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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
CHAPTER XX.
With tranquil step, and timid downcast glance,
Behold the well-paired couple now advance,
In such sweet posture our first parents moved,
While, hand in hand, through Eden's bowers they roved,
Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false,
Turned their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz. — Sheridan.
Miss Belinda's funeral was all that she could have wished in her most sanguine
moments. Simon spared no expense in carrying out the plan she had laid down, though
the pomp, and ceremonial, and artificiality of this simulated mourning were repulsive to
him, in his own genuine grief. He would have liked to have followed a simple coffin on
foot and in the company of the few who had known and loved the good old lady; but,
nevertheless, was determined on keeping his promise to the very letter.
So coal-black horses, with phenomenally long manes and tails, stamped in the courtyard
of the Farm, and plumes waved, and scarves and hatbands and black gloves were duly
served out, and Susan, Dolly, and Bill sat in state in one of the coaches, in blissful
melancholy — if such a combination be possible — and conscious that their own
equipage, as containing members of the household, took precedence even of the Squire's
carriage. For Mr. Charnock had made no demur when his daughter formulated her
request, and was, indeed, tickled at the poor old lady's anxiety for the honour, and
perhaps not ill-pleased at the opportunity for proving to his humbler
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neighbours what a kind-hearted and condescending gentleman he was. And poor Simon
sate alone as chief mourner in his own gloomy vehicle, and thought very sadly of the
old times that would never come again, and of how now the last link with the past was
broken.
The autumn wore away, and the winter came, and Simon's life flowed on uneventfully
enough. Madam Charnock lost no opportunity of showing him kindness, and Simon was