Ireland didn’t disappoint her. “My stars, Colum,” she said after they’d been travelling for an hour, “this country’s positively peppered with castles! There’s one on practically every hill, and more in the flat country, too. Why are they all falling down? Why don’t people live in them?”

“They’re very old, for the most part, Scarlett darling, four hundred years or more. People found more comfortable ways to live.”

She nodded. That made sense. There must have been a lot of running up and down stairs in the towers. Still, they were awfully romantic. She pressed her nose to the window again. “Oh,” she said “what a shame. My castle watching’s over. It’s starting to rain.”

“It will stop,” Colum promised.

As it did, before they reached the next station.

“Ballinasloe,” Scarlett read the name aloud. “What beautiful names your towns have. What’s the name of the place the O’Haras live?”

“Adamstown,” Colum replied. He laughed at the expression on Scarlett’s face. “No, it’s not very Irish. I’d change it for you if I could, I’d change it for all of us if I could. But the owner’s English, and he’d not like it.”

“Somebody owns the whole town?”

“It’s not a town, that’s just the English bragging. It’s hardly even a village. It was named for the son of the Englishman who first built it, a small gift for Adam, the estate was. It’s been inherited since then by his son and grandson and so on. The one that has it now never sees it. He lives mostly in London. It’s his agent who manages things.”

There was a bite of bitterness in Colum’s words. Scarlett decided she’d better not ask questions. She contented herself with looking for castles.

Just as the train began to slow for the next station she saw an enormous one that hadn’t crumbled at all. Surely somebody lived there! A knight? A prince? Far from it, said Colum; it was a military barracks for a regiment of the British Army.

Oh, I’ve put my foot in it this time for sure, thought Scarlett. Kathleen’s cheeks were flaming. “I’ll get us some tea,” Colum said when the train stopped. He pulled the window down from the top and leaned out. Kathleen stared at the floor. Scarlett stood next to Colum. It felt good to straighten her knees. “Sit down, Scarlett,” he said firmly. She sat. But she could still see the groups of smartly uniformed men on the platform, and the shake of Colum’s head when he was asked if any seats were vacant in the compartment. What a cool customer he was. No one could see past him because his shoulders filled the window, and there were three large empty seats going begging. She’d have to remember that next time she rode an Irish train, just in case Colum wasn’t with her.

He handed in mugs of tea and a lumpy folded cloth just as the train began to move. “Try an Irish specially,” he said, smiling now, “it’s called barm brack.” The rough linen cloth held great slabs of delicious, fruit-filled light bread. Scarlett ate Kathleen’s, too, and asked Colum if he could get some more for her when they stopped at the next station.

“Can you stay hungry another half hour or so? We’ll be getting off the train then and we can have a proper meal.” Scarlett was delighted to agree. The novelty of the train and the castle-peppered views had begun to wear off. She was ready to get wherever it was they were going.

But the station sign said “Mullingar,” not “Adamstown.” Poor lamb, Colum said, hadn’t he told her? They could only go part way on the train. After they ate their dinner, they’d make the rest of the journey by road. It was only twenty miles or so; they’d be home before dark.

Twenty miles! Why, that was as far as from Atlanta to Jonesboro. It would take ages, and they’d already been on the train for practically six hours. It took all her will to smile pleasantly when Colum introduced his friend Jim Daly. Daly wasn’t even good-looking. His wagon was, however. It had tall wheels painted bright red and glossy blue sides with J. DALY on them in bold gilt. Whatever business he’s in, thought Scarlett, he’s doing well at it.

Jim Daly’s business was a bar and brewery. Even though she was landlord to a saloon, Scarlett had never been in it; it made her feel pleasantly wicked to be entering the malty-smelling large room. She looked curiously at the long, polished oak bar, but she had no time to take in the details before Daly opened another door and ushered her through it into a hallway. The O’Haras were having dinner with him and his family in their private quarters above the public house.

It was a good dinner, but she might just as well have been in Savannah. There was nothing strange or foreign about leg of lamb with mint sauce and mashed potatoes. And all the talk was about the Savannah O’Haras, their health and their doings. Jim Daly’s mother, it turned out, was another O’Hara cousin. Scarlett couldn’t tell that she was in Ireland at all, much less right upstairs over a saloon. No one of the Dalys seemed very interested in her opinion about anything, either. They were all too busy talking among themselves.

Things improved after dinner. Jim Daly insisted on taking her on his arm for a walk to see the sights of Mullingar. Colum and Kathleen followed them. Not that there’s all that much to see, Scarlett thought. It’s a pokey little town, just one street and five times as many bars as shops, but it does feel good to stretch my legs. The town square wasn’t half the size of Galway’s, and nothing was happening in it at all. A young woman with a black shawl over her head and breast came up to them with one cupped hand held forward. “God bless you, sir and lady,” she whined. Jim dropped a few coins into her hand, and she repeated the blessing while she curtseyed. Scarlett was appalled. Why, that girl was begging, bold as brass! She certainly wouldn’t have given her anything; there wasn’t any reason the girl couldn’t go out and work for a living, she looked healthy enough.

There was an outburst of laughter, and Scarlett turned to see what caused it. A group of soldiers had entered the square from a side street. One of them was teasing the begging woman by holding a coin out to her, higher than she could reach. Brute! But what can she expect, if she’s going to make a spectacle of herself, begging on a public street. And from soldiers, too. Anybody would know that they’d be coarse and rude . . . Although, she had to admit, you could hardly credit that bunch as soldiers. They looked more like big toys for a little boy in those silly fancy uniforms. Obviously they did no more soldiering than marching in parades on holidays. Thank heavens there weren’t any real soldiers in Ireland, like the Yankees. No snakes and no Yankees.

The soldier threw the coin into a filthy, scum-coated puddle and laughed again with his friends. Scarlett saw Kathleen’s two hands grab Colum’s arm. He pulled away and walked over to the soldiers and the beggar. Oh, Lord, what if he started lecturing them about being good Christians? Colum pushed up his sleeve, and she caught her breath. He looks so much like Pa! Is he going to wade in fighting?

Colum knelt on the cobbled square and fished the coin out of the noisome puddle. Scarlett let her breath out in a slow, relieved hiss. She wouldn’t for a minute worry about Colum holding his own against one of those sissy-britches soldiers, but five might just be too much even for an O’Hara. What did he have to make such a fuss over a beggarwoman’s problems for, anyhow?

Colum stood, his back turned to the soldiers. They were visibly uncomfortable at the turn their joke had taken. When Colum took the woman’s arm and led her away, they turned in the opposite direction and walked quickly to the next corner.

Well, that’s that and no harm done, thought Scarlett. Except to the knees of Colum’s breeches. I suppose they get plenty of wear and tear anyhow, him being a priest and all. Funny, I forget that most of the time. If Kathleen hadn’t dragged me out of bed at dawn I wouldn’t have remembered we had to go to Mass before we took the train.

The balance of the town tour was very brief. There were no boats to be seen on the Royal Canal, and Scarlett wasn’t interested in the slightest by Jim Daly’s enthusiasm for travelling to Dublin that way instead of by train. Why should she care about getting to Dublin? She wanted to be on the way to Adamstown.

Before long she got her wish. There was a small, shabby carriage outside Jim Daly’s bar when they got back. An aproned man in shirtsleeves was loading their trunks on the top of it; the valises were already strapped on the back. If Scarlett’s trunk weighed much less now than it had at the depot when Jim Daly and Colum put it in Daly’s wagon, no one mentioned it. When the trunks were secure, the shirtsleeved man disappeared into the bar. He returned wearing a coachman’s caped coat and top hat. “Name’s Jim, too,” he said briefly. “Let’s be going.” Scarlett stepped up and took a seat on the far side. Kathleen sat beside her, Colum opposite. “May God travel your road with you,” called the Dalys. Scarlett and Kathleen waved their handkerchiefs out the window. Colum unbuttoned his coat and took off his hat.

“I cannot speak for anyone else here, but I’m going to try to sleep a bit,” he said. “I hope you ladies will excuse my feet.” He removed his boots and stretched out, his stockinged feet on the seat between Scarlett and Kathleen.

They looked at each other, then bent to unlace their boots. Within minutes they, too, were settled with their hatless heads resting against the corners of the carriage and their feet flanking Colum. Oh, if only I had on my Galway costume, I’d be as snug as a bug, Scarlett thought. One gold-filled corset stay was stabbing her in the ribs no matter how she arranged herself. Nevertheless she drifted quickly and easily into sleep.