Was I right to defend myself against these local toughs?

I was sipping a gin in the local alehouse last night, when a pair of local toughs, wearing sports brands and drinking 'lager', shouted obsenities at me and my good lady wife. It was when one of these meatheaded oafs accussed me of being 'a posh c*ck-jockey' that I finally saw red. I confronted the pair, who lunged at me with a brutality I have never seen. Well, I had no option but to bring these hooligans to the floor with my cane. Now, I feel bad about what I have become - just as violent and aggressive as these poor fools whom I so unkindly dispateched to the floor.