Читать книгу Secret Bread - F. Tennyson Jesse - Страница 22

The Parson gave his idea time enough to arrive, though not long enough to be turned over. He pushed Ishmael gently forward again.

"Say what I told you," he bade him, "and no more."

At that moment something came to Ishmael which had failed him in that evening's ordeal—a poise, a confidence of touch which was his by inheritance, though so long unsummoned. He straightened himself and thrust his hands into the pockets of his little breeches.

"Thank you very much for having come to-night," he said, in a voice free from any twang of dialect—the voice he fell into naturally after a day alone with the Parson: "I'm very glad you could come. I hope I'll often see you and that we'll all be very happy together. … " He paused, could think of nothing more to say, so retreated back in sudden shyness against the Parson's arm.

There was another moment of hush. Archelaus was sitting, his face suffused, staring in front of him; a murmuring of "the pretty lil' dear" … ran amongst the women. It was Lenine who brought the moment to its fit rounding.

"Three cheers for Missus and the lil' Squire," he called, and on that able blend of sentiments all voices met with a roar. As the last sound died away Phoebe could be heard clamouring:

"I can do things too; Da Boase nadn't think Ishmael can do it all. I can dance and sing, I can!"

"So thee can, my worm," boomed the miller, and, swinging her up, he stood her also on the table. "Shaw us what 'ee can do, my beauty," he encouraged her.

Phoebe, not at all shy, spread her crumpled skirts and did a little dance that consisted of jigging up and down in the same place, to the accompaniment of a sing-song of one verse:

"I likes coffee an' I likes tea,

I likes th' chaps an' th' chaps likes me,

So, mawther, you go an' hold your tongue—

You had a fellow when you was young!"

Thus piped Phoebe, and the audience applauded with clapping and laughter. Her cheeks were ablaze with the excitement of success; she seized on Ishmael for the promised dance. But the Parson bade him say good-night and come away. He remained deaf to all appeals from Phoebe for just one dance, only one, and, making his own farewells, bore Ishmael back with him to the Vicarage for the night. He was going to run no risk of an anti-climax.