“In plain English, you want to back out at the last moment?”
“I do not, and I defy you to say that I do.”
“Then what’s come to you?”
“Here’s the thing that’s come to me. It came to me when I ran me eye down this list. See there, and that’ll tell ye what has come to me.”
He thrust the list in front of Ember.
“It’s Galway you’ve got set down there.”
“Well, and what of it?” said Ember.
“What of it?” said Mr. Molloy. “I was born in Galway, and the only sister I ever had is married there. Four sons she has, decent young men by all the accounts I’ve had of them. If I haven’t been in Galway for thirty years, that’s not to say that I’ve no feeling for my own flesh and blood. Why, the first girl I ever courted lived out Barna way. Many’s the time I’ve met her in the dusk on the seashore, and she half crying for fear of what her father would do. Katie Blake her name was. They married her to old Timmy Dolan before I’d been six months out of the country. A fistful of gold he had, and a hard fist it was. I heard tell he beat her, poor Katie. But ye see now, Ember, it’s the same way with your native place and your first love, ye can’t get quit of them. Now I hadn’t been a month in Chicago before I was courting another girl, but to save my neck I couldn’t tell ye what her name was, and ye may blow Chicago to hell to-morrow and I’ll not say a word.”
“But not Galway?” Mr. Ember’s tone was very dry indeed.
“You’ve said it. Not Galway. I’ll not stand for it.”