about
noon
`` I ask pardon if that is the case , I humbly ask pardon -- I would not willingly be superfluous . '' The Colonel hastened to appease this new alarm of the watchful jealousy of his consequence , which , joined with a natural heat of temper which he could not always subdue , were the good man 's only faults . They had regained their former friendly footing , when Roger Wildrake returned from the hut of Joceline , and whispered his master that his embassy had been successful . The Colonel then addressed the divine , and informed him , that as the Commissioners had already given up Woodstock , and as his uncle , Sir Henry Lee , proposed to return to the Lodge about noon , he would , if his reverence pleased , attend him up to the borough . `` Will you not tarry , '' said the reverend man , with something like inquisitive apprehension in his voice , `` to welcome your relatives upon their return to this their house ? '' `` No , my good friend , '' said Colonel Everard ; `` the part which I have taken in these unhappy broils , perhaps also the mode of worship in which I have been educated , have so prejudiced me in mine uncle 's opinion , that I must be for some time a stranger to his house and family . '' `` Indeed !