4.0
The Secret of Father Brown
Flambeau, once the most famous criminal in France and later a very private detective inEngland, had long retired from both professions. Some say a career of crime had left himwith too many scruples for a career of detection. Anyhow, after a life of romantic escapesand tricks of evasion, he had ended at what some might consider an appropriate address: ina castle in Spain. The castle, however, was solid though relatively small; and the blackvineyard and green stripes of kitchen garden covered a respectable square on the brownhillside. For Flambeau, after all his violent adventures, still possessed what is possessed byso many Latins, what is absent (for instance) in so many Americans, the energy to retire. Itcan be seen in many a large hotel-proprietor whose one ambition is to be a small peasant.It can be seen in many a French provincial shopkeeper, who pauses at the moment when hemight develop into a detestable millionaire and buy a street of shops, to fall back quietlyand comfortably on domesticity and dominoes. Flambeau had casually and almost abruptlyfallen in love with a Spanish Lady, married and brought up a large family on a Spanishestate, without displaying any apparent desire to stray again beyond its borders. But onone particular morning he was observed by his family to be unusually restless and excited;and he outran the little boys and descended the greater part of the long mountain slope tomeet the visitor who was coming across the valley; even when the visitor was still a blackdot in the distance.The black dot gradually increased in size without very much altering in the shape; for itcontinued, roughly speaking, to be both round and black. The black clothes of clerics werenot unknown upon those hills; but these clothes, however clerical, had about themsomething at once commonplace and yet almost jaunty in comparison with the cassock orsoutane, and marked the wearer as a man from the north-western islands, as clearly as ifhe had been labelled Clapham Junction. He carried a short thick umbrella with a knob like aclub, at the sight of which his Latin friend almost shed tears of sentiment; for it had figuredin many adventures that they shared long ago. For this was the Frenchman's English friend, Father Brown, paying a long-desired but long-delayed visit. They had correspondedconstantly, but they had not met for years
FictionClassicsHumorousLiteraryMystery & DetectiveTraditional
RELEASED1990
PUBLISHERAmereon Limited
LENGTH175
LANGUAGEEN
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer, and Christian apologist.
4.0
The Secret of Father Brown
Flambeau, once the most famous criminal in France and later a very private detective inEngland, had long retired from both professions. Some say a career of crime had left himwith too many scruples for a career of detection. Anyhow, after a life of romantic escapesand tricks of evasion, he had ended at what some might consider an appropriate address: ina castle in Spain. The castle, however, was solid though relatively small; and the blackvineyard and green stripes of kitchen garden covered a respectable square on the brownhillside. For Flambeau, after all his violent adventures, still possessed what is possessed byso many Latins, what is absent (for instance) in so many Americans, the energy to retire. Itcan be seen in many a large hotel-proprietor whose one ambition is to be a small peasant.It can be seen in many a French provincial shopkeeper, who pauses at the moment when hemight develop into a detestable millionaire and buy a street of shops, to fall back quietlyand comfortably on domesticity and dominoes. Flambeau had casually and almost abruptlyfallen in love with a Spanish Lady, married and brought up a large family on a Spanishestate, without displaying any apparent desire to stray again beyond its borders. But onone particular morning he was observed by his family to be unusually restless and excited;and he outran the little boys and descended the greater part of the long mountain slope tomeet the visitor who was coming across the valley; even when the visitor was still a blackdot in the distance.The black dot gradually increased in size without very much altering in the shape; for itcontinued, roughly speaking, to be both round and black. The black clothes of clerics werenot unknown upon those hills; but these clothes, however clerical, had about themsomething at once commonplace and yet almost jaunty in comparison with the cassock orsoutane, and marked the wearer as a man from the north-western islands, as clearly as ifhe had been labelled Clapham Junction. He carried a short thick umbrella with a knob like aclub, at the sight of which his Latin friend almost shed tears of sentiment; for it had figuredin many adventures that they shared long ago. For this was the Frenchman's English friend, Father Brown, paying a long-desired but long-delayed visit. They had correspondedconstantly, but they had not met for years
FictionClassicsHumorousLiteraryMystery & DetectiveTraditionalThrillersSuspense
RELEASED1990
PUBLISHERAmereon Limited
LENGTH175
LANGUAGEEN
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer, and Christian apologist.
