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
Rolling Londonwards, watching the speeding fields and the quiet sleepy
Midland villages, Paul turned over the kaleidoscope of his vacation and
realised that he was approaching a return to Claxted with something
like dismay. Dismay, however, did not last long. He was determining
at all costs to preach something of the new spirit that was in him, and
to show Lambeth Court and Apple Orchard Road that with broader
sympathies and a more theological outlook could also march all the zeal
and fervour of evangelicalism. The train slowed down for Leicester. A
figure of outstanding dress and height detached itself from the little
throng of waiting passengers, and selected his compartment. The
newcomer carried an attaché case, a leather package of odd and awkward
size, a suitcase, and a box of lantern slides, and he was moreover
encumbered with a travelling rug, a silk hat, an overcoat, and a stick.
Paul assisted with these, and the stranger sat down opposite him.
Paul's eyes took in his gaitered legs and his silk apron, and rested
even more enquiringly on his purple stock. It was his first personal
meeting with a bishop. They two were alone in the carriage.
"Thanks," said the Bishop. "I'm sorry to be hung about with things
like this, but I don't seem able to dispense with any of them."
He sounded quite human, and even friendly. Paul wondered who he was
and if he ought to introduce "my lord" at once into the conversation.
However he blackballed the idea. "I know," he said. "I always seem to
accumulate heaps of things myself."
"Well," said the other, a twinkle in his eye, "it's a nuisance, you
know, being a bishop, and especially a bishop from abroad, home on
leave. You've got to fit in so much. There's lecturing and passing
proofs and preaching, and a bishop has to carry so many things around
with him."
"Does he?" said Paul, smiling and meeting the other's mood, "I fear I
don't know what he wants. But--er--may we introduce ourselves--er--my
lord?"
The big, clean-shaven, young-looking prelate chuckled pleasantly.
"Certainly," he said. "I'm the Bishop of Mozambique, and as I'm only a
colonial, you needn't call me 'my lord,' you know, unless you like."
Paul looked at him with increased interest. Of course; he ought to
have recognised him. He was an extreme High Church bishop, not unknown
to controversial fame. "I'm Paul Kestern, of St. Mary's," he said.
"Oxford?"
"No, Cambridge. I'm sorry. Or at least I'm not really."
The other laughed outright. "We'll agree to differ, and get on
famously," he said. "And where do you come from just now, Mr. Kestern?"
Paul determined in a moment to be quite frank. "A Children's Special
Service Mission in the Isle of Man, the Keswick Convention, and the
Congregationalist Congress in Ripon," he said, very gravely.
"Good," said the other. "From which I gather you are a Nonconformist
candidate for the ministry."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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