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Upton Court was a manor-house of considerable extent, which had in former times been the residence of a distinguished Catholic family, but which, in the changes of property incident to our fluctuating neighbourhood, was now "fallen from its high estate," and degraded into the homestead of a farm so small, that the tenant, a yeoman of the poorest class, was fain to eke out his rent by entering into an agreement with a speculating Belford upholsterer, and letting off a part of the fine old mansion in the shape of furnished lodgings.
How appositely the "Canon's Yeoman" describes the arrogance of those who are too clever by half; "when a man has an over-great wit," he says, "it very often chances to him to misuse it"! And with how ripe a wisdom, combined with ethics of true gentleness, the honest "Franklin," at the opening of his "Tale," discourses on the uses and the beauty of long-suffering:
Other militiamen were also available for that service, which was as important as fighting, Colonel Vincent averred, as he gave permission to considerable numbers of his yeoman soldiery to return to their farms, while the others maintained the leaguer of the fort.
So we gradually flung them all aside, and took to honest homespun and linsey-woolsey, as preferable, on the whole, to the plan recommended, I think, by Virgil, "Ara nudus; sere nudus, " which as Silas Foster remarked, when I translated the maxim, would be apt to astonish the women-folks. After a reasonable training, the yeoman life throve well with us.
'I thank you, replied Robin, 'my dinner is always welcome; still, I am none so greedy but I can wait for it. But before you go, pay me, I pray you, for the food which you have had. It was never the custom for a yeoman to pay for a Knight. 'My bag is empty, said the Knight, 'save for ten shillings only.
The Disinherited Knight refused all other assistance save that of his own squire, or rather yeoman a clownish-looking man, who, wrapt in a cloak of dark-coloured felt, and having his head and face half-buried in a Norman bonnet made of black fur, seemed to affect the incognito as much as his master.
He and the good wife, cowering over the turf fire, did they dare to talk with quivering lips and clouded eyes about the days when the little ones had clambered up to the strong father's knee, or tiny arms were held out to the rough yeoman as he reached his home? "Oh! the desolation and the loneliness. No fault of thine dear wife nor mine. It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good!"
The life is the worldy-godly life of that microcosm, a small, genteel, conventional urban society; in sharp contrast with the life depicted by Hardy in the same part of the land, but like another world, because his portraiture finds its subjects among peasant-folk and yeoman the true primitive types whose speech is slow and their roots deep down in the soil.
The yeoman stood the angry glance of the Prince with the same unvaried steadiness which had marked his former deportment, saying, with a smile, "I have no intention to leave Ashby until the day after to-morrow I must see how Staffordshire and Leicestershire can draw their bows the forests of Needwood and Charnwood must rear good archers."
And therein they saw, placed apart, an hundred and forty stout yew bows of cunning make, with fine waxen silk strings; and an hundred and forty sheaves of arrows. Every shaft was a just ell long, set with peacock's feathers, and notched with silver. And Sir Richard's fair lady came forward and with her own hands gave each yeoman a bow and a sheaf.
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