He stood stock still under the flailing, and the heart went out of Peterson.

Had Dick fought or struggled, it would have been all right and natural; but this was such a cold-blooded business, and a strange but strongly-felt superiority of spirit in the boy awed and confused the big man, and the beating was but gingerly done after all.
'Come, Dickie, dear,' said Mrs.Haddon, in a penitent tone and with much humility.
She led the boy into his room, and there addressed a diffident and halting speech to him.

There were times when Mrs.Haddon had a sense of being younger and weaker than her son, and this was one of them.

She felt it her duty to tell Dick of the sinfulness of his conduct, and to try to justify the punishment, but her words fell ineptly from her lips,--she knew them to be vain against the power that held Dick silent and tearless, and yet without a trace of boyish stubbornness.

She was not a very wise little woman, or her son's force of character might have been turned early to good works and profitable courses.
In truth the thrashing had had an extraordinary effect on Richard Haddon.
For a boy to be kicked, or clouted, or tweaked by strange men is the fortune of war--it is a mere everyday incident, the natural and accepted fate of all boys, and is swiftly resented with a jibe or a missile and forgotten on the spot; but to be taken in cold blood by one strange man, not a schoolmaster or in any way privileged, and deliberately and systematically larruped with a belt under the eyes of another, is burning shame.