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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
Aunt Binney's tall, angular form was perceptible in the background, and her highpitched
voice was presently heard in loud tones of approval.
[17]
"Of all the pictur’s! If he isn't the spit an' image of's father. The very moral of him he is;
only your hair used to be sandy, Simon."
"Aye, the lad takes after his mother in that," said Mr. Fleetwood. "His hair's a bonny
colour."
"I am glad I did not know you when your hair was sandy, Mr. Fleetwood," said his wife.
Standing on tiptoe, she pushed the abundant grey locks back from his broad forehead.
"It must look much nicer now," she said, surveying him with a critical air. The yeoman
smiled with an expression that was at once amused and tender and a little sad.
"You see after all, my love, age has some advantage." He imprisoned the little hand that
was still meditatively stroking his brow, and kissed it with old-fashioned gallantry.
Simon did not at the time take in the meaning of the little scene. But he went to bed that
night more than ever convinced that his father was the kindest and most perfect of men.
All men ought to be very good, and all boys ought to try to be, because some day they
would also be men. It was a comfort to know that women were different, and that what
had startled and grieved him in the behaviour of his beautiful mother was only quite
natural, because there were two kinds of right and wrong, and what would be very
reprehensible in man or boy was no harm at all in woman.
[18]
CHAPTER II.
We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move;
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse;
And human things, returning on themselves,
Move onward, leading up the golden year. —Tennyson.