He accordingly found her there on his arrival, and before even Mr. Driesen appeared he had an opportunity of explaining to Lady Tyrrell that his journey was put off, and also of giving her a hint of the sort of mood in which his father seemed to be. The moment that she heard what were the facts, Lady Tyrrell determined to make her escape from the breakfast-table, and got away before Sir Francis appeared.
As soon as he came down, however, he began to remark on her absence, saying, that he did think, on that day at least, she might have been down. "I suppose she chooses to be unwell," he continued, "but I do think she might have put that off till another morning, when she knew that you were going to Oxford for two or three months."
"I have just seen my mother for a moment, sir," replied Charles, "and told her I was not going. Though she was unwell, she intended to have been at breakfast if my departure had not been disarranged."
What the reply of Sir Francis might have been cannot be told, for his ingenuity in discovering matter of offence when he wished it was almost superhuman; but at that moment Mr. Driesen entered, with his gay, good-humoured air, apparently thinking of the merest trifles in the world, but all the time remarking everything around him, down to the least motion and gesture of his companions, with a shrewdness that placed the greater part of their thoughts at his disposal. He instantly saw that the father and son were not upon the most placable grounds in the world, and he cut across the subject with a gay sally, and a happy quotation from a Greek author; and then insisted upon Sir Francis giving his opinion upon an obscure epigram which he declared to be written by Martial, but which, in truth, he had himself manufactured between the door and the breakfast-table.
This gave some change to the feelings with which the morning had commenced, and matters passed on very quietly till about eleven o'clock. At that hour, however, Sir Francis began to be irritable and anxious regarding the return of the constables and officers whom he had despatched in the morning. They had not made their appearance, however, though he twice rang the bell to inquire if "the people" had come. The reply was still in the negative, and he found that up to half past eleven no one had arrived, nor had two messengers returned whom he had sent to call for the assistance of two brother magistrates who lived at some distance.