six o'clock
The dusky forms of caravans with their thick-set chimneys , ebony-coloured against the green sky , crouched like animals barking . A woman was singing , men 's voices took her up , and the song came rippling across the little valley . All the stir of an invading world was there . Friday , June 18 : Shadow Meets Shadow On that Friday evening , about half-past six o'clock , Archdeacon Brandon , just as he reached the top of the High Street , saw God . There was nothing either strange or unusual about this . Having had all his life the conviction that he and God were on the most intimate of terms , that God knew and understood himself and his wants better than any other friend that he had , that just as God had definitely deputed him to work out certain plans on this earth , so , at times , He needed his own help and advice , having never wavered for an instant in the very simplest tenets of his creed , and believing in every word of the New Testament as though the events there recorded had only a week ago happened in his own town under his own eyes -- all this being so , it was not strange that he should sometimes come into close and actual contact with his Master . It may be said that it was this very sense of contact , continued through long years of labour and success , that was the original foundation of the Archdeacon 's pride .