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.

CHAPTER VI

REACTIONS

There are days in life which, to the backward look of later years stand
out with undying vividness, and this not necessarily because of any
import attached to them; often, in the irrational workings of memory,
very vital affairs refuse to come when bid, while quite little things or
aspects of them are imprinted on the mind for ever. That ceremony of
"Crying the Neck" at Cloom had, it is true, been for Ishmael Ruan a
notable happening, but it was for a certain pictorial brilliance that he
retained it so clearly in after years, and not for any strategic
importance, which at the time would not have impressed him. Yet, long
afterwards, in the light of that memory, he saw how his life had turned
a corner on that occasion, and how after it a different phase began.

Life to him at that time was, of course, entirely centred round himself,
the only organism of which he was thor