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 Digital Logic
Fifth Edition

School of Computing
Faculty of Engineering

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

Printed @ 2018
Special Appreciation to :

Dr. Mohd Murtadha B.Mohamad

Dr Siti Hajar Bt Othman
YM Dr Raja Zahilah Bt Raja Mohd Radzi
En. Mohd Seth B. Yaacob
Cik Azlina Bt Kamarudin

for their contribution in preparing the initial content of the notes

of this module.
 Table of Contents
Modules Title Page
Preface

1 Digital Logic Overview 1

• Digital and Analog Quantities
• Binary Digits, Logic Levels and Digital Waveform
• Introduction to Logic Operations
• Overview of Logic Functions
• Fixed-Function IC
• Programmable Logic Devices (PLD)

2 Number Systems and Codes 49

• Numbering System (Decimal, Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal)
• Number Conversion between Bases
• Binary to Octal and Hexadecimal Conversion
• Codes: BCD, GRAY, Parity, ASCII Arithmetic
• Operations:
o Integer (Unsigned, Signed Number)
o Addition and Subtraction

3 Logic Gates : Overview 89

• NOT Gate (Inverter)
• AND Gate
• OR Gate
• NAND Gate
• NOR Gate
• Exclusive-OR (XOR) Gate
• Exclusive-NOR (XNOR) Gate

4 Boolean Algebra and Logic Simplification 101

• Laws and Rules of Boolean Algebra
• DeMorgan’s Theorem
• Combinational Logic Representation
o Boolean to Logic Circuit
o Logic Circuit to Boolean
o Boolean to Truth Table
o Logic Circuit to Truth Table
• Simplification Using Boolean Algebra
• Standard Forms of Boolean Expressions (SOP and POS Form)
• Karnaugh Map (K-Map)
• K-Map Minimisation (SOP and POS)
• Don’t Care Conditions
5 Combinational Logic Circuit 151
• Basic Combinational Logic Circuits
(AND-OR, AND-OR-INVERT, XOR, XNOR)
• Universal Property of NAND and NOR
• Dual Symbol Concept
• Design a Combinational Circuit

6 Functions of Combinational Logic 175

• Basic and Parallel Binary Adders
• Comparators
• Decoders
• Encoders
• Multiplexer
• Demultiplexer
• Code Converter
• Parity Generator/ Checker

7 Latches and Flip-Flops 207

• Introduction to Latch and Flip-Flop
• Latches (SR, Gated SR, Gated D)
• Flip-Flops (SR, JK, D, T)

8 Counters 237
• Types of Sequential Circuits
• Counters
• Design and Analysis of Asynchronous Counter
• Operation (Up/Down, Truncated)
• Asynchronous Counter Decoder
• Flip-flop Excitation Table
• Design and Analysis of Synchronous Counter (Up/Down, Truncated)
• Counter for Arbitrary Sequences
• Cascaded Counter
• Analysis of Sequential Circuits

9 Shift Registers 283

• Basic Shift Register functions
• Shift Register:
o SISO, SIPO, PISO, PIPO
• Bidirectional Shift Registers
• Shift Register counters
o Ring Counter
o Johnson Counter

Tutorial Questions 303

Tutorial Answers 333

Labs Title Page

Introduction 345

1 Combinational Logic 351

2 Combinational Logic Circuit Design Simulation 359

3 Synchronous Digital Counter 377

[Mini Project] Programmable Logic Device: 385

4 Photocopying (Xerox) Machine

Lab References 399

Lab References Sheet 409

Preface

Digital logic module is a first year student lecture notes taking digital logic course
in the School of Computing (SC), Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia (UTM). This module is divided into two main parts, the first part covers
combinational logic design and the second part includes a memory element. The
first part consists of an introduction to digital logic, number systems and codes,
logic basic gates, Boolean algebra and logic simplification, combinational circuit
design logic and functional logic combination.

On the other hands the second part covers the introduction to the latch and flip-
flops, design counter, and shift registers. Content modules are adapted from some
of the contents of the digital logic used by most university students. Among them
are Floyd, T., "Digital Fundamentals", Prentice Hall, USA, and Tocci, RJ, "Digital
Systems", Prentice Hall, USA. In addition, the experience of the lecturers who have
taught this course in the SC has been taken into account to produce the digital
logic teaching modules.

Special appreciation is given mainly to the major contributor to the success of

this module, Mr. Abd. Bahrim Yusoff, Assoc. Prof Dr. Mazleena Salleh, Dr. Mohd
Fo'ad Rohani, Dr. Ismail Fauzi Isnin, Dr. Raja Zahilah, Mr. Muhalim Mohamed
Amin, Ms. Marina Md Arshad, Mrs. Rashidah Kadir and En Firoz Yusuf Patel
Dawoodi.

6 January 2019
29 Rabiul Akhir 1440h
There are two parts in this module that are:
Part 1 – Introduction to Analog and Digital Systems
Part 2 – Introduction to Digital Operation and Functional Systems

Overall objectives of this module are:

1 To discuss definitions and terms that used in Analog and Digital Systems.
2 To illustrate basic operation of digital logic systems.
3 To discuss technologies of digital Logic ICs and PLDs.

1
2
Example of equations that represent temperature change in analog signal:

T = f (t )
Total T = integration of f (t ) from interval 1s to 1000s
t=1000

= ò f (t )dt
t=1

At time = 2:30pm, temperature is equal to 950C

Example of analog quantities measurement (others):

• Time (t)= 10.16s (second)

• Pressure (P)=220.10KPa (Kilo Pascal)
• Energy, Power = 100.5KW (Kilo Watts)

3
Example of equations that represent temperature in discrete signal:

Ti = {T (at )} , a = 1, 2,3, 4,..., N

n
Total T = å Ti , i = 1, 2, 3, 4,..., n
i =1

Example of discrete system measurement:

At time = 2pm, temperature is equal to 960C
At time = 2:30pm, there is no measurement

Example of digital system measurement (others):

• Band Width (BW) = 1Mbps (Mega Bits Per Second)

• Storage RAM = 512MB (Mega Byte)
• Hard Disk = 160GB (Giga Byte)

4
Example of practical analog and digital Systems:

Analog system Digital system

Analog Watch Digital Watch

Analog Phone Mobile Digital Phone

5
Digital Application Systems in real world:

q Computers: CPU and Microprocessors, memory storage

q Manufacturing systems: Micro-controller to control robots for product packaging and conveyor
systems

q Medical Science: Medical Imaging Systems that includes digital x-ray, computed tomography (CT),
mammography

q Transportation: Speed Micro-Controller, Vehicle Air-Condition micro-controller, Portable Fault

Diagnosis Device (trouble shooting)

q Entertainment: Digital television (DTV), DVD, Digital Camera, Media Player

q Telecommunications: Digital phone, digital hand-phone, Digital FM transmitter (i-pod, MP3),

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL Digital Modem) - a new technology that allows a single
regular telephone line to serve for normal phone calls and digital data at the same time.

6
Why digital systems is more preferable?
q Ease of design: only consider 2 state’s of voltage level (high or low)
q Ease of storage: we have digital memory device that enable us to easily store bit 0 and 1. Analog
does not has any device with equivalent capability.
q Accuracy and precision are easier to maintain: bit data representation is more accurate and easy
to maintain
q Programmable operation: Many digital IC circuit can re-programmed to construct different circuit
using e.g. using FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) technology. Example of research
application area includes reconfigurable computing. Unlike analog system is fixed and unchanged
from factoring manufacturing.
q Less affected by noise: binary data is representing by range of voltage level to represent high or
low. In the middle, between high and low level range, binary signal does not exist. So, it is less
affected by noise. Compared to analog system is more affected by noise.
q Ease of fabrication on IC chips : Digital circuit is easy fabricated using silicon technology, which is
cheaper and easy to produce.

Example of Practical process that implement digital systems:

q Data Processing: Computer technology that based on binary system is invented to process binary
data of bit 0 and 1 in at high speed without compromising the accuracy of the result. Eg. Dual-
Core processor at 2GHz speed.
q Data Transmission: Digital data can be transmitted using existing analog telephone line by using
modem, or digital data can be transmitted directly without converting to analog signal e.g. by
using ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) line.
q Data Storage: Digital storage currently offer a huge size capacity e.g. 120GB, 320GB, 512GB, 1TB
at low price.

7
Some drawbacks of Digital Systems:
q Greater bandwidth: Digital TV (HDTV) vs Analog TV (Carrier MHz))
A High Definition Television (HDTV) signal required much more bandwidth (20 MHz) compared to a
standard (National Television System Committee) NTSC analog signal (6 MHz)
q Sampling error* – Analog signal will undergo Quantization process before being convert to digital.
During the quantization process, information loss could occur in the process rounding the signal to
integer ( e.g rounding from 12.4V or 12.2V will give same result to the nearest integer 12)
q Compatibility with existing analog systems
Digital TV (e.g. HDTV – is not compatible with existing transmitting existing signal that use analog
carrier. So, new capital investment is needed to provide the digital infrastructure)
q Short product half life
An analog record player has longer life cycle compared to digital player that usually has shorter
product half-life. Due to rapid digital technology improvement , the audio system technology has
evolved in relatively short period of time. For instance, from Laser Disc change to VCD technology
before improving to DVD technology and recently to Blue Ray Disc.

* Sampling Error (Quantization Error): is derived from Analog to Digital Conversion Process:

à à

Analog Sampling & Quantization Bit 0 and 1

8
A hybrid of Digital and Analog Systems

An analog-to-digital converter (abbreviated ADC, A/D or A to D) is a device which converts continuous

signals to discrete digital numbers. Typically, an ADC is an electronic device that converts an input analog
voltage (or current) to a digital number

Digital-to-analog conversion (DAC) is a process in which signals having a few (usually two) defined levels or
states (digital) are converted into signals having a theoretically infinite number of states (analog). A
common example is the processing, by a modem of computer data into audio-frequency (AF) tones that
can be transmitted over a twisted pair telephone line. The circuit that performs this function is a digital-to-
analog converter.

Basically, DAC conversion is the opposite of analog-to-digital conversion. In most cases, if an ADC is placed
in a communications circuit after a DAC, the digital signal output is identical to the digital signal input.
Also, in most instances when a DAC is placed after an ADC, the analog signal output is identical to the
analog signal input.

An Audio linear amplifier is an electronic circuit whose output is proportional to its input, but capable of
delivering more power into a load. Generally, an amplifier or simply amp usually increases the amplitude
of a signal. The "signal" is usually voltage or current.

9
Analog sound
Human voice has a continuous sinusoidal wave with frequency within range of 300Hz to 3.4KHz
(3.4X103 cycle per second). This signal will be converted to analog voltage by using microphone.

Analog to Digital Converter (ADC)

Convert analog signal into digital signal using process such as sampling signal, quantization
process and digital conversion. Error will occur during the sampling and quantization, hence loss
of information can happen.

Digital information
The accuracy of analog to digital conversion is increased when the signal is represented by a
higher word size such as 32bit as compared to 8bit. However, the bigger bit size the higher
storage is needed to store the digital data.

Digital to Analog Converter (DAC)

DAC is needed if the speaker is using analog system. We need to convert the digital data to
analog signal in order for the speaker works properly and the sound can be heard by human.

Amplifier
Amplifier will amplified amplitude of the small input signal to increase power output,
hence the volume of speaker is increased.

10
11
Voltage level to represent bit level :

When digital logic has an output voltage of two volts or above its output is considered to be
logic “1”. An output voltage 0.8 volts or less is considered to be logic “0”. Voltages between
0.8 volts and 2.0 volts are considered illegal. The binary logic circuits should never encounter
signals within this region except for a quick transition through it when switching states.

In real implementations of these circuits, electrical noise may exist. Therefore the typical output
levels are well in excess of the points at which the “1” or “0” decision is made. The distance
by which the input voltage exceeds the switching threshold is called the noise margin.
Noise levels of up to 0.6 volts may be injected on an input signal and the inverter shown above
will still operate correctly.

12
The term active means the moment that logic circuit is reacting with its true manner. There are two
conditions which control the action of circuit, either active high or active low .

Symbols to show the input state of “active high” and “active low”:

“active high”

“active low”

13
Periodic: In mathematics, a periodic function is a function that repeats its values in regular intervals or
periods. The most important examples are the trigonometric functions, which repeat over intervals of
length 2π. Periodic functions are used throughout science to describe oscillations, waves, and other
phenomena that exhibit periodicity.

Everyday examples are seen when the variable is time; for instance the hands of a clock or the phases of
the moon show periodic behavior. Periodic motion is motion in which the position(s) of the system are
expressible as periodic functions, all with the same period.

Non Periodic: A function that is not periodic is called aperiodic.

Periodic signal Aperiodic signal

14
Some examples of periodic signal display on the oscilloscope:

(a) Square waveform (b) Sinusoid waveform

15
DIY:
1. Calculate frequency of signals if time period are given as the following:

a) 10ms

b) 100µs

c) 100ns

d) 1000ps

2. Calculate time period of signals if frequency are given as the following:

a) 1000KHz

b) 100MHz

c) 1000GHz

d) 100THz

16
q For digital signal, the rise time (tr ) and fall time (tf) is usually very short.

q For digital device tr and tf must fulfill a certain specified time to be recognized as a valid digital logic
value.

17
18
DIY:

Two systems operate with two different ratio of duty cycle 25% and 50% (add 70%, etc..). Given the
duration or period for the systems 1000ms. Determine on state and off state for both systems.

19
The importance of timing diagram to digital system:

q to show the relation of digital value in term of time (discrete value)

q we are not interested in the actual value (or voltage level)
q that is why the timing diagram only shows ‘0’ or ‘1’.

20
Another way of representing the relationship between input and output is by using a truth table.

DIY:

Given : Clock: Active High, Input: A and B, while Output: C

Using Timing Diagram given, convert the state A, B and C into Truth Table form:

21
22
Basic IC (Common):

7404 integrated circuit provides six inverters

7408 integrated circuit provides four two-inputs AND gates
7432 integrated circuit provides four two-inputs OR gates

Others IC (Can be derived from basic IC):

7400 integrated circuit provides four two-inputs NAND gates

7402 integrated circuit provides four two-inputs NOR gates
7486 integrated circuit provides four two-inputs XOR gates.
747266 integrated circuit provides four two-inputs XNOR gates

23
Logic gate IC : NOT

7404 IC six inverters

24
Logic gate IC: AND

7408 IC four (Quad) AND gates

25
Logic gate IC: OR

7432 integrated circuit provides four (Quad) two-inputs OR gates

26
27
28
Digital Comparators
Another common and very useful combinational logic circuit is that of the Digital Comparator circuit.
Digital or Binary Comparators are made up from standard AND, NOR and NOT gates that compare the
digital signals at their input terminals and produces an output depending upon the condition of the inputs.

29
In electronics, an adder or summer is a digital circuit that performs addition of numbers. In modern
computers adders reside in the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) where other operations are performed.
Although adders can be constructed for many numerical representations, such as Binary-coded decimal or
excess-3, the most common adders operate on binary numbers. In cases where twos complement or ones
complement is being used to represent negative numbers, it is trivial to modify an adder into an adder-
subtractor. Other signed number representations require a more complex adder.

All the other arithmetic operations can be derived from adder:

q Subtraction is and addition of negative number such as A–B = A+(-B)
q Multiplication is a repeated addition such as A*3=A+A+A
q Division is a repeated subtraction which is a repeated addition such as
6/3=6-3-3=6+(-3)+-(3)
- subtract until the remainder = 0
- total number of subtraction = 2 which is the answer

30
BCD:
In computing and electronic systems, binary-coded decimal (BCD) (sometimes called natural binary-coded
decimal, NBCD) is an encoding for decimal numbers in which each digit is represented by its own binary
sequence. Its main virtue is that it allows easy conversion to decimal digits for printing or display and
faster decimal calculations.
In BCD, a digit is usually represented by four bits which, in general, represent the values/digits/characters
0–9. Other bit combinations are sometimes used for a sign or other indications.
Although BCD is not as widely used as it once was, decimal fixed-point and floating-point are still
important and continue to be used in financial, commercial, and industrial computing.

ASCII:
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), pronounced /ˈæski/[1] is a character-
encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers,
communications equipment, and other devices that work with text. ASCII developed from telegraphic
codes. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services.
ASCII includes definitions for 128 characters: 33 are non-printing control characters (now mostly obsolete)
that affect how text is processed, 94 are printable characters, and the space is considered an invisible
graphic.

The 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered from 32

to 126 (decimal)

31
Examples of the Systems:

• A key pad provides decimal value range from 0 – 9.

• Each of the decimal digit can be encoded to its binary representation using Encoder
• The encoded binary data can be decoded back to its original decimal value
• 7 segment display can display the decimal value

32
Problem:
Many inputs (e.g. A, B and C) wanted to use a single transmission line for their data transmission. How to
make sure the data is transferred in a proper manner (issue of cost, synchronization, conflict , crash, loss?)

Source (A, B, C) and Destination (D, E, F)

A à D, B à E, C à F
Solution:
MUX: select and permit only one device can use the line and transfer its data at one
time.
Data in the transmission line would be arranged as A, B, C

DEMUX: select and route the data to their originate destination

A à D, B à E, C à F

Advantage:
cost effective (reduce cost)

Disadvantage:
can create congestion if many inputs transmit a huge data rate at one time (e.g. Denial
of Service (DoS)) that loss of data can occur .

33
Examples of Memory Devices in Digital Systems:

Flip-flop:
In digital circuits, a flip-flop is a term referring to an electronic circuit that has two stable states and is
capable of serving as one bit of memory. Simple flip-flops can be built around a pair of cross-coupled
inverting elements that can be built from vacuum tubes, bipolar transistors, field effect transistors or
inverters.

Registers:
A word size memory that may consist of 8 bits, 16 bits, 32 bits or 64bits size. The basic circuit of register is
flip-flop.

RAM:
A volatile memory that store current running program. The size varies from 256MB, 512MB, 1GB and 2GB

Flash:
A fast speed ROM technology

ROM:
A non- volatile memory

External Memory: Magnetic or Optical

Permanent storage that can stored large quantity of data such as storage size of 60G,120GB, 160GB, 320GB,
512GB or 1TB

34
Examples systems:

• Traffic light
• Washing machine
• Vending machine
• Xerox machine
• ATM machine
• etc.

35
36
Surface-mount technology (SMT) is a method for constructing electronic circuits in which the components
(SMC, or Surface Mounted Components) are mounted directly onto the surface of printed circuit boards
(PCBs). Electronic devices so made are called surface-mount devices or SMDs. In the industry it has largely
replaced the through-hole technology construction method of fitting components with wire leads into
holes in the circuit board.

Through-hole technology, also spelled "thru-hole", refers to the mounting scheme used for electronic
components that involves the use of pins on the components that are inserted into holes (PTH - Plated
Through-Hole) drilled in printed circuit boards (PCB) and soldered to pads on the opposite side.
Through-hole technology almost completely replaced earlier electronics assembly techniques such as
point-to-point construction. From the second generation of computers in the 1950s until surface-mount
technology became popular in the late 1980s, every component on a typical PCB was a through-hole
component.

IC and conventional through-hole Surface Mount PCB assembly

37
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
welcome sympathy to what that foolish Honor had begun to think her
rightful place in the social scale, yet life, and especially life at Danescourt
that day, contained for her a good deal that was pleasant and enjoyable. And
then, if the thought did cross her mind that it would be very nice for Mr.
Vavasour to be there, there came with that thought the recollection that,
even supposing him to be among the goodly company assembled more as
lookers-on than as participators in the sports provided, would it be likely
that with Miss Duberly in the grounds, ready to claim her lover’s undivided
attention, he should have either leisure or inclination to waste time upon his
humbler friend? The answer given by common sense to this query, though
humbling, was very good for Honor, inducing her to rest satisfied with the
companionship of her friends the Clays—the kind, hospitable,
unsophisticated Clays—who were always in the seventh heaven of delight
at seeing her; albeit the necessary farm business, and the four miles between
the two houses, rendered the meetings with “darling Honor” not so frequent
as they were desirable. John Beacham was always glad to welcome the
Clays; and even in that noisy crowd (Lady Guernsey’s humble quests were
feeling much more at home since the inner man had been refreshed by
creature comforts)—even in that noisy crowd, he was quite satisfied of his
little wife’s safety and enjoyment, when his neighbour’s well-brought-up
children—including “big Affy,” the eldest born, a steady lad of fifteen, who
was already beginning to be a great help on the farm—were surrounding his
merry, happy-looking wife, while she, “God bless her!” John sometimes
said with a half-sigh, looked “a precious deal too young for him, the
darling! playing there with the young ones, like the child she almost was.”
On the present occasion, Honor, seeing her husband walk away with his
friend Jack Winthrop (their two heads laid together in eager conversation on
some subject, probably equine, that demanded the undivided attention of
both), allowed herself to be beguiled (after seeing her mother-in-law safely
settled in a shady corner with her faithful adherent Widow Thwaytes by her
side) to a portion of the grounds which she had not yet visited, but which,
according to description, was a perfect paradise of delight. In a shady dell,
forming an area of about three hundred yards in diameter, a little quiet
recreation had been, at the request of Lady Guernsey’s children, prepared
for the especial enjoyment of the small fry—respectable small fry, sous-
entendu—who had been bidden to the sports that day. There, on the short
well-kept turf, was the miniature croquet-ground where the little Clays,
with Honor Beacham as mistress of the revels, and a few other children, the
belongings of some of the more important tenantry, were making the most
of their holiday, and shouting gleefully to one another in their uproarious
play.
Such a “good time,” as the Yankees say, they had of it! Honor, the
happiest of the happy, looking, as she stood there with her croquet-mallet in
her hand, and stamping her small foot in playful petulance at the stupidity
of her partner (the pickle Tommy of her governess-days), the
impersonification of bright youth and unreflecting joy.
“Now, Tommy, how could you, you stupid fellow! Why, that was my
ball; you had no business to knock that away. Now, mind what you are
about, like a good mite, and you shall have some goodie-goodies when the
game is over.”
How pretty and animated she looked, while thus—acting on past
experience of his character—exciting the recreant Tommy to rational
behaviour by a bribe! That young gentleman seemed very far from
amenable to reason. A merry, dark-eyed, gipsy-looking boy he was, bent
upon tyrannous rule, while Honor, laughing at his tricks, was, with her two
little gloved hands upon his shoulders, holding him back with playful
determination that the other little ones, as this judicious umpire said, might
have a chance. She was for the moment entirely absorbed in the childish
game. Tommy, though an especial favourite, was, Honor laughingly
declared, “so naughty;” and then her womanly love of protecting the weak
had been called into play by the piteous appeal of a blue-eyed girl of six,
who tearfully claimed her championship against the encroachments of that
wicked Tom.
It was at that moment, and when the fun was growing more fast and
furious than the respective mothers of those unconventional guests would
have thought permissible, that a small group of spectators suddenly
appeared upon the scene. It consisted of Sophy Duberly, Horace Vavasour,
and two of Lady Guernsey’s young daughters, who had volunteered the to
them delightful task of introducing Miss Duberly to where the tenants’
children were, at a humble distance, aping their superiors at the fashionable
game which the young aristocrats believed in as a spécialité of their own.
“It’s such fun to see them,” said Lady Margaret; “they haven’t an idea
how to play! Julia and I have been watching them without their knowing it,
and they are so stupid!”
This noble maiden, who was ten years of age, possessed a turn for satire
(which quality her mamma prudently suppressed. “It does not do, you
know, to encourage clever children to make remarks”); and it being
gratifying, as we all know, to find anyone performing anything worse than
we are capable of executing it ourselves, the little Lady Margaret was well-
pleased to act as show-woman of the plebeian sports, as they were
conducted that day. The approach of the party, walking slowly along the
greensward, was not noticed by the croquet-players (so exuberant was the
laughter that, not exactly, it is to be feared, under “sweet control of
gracefulness,” rang from their souls) till it was too late to look
conventionally demure, was not noticed, in short, till Lady Margaret and her
convoy were almost in the midst of Honor’s not very promising scholars.
She was the first to perceive them, and after a hurried glance, one of the
bright sudden blushes that was the most engaging of its attractions spread
over her beautiful face.
Sophy Duberly, like all those who saw Honor for the first time, was
struck, nay almost startled, by her loveliness. She longed to ask Horace
Vavasour the name of that peerless creature, but she was for the moment
obliged to restrain her curiosity; for they were almost within earshot of the
woman whom Horace knew so well by sight, knew too as the rival of the
gentle-natured heiress so soon to be his sister-in-law.
In common with all the world, the world at least of her own county,
Sophy had heard of the loveliness of the well-to-do farmer’s wife; and in
common too with many of her sex she had at one time felt some curiosity to
see the “Irish beauty” of whose marvellous attractions so much within her
hearing had been said. But the fleeting curiosity had long since passed
away, and the idea did not enter her head that the blushing girl before her
was identical with John Beacham’s bride. She looked so little like a
“common person’s” wife, so little indeed like any wife, as she stood there in
her girlish grace, with her pretty hat, her diaphanous dress, and looped-up
skirt. Poor Leech might have rejoiced over her as a perfect model of dainty
damselhood; but I think that Miss Sophy Duberly stands excused for not, on
the spur of the moment, surmising that Honor Beacham could be that
commonplace and necessarily unideal creature, a farmer’s wife!
 The appearance on their playground of the formidable strangers, but
more especially the unlooked-for advent of their little ladyships, produced a
very serious effect on the spirits of the children. Suddenly, and as though
struck by the wand of some mysterious fairy, their laughter was hushed,
their little hands hung down, and even their round bright faces seemed
lengthened and less rosy.
“Go on; pray don’t let us stop you,” Sophy said good-naturedly. But it
was of no use, the spell was broken; and in spite of Honor’s smiling
attempts to restore tranquillity, and to make them feel at home, the tenants’
ruddy-cheeked children refused to listen to the voice of the charmer, even
though that charmer was an affable young lady in one of Mrs. Heath’s
prettiest hats, and who was heiress to some eighty thousand (at least, so said
the voice of rumour) pounds per annum.
Honor was half-amused and half-provoked by the bashfulness which
induced this signal failure. “They are such tiresome little things,” she said,
with a shy smile, but not in the least awkwardly, and addressing herself
more to Miss Duberly than to Horace. Her own natural good taste
whispered to her that it was better (since that young lady had taken the
initiative) not to stand there like a person either waiting for an introduction,
or conscious of being too lowly placed to dare to speak before her
superiors. “They are so little used to strangers; they can be merry enough
though when they are by themselves.”
Horace was rather taken aback by Mrs. John’s proceeding; for he had
seen little of the world, and entertained rather old-fashioned ideas on the
subject of caste. That pretty girl’s relations too with his brother were, or
rather had been, peculiar; and Horace, as the wise head of the family
(whose doings and sayings he was, tant soit peu, given to criticise and
condemn), felt it incumbent on him—a false position entails so many false
moves—to be on this momentous occasion dignified and formal.
Lifting his hat gravely from his fair curls (a luxuriant crop of waving
hair was the solitary beauty which he had inherited from his dead father),
Horace Vavasour said, with a mingled stiffness and urbanity, worthy of the
future “public man:”
“I believe that I have the honour of speaking to Mrs. John Beacham?”
On hearing this semi-interrogation, Miss Sophy Duberly, young lady of
the world though she was, made a slight, though very perceptible, start of
surprise. Although, woman-like, she had kept the feeling closely concealed
within the impregnable fastnesses of her own breast, this young heiress had
nevertheless experienced some of the jealous pangs which female flesh is
heir to, on becoming acquainted—in a partial degree—with her lover’s
frequent visits to John Beacham’s farm. That she, an heiress, and,
consequent on that favoured condition, a petted beauty, should really be
slighted for the farmer’s wife, or indeed for any wife, was an idea that never
entered simple little Sophy Duberly’s head; but there nevertheless was a
soreness—if anyone had dared to call the feeling by the ugly name of
jealousy she would have repelled the charge indignantly—about that spot in
the young girl’s memory, which was connected with that beautiful Honor
Beacham, and therefore it was that she had not been able to repress that
foolish little start, which would have betrayed to any keen observer a mind
not entirely at ease. But although this was so, the kind feeling of the
indulged heiress towards a person so unmistakably her inferior (as the
warehouseman’s daughter, amiable though she was, believed Honor to be)
induced the bride-elect to attempt a task, in which, however, nature had
been beforehand with her—the task, that is to say, of preventing Mrs. John
Beacham from either looking or feeling, under these exceptional
circumstances, awkward or ill at ease.
“I am so sorry we interrupted you,” she was beginning, when a voice and
step behind her checked the words upon her lips. “Arthur!” she exclaimed
joyfully. “Ah, I was sure it was you! I thought you would come! But how
late it is!” And her two hands were held out for his acceptance joyfully. His
own were in hers, though, as Horace saw at once, he looked worn and
worried, when he perceived, though she had turned away on his arrival, the
presence there of Honor Beacham. Men, even the most practised ones, are,
when compared to women, poor dissemblers; so it need cause no surprise
that while Arthur Vavasour started, and displayed a momentary agitation,
Honor, on the contrary, betrayed not the slightest sign or token of emotion.
It might be that the very emergency of the case gave her courage to play a
part, for she guessed at once, from the tone and manner of her greeting, that
the affable young lady was Mr. Vavasour’s promised bride, and—stronger
reason still for showing a fearless front—she, the petted, prosperous wife,
had no guilty feelings to conceal, no cause to shrink from the inquiring gaze
either of friend or foe.
 She was very glad to see her friend, but she would have been better
pleased had their meeting been on horseback in the quiet lanes, or on foot in
the old-fashioned home-garden, where the pinks and roses were in the full
glory of their summer beauty. She had vaguely expected another meeting
there—not yet awhile, but when Arthur should come home again, after the
months she heard he meant to spend in foreign travel, and when he would
talk to her of all the curious sights that he had seen, and all the marvellous
adventures that had fallen to his lot. Half in sadness, half in hope, Honor
had indulged in all innocence this dream. She had grown accustomed to his
absence as to an inevitable necessity; had taught herself to think of him as
one to whom she had said (for the time at least) a last “farewell;” and
behold! there he was again,—tall, handsome, with those tender caressing
eyes looking, despite his future bride’s presence, into hers, and the hand, the
long-lingering pressure of which she remembered, alas, too well, holding,
for one speaking second, her own within its clasp.
“We have been interrupting Mrs. Beacham, who was good-naturedly
amusing the children,” said Horace. “They were as merry as any little
beggars could be, weren’t they, Lady Margaret? before we came, and now
they look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.”
“Won’t it?” said Arthur, laughing—he was always good-natured to
children, and especially to those that he had seen Honor pet. The little Clays
he was acquainted with, both personally and individually, and it was even
on record at the farm that the young Squire had given that ne’er-do-weel
boy Tommy his first lesson in the noble game of cricket. “What, tired
already! I never saw such idle brats! Here, you Tommy, run and fetch the
balls.”
But here Honor interposed. She did not want the children to be
troublesome; besides, the voice of conscience within her whispered that
Arthur Vavasour was in duty bound, so soon after his arrival, to devote
himself to his fiancée.
“You are very kind, Mr. Vavasour,” she said; “but I think that the little
ones must be tired; and Tommy,” stroking his swarthy cheek kindly as he
leant against the skirt of her fresh muslin dress, “is a bad boy, and mustn’t
be spoilt.”
Perhaps Arthur understood her, for he said no more about the croquet
game, nor did he, beyond a parting bow, respectful and commonplace, take
any notice of her departure, with little Tommy clinging to her skirt, and the
small blue-eyed girl, whose champion she had been, holding with all the
force of her tiny fingers Honor’s hand in hers.
“How pretty she is,” said Sophy, when they were out of hearing, “and so
well dressed and well behaved, too! She made quite a graceful curtsey as
she went away. I wonder where she learnt it.”
At that moment Sophy was utterly devoid of any jealous feelings
towards Mrs. Beacham. Hers was a very frank and unsuspicious nature, and
moreover, what was there to fear? Had not her dearly-loved Arthur been
instigated in his choice of her by love alone—a comfortable fact made
evident beyond dispute by the brilliancy of Mr. Vavasour’s future
prospects? In less than four years he would be one of the richest commoners
in England; how, then, could she entertain any of those misgivings which
are so apt to haunt the couch and damp the happy hopes of young ladies in
Miss Duberly’s position? But there was yet another cause for the mind at
ease with which “little Sophy” was blest, when, leaning on the arm of her
betrothed, she paid a not unwilling tribute to Mrs. Beacham’s beauty.
Ladies, more especially perhaps wealthy ones, are often rather apt to
overrate the influence of their ladyhood per se, while the loveliness of
women in a rank inferior to their own is shorn in their opinion, and for the
mere reason of that inferiority, of half its powder to charm. The coldness,
too, of Arthur’s parting salutation was well calculated to reassure one so
inexperienced in human wiles as “old Dub’s” guileless daughter. How was
she, poor child, to guess that, while her heart was throbbing with almost
wild delight at the unexpected happiness afforded by his presence, he, the
faithless one, while giving no outward signs of aught save pleasure in her
beaming smiles and tender words, was thinking only of the simplest, easiest
way in which to make his escape to Honor, and turning over in his mind the
least perilous words in which to reveal to the wife of his dead father’s friend
the fact that he adored her!
 CHAPTER IV.

THE HALF-REBUKE.
“I had not the slightest intention of coming back—God knows I had not—
when I went away; but I am the weakest fool. I told myself again and again
that I was mad, and worse, to come where—where you are, Honor;” and he
drew a long breath as the word came hesitatingly from his lips; “but it
would not do. The more I tried to forget, the more I remembered; and the
oftener I told myself that I must not see you, the more some evil thing
within me urged me on to come.”
Honor had listened to him hitherto in silence; partly through surprise,
and partly too because of that pitiable shrinking which so many women,
especially young women, experience when it becomes their duty to hurt the
feelings of men who venture to address them in language that ought to be
forbidden. If we could look with any degree of perspicacity into the
intricacies of female motives, I think it would be found that there is no
inconsiderable amount of selfishness in this fear of wounding the
susceptibilities of a too daring admirer. The chances that the hero of a
hundred such fights, when wounded and worsted in the last encounter, will
betake himself to fresh fields and pastures new, is not altogether an
agreeable one. The sternly virtuous female, left alone with the sole reward
—not always a sufficing one—of an approving conscience, is (and she
looks forward to this dismal fait accompli with no reassuring glance) not
precisely in a cheerful position. It is never pleasant to be forsaken—never
consoling to be abandoned to the society of a dull, unappreciating husband,
or, greater evil still, to the company of a woman’s own thoughts, the more
especially when that woman has allowed herself to listen to the voice of the
charmer, and has grown accustomed to the flattering attentions of an ever
awake and devoted soupirant. So the foolish wife—a well-intentioned one,
possibly, in spite of vanity and its consequent shortcomings—temporises,
deliberates, puts off till a more convenient season the vindication of her
matronly dignity, unconscious meanwhile that her feet are on the brink of a
precipice, and that the avenger of guilty thoughts is treading swift behind
her.
 Neither the absence of moral courage, the dread of giving offence, nor
the very natural objection to the loss of an agreeable admirer, are
diminished by the fact that the admirer in question is the lady’s superior in
the social scale; and it is more than possible that had Arthur Vavasour been
a farmer’s son, Honor would have found comparatively little difficulty in
expressing the indignation which she was well aware she ought to feel on
listening to words which were scarcely less than a declaration of love.
“I haven’t offended you?” he said, looking anxiously at her half-averted
face. “I thought we were friends; I am sorry, so sorry, if I have vexed you,
but you must forgive me. It is so difficult, so impossible, to see much of
anyone—I mean anyone like you—without—without becoming stupidly
confidential; and I could not—indeed I could not—help telling you how I
had missed you when I was away. You see, I am so strangely situated, so—”
He stopped; it was such dangerous ground that on which he had begun to
tread: he on the very verge of matrimony; and, as it appeared on the face of
things, so entirely guided to that verge by his own wishes and inclinations.
Honor looked up at him in surprise.
“You are going to be married,” she said coldly. “You told me so yourself,
and I have seen the young lady that is to be your wife. She is rich and
pretty, and looks nice and kind. Why do you say that you are strangely
situated?”
“Why,” said Arthur impetuously, “because I should never, no, not for
one single moment, have dreamt of marrying Miss Duberly if I had not
been driven to it by—but,” he went on with a hard bitter laugh, “it sounds
too ridiculous to say by what. You would not believe now, Mrs. Beacham—
you, who know so little of the world, and of what is called business, and of
human nature—that I, whom people in general think so much to be envied,
‘heir to such a splendid property’—young, prosperous, everything that is
most delightful—should be—don’t laugh if you can help it—marrying for
money.”
Again she looked at him, but this time with eyes full of pity and distress.
“How strange!” she said softly. “No, indeed, I never should have thought
that; I always believed—I always fancied—”
“That I was one of those jolly fellows that can do what they like, and
have everything their own way. How wonderfully you, and everyone else
are mistaken! I should just like—no, I shouldn’t, it would be such a bitter
shame—to have the whole business shown up. I know I must seem such an
awful screw sometimes, such a confounded cur! People must wonder why I
don’t subscribe to charities and asylums, and to the hounds; and, now—why
I marry this girl,—this heiress, who,” he continued as if talking to himself,
“is no connection, has no beauty; while I—well, in the common course of
nature, may expect to live a few years longer—to a rational age that is—for
what is called ‘settling down.’ The truth is”—and here he lowered his
voice, although there was no one within hearing, to a whisper—“the truth
is, that I have no inclination, no ‘call,’ as they say, to marry. If Miss
Duberly were the most beautiful creature that ever breathed, I should feel
the same. It is now three months since I engaged myself to Sophy Duberly,
and since then”—with a glance full of meaning at his companion—“I have
had time to discover that on her account, as well as my own, I have made a
grievous and fatal mistake.”
Arthur had truly said that Honor knew but little of the world. She had
heard and read scarcely anything of love and lovers, but her woman’s
instinct warned her, as it would have warned any delicate-minded woman,
that this confidence on Vavasour’s part was one of which he ought to be
ashamed. Nature had given her a loyal heart, and it was not loyal—there
especially, and almost as it were within earshot of the girl who trusted him
—to confide to her his repugnance to a marriage from which he owned he
was to “suck out no small advantage.” Her judgment might be warped by
her pity and by the pride she took in Arthur’s companionship, but nothing
could, in her eyes, totally excuse him; and moreover she was too thoroughly
womanly not to feel some compassion for the girl who was to be the joint
victim of Mr. Vavasour’s necessities.
It was this compassion, this truly feminine feeling for one whose
sorrows she was so well able to understand, that prompted Honor’s reply,
and encouraged her to be brave.
“I don’t like to hear you talk in this way, Mr. Vavasour,” she said, her
heart beating rather quickly as she summoned all her resolution to her aid.
“It isn’t right—indeed, indeed it isn’t. If you do not love this poor young
lady, you ought never to have said it—to me—to anyone—not even to
yourself. What good can it do now to say such things? Nothing—you know
it can’t; and besides, you will be happy, I am sure you will, after you are
married—I—”
 “Are you so very happy?” he said meaningly, and stopping in his walk to
look into the depths of her violet eyes. “Are you certain, from your own
experience, that happiness must follow after marriage?”
She turned away. “You have no right to ask these questions,” she said
hurriedly. “Mr. Vavasour, I ask you—beg you not to say such things to me!
Why will you do it,” she added imploringly, “when you know how much it
vexes and annoys me?”
He was quieted in a moment; brought for the nonce, by the sight of her
unfeigned distress, to a sense of his misconduct, and said quite humbly:
“I am very sorry; I will not offend you again—never! But at least let us
part friends. We are quite near the people and the tent now. Give me one
moment before you go back to be happy. Only say that you forgive me; say
that you will think kindly of me, and wish me well when I am far away.”
“I shall think of you—I do wish you well,” she stammered out, not
relaxing her pace, but advancing steadily towards the place where, about ten
minutes before (for her interview with Vavasour, long as it has taken to
relate, had occupied no greater space of time), she had left that, in her own
opinion, important personage, Mrs. Beacham, seated under the branches of
a spreading lime-tree, listening to village scandal from the lips of a
congenial gossip.
“O, there is milady at last,” the former exclaimed, as Honor, escorted by
Mr. Vavasour, advanced slowly towards them. “You’ve been a pretty time
away, Mrs. John; and here ’ave I been looking for you everywhere.”
She spoke very crossly, an irritability occasioned not only by Honor’s
short absence, which the old lady had magnified into five times its actual
length, but by the “incivility,” as she called it, of Mr. Arthur, who, instead
of staying to say something “pretty,” had, after making what she supposed
he considered a “fine bow,” taken himself off to some of his “great
acquaintances;” a slight which Mrs. Beacham did not appear very likely
soon to look over.
“I’m sorry I went away, and sorrier still if you’ve been wanting me,”
Honor said good-humouredly. “Mr. Vavasour wanted to show me a tree—
such a beautiful one!—I forget its name; but if you would like to see it, I
could find the way again. The branches all feather down to the ground, and
the leaves are so wonderfully green! I shall ask John to have some at the
Paddocks.”
 “Humph! I don’t fancy that John will care to indulge you much with
anything when he hears of your goings-on.”
“Goings-on!” repeated Honor almost mechanically, for she was too
much astonished by this sudden attack to answer coherently. “I don’t quite
understand—really I don’t. I did not know I was doing wrong when I
walked a little way with Mr. Vavasour. I would not have gone for anything
in the world if I had thought that you or John would have minded it.”
At that moment John himself, looking a little warm and discomposed,
strode up the rising ground towards the spreading lime-trees under which
the old lady, hugging closely her wrath and jealousy, was grimly waiting his
approach. John was the kindest-hearted man alive. He would not wantonly
hurt the feelings even of an enemy (always supposing him to have owned
such a commodity); but Honor had not been married three months without
discovering that her husband was what is called “hasty,” and that in those
exceptional moments when he was a trifle “put about,” the wisest plan was
to leave him alone till he should have recovered himself. Mrs. Beacham,
however—whether owing to the absence of perceptive qualities, or from an
idea that her son was not too old to be spoilt by over-indulgence—went on
different tactics, and generally (at least so it appeared to Honor) chose the
occasions when poor John was not quite himself to “touch him up,” as the
good man would himself have said, “on the raw.”
“Well, John, I must say you’ve taken your time,” the old lady, in
conformity with this judicious practice, was beginning; but her son, who, as
a rule, was accustomed to let his mother “have her fling,” stopped her
further speech by an authoritative wave of his hand, while he said in a
louder voice than he had ever yet used to Honor (they were comparatively
alone, for the gossip had moved away when matters begun to look serious
between Mrs. John and the old lady):
“I’ve had a pretty dance, I have, this hour and more. Catch me, that’s all,
ever coming to their tomfooleries again! Not I, indeed—no, not even if the
Queen upon her throne was to be at the head of ’em!” And, in corroboration
of this spirited resolve, John Beacham struck his stout stick into the ground
with rather more of the strength of his good right arm than the occasion
warranted.
“Why, what’s the matter, John?” Honor said, amused, as any girl of her
age might have been at his words and action. “What has anyone done to put
you in such a pet?” And, half in reparation of the wrongs, slight though they
were, which she was conscious of having done him, she stole her arm
through his, and looked up with an air of pretty entreaty into his face.
The sight was gall and wormwood to his mother. To do her justice, she
really had talked and thought herself into the belief that Honor—this girl
taken, as it pleased her to say, out of charity, and without so much as a
“smock” to her back—was behaving undutifully and ungratefully to the
husband who had bestowed upon her so many and such unmerited
blessings. Her unjust prejudice did not go the length of persuading her that
there was anything “really wrong” in her daughter-in-law’s conduct; but
that Honor was vain, fond of admiration, and given to the liking of having
“men about her,” Mrs. Beacham entertained no doubt. It was high time too
that John, who was so ridiculous about Honor, should have a little idea of
what she really was. Not that she wished to cause anything of
disagreeableness between them. John was married—more was the pity—
and he must make the best of it; but it did not follow that something
mightn’t be done to put poor John upon his guard, and to show “milady”
(the satirical old lady’s ironical petit nom for her daughter-in-law) that she
wasn’t going to lead that unsuspecting John altogether by the nose.
“What has been done now, John, to put you in such a pet?” Honor said,
little surmising that she had either act or part in her husband’s evident
annoyance.
He looked for a moment searchingly into her honest eyes—eyes that had
never deceived him yet, and in which he had yet to learn distrust.
Something that he read there reassured him, for he softly patted, before he
answered her, the hand that rested on his arm.
“It isn’t much that you have to do with it, my dear, I reckon, after all,” he
said, drawing a long pouf of satisfaction, after which, for his still further
solace, he wiped his hot forehead with his handkerchief. “To tell you the
truth, though, I thought at one time you had; and the man is such an
unmitigated scamp!”
Honor coloured to the roots of her fair hair at this uncompromising
epithet. For a single instant she thought that John was speaking of Arthur
Vavasour; and, despite the corroborative evidence of her own ears, a sudden
pang of anger against her plain outspoken husband shot through her brain.
In another second, however, the current of her ideas was checked; for John
continued: “How these fine people can allow such a fellow as Colonel
Norcott to come inside their doors passes my understanding! A man that has
a way of looking at ’em that no modest woman ought to bear; and then
there’s the things he’s known to have done, and the—But I’m not going into
all that. Someone told me he was married and going to reform—a thing I
won’t believe till I see it; but in the mean time he’s trying it on to scrape
acquaintance with me. Sent me a message by Clay’s eldest little chap, to say
he should be glad before I left Danescourt to have a few minutes
conversation with me—the impudence of the fellow! And yet I’m curious
now, bad as I think of him, to know what he can have to say. I wasn’t over
civil an hour or two ago to the fellow, so it’s odd, ain’t it, altogether? He
never said where he’d be neither, nor where I should be likely to find him;
and the odd thing is—and what did put me out till I came to think for
certain it wasn’t true—one of the little chaps that I asked if he’d seen the
Colonel said that—hang him! you may well look alive, mother—he had
been walking about among the trees with Honor there!”
“How absurd!” Honor said. “My dear John, I never set eyes on him after
you told me who he was.”
“Yes, indeed, I can answer for that,” put in Mrs. Beacham. “Honor has
been better amused, John, by a good deal than in looking after Colonel
Norcott.”
“Looking after” and “better amused”—what did it all mean? John was
not the most perspicacious of mortals, yet even he could perceive the
something in his mother’s speech which meant more than met the ear. After
all, what is easier than to stir into a blaze an already well-laid fire? while to
“hint a fault, and hesitate dislike,” are means well suited to raise a storm;
and is it not too sadly true that in the simplest sounding words, the kindest
and least-designing nature can, if his mood he attuned to suspicion,
sometimes read a volume?
Intensely as John Beacham admired his wife’s beauty, he had, somewhat
strange to say, been awake for the first time that day to a sense of its effect
on others. His wrath—the natural wrath of a man and a husband—had been
grievously stirred within him at the sight of Fred Norcott’s bold stare into
Honor’s modest eyes. He had noted the crimson flush that made her look so
passing lovely, and feared—not without good cause—that the hardened
profligate, who had never had the grace to hide under a bushel his solitary
talent (the truly Mephistophelian one of beguiling fond and foolish women
to their own destruction), would discover in Honor’s rising colour only
another proof, if proof were wanting, of his own irresistible power to
fascinate. At that moment—so unjust does personal annoyance often render
even the best amongst us—John felt half angry with his wife for this
additional proof, had proof been wanting, of a delicacy and reserve which
repelled with indignation the coarse incense offered for her acceptance. It
certainly was wrong on John’s part; but then you must remember that he
was not a fashionable husband—was, in fact, only a clod, as Colonel
Norcott’s might have said; and being only a clod, he may be excused for
holding certain anti-Mormon and old-world ideas. For instance, this stupid,
selfish fellow, entertaining the barbaric notion of keeping his wife’s beauty
for his own delectation, would, I fear, have strongly objected to seeing that
well-conducted young woman join in the “voluptuous waltz”—

“The only dance that teaches girls to think”—

while the faintest suspicion that, even in a dream (an involuntary

indiscretion suggested by the example of the upper ten thousand), wife of
his might be capable of putting in an appearance at opera or ball in the dress
à la mode, which, for want of a proper name, we will call costume de
Paradis, would have taken away honest John’s breath to entertain. An
exhibition des beaux arts, in the shape of his fair young wife’s bust and
shoulders, for the benefit of amateurs, would have been simply shameful in
the eyes of that unsophisticated horse-breeder; and this being the good
man’s turn of mind, it was with something of irritated jealousy that he took
up his mother’s words, inquiring of her thus by implication what Honor had
been about.
“Looking after Colonel Norcott! I don’t understand what you can mean,
mother; I—”
But before he could proceed any further in his inquiries, he was
interrupted by a slight tap on the shoulder, and by the voice of the man
whose name he had just uttered, whispering in his ear:
“I am glad to have found you at last, Mr. Beacham; and I shall be glad if
you will step this way, and allow me the favour of a few minutes’
conversation.”
 The words in themselves were courteous enough—too courteous,
perhaps, as spoken to one whom Colonel Norcott believed to be his inferior.
There was condescension mingled with their graciousness; and John,
despising as he did from the bottom of his heart the man who uttered them,
followed very unwillingly, and with a tolerably ungracious air, this
agreeable profligate to a short distance under the branching trees.
 CHAPTER V.

“THAT WAS HONOR’S MOTHER?”

After Colonel Norcott’s short interview with Arthur, and the decision to
which he had arrived regarding the extent of the latter’s insane passion for
Honor Beacham, the astute and thoroughly unprincipled man to whom that
unsuspecting young person owed her birth very soon made up his mind to
impart, with certain reservations and under the seal of secrecy, the history of
Honor’s birth to the husband who was so entirely ignorant of his young
bride’s antecedents. For more reasons than one it was his object, and for his
interest, to keep a hold, as he would have termed it, both on Arthur
Vavasour and the quondam owner of the Derby favourite. To obtain such a
hold, he had planned, and thought, and plotted; and now (it really did look
as if Providence was about at last to favour him) there turned up, without an
effort on his part, the very thing that was required to set the wheel of
fortune briskly turning in his favour. But with all his effrontery, and in spite
of his much-boasted savoir vivre, Colonel Norcott did not feel quite at his
ease as he strode along the greensward with that honest John by his side.
Now that he was on the verge of making his confession, it did not seem
quite so easy as it had appeared at first to reveal to a moral and possibly—
for he knew very little about John’s principles and professions—a religious
man that little episode in his bygone life in which the horse-breeder was,
although he remained in ignorance of the fact, so deeply interested.
He had made up his mind—solely from interested motives—to disclose
to John Beacham the fact that he, Fred Norcott, was the father of his wife.
He felt no shame (in the abstract) for having so long neglected the daughter
who owed to him the very doubtful blessing of her birth. Had Honor been a
plain girl, coarse-featured and large-footed, it would have been long enough
before Fred Norcott would have taken the trouble to own his paternity; but
being, as she was, beautiful exceedingly, and withal possessing that
indescribable air of good breeding without which loveliness loses half its
value, the man who knew so well how to turn “circumstances” to good
account saw at once that advantage might accrue to himself through the
agency of his neglected child. Had the man whom he was about to make his
confidant been one of his own class and kind, Norcott would, instead of
awkwardness, have experienced a comfortable feeling of satisfaction while
revealing the history of the past, as that history was connected with the
pretty Irish girl. It was not a new story, neither did its details differ greatly
from the most ordinary and commonplace records of, alas, the commonest
crime that is or is not made public, as the case may be, in the dismal
registers of misery and vice. But, though neither new nor striking, Fred’s
story was still one which, told in his lively fashion, would probably have
been listened to greedily enough by the lovers of such piquant narratives.
The dark shades—there generally are dark shades in that description of
story—would have been softened down as a matter of course, but the facts,
as the Colonel would have put them, contained enough to interest, without
having recourse to the lachrymose. There was Winifred to describe—“such
a glorious girl, by Jove!” And “then, you know, such a number of fellows
had tried it on, and failed!” By the ruffian’s own account, too, how fond this
woman, whom he had left to die a miserable death, had been of him!
—“would have gone through fire and water for me, by George! That kind of
girl, you know. But what is one to do?” appealing to his friend’s sympathy
with a slightly injured air, as though aware that the aggressive nature of a
woman’s fondness is a legitimate ground of complaint against that weak
and troublesome sex. “What can one do in cases of that sort? Nothing, that I
know of, but skedaddle; and that’s a bore sometimes, if one happens to be
fond of the girl, which one isn’t, you know, nine cases out of ten.”
But though Colonel Norcott could have talked cheerily and by the hour
together to his co-mates on this and similar themes of probably mutual
interest, words did not come so readily to his tongue when his only auditor
was a man who would probably see neither a pleasant jest nor a subject for
self-glorification in the betrayal of a young and trusting girl. For a moment,
so embarrassed did this free-and-easy-man of the world find himself, he
more than half decided on seeking some other pretext than the real one for
the interview he had sought for; time pressed, however, and no other
suggestion offering itself, he was fain, nolens volens, to pursue his original
intention, and make what is called a “clean breast” (though Heaven knows
that his would be dirty enough after any amount of sweeping and
garnishing) to straightforward, unsophisticated John Beacham.
“I want to speak to you, Mr. Beacham,” he said confidentially, “on a
subject which—er—er—is one that you cannot fail to be—er—er—
interested in; and, at the same time, that I—” he grew more fluent when it
was a question of himself—“have very much at heart.”
He paused. It was a fairly-rounded period, and one of which he had no
reason to be ashamed; but John, who did not seem greatly struck by the
merits of this exordium, contented himself for all reply with making a stiff
and decidedly uncompromising bow. There was something both of defiance
and contempt in the action, and it roused Norcott to the immediate
unfolding of his secret.
“You will be surprised at what I’m going to say,” he began, stroking his
under-lip the while with the smooth gilt knob of his dandy bamboo
walking-cane. “Decidedly surprised, I’ll go bail; and so was I myself two
hours ago, when I heard what I’m going to tell you. Had no more idea of it,
upon my soul and honour, than an infant.”
“I beg your pardon, Colonel Norcott,” said John hastily, for his
impatience at the other’s delay was beginning to get the better of his
politeness. “I should be obliged if you would say anything you have to say
to me at once, for I—”
“O, nonsense! Stop a minute, man; why, one would think you had the
devil and all of business on your hands, or else that you were in a hurry—
by George,” he added playfully, “I believe it’s that!—to look after your
wife.”
The colour deepened visibly on John Beacham’s always ruddy cheek at
this coarse allusion to the delicate girl, whose beauty he was perhaps fully
as capable of appreciating as if he had belonged to the Travellers’, and worn
a coat manufactured by Poole.
“Sir,” he said, mastering his passion by an effort which nothing short of
his fear of rendering his wife’s name a theme for public gossip would have
rendered possible, “Mrs. Beacham is not, in my presence, to be spoken
about by strangers. I have no wish to be rude, none in the least—but—but
as neither my wife nor I desire your acquaintance, you will allow me,”
raising his low-crowned wide-awake about an inch from his head, “to wish
you a good-evening.”
The answer to this broad hint that the interview might be considered at
an end was a low laugh, which, to John’s exasperated ears, sounded very
like an insult.
 “One lives and learns,” he said provokingly; “and some day, when you
are as old I am—not that there’s so much difference between our ages—I
say, if it’s not impertinent, how old, may I ask, are you?”
John could have “punched the fellow’s head,” as he said afterwards, at
that moment with the greatest pleasure in life. He was the last man in the
world to be sensitive on the score of his age. The whole universe might
have known, for what he cared, that he was thirty-seven; but he did not
choose to put up with impertinence on that or any other subject from
Colonel Norcott. Before, however, he could make that resolution known in
words, his free-and-easy interlocutor was off at another score.
“What was I saying? O, about finding out things; that, however, is
neither here nor there, so we had better come to the point at once. What I
propose asking you is, whether you did not notice my looking rather hard at
your wife when I passed her an hour or two ago.”
At this apparently wanton insult John lost his temper altogether.
“Now, by G—!” he was beginning, while his clenched fist came very
near in his strong excitement to Fred’s well-curled whiskers. But the latter
did not give him time to proceed.
“Come, now,” he said, with a composure which was in striking contrast
to the other’s look of concentrated passion, “keep yourself cool. It’s a bore
when a man flies off in that kind of way. You can’t suppose I meant to
insult your wife. Ridiculous! But husbands are such fools! The reason why I
looked at Mrs. Beacham—but first let me ask you one question: do you
know anything of your wife’s family, of her connections? or did you take—
I beg your pardon—a pig in a poke, and trust to thingummy—Providence, I
mean—that everything was right?”
John hesitated ere he replied to these home questions. They had diverted
the channel of his wrath, and had aroused the dormant spirit of curiosity
within his breast. Here, perhaps, was the once earnestly wished-for
opportunity of learning something concerning his dearly-loved Honor’s
birth and belongings. It was singular, certainly, and not wholly satisfactory,
that the channel of information should be a person for whom he felt so
much dislike and contempt as Colonel Norcott. But because he both
detested and scorned the medium, it did not follow that he should reject the
offered intelligence—intelligence, too, which he felt perfectly convinced,
both from Colonel Norcott’s manner and the singular step he had taken, was