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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
"It's him," said Sarah positively. "And he looks bad, too," she added as an afterthought
Mr. Renshaw finished his glass of wine with a haste which, considering the quality of
the liquor, was most astonishing; and betook himself immediately to the office. There,
indeed, was Yeoman Fleetwood, standing unconsciously in the shadow of the curtain,
his arms folded, his eyes bent upon the ground. His strongly marked face looked more
rugged than usual, haggard as it was and drawn. It was actually stamped with that pitiful
semblance of age which a great shock, or a great sorrow, brings sometimes even to the
very young.
The lawyer started back; then, as Simon, hearing him enter, looked up and removed his
hat, he came forward exclaiming: "Good Lord, lad, I took you for your father — or
rather your father's ghost. I protest if it were not for those brown locks of yours I should
say this minute that you were his double. What have you been doing with yourself,
Simon? What has made such an old man of you?"
"Have you heard nothing, then?" said Simon.
The query recalled Mr. Renshaw to himself. "I have heard too much," he said gravely.
“I have heard so many tales, Simon Fleetwood, that I know not which to believe. Ton
my word, lad, I find it hard to believe any of them," he added, softening suddenly; "but
what a strange face is that of yours. Something must have happened, surely?”
The yeoman was silent, and his old friend, coming a little nearer to him, laid his
withered hands upon his shoulders, and peered into his face.
“Come, it's never true that you carried off the Squire's daughter?"
"Yes," said Simon; "we went away together to be married."
[305]
“Oh, fie!" cried the lawyer. "Oh, tut, tut! Dear me! dear me! Why — why, what a
monstrous thing — I couldn't have believed it of you."
He withdrew his hands from Simon's shoulders, shook his head, took a pinch of snuff,
and then fell back a step or two.
"Pray, young man," he inquired with a sidelong glance, "did you marry the young lady,
and, if so, what has become of her? Have you brought her home?"