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

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
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"Certainly, my dear Aunt, if he can spare the time."
"Time, time I You're talkin’ real foolish, Simon. It's my belief that you're trying to tire
yourself out."
Simon received this remark, according to his wont when hard pressed, in silence; but
the old lady's chance shot had hit the mark. He was, indeed, trying to tire himself out,
seeking in ceaseless bodily activity an outlet for his restlessness. He had resolved to
conquer the sudden mad passion which had so unaccountably taken possession of him;
as he had confessed to Madam Charnock, he was thoroughly convinced of its
hopelessness, and he was now determined to give it no place in his thoughts — to stifle
it, to starve it out.
So from early dawn till late at night he toiled like any of his labourers, being astir,
indeed, long before they, and once or twice surprising them by rubbing down one of his
horses, or putting his own hands to the plough. They considered such things
unnecessary and undignified, and yet they could not but admire the manner in which he
set to work.
"Ye might ha' been born to it, Mester Simon," cried old Bill, one day, with unwilling
rapture. "Yon's as straight a drill as I could mak' mysel'."
"I have been born to it. Bill," returned Simon; and he went on up the field again, turning
at the top in masterly style, conscious the while of a sense of odd satisfaction as his feet
sank into the cool, damp earth, and his eye marked out the line wherein the horses were
to travel. So the winter wore away. Simon grew thinner and graver as the months
passed. He thought he had conquered himself, and yet, when the spring came and the
earth began to shoot and bud, and the trees to bloom, and the birds to sing, his pain
returned, and, struggle as he might, he could not crush or strangle the
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mad hankering after the impossible which seemed to gather new strength from the
growing life about him.
One day he was working in a corner of the orchard that bordered a certain bridle-path
that led past his house. There had been a long spell of dry weather, and the duck-pond in