Before You Begin

Before you begin.

Father Brown leaves Glasgow and follows a long grey valley to Glengyle Castle, the remote seat of a nearly extinguished Highland family. Flambeau and Inspector Craven are already there, trying to understand the late Earl through a servant who hardly speaks and a house full of objects that seem to have been dismantled without purpose.

Loose jewels, watch wheels, candle ends, tobacco, pencil leads, and bamboo sticks form an inventory stranger than ordinary theft. Outside the window, Israel Gow passes with his top hat and spade, methodically tending the estate he has served in silence.

First published in 1910, “The Honour of Israel Gow” is the sixth Father Brown story. Chesterton turns a Gothic castle, a storm, and a violated grave into a meditation on the dangerous distance between respectable appearances and exact moral truth.