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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
The child only wailed in reply, and Simon took the law into his own hands, and
stripping off his jacket, wrapped it round her. According to the custom of the time her
little feet and legs were insufficiently covered by the thinnest of socks and shoes, and
she was now almost incapable of moving them. Simon had a natural tenderness for all
live things, and had, moreover, been taught from his earliest childhood to respect and
compassionate the weakness of the other sex. The sufferings of this very small
specimen of woman-kind aroused all his sympathy, and it was with acute distress that
he listened to her cries.
"Are you hurt?" he asked suddenly, fearing that she might have sustained some injury
that he knew not of. "Tell me, is it only the cold, or does anything pain you?"
"It's my hands," sobbed the little creature; "they do hurt, oh they do!"
She held out two minute gloveless hands, black and blue, and doubtless acutely painful
with cold. Simon remembered the agony which he had himself endured, when once, as a
very little fellow, he had stood about
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with his father one cold market-day, and how his father had only restored the circulation
to his own small suffering members by warming them in his capacious bosom.
"Poor little hands!" he said gently. "Put them in here; we'll soon warm them. Now, we'll
run for it, shall we?" He cuddled her close to him, and set off at a brisk pace, feeling as
though two small bits of ice were pressing against his breast. Gradually the child ceased
crying, and after a few minutes, indeed, he burst into the warm parlour at home,
startling his mother and Aunt Binney, who were seated by the fire. His hat had fallen
off, his boots were clogged with snow, and he was, as we know, jacketless. But his eyes
were bright and eager, and his face flushed with excitement.
"I've brought you a visitor," he cried. "I found this little lady in the snow, all alone. She
was almost frozen, so I brought her to you to thaw. It's the Squire's little wench."
Miss Belinda would have taken her from him, but with a cry of surprise and pleasure
Mrs. Fleetwood held out her arms.
"Give her to me. Give the sweet, pretty creature to me. What a way they must be in at
the Hall about her! Go quickly, Simon, and tell Joe to let them know that we have found