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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
Mr. Fleetwood laughed heartily, and the Squire joined in; the child's manner was so
quaint and so deliberate: Mrs. Fleetwood laughed too, though she feigned to be
shocked, but Miss Belinda, who had no great sense of humour, was much scandalised.
"Well!" she ejaculated, "that's a pretty way for a lass to speak. Our poor Simon, little as
you think of him, would never behave so."
She spoke in an undertone, intending the remark only for Sister Fleetwood, and perhaps
her brother, but the Squire heard.
"Simon," he repeated. "Ah, yes, it was he who found my little wench. Where is the lad?
What was it you were saying? Somebody thinks little of him? Why, no one surely could
think little of this fine boy. Neighbour Fleetwood, I never see him but I envy you. How
he grows, to be sure! You must be proud of your son, Mrs. Fleetwood?"
"She is, Squire, she is," put in the yeoman hastily, seeing that his wife looked somewhat
disconcerted, and being always anxious to extricate her from any difficulty. "But she
has fairly lost her heart to your beautiful little lass. She was saying as you came in that
she would give all the world to have such a child, and she is in the right of it — she is in
the right of it, for sure."
The genuine admiration with which the pair looked at the little girl could not but be
flattering to Mr. Charnock, who was one of those men to whom the fact that anything
belongs to them gives a unique value to the property in question. He had been much
disgusted and disappointed at the advent of his daughter, but, in addition to his natural
paternal affection, he felt a proud
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interest in the child. She was his offspring, a Charnock of Charnleigh, and the
appreciation even of inferior folk seemed in some manner to reflect credit on the head
of the family. He smiled now, well pleased, and tapped the crown of the be-feathered
little bonnet.
"Why then," he cried gaily, "she must make friends with you, Mrs. Fleetwood. She must
come and see you sometimes when she goes out a-riding on her pony. Will you not,
Rachel?"
"Rachel! what a pretty name!" murmured Mrs. Fleetwood.