John had found it no easy matter--it never was easy when his mother’s understanding had to be appealed to--to make that worthy personage see both sides of the question at issue. “You see, mother,” he said, after having, to the best of his ability, explained what had taken place between himself and his victim,--“you see, mother, it was the man’s talk that aggravated me so. The boastful brutal way that he had with him was enough to provoke a saint. It was bad enough to hear that Honor, poor girl, wasn’t an honest woman’s child; but when it came to impudence, and from a fellow like that--a man that would cheat his best friend, if he had one, in the matter of a horse--it was more than I could stand. I am sorry now I hit so hard, I’ll own to that; but he got no more than he deserved; no, by George!” and John’s heavy hand came down with a thump upon the table--“he got no more than he deserved!” Mrs. Beacham, who was looking, in her company silk and Sunday bonnet, very unlike her normal self, sighed heavily at this new evidence of her son’s intemperate spirit. “Well, well, John,” she said, “what’s done can’t be undone. It’s a bad business altogether; a terrible business, _I_ call it--bad blood o’ both sides, according to you; but we must hope the best. And the first thing to hope for is that the Colonel himself won’t die this bout. It would be a shocking thing if he wasn’t to get over it; and though _he_ said it was an accident--which was honourable, as I call it, on _his_ side--yet, who knows, there are plenty in the world ready to think the worst, and the truth will out--which there’s a Providence over all to find out.” This view of what had occurred as taken and delicately hinted by his depressed parent, did not greatly tend to enliven poor John’s spirits. On the whole the unburdening of his heart and conscience had not proved a satisfactory operation. He had not even been able to ascertain--so taken up was the old lady in the minor details to which she had just alluded--whether his mother felt drawn to her daughter-in-law, or the contrary, in consequence of this wholly unexpected discovery. John Beacham had not now to learn that matters had not gone always smoothly between his womankind; nor, with all his affection and respect for his parent, had it been difficult to arrive at the conclusion that the crumpled roses had been almost always of the old lady’s strewing. He had abstained from any remarks on this unsatisfactory state of things, trusting to time, that (supposed) universal settler of schisms, to set all to rights. Whether that desirable arrangement was likely to be hastened or retarded by the knowledge that in Honor’s veins ran the blue blood of the ancient race of Norcotts, remained to be seen.