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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
was made patent to him in a moment; and his face as he turned it towards his would-be
supplanter was so terrible that the man thought his last hour had come.
At first sight of the dandy Simon had felt his heart grow hot within him with wrath and
scorn. For all his hermit life and apparent tranquillity of mood this dweller amid woods
and fields was intensely human, and all that day had been a prey to one of the strongest
and fiercest of the primary passions — the jealous love which scarce can brook the
presence of a rival. But now on realising that this affected fop, whom he had disdained
as a mere apology for a man, was at heart so black a traitor as to plan the
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abduction of an unsuspecting girl, and that girl Simon's heart's beloved, a gust of fury
took possession of him which for the moment swept his strong, self-contained nature
past its moorings.
Tightening his grasp on the baronet's pinioned arms he swung him off his feet, raised
him bodily in the air, and would have dashed him violently against the tree-trunk had
not Sir Walter, lifting up his voice, uttered a wail of terror, shrill and tremulous like that
of a woman. On hearing it Simon came to himself, paused, still holding the swaying
form, and finally cast it down roughly enough upon the marshy ground. He himself
dropped with his victim, and knelt beside him, still imprisoning his arms.
"You cur!" he said. “By Heaven! I was within an ace of dashing out those miserable
brains of yours. I thank my God that I stopped myself in time, for I would not be a
murderer. You are too poor a thing to fight with, but, by Heaven! I will make sure that
you plot no more. Mark me, Sir Walter Brooke, if you dare to harass Rachel Charnock
again, by word or deed, you shall rue it all the days of your life. Do not think to escape
me. I will not kill you —so I tell you plainly -but I will spoil your beauty for you. No
lady's heart shall ache again for your handsome face when I have done with you. Now,
sit up, and give me that paper."
He released Sir Walter, but remained on the alert, ready to seize him again if he
attempted to escape.
Now, the abject physical terror to which that dapper young buck had recently been a
prey had come as a surprise even to himself. Like other youths of his kidney, he rather