“He will be well cared for with Mrs. Bycroft,” Dr. Kempshall said. He was walking by the side of his patient, for whose transport to the inn at Gawthorpe a litter had been hastily improvised, and some stout men of the labouring class engaged to carry Colonel Norcott the short half-mile to the town. “He will be well cared for, and of course we shall have the Bakers over directly from Westhoe. It will be a shock to the old lady, and she has had her troubles, poor soul, without this coming upon her in her old age.” He had scarcely ceased speaking when the face, which he had never ceased from carefully watching, began to show signs, in consequence probably of the restoratives administered, of returning colour and intelligence. Moving his head slowly, and with evident pain, a little to one side, Colonel Norcott made a sign with his hand that the bearers should stop; and then Dr. Kempshall, bending closely over him, could just catch the words: “It was a fall--an accident. Don’t let anyone be bothered;” and having thus, with evident effort, delivered himself, the patient relapsed into insensibility. CHAPTER VIII. JOHN WISHES THE PAST UNDONE. “Well, mother, and how does she seem now? I wish I could hear that she’d gone to sleep, poor child! If she doesn’t get better soon, I shall call in Dr. Kempshall.” “Send for Dr. Fiddlestick!” said Mrs. Beacham in a pet. “Now, John, don’t you be foolish. There’s nothing the matter with Honor except airs and foolishness. You just let her alone--there’s nothing like _that_ for bringing girls to their senses. Make a fuss with ’em, and they’ll worry your life out with their nonsense.” John Beacham and his mother were sitting together in the gloaming in one of the small dingy sitting-rooms appertaining to not the most cheerful side of that excellent hostelry known from time immemorial as the Bell Inn, Gawthorpe. Neither mother nor son were in the best possible temper of either mind or spirits. The old lady especially was what may be called, in vulgar parlance, “upset.” The mere circumstance of being disturbed from the delightful monotonous routine of her every-day life would have been alone sufficient to account for the fact of Mrs. Beacham being “put out.” But, in addition to this misfortune there was the worry of Colonel Norcott’s “accident,” an accident the real facts of which had been penitently explained to her by John; and as a climax to all this terrible annoyance (for though she had said little on the subject, Mrs. Beacham had been thrown into a grievously anxious, as well as extremely mortified, state of mind by the fact that John had lost his temper and rendered himself amenable to the law), there was the more than probability that Honor would be giving herself more than ever the airs of a fine lady, and that, too, in Mrs. Beacham’s opinion, with some show of right,--so true is it that good blood, even when illegitimately inherited, induces a certain amount of servile respect.