Peradventure; or, The Silence of GodKeable, Robert
Religion
Peradventure; or, The Silence of God
Keable, Robert
Church of England -- Fiction; Religion -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
"And the Beggar-Man used to interrupt them. 'Stop,' he used to say,
'that's beyond me. I can't follow that. One thing I know: whereas----'
"'We've heard all that,' said the disciples, 'that's not enough.'
"'I'm sorry,' said the Beggar-Man. 'It is for me.'"
"Well?" queried Ursula.
And Paul turned round from the window, his eyes meeting hers. "They
turned the Beggar-Man out of the Church," he said gravely.
And she would nod back at him, with a little smile. "He went on
seeing, though," she would say.
"You're a dear, Ursula," cried Paul.
Despite his eagerness that October morning, Paul did not then, all at
once, write his play. He said that he and the Beggar had got to get to
know each other. And before he got to the actual draft, he wrote down
a few definite incidents in the later life of the Beggar-Man. He
brought the manuscript round to Ursula one day the following Spring
when the new flowers were out on Chanctonbury very much as they had
been when they sprang into vivid flames of being before the
newly-opened eyes of the blind Beggar on the hills of Galilee that he
had loved so much. He brought it round to her very early, while the
family at the cottage were still at breakfast, which did not perturb
him at all.
After greetings, he looked across at Ursula. "Can you come for a long
walk this morning?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"At least, not a very long walk. I want you to come to that little
wood on the crest of the Downs above Steyning--you know--and let me
read this to you."
Mrs. Manning's eyes travelled from one to the other a little anxiously.
Really, these two ... But perhaps this time ... Well, if the girl knew
her own mind....
"All right," said Ursula. "I'll get a coat."
"Don't forget it's only Spring," said Mrs. Manning at the door. "Don't
catch cold."
"We'll remember, mother," said Ursula, and they set out.
At the remembered spot, Paul spread a mackintosh on the ground.
"There," he said, "sit down. I'm going to read to you. Do you mind?"
She smiled her own silent slow smile at him, and drew her knees up, and
clasped her hands round them, and stared down at the sleepy little town
nestling far below.
Paul read. It was the last stage before the actual and now famous
play. He had written without introduction as if he were about a short
story, and, in main, it was this that was dramatised.
(4)
Paul finished. Ursula, who had hardly moved, put out a hand and laid
it gently on his arm.
Paul drew a breath of relieved content, being satisfied now that he
knew her so well.
"Now," he said, "I shall begin that play."
"God is silent," said Ursula quizzically.
"But I see," cried Paul eagerly.
"What do you see?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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