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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
sure Mr. Simon is respectful too. Nothing could be more so than the few words he
spoke to me. He is a very silent man. Mother — I should have called him a little dull but
that I believe he has been mightily well educated. Yet, indeed I loved him for thinking
so tenderly of his mother. Ah, what should I do were I to lose my mother?"
Mrs. Charnock smiled as the child laid her hand impulsively on her arm, and Rachel
resumed after a moment or two:—
"To-morrow I am going to finish the damson cheese, and next week I have promised
Miss Fleetwood to show her how to preserve hips, though she said — but very
respectfully, I assure you, Mother — she thought the preserve would be a gritty sort of
thing at best" Mrs. Charnock glanced at her again sharply, hesitated, and finally
changed the conversation. The subject required thought, and must be dealt with
tactfully. Rachel was a spoilt child, but such a child. As innocent
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as she was impulsive, as frank as she was fearless. It would be a pity even to suggest to
her the power of her own attraction and the inconvenient results which might ensue.
Left to herself, the notion would probably never occur to her that this stalwart young
yeoman might lose his heart to her. In all probability he himself would not dare to be so
presumptuous. But after all he had good blood in his veins; he had been educated as a
gentleman. Madam Charnock resolved to judge for herself.
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CHAPTER VII.
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hath ta’en with equal thanks: and bless'd are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled.
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she pleases. —Shakespeare.