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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
Seeing him so happy and untroubled, the lady forbore to give voice to her own fears;
but her face still wore a doubtful expression as she withdrew into the house.
[256]
CHAPTER XXIII.
It was a lover, and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green cornfields did pass. —Shakespeare.
Sleep was long in coming to Simon that night, and though at last bodily fatigue
overcame mental excitement, he would start from his slumbers every now and then with
a great throb of joy: “Rachel loves me! Rachel is mine!" He did not ask himself if he
were dreaming, for in truth our dreams only cheat us in minor matters; great happiness,
like great sorrow, dominates our consciousness when we sleep as well as when we
wake. The reigning joy or grief is enthroned, as it were, in the background of our mind,
while our dream-fancies sport with us; and even while we dally with these shadowy
visions we are aware that the reality will still hold court when they melt away. Simon
knew his happiness was no dream, and yet it seemed to him so marvellous, so
extraordinary, that he could scarce comprehend how it had come to pass. He had said of
Rachel once that she was as much above him as the stars of heaven; he had thought of
her in later days as a prize, within reach, indeed, but one that would be long withheld;
and now, behold! of her own free will she had come to him —she had given herself to
him, she had told him that she loved him. No wonder that the very inmost depths of his
being were stirred with almost incredulous delight.
[257]
All that day he went about his work in a kind of maze of rapture, busy with the thought
of Rachel, though he deemed it more discreet to keep away from the Hall.
Whithersoever he went, her image hovered before him; the very beat of his footsteps
seemed to mark time to the song which filled his heart — Love, love, love, love. He