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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
"La, it's never Simon," exclaimed Miss Belinda. "Eh, come in, do lad! Ye must be as
wet as wet. But don't come in here whatever ye do wi' your wet clothes. There's a lady i'
th' parlour, Simon."
She was in the hall now, and Simon had divested himself of hat and coat, and carefully
wiped his great top-boots. Then, disregarding her injunctions, he made his way into the
parlour, in the middle of which Rachel stood awaiting him. Their eyes were not on a
level now, and as he approached her she had to raise hers quite a long way. The blush of
confusion evoked by her discovery of him still lingered on his cheeks; his eyes were
bright and eager, and his light-brown hair waved crisply in spite of the raindrops which
powdered it. His face fell a little when the young lady greeted him with another little
smiling nod and a sort of pretence of a curtsey, appearing not to see the hand which
Simon had half-outstretched, but in a moment or two he recovered himself.
"I must apologise," he said, "for looking in upon you thus. It was thoughtless of me,
particularly as I may have alarmed you, madam."
"I was not in the least alarmed, I thank you," she answered, moving towards the fire
again, and raising the other little foot that it, too, might have its share of warmth.
"But I think," he said with his grave smile, "you told me you took me for a robber."
"Nay," she returned composedly, "I knew quite well all the time it could be no one but
you."
"Well, now, that surprises me," put in Aunt Binney. "Ye must have wonderful good
eyes, Miss Charnock, for I’m sure I could not see anything on the other side of
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yon window at this time o' night. ‘Twas very ill-done of you, Nephew; the young lady
might, indeed, have took you for somebody quite different; and it beats me, I’m sure,
Miss Charnock, to know however you could have guessed it was our Simon."
"It was very easily done," returned Miss Rachel, once more shaking the befeathered hat,
"for I do not think I have ever seen so tall a man as Mr. Simon, nor yet so broad a one;
and when I went closer I remembered his eyes."