The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
“Do you know," she said in a low tone, so low that he had to bend down to catch the
words, "do you know, Simon, why I have run all this way, without any one's
knowledge, just to see you? It is because I know all that has happened, and I have come
to bid you hope."
There was so dead a silence after this that she turned round again and stole a glance at
him. And she saw that in his face which made her start and tremble in her turn.
[159]
Simon's nature was a reserved one. He had no more mind to display his feelings than
have the generality of Englishmen; but when he was deeply moved he showed it and
was not for that reason less of a true man.
“Still waters run deep," the proverb says, but the converse does not always obtain; for
though shallow streams brawl and prattle over the pebbles a few inches below their
surface, who shall say that the mighty waters of an ocean are silent, or that a river
rushes onward without noise? The mariner afloat on the illimitable seas marks how the
waters leap highest there, where no man can plumb the depths, and knows that no sound
in nature has half the volume of the mere breathing of the deep.
Rachel gave a little gasp.
"Ah, Mr. Simon," she cried, "how you must love her!"
Simon woke from his dream and gazed at her in his turn, first bewildered, then deeply
disturbed; then he flushed to the very temples with an odd kind of shame.
"Mr. Fleetwood," said Rachel a little distantly, "I think you are very extraordinary. You
must know what I mean — indeed, you have betrayed yourself — but you would, I
suppose, keep your secret from me. But let me tell you I know all about it, and will be
your friend. Poor Bertha is very unhappy. You know, I suppose, since he was with you
last night, that her brother has been called home on urgent business? An express from
Liverpool has just come, desiring her to join him there early to-morrow, and she
considers herself obliged to obey the summons. It is all a mystery to her, but she thinks
— she guesses that it is on her account her brother is anxious to get away from this
place. She was inconsolable till I promised to tell you-”