{"id":3757,"date":"2025-08-07T01:19:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=3757"},"modified":"2025-08-07T01:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:19:14","slug":"the-hammer-of-god-by-g-k-chesterton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=3757","title":{"rendered":"The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Hammer of God by <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/the-man-in-the-passage-by-g-k-chesterton\">G. K. Chesterton<\/a> features his detective, Father Brown, and was published in the short story collection The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. <\/p>\n<p><em>This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton<\/h2>\n<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade no-lazyload\"><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\"><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton<\/h3>\n\n<p>The little village of Bohun Beacon was perched on a hill so steep that the tall spire of its church seemed only like the peak of a small mountain. At the foot of the church stood a smithy, generally red with fires and always littered with hammers and scraps of iron; opposite to this, over a rude cross of cobbled paths, was \u201cThe Blue Boar,\u201d the only inn of the place. It was upon this crossway, in the lifting of a leaden and silver daybreak, that two brothers met in the street and spoke; though one was beginning the day and the other finishing it. The Rev. and Hon. Wilfred Bohun was very devout, and was making his way to some austere exercises of prayer or contemplation at dawn. Colonel the Hon. Norman Bohun, his elder brother, was by no means devout, and was sitting in evening dress on the bench outside \u201cThe Blue Boar,\u201d drinking what the philosophic observer was free to regard either as his last glass on Tuesday or his first on Wednesday. The colonel was not particular.<\/p>\n<p>The Bohuns were one of the very few aristocratic families really dating from the Middle Ages, and their pennon had actually seen Palestine. But it is a great mistake to suppose that such houses stand high in chivalric tradition. Few except the poor preserve traditions. Aristocrats live not in traditions but in fashions. The Bohuns had been Mohocks under Queen Anne and Mashers under Queen Victoria. But like more than one of the really ancient houses, they had rotted in the last two centuries into mere drunkards and dandy degenerates, till there had even come a whisper of insanity. Certainly there was something hardly human about the colonel\u2019s wolfish pursuit of pleasure, and his chronic resolution not to go home till morning had a touch of the hideous clarity of insomnia. He was a tall, fine animal, elderly, but with hair still startlingly yellow. He would have looked merely blonde and leonine, but his blue eyes were sunk so deep in his face that they looked black. They were a little too close together. He had very long yellow moustaches; on each side of them a fold or furrow from nostril to jaw, so that a sneer seemed cut into his face. Over his evening clothes he wore a curious pale yellow coat that looked more like a very light dressing gown than an overcoat, and on the back of his head was stuck an extraordinary broad-brimmed hat of a bright green colour, evidently some oriental curiosity caught up at random. He was proud of appearing in such incongruous attires\u2014proud of the fact that he always made them look congruous.<\/p>\n<p>His brother the curate had also the yellow hair and the elegance, but he was buttoned up to the chin in black, and his face was clean-shaven, cultivated, and a little nervous. He seemed to live for nothing but his religion; but there were some who said (notably the blacksmith, who was a Presbyterian) that it was a love of Gothic architecture rather than of God, and that his haunting of the church like a ghost was only another and purer turn of the almost morbid thirst for beauty which sent his brother raging after women and wine. This charge was doubtful, while the man\u2019s practical piety was indubitable. Indeed, the charge was mostly an ignorant misunderstanding of the love of solitude and secret prayer, and was founded on his being often found kneeling, not before the altar, but in peculiar places, in the crypts or gallery, or even in the belfry. He was at the moment about to enter the church through the yard of the smithy, but stopped and frowned a little as he saw his brother\u2019s cavernous eyes staring in the same direction. On the hypothesis that the colonel was interested in the church he did not waste any speculations. There only remained the blacksmith\u2019s shop, and though the blacksmith was a Puritan and none of his people, Wilfred Bohun had heard some scandals about a beautiful and rather celebrated wife. He flung a suspicious look across the shed, and the colonel stood up laughing to speak to him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood morning, Wilfred,\u201d he said. \u201cLike a good landlord I am watching sleeplessly over my people. I am going to call on the blacksmith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred looked at the ground, and said: \u201cThe blacksmith is out. He is over at Greenford.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know,\u201d answered the other with silent laughter; \u201cthat is why I am calling on him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNorman,\u201d said the cleric, with his eye on a pebble in the road, \u201care you ever afraid of thunderbolts?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d asked the colonel. \u201cIs your hobby meteorology?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean,\u201d said Wilfred, without looking up, \u201cdo you ever think that God might strike you in the street?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI beg your pardon,\u201d said the colonel; \u201cI see your hobby is folk-lore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know your hobby is blasphemy,\u201d retorted the religious man, stung in the one live place of his nature. \u201cBut if you do not fear God, you have good reason to fear man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The elder raised his eyebrows politely. \u201cFear man?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBarnes the blacksmith is the biggest and strongest man for forty miles round,\u201d said the clergyman sternly. \u201cI know you are no coward or weakling, but he could throw you over the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This struck home, being true, and the lowering line by mouth and nostril darkened and deepened. For a moment he stood with the heavy sneer on his face. But in an instant Colonel Bohun had recovered his own cruel good humour and laughed, showing two dog-like front teeth under his yellow moustache. \u201cIn that case, my dear Wilfred,\u201d he said quite carelessly, \u201cit was wise for the last of the Bohuns to come out partially in armour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And he took off the queer round hat covered with green, showing that it was lined within with steel. Wilfred recognised it indeed as a light Japanese or Chinese helmet torn down from a trophy that hung in the old family hall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the first hat to hand,\u201d explained his brother airily; \u201calways the nearest hat\u2014and the nearest woman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe blacksmith is away at Greenford,\u201d said Wilfred quietly; \u201cthe time of his return is unsettled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And with that he turned and went into the church with bowed head, crossing himself like one who wishes to be quit of an unclean spirit. He was anxious to forget such grossness in the cool twilight of his tall Gothic cloisters; but on that morning it was fated that his still round of religious exercises should be everywhere arrested by small shocks. As he entered the church, hitherto always empty at that hour, a kneeling figure rose hastily to its feet and came towards the full daylight of the doorway. When the curate saw it he stood still with surprise. For the early worshipper was none other than the village idiot, a nephew of the blacksmith, one who neither would nor could care for the church or for anything else. He was always called \u201cMad Joe,\u201d and seemed to have no other name; he was a dark, strong, slouching lad, with a heavy white face, dark straight hair, and a mouth always open. As he passed the priest, his moon-calf countenance gave no hint of what he had been doing or thinking of. He had never been known to pray before. What sort of prayers was he saying now? Extraordinary prayers surely.<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred Bohun stood rooted to the spot long enough to see the idiot go out into the sunshine, and even to see his dissolute brother hail him with a sort of avuncular jocularity. The last thing he saw was the colonel throwing pennies at the open mouth of Joe, with the serious appearance of trying to hit it.<\/p>\n<p>This ugly sunlit picture of the stupidity and cruelty of the earth sent the ascetic finally to his prayers for purification and new thoughts. He went up to a pew in the gallery, which brought him under a coloured window which he loved and always quieted his spirit; a blue window with an angel carrying lilies. There he began to think less about the half-wit, with his livid face and mouth like a fish. He began to think less of his evil brother, pacing like a lean lion in his horrible hunger. He sank deeper and deeper into those cold and sweet colours of silver blossoms and sapphire sky.<\/p>\n<p>In this place half an hour afterwards he was found by Gibbs, the village cobbler, who had been sent for him in some haste. He got to his feet with promptitude, for he knew that no small matter would have brought Gibbs into such a place at all. The cobbler was, as in many villages, an atheist, and his appearance in church was a shade more extraordinary than Mad Joe\u2019s. It was a morning of theological enigmas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is it?\u201d asked Wilfred Bohun rather stiffly, but putting out a trembling hand for his hat.<\/p>\n<p>The atheist spoke in a tone that, coming from him, was quite startlingly respectful, and even, as it were, huskily sympathetic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou must excuse me, sir,\u201d he said in a hoarse whisper, \u201cbut we didn\u2019t think it right not to let you know at once. I\u2019m afraid a rather dreadful thing has happened, sir. I\u2019m afraid your brother\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred clenched his frail hands. \u201cWhat devilry has he done now?\u201d he cried in voluntary passion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy, sir,\u201d said the cobbler, coughing, \u201cI\u2019m afraid he\u2019s done nothing, and won\u2019t do anything. I\u2019m afraid he\u2019s done for. You had really better come down, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The curate followed the cobbler down a short winding stair which brought them out at an entrance rather higher than the street. Bohun saw the tragedy in one glance, flat underneath him like a plan. In the yard of the smithy were standing five or six men mostly in black, one in an inspector\u2019s uniform. They included the doctor, the Presbyterian minister, and the priest from the Roman Catholic chapel, to which the blacksmith\u2019s wife belonged. The latter was speaking to her, indeed, very rapidly, in an undertone, as she, a magnificent woman with red-gold hair, was sobbing blindly on a bench. Between these two groups, and just clear of the main heap of hammers, lay a man in evening dress, spread-eagled and flat on his face. From the height above Wilfred could have sworn to every item of his costume and appearance, down to the Bohun rings upon his fingers; but the skull was only a hideous splash, like a star of blackness and blood.<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred Bohun gave but one glance, and ran down the steps into the yard. The doctor, who was the family physician, saluted him, but he scarcely took any notice. He could only stammer out: \u201cMy brother is dead. What does it mean? What is this horrible mystery?\u201d There was an unhappy silence; and then the cobbler, the most outspoken man present, answered: \u201cPlenty of horror, sir,\u201d he said; \u201cbut not much mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d asked Wilfred, with a white face.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s plain enough,\u201d answered Gibbs. \u201cThere is only one man for forty miles round that could have struck such a blow as that, and he\u2019s the man that had most reason to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must not prejudge anything,\u201d put in the doctor, a tall, black-bearded man, rather nervously; \u201cbut it is competent for me to corroborate what Mr. Gibbs says about the nature of the blow, sir; it is an incredible blow. Mr. Gibbs says that only one man in this district could have done it. I should have said myself that nobody could have done it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A shudder of superstition went through the slight figure of the curate. \u201cI can hardly understand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Bohun,\u201d said the doctor in a low voice, \u201cmetaphors literally fail me. It is inadequate to say that the skull was smashed to bits like an eggshell. Fragments of bone were driven into the body and the ground like bullets into a mud wall. It was the hand of a giant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was silent a moment, looking grimly through his glasses; then he added: \u201cThe thing has one advantage\u2014that it clears most people of suspicion at one stroke. If you or I or any normally made man in the country were accused of this crime, we should be acquitted as an infant would be acquitted of stealing the Nelson column.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s what I say,\u201d repeated the cobbler obstinately; \u201cthere\u2019s only one man that could have done it, and he\u2019s the man that would have done it. Where\u2019s Simeon Barnes, the blacksmith?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s over at Greenford,\u201d faltered the curate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore likely over in France,\u201d muttered the cobbler.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo; he is in neither of those places,\u201d said a small and colourless voice, which came from the little Roman priest who had joined the group. \u201cAs a matter of fact, he is coming up the road at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The little priest was not an interesting man to look at, having stubbly brown hair and a round and stolid face. But if he had been as splendid as Apollo no one would have looked at him at that moment. Everyone turned round and peered at the pathway which wound across the plain below, along which was indeed walking, at his own huge stride and with a hammer on his shoulder, Simeon the smith. He was a bony and gigantic man, with deep, dark, sinister eyes and a dark chin beard. He was walking and talking quietly with two other men; and though he was never specially cheerful, he seemed quite at his ease.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy God!\u201d cried the atheistic cobbler, \u201cand there\u2019s the hammer he did it with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d said the inspector, a sensible-looking man with a sandy moustache, speaking for the first time. \u201cThere\u2019s the hammer he did it with over there by the church wall. We have left it and the body exactly as they are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All glanced round and the short priest went across and looked down in silence at the tool where it lay. It was one of the smallest and the lightest of the hammers, and would not have caught the eye among the rest; but on the iron edge of it were blood and yellow hair.<\/p>\n<p>After a silence the short priest spoke without looking up, and there was a new note in his dull voice. \u201cMr. Gibbs was hardly right,\u201d he said, \u201cin saying that there is no mystery. There is at least the mystery of why so big a man should attempt so big a blow with so little a hammer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, never mind that,\u201d cried Gibbs, in a fever. \u201cWhat are we to do with Simeon Barnes?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLeave him alone,\u201d said the priest quietly. \u201cHe is coming here of himself. I know those two men with him. They are very good fellows from Greenford, and they have come over about the Presbyterian chapel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even as he spoke the tall smith swung round the corner of the church, and strode into his own yard. Then he stood there quite still, and the hammer fell from his hand. The inspector, who had preserved impenetrable propriety, immediately went up to him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI won\u2019t ask you, Mr. Barnes,\u201d he said, \u201cwhether you know anything about what has happened here. You are not bound to say. I hope you don\u2019t know, and that you will be able to prove it. But I must go through the form of arresting you in the King\u2019s name for the murder of Colonel Norman Bohun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are not bound to say anything,\u201d said the cobbler in officious excitement. \u201cThey\u2019ve got to prove everything. They haven\u2019t proved yet that it is Colonel Bohun, with the head all smashed up like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat won\u2019t wash,\u201d said the doctor aside to the priest. \u201cThat\u2019s out of the detective stories. I was the colonel\u2019s medical man, and I knew his body better than he did. He had very fine hands, but quite peculiar ones. The second and third fingers were the same length. Oh, that\u2019s the colonel right enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As he glanced at the brained corpse upon the ground the iron eyes of the motionless blacksmith followed them and rested there also.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs Colonel Bohun dead?\u201d said the smith quite calmly. \u201cThen he\u2019s damned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t say anything! Oh, don\u2019t say anything,\u201d cried the atheist cobbler, dancing about in an ecstasy of admiration of the English legal system. For no man is such a legalist as the good Secularist.<\/p>\n<p>The blacksmith turned on him over his shoulder the august face of a fanatic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s well for you infidels to dodge like foxes because the world\u2019s law favours you,\u201d he said; \u201cbut God guards His own in His pocket, as you shall see this day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then he pointed to the colonel and said: \u201cWhen did this dog die in his sins?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cModerate your language,\u201d said the doctor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cModerate the Bible\u2019s language, and I\u2019ll moderate mine. When did he die?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw him alive at six o\u2019clock this morning,\u201d stammered Wilfred Bohun.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod is good,\u201d said the smith. \u201cMr. Inspector, I have not the slightest objection to being arrested. It is you who may object to arresting me. I don\u2019t mind leaving the court without a stain on my character. You do mind perhaps leaving the court with a bad set-back in your career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The solid inspector for the first time looked at the blacksmith with a lively eye; as did everybody else, except the short, strange priest, who was still looking down at the little hammer that had dealt the dreadful blow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are two men standing outside this shop,\u201d went on the blacksmith with ponderous lucidity, \u201cgood tradesmen in Greenford whom you all know, who will swear that they saw me from before midnight till daybreak and long after in the committee room of our Revival Mission, which sits all night, we save souls so fast. In Greenford itself twenty people could swear to me for all that time. If I were a heathen, Mr. Inspector, I would let you walk on to your downfall. But as a Christian man I feel bound to give you your chance, and ask you whether you will hear my alibi now or in court.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The inspector seemed for the first time disturbed, and said, \u201cOf course I should be glad to clear you altogether now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The smith walked out of his yard with the same long and easy stride, and returned to his two friends from Greenford, who were indeed friends of nearly everyone present. Each of them said a few words which no one ever thought of disbelieving. When they had spoken, the innocence of Simeon stood up as solid as the great church above them.<\/p>\n<p>One of those silences struck the group which are more strange and insufferable than any speech. Madly, in order to make conversation, the curate said to the Catholic priest:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou seem very much interested in that hammer, Father Brown.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, I am,\u201d said Father Brown; \u201cwhy is it such a small hammer?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The doctor swung round on him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy George, that\u2019s true,\u201d he cried; \u201cwho would use a little hammer with ten larger hammers lying about?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then he lowered his voice in the curate\u2019s ear and said: \u201cOnly the kind of person that can\u2019t lift a large hammer. It is not a question of force or courage between the sexes. It\u2019s a question of lifting power in the shoulders. A bold woman could commit ten murders with a light hammer and never turn a hair. She could not kill a beetle with a heavy one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred Bohun was staring at him with a sort of hypnotised horror, while Father Brown listened with his head a little on one side, really interested and attentive. The doctor went on with more hissing emphasis:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy do these idiots always assume that the only person who hates the wife\u2019s lover is the wife\u2019s husband? Nine times out of ten the person who most hates the wife\u2019s lover is the wife. Who knows what insolence or treachery he had shown her\u2014look there!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He made a momentary gesture towards the red-haired woman on the bench. She had lifted her head at last and the tears were drying on her splendid face. But the eyes were fixed on the corpse with an electric glare that had in it something of idiocy.<\/p>\n<p>The Rev. Wilfred Bohun made a limp gesture as if waving away all desire to know; but Father Brown, dusting off his sleeve some ashes blown from the furnace, spoke in his indifferent way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are like so many doctors,\u201d he said; \u201cyour mental science is really suggestive. It is your physical science that is utterly impossible. I agree that the woman wants to kill the co-respondent much more than the petitioner does. And I agree that a woman will always pick up a small hammer instead of a big one. But the difficulty is one of physical impossibility. No woman ever born could have smashed a man\u2019s skull out flat like that.\u201d Then he added reflectively, after a pause: \u201cThese people haven\u2019t grasped the whole of it. The man was actually wearing an iron helmet, and the blow scattered it like broken glass. Look at that woman. Look at her arms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Silence held them all up again, and then the doctor said rather sulkily: \u201cWell, I may be wrong; there are objections to everything. But I stick to the main point. No man but an idiot would pick up that little hammer if he could use a big hammer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With that the lean and quivering hands of Wilfred Bohun went up to his head and seemed to clutch his scanty yellow hair. After an instant they dropped, and he cried: \u201cThat was the word I wanted; you have said the word.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then he continued, mastering his discomposure: \u201cThe words you said were, \u2018No man but an idiot would pick up the small hammer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d said the doctor. \u201cWell?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell,\u201d said the curate, \u201cno man but an idiot did.\u201d The rest stared at him with eyes arrested and riveted, and he went on in a febrile and feminine agitation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a priest,\u201d he cried unsteadily, \u201cand a priest should be no shedder of blood. I\u2014I mean that he should bring no one to the gallows. And I thank God that I see the criminal clearly now\u2014because he is a criminal who cannot be brought to the gallows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou will not denounce him?\u201d inquired the doctor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe would not be hanged if I did denounce him,\u201d answered Wilfred with a wild but curiously happy smile. \u201cWhen I went into the church this morning I found a madman praying there\u2014that poor Joe, who has been wrong all his life. God knows what he prayed; but with such strange folk it is not incredible to suppose that their prayers are all upside down. Very likely a lunatic would pray before killing a man. When I last saw poor Joe he was with my brother. My brother was mocking him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy Jove!\u201d cried the doctor, \u201cthis is talking at last. But how do you explain\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Rev. Wilfred was almost trembling with the excitement of his own glimpse of the truth. \u201cDon\u2019t you see; don\u2019t you see,\u201d he cried feverishly; \u201cthat is the only theory that covers both the queer things, that answers both the riddles. The two riddles are the little hammer and the big blow. The smith might have struck the big blow, but would not have chosen the little hammer. His wife would have chosen the little hammer, but she could not have struck the big blow. But the madman might have done both. As for the little hammer\u2014why, he was mad and might have picked up anything. And for the big blow, have you never heard, doctor, that a maniac in his paroxysm may have the strength of ten men?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The doctor drew a deep breath and then said, \u201cBy golly, I believe you\u2019ve got it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Father Brown had fixed his eyes on the speaker so long and steadily as to prove that his large grey, ox-like eyes were not quite so insignificant as the rest of his face. When silence had fallen he said with marked respect: \u201cMr. Bohun, yours is the only theory yet propounded which holds water every way and is essentially unassailable. I think, therefore, that you deserve to be told, on my positive knowledge, that it is not the true one.\u201d And with that the old little man walked away and stared again at the hammer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat fellow seems to know more than he ought to,\u201d whispered the doctor peevishly to Wilfred. \u201cThose popish priests are deucedly sly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, no,\u201d said Bohun, with a sort of wild fatigue. \u201cIt was the lunatic. It was the lunatic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The group of the two clerics and the doctor had fallen away from the more official group containing the inspector and the man he had arrested. Now, however, that their own party had broken up, they heard voices from the others. The priest looked up quietly and then looked down again as he heard the blacksmith say in a loud voice:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope I\u2019ve convinced you, Mr. Inspector. I\u2019m a strong man, as you say, but I couldn\u2019t have flung my hammer bang here from Greenford. My hammer hasn\u2019t got wings that it should come flying half a mile over hedges and fields.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The inspector laughed amicably and said: \u201cNo, I think you can be considered out of it, though it\u2019s one of the rummiest coincidences I ever saw. I can only ask you to give us all the assistance you can in finding a man as big and strong as yourself. By George! you might be useful, if only to hold him! I suppose you yourself have no guess at the man?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI may have a guess,\u201d said the pale smith, \u201cbut it is not at a man.\u201d Then, seeing the scared eyes turn towards his wife on the bench, he put his huge hand on her shoulder and said: \u201cNor a woman either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d asked the inspector jocularly. \u201cYou don\u2019t think cows use hammers, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think no thing of flesh held that hammer,\u201d said the blacksmith in a stifled voice; \u201cmortally speaking, I think the man died alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred made a sudden forward movement and peered at him with burning eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you mean to say, Barnes,\u201d came the sharp voice of the cobbler, \u201cthat the hammer jumped up of itself and knocked the man down?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, you gentlemen may stare and snigger,\u201d cried Simeon; \u201cyou clergymen who tell us on Sunday in what a stillness the Lord smote Sennacherib. I believe that One who walks invisible in every house defended the honour of mine, and laid the defiler dead before the door of it. I believe the force in that blow was just the force there is in earthquakes, and no force less.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred said, with a voice utterly undescribable: \u201cI told Norman myself to beware of the thunderbolt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat agent is outside my jurisdiction,\u201d said the inspector with a slight smile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are not outside His,\u201d answered the smith; \u201csee you to it,\u201d and, turning his broad back, he went into the house.<\/p>\n<p>The shaken Wilfred was led away by Father Brown, who had an easy and friendly way with him. \u201cLet us get out of this horrid place, Mr. Bohun,\u201d he said. \u201cMay I look inside your church? I hear it\u2019s one of the oldest in England. We take some interest, you know,\u201d he added with a comical grimace, \u201cin old English churches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred Bohun did not smile, for humour was never his strong point. But he nodded rather eagerly, being only too ready to explain the Gothic splendours to someone more likely to be sympathetic than the Presbyterian blacksmith or the atheist cobbler.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy all means,\u201d he said; \u201clet us go in at this side.\u201d And he led the way into the high side entrance at the top of the flight of steps. Father Brown was mounting the first step to follow him when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to behold the dark, thin figure of the doctor, his face darker yet with suspicion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSir,\u201d said the physician harshly, \u201cyou appear to know some secrets in this black business. May I ask if you are going to keep them to yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy, doctor,\u201d answered the priest, smiling quite pleasantly, \u201cthere is one very good reason why a man of my trade should keep things to himself when he is not sure of them, and that is that it is so constantly his duty to keep them to himself when he is sure of them. But if you think I have been discourteously reticent with you or anyone, I will go to the extreme limit of my custom. I will give you two very large hints.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, sir?\u201d said the doctor gloomily.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst,\u201d said Father Brown quietly, \u201cthe thing is quite in your own province. It is a matter of physical science. The blacksmith is mistaken, not perhaps in saying that the blow was divine, but certainly in saying that it came by a miracle. It was no miracle, doctor, except in so far as man is himself a miracle, with his strange and wicked and yet half-heroic heart. The force that smashed that skull was a force well known to scientists\u2014one of the most frequently debated of the laws of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The doctor, who was looking at him with frowning intentness, only said: \u201cAnd the other hint?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe other hint is this,\u201d said the priest. \u201cDo you remember the blacksmith, though he believes in miracles, talking scornfully of the impossible fairy tale that his hammer had wings and flew half a mile across country?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cI remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell,\u201d added Father Brown, with a broad smile, \u201cthat fairy tale was the nearest thing to the real truth that has been said today.\u201d And with that he turned his back and stumped up the steps after the curate.<\/p>\n<p>The Reverend Wilfred, who had been waiting for him, pale and impatient, as if this little delay were the last straw for his nerves, led him immediately to his favourite corner of the church, that part of the gallery closest to the carved roof and lit by the wonderful window with the angel. The little Latin priest explored and admired everything exhaustively, talking cheerfully but in a low voice all the time. When in the course of his investigation he found the side exit and the winding stair down which Wilfred had rushed to find his brother dead, Father Brown ran not down but up, with the agility of a monkey, and his clear voice came from an outer platform above.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome up here, Mr. Bohun,\u201d he called. \u201cThe air will do you good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bohun followed him, and came out on a kind of stone gallery or balcony outside the building, from which one could see the illimitable plain in which their small hill stood, wooded away to the purple horizon and dotted with villages and farms. Clear and square, but quite small beneath them, was the blacksmith\u2019s yard, where the inspector still stood taking notes and the corpse still lay like a smashed fly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMight be the map of the world, mightn\u2019t it?\u201d said Father Brown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d said Bohun very gravely, and nodded his head.<\/p>\n<p>Immediately beneath and about them the lines of the Gothic building plunged outwards into the void with a sickening swiftness akin to suicide. There is that element of Titan energy in the architecture of the Middle Ages that, from whatever aspect it be seen, it always seems to be rushing away, like the strong back of some maddened horse. This church was hewn out of ancient and silent stone, bearded with old fungoids and stained with the nests of birds. And yet, when they saw it from below, it sprang like a fountain at the stars; and when they saw it, as now, from above, it poured like a cataract into a voiceless pit. For these two men on the tower were left alone with the most terrible aspect of Gothic; the monstrous foreshortening and disproportion, the dizzy perspectives, the glimpses of great things small and small things great; a topsy-turvydom of stone in the mid-air. Details of stone, enormous by their proximity, were relieved against a pattern of fields and farms, pygmy in their distance. A carved bird or beast at a corner seemed like some vast walking or flying dragon wasting the pastures and villages below. The whole atmosphere was dizzy and dangerous, as if men were upheld in air amid the gyrating wings of colossal genii; and the whole of that old church, as tall and rich as a cathedral, seemed to sit upon the sunlit country like a cloudburst.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there is something rather dangerous about standing on these high places even to pray,\u201d said Father Brown. \u201cHeights were made to be looked at, not to be looked from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you mean that one may fall over,\u201d asked Wilfred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean that one\u2019s soul may fall if one\u2019s body doesn\u2019t,\u201d said the other priest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI scarcely understand you,\u201d remarked Bohun indistinctly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLook at that blacksmith, for instance,\u201d went on Father Brown calmly; \u201ca good man, but not a Christian\u2014hard, imperious, unforgiving. Well, his Scotch religion was made up by men who prayed on hills and high crags, and learnt to look down on the world more than to look up at heaven. Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he\u2014he didn\u2019t do it,\u201d said Bohun tremulously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d said the other in an odd voice; \u201cwe know he didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After a moment he resumed, looking tranquilly out over the plain with his pale grey eyes. \u201cI knew a man,\u201d he said, \u201cwho began by worshipping with others before the altar, but who grew fond of high and lonely places to pray from, corners or niches in the belfry or the spire. And once in one of those dizzy places, where the whole world seemed to turn under him like a wheel, his brain turned also, and he fancied he was God. So that, though he was a good man, he committed a great crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred\u2019s face was turned away, but his bony hands turned blue and white as they tightened on the parapet of stone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe thought it was given to him to judge the world and strike down the sinner. He would never have had such a thought if he had been kneeling with other men upon a floor. But he saw all men walking about like insects. He saw one especially strutting just below him, insolent and evident by a bright green hat\u2014a poisonous insect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rooks cawed round the corners of the belfry; but there was no other sound till Father Brown went on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis also tempted him, that he had in his hand one of the most awful engines of nature; I mean gravitation, that mad and quickening rush by which all earth\u2019s creatures fly back to her heart when released. See, the inspector is strutting just below us in the smithy. If I were to toss a pebble over this parapet it would be something like a bullet by the time it struck him. If I were to drop a hammer\u2014even a small hammer\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred Bohun threw one leg over the parapet, and Father Brown had him in a minute by the collar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot by that door,\u201d he said quite gently; \u201cthat door leads to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bohun staggered back against the wall, and stared at him with frightful eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you know all this?\u201d he cried. \u201cAre you a devil?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a man,\u201d answered Father Brown gravely; \u201cand therefore have all devils in my heart. Listen to me,\u201d he said after a short pause. \u201cI know what you did\u2014at least, I can guess the great part of it. When you left your brother you were racked with no unrighteous rage, to the extent even that you snatched up a small hammer, half inclined to kill him with his foulness on his mouth. Recoiling, you thrust it under your buttoned coat instead, and rushed into the church. You pray wildly in many places, under the angel window, upon the platform above, and a higher platform still, from which you could see the colonel\u2019s Eastern hat like the back of a green beetle crawling about. Then something snapped in your soul, and you let God\u2019s thunderbolt fall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilfred put a weak hand to his head, and asked in a low voice: \u201cHow did you know that his hat looked like a green beetle?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, that,\u201d said the other with the shadow of a smile, \u201cthat was common sense. But hear me further. I say I know all this; but no one else shall know it. The next step is for you; I shall take no more steps; I will seal this with the seal of confession. If you ask me why, there are many reasons, and only one that concerns you. I leave things to you because you have not yet gone very far wrong, as assassins go. You did not help to fix the crime on the smith when it was easy; or on his wife, when that was easy. You tried to fix it on the imbecile because you knew that he could not suffer. That was one of the gleams that it is my business to find in assassins. And now come down into the village, and go your own way as free as the wind; for I have said my last word.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They went down the winding stairs in utter silence, and came out into the sunlight by the smithy. Wilfred Bohun carefully unlatched the wooden gate of the yard, and going up to the inspector, said: \u201cI wish to give myself up; I have killed my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">G. K. Chesterton Books to Read<\/h2>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Buy Now<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4gXmvkx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amazon<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/affiliates.abebooks.com\/c\/58313\/77798\/2029?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abebooks.com%2Fservlet%2FSearchResults%3Fan%3DG.%2520K.%2520Chesterton%26bi%3D0%26bx%3Doff%26ds%3D30%26n%3D-1%26prc%3DUSD%26servlet%3DImpactRadiusAffiliateLinkEntry%26sortby%3D20%26tn%3DThe%2520Complete%2520Father%2520Brown%2520Stories\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Abebooks<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you enjoyed The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/the-occupant-of-the-room-by-algernon-blackwood\">The Occupant of the Room by Algernon Blackwood<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Narrated by Terrance Callan, courtesy of Librivox<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton features his detective, Father Brown, and was published in the short story collection The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton The Hammer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}