When Charles the First was King by J.S. Fletcher

After that time many years came and went and brought nothing of moment with them. It seemed, indeed, to me that however the great world's affairs might go, naught disturbed us at Dale's Field, where the seasons travelled round with monotonous regularity. Now it was winter and now spring, and with the latter came fresh flowers and the bleating of lambs, and summer followed only to be driven forth by apple-cheeked autumn, and so the year completed its cycle, and was in its turn compelled to give way to its successor. For I perceived at last that I was grown head and shoulders above my mother, who herself was a tall woman, and I was not a little proud to feel that I was approaching manhood.

I had pleaded hard after my father's sudden death to be allowed to remain at home and help my mother in managing the farm, for I knew that she would need a helping hand and head where there was so much to do. There would, I foresaw, be many an occasion when she would need someone to carry messages and ride forth on business, and it seemed to me that I was the one to undertake such affairs. And for a time my mother, feeling the loneliness of her position, was minded to keep me at home to help her. But having taken counsel, as was her wont upon all important matters, with Parson Drumbleforth, she considered it best that I should go back to Dr. Parsons for a twelvemonth at least.