?" said Osborne, pulling out his dainty
little watch. He was scarcely more unaware 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."