control.â A Welsh cripple with a burnished voice and a patched tent was just the closest they could get.
They came like children at first, shyly, shamefaced even, ready
to remember urgent business elsewhere if anyone laughed. But the sight of so many others with the same idea, groping towards something they needed but could not have described, gave them confidence. They crowded together in the marquee, drawing comfort from their closeness long before the man in the white suit began to speak.
And when Michael Davey hauled himself up on to the dais by the strength of his shoulders and wheeled to face his audience, the lights behind him shining through his energetic hair like a halo, a sigh whispered over the dense rows of seating. They might not have known, as they made their uncertain way here, just what it was they were looking for; but when they saw Michael Davey, particularly when he drew that first big breath and the words began flowing from him like slow fierce lava, they knew theyâd found it.
He filled the tent. When he let it go his voice soared into the eaves and wheeled around there like great birds. His voice made musical thunder like the roar in the hollow of a deep sea wave, rolling across the heads of his audience and crashing against the white canvas cliffs in a foam of pith and wisdom. His voice thrilled and quickened them.
The dais was not high enough that a seated man could be seen easily from the far reaches of the tent. From half-way back people found it easier to stand. Near the back of the tent they stood on the chairs. Because many of them had scant experience of church it did not seem incongruous to them to clap and cheer and even whistle when his vibrant words struck chords of meaning in their hearts. They thought, Thatâs right! â thatâs what I think! â about concepts they had never before considered.
What did he say? What were the words that drew such fervour from frightened people? Reduced to letters on a cool page they would seem nothing very much, only a trite cocktail of moral certainty and righteous indignation. But how he used those flat words, those commonplace ideas! How his audience responded! How they fed each other with pain and anger and the thrill of marshalling themselves to strike back! When Davey spoke of confronting the Devil in the backstreets of Castlemere it seemed that at any moment someone would produce a sack of brands and a taper to light them with.
More like lovers than a shepherd with sheep, drawing vitality from one another, clasped together like coupling bodies on a sweaty bed they rocked to the rhythm of his rhetoric. If thine eye
offend thee, pluck it out. Life for life, burning for burning. No peace for the wicked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Faith without works is dead.
And what was it that turned the sensible, cynical people of Castlemere into a mob intoxicated with the cordite smell of a church militant? Only fear, that makes cowards and heroes of the same dust. They looked on the wine when it was red, and changes they did not understand came over them.
Donovan had watched in disbelief as the throng swelled on Broad Wharf until the tent, all but empty the night before, could hardly hold them. He listened uneasily to the swelling voices, the disturbing unanimity of mood. He thought he should do something about it and didnât know what. All his instincts told him something sinister was happening, but the only facts were that a gospel meeting had attracted a bigger turn-out than heâd expected. He didnât know how Superintendent Taylor would react if Donovan phoned him at home to tell him that.
He thought of phoning Shapiro instead, even though crowd control was no part of a detective chief inspectorâs brief, but he
They came like children at first, shyly, shamefaced even, ready
to remember urgent business elsewhere if anyone laughed. But the sight of so many others with the same idea, groping towards something they needed but could not have described, gave them confidence. They crowded together in the marquee, drawing comfort from their closeness long before the man in the white suit began to speak.
And when Michael Davey hauled himself up on to the dais by the strength of his shoulders and wheeled to face his audience, the lights behind him shining through his energetic hair like a halo, a sigh whispered over the dense rows of seating. They might not have known, as they made their uncertain way here, just what it was they were looking for; but when they saw Michael Davey, particularly when he drew that first big breath and the words began flowing from him like slow fierce lava, they knew theyâd found it.
He filled the tent. When he let it go his voice soared into the eaves and wheeled around there like great birds. His voice made musical thunder like the roar in the hollow of a deep sea wave, rolling across the heads of his audience and crashing against the white canvas cliffs in a foam of pith and wisdom. His voice thrilled and quickened them.
The dais was not high enough that a seated man could be seen easily from the far reaches of the tent. From half-way back people found it easier to stand. Near the back of the tent they stood on the chairs. Because many of them had scant experience of church it did not seem incongruous to them to clap and cheer and even whistle when his vibrant words struck chords of meaning in their hearts. They thought, Thatâs right! â thatâs what I think! â about concepts they had never before considered.
What did he say? What were the words that drew such fervour from frightened people? Reduced to letters on a cool page they would seem nothing very much, only a trite cocktail of moral certainty and righteous indignation. But how he used those flat words, those commonplace ideas! How his audience responded! How they fed each other with pain and anger and the thrill of marshalling themselves to strike back! When Davey spoke of confronting the Devil in the backstreets of Castlemere it seemed that at any moment someone would produce a sack of brands and a taper to light them with.
More like lovers than a shepherd with sheep, drawing vitality from one another, clasped together like coupling bodies on a sweaty bed they rocked to the rhythm of his rhetoric. If thine eye
offend thee, pluck it out. Life for life, burning for burning. No peace for the wicked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Faith without works is dead.
And what was it that turned the sensible, cynical people of Castlemere into a mob intoxicated with the cordite smell of a church militant? Only fear, that makes cowards and heroes of the same dust. They looked on the wine when it was red, and changes they did not understand came over them.
Donovan had watched in disbelief as the throng swelled on Broad Wharf until the tent, all but empty the night before, could hardly hold them. He listened uneasily to the swelling voices, the disturbing unanimity of mood. He thought he should do something about it and didnât know what. All his instincts told him something sinister was happening, but the only facts were that a gospel meeting had attracted a bigger turn-out than heâd expected. He didnât know how Superintendent Taylor would react if Donovan phoned him at home to tell him that.
He thought of phoning Shapiro instead, even though crowd control was no part of a detective chief inspectorâs brief, but he
Similar Books
