Did Colum have the gold, Scarlett wanted to know. He did, and Liam Ryan with his rifle to guard it. “I’ve escorted many a package in my day,” Colum said, “but never a time have I been nervous until now.”

“I’ve got men from the bank to take it,” said Scarlett. “I’m using Mullingar for safety, it’s got the biggest garrison of military.” She’d learned to loathe the soldiers, but where the safety of her gold was involved she was glad to use them. She could use the bank in Trim for convenience—for small sums.


As soon as she saw the gold stored in the security of the vault and signed the papers for the purchase of Ballyhara, Scarlett took Colum’s arm and hurried him out onto the street.

“I’ve a pony trap, we can get going right away. There’s so much to do, Colum. I’ve got to find a blacksmith right away and get the smithy going. O’Gorman’s no good, he’s too lazy. Will you help me find one? He’ll be well paid to move to Ballyhara and well paid after he gets there, for there’ll be all the work he can handle. I’ve bought scythes and axes and shovels, but they’ll need sharpening. Oh! I need workmen too, to clear the fields, and carpenters to mend the houses, and glaziers and roofers and painters—everything imaginable!” Her cheeks were pink with excitement, her eyes shining. She was incredibly beautiful in her peasant black clothing.

Colum extricated himself from her grasp, then took her arm in his firm hand. “All will be done, Scarlett darling, and almost as quickly as you’d like. But not on an empty stomach. We’ll be going now to Jim Ryan’s. It’s seldom he gets to see his Galway brother, and it’s rare to find as grand a cook as Mrs. Ryan.”

Scarlett made an impatient gesture. Then she forced herself to calm down. Colum’s authority was quietly impressive. Also, she did try to remember to eat properly and drink quantities of milk for the baby’s sake. The subtle movements could be felt many times every day now.

But after dinner she couldn’t contain her anger when Colum said he wouldn’t come with her at once. She had so much to show him, to talk about, to plan, and she wanted it all now!

“I’ve things to do in Mullingar,” he said with placid, unshakable firmness. “I’ll be home in three days, you’ve my word on it. I’ll even set the time. Two in the afternoon we’ll meet at Daniel’s.”

“We’ll meet at Ballyhara,” said Scarlett. “I’ve already moved in. It’s the yellow house halfway down the street.” She turned her back on him then and strode angrily away to get her trap.


Late that evening, after Jim Ryan’s bar was closed for the night, its door was left on the latch for the men who quietly slipped in one by one to meet in a room upstairs. Colum laid out in detail the things they had to do. “It’s a God-sent opportunity,” he said with incandescent fervor, “an entire town of our own. All Fenian men, all their skills concentrated in one place, where the English would never think to look. The whole world already thinks my cousin’s daft for paying such a price for property she might have bought for nothing just to spare the owner paying the taxes on it. She’s American, too, a race known to be peculiar. The English are too busy laughing at her to be suspicious of what goes on in her property. We’ve long needed a secure headquarters. Scarlett’s begging us to take it, though she doesn’t know it.”


Colum rode into Ballyhara’s weed-grown street at 2:43. Scarlett was standing in front of her house, arms akimbo. “You’re late,” she accused.

“Ah, but sure and you’ll forgive me, Scarlett darling, when I tell you that following me on the road comes your smith and his wagon with forge and bellows and all that.”


Scarlett’s house was a perfect portrait of her, work first and comfort later, if at all. Colum observed everything with deceptively lazy eyes. The parlor’s broken windows were neatly covered with squares of oiled paper glued over the panes. Farm implements of new shiny steel were stacked in the corners of the room. The floors were swept clean but not polished. The kitchen had a plain narrow wooden bedstead with a thick straw mattress covered by linen sheets and a woolen blanket. There was a small turf fire in the big stone fireplace. The only cooking implements were an iron kettle and small pot. Above, on the mantelshelf, were tins of tea and oatmeal, two cups, saucers, spoons, and a box of matches. The only chair in the room was placed by a big table under the window. The table held a large account book, open, with entries in Scarlett’s neat hand. Two large oil lamps, a pot of ink, a box of pens and pen wipes, and a stack of paper were at the back of the table. A larger stack of paper was near the front. The sheets were covered with notes and calculations, held down with a large washed stone. The surveyor’s map of Ballyhara was nailed to the wall nearby. So was a mirror, above a shelf that held Scarlett’s silver-backed comb and brushes, and silver-topped jars of hairpins, powder, rouge, and rosewater-glycerine cream. Colum restrained a smile when he saw them. But when he saw the pistol next to them, he turned angrily. “You could get jailed for owning that weapon,” he said, too loudly.

“Fiddle-dee-dee,” she said, “the Captain of the militia gave it to me. A woman living alone who’s known to have a lot of gold should have some protection, he said. He’d have posted one of his sissy-britches soldiers at the door if I’d let him.”

Colum’s laughter made her eyebrows rise. She didn’t think what she’d said was all that amusing.

The larder shelves held butter, milk, sugar, a rack with two plates in it, a bowl of eggs, a ham hanging from the ceiling, and a loaf of stale bread. Buckets of water stood in a corner with a tin of lamp oil and a washstand outfitted with bowl, pitcher, soap dish and soap, and a towel rack with one towel on it. Scarlett’s clothes hung from nails on the wall.

“You’re not using the upstairs, then,” Colum commented.

“Why should I? I have all I need here.”


“You’ve done wonders, Colum, I’m really impressed.” Scarlett stood in the center of Ballyhara’s famously wide street and looked at the activity everywhere along the length of it. Hammering could be heard from every direction; there was the smell of fresh paint; new windows sparkled in a dozen buildings; and in front of her, a man on a ladder was putting up a gold-lettered sign above the door of the building that Colum had first earmarked for work.

“Did we really need to finish the bar first?” Scarlett asked. She’d been asking the same thing ever since Colum made the announcement.

“You’ll find more willing workers if there’s a place for them to have a pint when their work’s done,” he said for the thousandth time.

“So you’ve said, every time you opened your mouth, but I still can’t see why it won’t just make them worse. Why, if I didn’t keep after them, nothing would ever get done on time. They’d be just like them!” Scarlett jerked her thumb at the groups of interested observers along the street. “They should be back wherever they come from, doing their own work, not watching while other people work.”

“Scarlett darling, it’s the national character to take the pleasures life has to offer first and worry about duties later. It’s what gives the Irish their charm and their happiness.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s charming, and it doesn’t make me one bit happy. It’s practically August already and not one single field’s been cleared yet. How can I possibly plant in the spring if the fields aren’t cleared and manured in the fall?”

“You’ve got months yet, Scarlett darling. Just look what you’ve already done in only weeks.”

Scarlett looked. The frown disappeared from her forehead and she smiled. “That’s true,” she said.

Colum smiled with her. He said nothing about the soothing and pressuring he had had to do to prevent the men putting down their tools and walking away. They didn’t take well to being bossed by a woman, especially one as demanding as Scarlett. If the underground links of the Fenian Brotherhood hadn’t committed them to the resurrection of Ballyhara, he didn’t know how many would be left, even with Scarlett paying above-average wages.

He, too, looked along the busy street. It would be a good life for these men, and others too, he thought, when Ballyhara was restored. Already he had two more barkeepers asking to come in, and a man who owned a profitable dry-goods store in Bective wanted to relocate. The houses, even the smallest ones, were better than the hovels occupied now by most of the farm laborers he’d chosen. They were as eager as Scarlett for the roofs and windows to be repaired so that they could leave their landlords and get started on the fields of Ballyhara.

Scarlett darted into her house and out again, gloves and covered milk jug in her hand. “I hope you’ll keep everybody working and not have a big celebration to open the bar while I’m gone,” she said. “I’ll ride over to Daniel’s for some bread and milk.” Colum promised to keep the work going. He said nothing about the folly of her jouncing along on a saddleless pony in her condition. She’d already bitten his head off for suggesting that it was unwise.

“For pity’s sake, Colum, I’m barely past five months. That’s hardly pregnant at all!”


She was more worried than she’d ever let him know. None of her earlier babies had given her so much trouble. She had an ache in her lower back that never went away, and occasionally there were spots of blood on her underclothes or her sheets that made her heart turn over. She washed them out with the strongest soap she had, the one meant for floors and walls, as if she could wash out the unknown cause together with the spots. Dr. Meade had warned her after her miscarriage that the fall had injured her severely, and she had taken an unconscionably long time to recover, but she refused to admit there might be anything really wrong. The baby wouldn’t be kicking so strong if it wasn’t healthy. And she had no time to be vaporish.