Tom recognized the grief in her voice. «I’m sorry. There’s a lot of that about.»

«Too much. That’s one reason why I want to be a nurse. To help. I deliberately failed the teaching exam so I could go to nursing school.»

Tom’s delighted laughter echoed over the bogs. «It’s grand that you could. My father took me out after sixth grade to work the farm and do odd jobs.»

«That’s not uncommon. Most of my friends ended their schooling likewise. I’m lucky my parents let me go off at all, with twenty acres to manage. They were disappointed about the nursing. An unsuitable calling for a proper young lady, they said. Wanted me to stay home and teach, like Sissie and Mac. When Mac isn’t teaching, he helps my father about the farm. He’ll inherit the place some day.»

«So will I, though it’s little I want it.»

«I wondered about that, Tom. A Ballymote lad travelling all over Ireland. When you see other ways to live besides milking cows, it’s hard to go back to farming, isn’t it?»

Tom tightened his hold on the reins. He didn’t want to talk about cows, not now. «Your brothers and sisters have odd names. Nicknames, are they?»

«Yes. Jim is Lanigan, John is Maneen. Michael is Mac, and Annie’s called Badie. Kathleen was Sissie.»

«Is Dolly a nickname as well?»

«It is. They called me that because I was the youngest. My real name is Doreen.»

Hearing the name from his dream stunned Tom, though he recovered quickly. This was Ireland after all. And a fellow got used to such odd occurrences.

Awake or dreaming, he had no business befriending an educated young lady whose father held a good strong farm of twenty Irish acres. «The matchmakers will be hopping about like hungry hens over a girl as pretty as you.»

Dolly blushed again. Her lips pressed into a thin straight line, and she shook her head. «Marriage would be the death of nursing for me. I’m thinking of emigrating. To Boston, like Maneen and Badie. That’s why I was at the well. Looking for guidance, for something to help me find my way.»

The heart turned crosswise in Tom. He might convince her to stay, but how could he blame her for wanting to go? He wanted no part of a life here himself.

Locking his gaze on her sparkling eyes, he released one hand from the reins and dared to squeeze her fingers. «Someone told me once, you must find your way by the light of your heart.»

She squeezed back, an agreeable response indeed, and then she smiled again. «That’s lovely, Tom. You know, I feel we’ve met before. At a dance? Or in church, perhaps?»

It seemed she’d forgotten her time with the fairies. Had it really happened at all? Tom’s other hand slipped into the pocket that in his dream had held the golden bean. He felt nothing but the hard seam in the cloth.

A dream. It had all been a dream. «Somewhere like that, I suppose. I do get around.»

Her heavy sigh seemed to unleash a new round of showers. She leaned back under the overhang. «There’ll never be any light in my heart if my parents have their way. Mac says they’re going to forbid me to be a nurse. They thought I’d get it out of my system in London, but just the opposite occurred. Studying at the hospital and seeing all those ill and dying folk only made me more determined to help them.»

Suddenly jealous of every sick man in the world, Tom released her hand. She might hit him, but he couldn’t hold back. «I wouldn’t like to see you go so far away, Dolly Keenan. The light in my heart has grown brighter since I met you.»

Nor could he keep from seizing her and sliding his lips over hers, gently at first, gauging, sensing, expecting an outraged shove. Instead, she kissed him back with a fervour that unlocked a secret door in his soul.

Could he go with her to America?

His cousin had gone to Boston and found work as a train conductor. An aunt named Mary, his father’s own sister, had gone to Boston too. She ran a boarding house and made good money, a lot more than Tom made selling tea. With all the skills he had, he could do anything.

Could he leave Ireland and his family forever?

For Dolly Keenan he could, and her eager kisses said she’d have him.

«Good man yourself!» shouted a farmer leading a donkey laden with turf-filled panniers.

Tom backed breathlessly away from Dolly. He licked his lips, savouring the taste of her, entranced by the same perfume he’d smelled in her hair behind the silver oak tree. Dolly in turn looked away to the west, touching her smiling lips as if she couldn’t believe he’d kissed her.

Tom picked up the reins and tried to focus on the road. He’d sinned with a girl or two around Ireland, but he sensed no sin here. He loved Dolly, and she loved him, he knew it.

Maybe they wouldn’t have to leave. He’d speak to his father, have him send the matchmaker to Mr Keenan, convince the man that Tom O’Byrne could support his daughter well with his tea sales and roof thatching and all his odd jobs.

Still, she’d have to do for his father and brother, mind the chickens, gather the eggs, churn the butter and mend the clothes. Tom would work hard to bring in more gold, enough to hire a local girl to help her.

Maybe her nursing could bring in some extra gold. Sligo had the fever hospital. She could work there, if tending potatoes and cabbage left her any time.

No, he thought. The farm would kill them both. They had to get away.

Yet he couldn’t speak the words that would change their lives forever, and perhaps not for the best. They rode on in silence until they reached the crossroads. No silver tree here, no crystal lark.

She insisted she’d be safe enough riding to Tubbercurry from here. He stopped at the roadside and opened the wagon’s rear doors. Before he reached in for the bike, she came at him, hugging him, kissing him, deliciously rubbing against him.

He held her close and ground against her, sin be damned. «Dolly. Oh, darlin’, what are we to do? I can’t marry you. Your father wouldn’t have me.»

«I’d have you, Tom O’Byrne. We can marry in America.»

They could. Others had done so. Tom’s heart thumped in his throat. «When are you leaving?»

«I don’t know. Soon. Come with me, Tom. Leave the farm for Boston.»

Leave the farm. The words struck him like an Atlantic gale, knocking down fences, ripping up hedges, tearing down the walls that threatened to imprison him to the end of his days.

Did he really have the neck to leave?

One look at the promise glinting in Dolly’s eyes gave him his answer. «I will, mo chroí. I’ll go anywhere with you.»

He caught her in his arms, silencing her delighted squeal with a kiss that reached for her soul. When she finally wobbled from his arms, her crimson cheeks and ragged breath told him he’d succeeded.

«I’ll send you a letter,» she said when she could speak. She twisted the ring from her finger and pressed it into his hand, apparently unconcerned that he’d nothing to offer in exchange.

Swearing she’d have a ring for every finger one day, he slipped the pearl in his jacket pocket and watched her ride away.

An hour before midnight, the Irish twilight lingered over Ballymote. Hungry, tired and longing for Dolly, Tom trudged home from Davy Bookman’s house with his share of the gold snug in his pocket. His satchel contained his few toiletries and washing for Kate. She’d begrudgingly launder his socks and shirts, though he’d look after his trousers himself. She never put the crease in them right.

The homey odours of pipe tobacco and roasting turf greeted him at the door. Subtler aromas of bacon and bread sharpened his hunger. He set his bag on the rough plank table, eyeing the furnishings and holy pictures as if seeing them for the last time.

His father sat by the hearth holding a briar pipe to the mouth concealed in his long white beard. As Tom approached, the old man lowered his pipe and turned his book on his lap. «Thanks be to God, it’s himself at last.»

Tom always pictured his father’s beard red, saw his freckled bald pate with a full head of ginger-red hair. The family and neighbours still called him Red Brendan. «I’ve only been gone two weeks, Da. How are you keeping?»

«I’ve often been better and often been worse. And yourself, Tomás Og?»

I’ve been to the fairies. I’m in love and thinking of going to Boston. «I’d be well enough if I wasn’t hungry. Is there bread?» He handed the bag of gold to his father.

«There is, and cabbage and bacon. Kate’s just after finishing the mending. She’s gone to her room to brush out her hair.» Brendan rattled the coins and smiled. He placed the bag on the table beside him, near the tobacco can, and turned his head towards the back room. «Kate! Tom is home. Come out and get him tea, girl.»

Tom would have found the food himself, but he’d only earn his sister’s wrath for messing things. He glanced at the blue and white delft in the cupboard. Not a piece missing, every plate clean and in its place. She kept house well, he’d give her that.

On the top shelf sat the framed photograph of their mother, Ann. Dark-haired and lovely, she watched over the room with a neutral expression that over the years had turned cross or approving depending on Tom’s own behaviour. He barely remembered her. She’d died giving birth to Dan, when Tom had been three years of age.

«You favour her, Tom,» old Gram had said.

Kate and Dan had their father’s red hair, and Kate had the temper to match. Her entrance from the back room reminded Tom of the fire-breathing stallions at the silver oak tree. He caught himself before he laughed. «Hello, Kate. You’re looking lovely tonight.»