Father Brown had nothing like the famous Chestertonian character. He was quite young yet, he was not an Englishman, and his face absolutely did not remind the Norfolk dumplings. If it remembered something, it was the wind and the sea of the Aran Islands. A place the priest-detective would have found uncomfortable, but he was nostalgic about it. Especially since he was sent to a far and unheard-of Catholic parish beyond the Arctic polar circle. And especially since he got run off the track.
Up to that point, it had been a tranquil and interesting journey. As far as a sea journey from China to California, and then to Alaska, could be "tranquil". There had been some problems only when he arrived in Anchorage. Because of a misunderstanding, the local Catholic priest was not at the harbor to greet him. As a matter of fact, he was not in the town: he met him only after a week.
The local priest was sure he would have arrived a week later. In the meantime, the almost penniless father Brown had been forced to ask for help to the other priests of the town, who had a defect: they were all Protestants, and maybe, they thought that there was some war still raging against the Church of Rome. Or at least, they seemed willing to fight that war. Or even to start it...
The only person who helped him was the only non-Protestant priest he had found. He has seen at first sight that the other man was a priest, and that he was not a Protestant, since he wore a black robe, and not a clergyman, but he had not the appearance of a Catholic priest either. The other priest had seen at first glance that he was in a bad situation, and he had proposed him his helping hand.
"You are not a Protestant, are you?" father Brown asked, just to be sure.
"Oh, God forbid!" he said with a baritone voice and quite a melodramatic tone. "I'm Orthodox!"
"Oh... that's a problem!" father Brown said.
"Why?"
"Because I'm a Catholic. A Catholic priest. We are not in good relations too, are we?"
The other priest had shrugged.
"You are a man who needs a help. Come with me!"
So father Brown was hosted for a week by the Orthodox priest. He was one of the few ones who took care of the small Russian community who had remained in Alaska when the region was sold to the United States, some years before. Of course the priest was not exactly rich, but he was very kind and caring with a man who, by his point of view, was just another heretic. He just loved a bit too much to talk about the good old days when Alaska was a Russian territory ("in 1849, northern California was virtually Russian, do you know?" he asked. Indeed, father Brown did not...).
And when the priest saw the very embarrassed, very human glances that father Brown, unavoidably, addressed to the quiet beauty of his wife, he did not get mad at all. He shook his head, with an indie-red smile. thinking about the foolish Catholic rule which had banned the marriage of priests, and patted father Brown's wrist with a hand.
"Do you see?" he said. "if you were one of ours, instead of following the Pope of Rome, you could marry a good nice girl, as I have done. Maybe a Russian girl too. You would be less lonesome, and nobody could think bad about you..."
From the professional point of view, it was a bit of a pettiness: a priest who tried to convert another priest... But they were among men. So father Brown smiled, vaguely moving his hand, and the priest renounced to pouring lemon juice in an open wound...
Yes. Facing the likely end of his life, father Brown could not help asking himself, whether it had been worthwhile to renounce to that too. Not only the sex. The company of a woman. The warmth of a woman...
Sure, he would have left neither widows nor orphans. This was the only advantage, the only real reason for it. To renounce to a family, in order to be always ready to help other people. Even if "to help other people" meant to reach those God-forgotten lands, to sit in a sledge driven by a half-Inuit and half-drunk, to get off track after some miles, and now, to walk in the snow, bound to...
Bound to where?
How far was the village he had to reach? Was he going in the right direction?
And if not?
Father Brown was getting used to the idea that his pilgrimage on this earth was coming to an end. Without pain, likely. The cold would have killed him before the hunger. Yes, white death. Something like a big headache, a stronger and stronger wish to sleep... And Goodnight to everybody...
That's why he had kept his mind busy recalling all his life, since his childhood days. But now that exercise was over. He quickly had to find something else to do. Very quickly. The cold and the tiredness had started to spin him quite giddy. For a moment he had thought to have seen Our Lady. A quiet, smiling Our Lady, with a white vest, a pale blue veil on the head, and the face strangely similar to the Orthodox priest's wife...
To pray? Of course, he knew lots of prayers and hymns. But he thought it was not the time yet. He had to resist, if he wanted to have a chance to survive, not to give up thinking about Heaven. But, the hymns...
Why not? To sing! Let the polar bears and the arctic foxes listen how a real Irishman sings, before they can eat him! He recalled the jokes of the seminary: "My Lord! Inspire to this animal some Christian feelings!" said the missionary facing a lion. "My Lord, bless my food!" said the lion... Funny, ain't it?
"Sé mo laoch, mo ghiolla mear ..."
Father Brown smiled, guessing how many seals or bears would have turned their heads in surprise, hearing him singing. And singing in Gaelic language! Father Brown did not speak Gaelic so much, but that song (only partially Gaelic, in the version he knew) was the only legacy of his grandfather, besides his stern anti-British point of view. A point of view that father Brown had inherited without asking the benefit of inventory.
That's why his superiors had wisely thought not to let him in Ireland, where he could have caused trouble with the British authorities, and had made him a missionary. "Promoveatur UT amoveatur": promote to remove, typical Catholic tradition. Firts he had been "promoted" to China, and then, down there. Where very soon, likely, the British empire would have lost a fierce, although very undervalued enemy...
"Grief and pain are all I know.
My heart is sore, my tears a flow.
We saw him go... our buachaill beo.
No word we know of him, och on.
Sé mo laoch, mo ghiolla mear
Sé mo Chaesar, giolla mear,
Suan nà séan ni bhfuaircas féin
O chuaigh i gcèin mo ghiolla mear,
A ghiolla mear, ghiolla mear.
A proud and gallant chevalier,
A high born scion of gentle mien,
A fiery blade engaged to lead
He'd break the bravest in the field.
Sé mo laoch, mo ghiolla mear
Sé mo Chaesar, giolla mear,
Suan nà séan ni bhfuaircas féin
O chuaigh i gcèin mo ghiolla mear,
A ghiolla mear, ghiolla mear.
