As Beatrice led the way down the village street, ragged women and children, barefooted and unkempt, bobbed and courtesied to her. The alley, for it was hardly broader than one, widened at length into a broad sweep of green, on one side of which stood a very old church and, adjoining that, a small stone cottage in a garden. A priest was standing at the garden gate intently watching three men at work on the green with a measuring line and surveyor’s instruments.
“Good-day to you, my lady,” cried the old priest, whose jovial round face was wreathed in smiles. “And have you or your uncle heard some of the good news that’s floating about the valley this day?”
“Why, no, Father O’Toole, what is it?” asked Beatrice surprised.
“Thanks be to God and all his holy saints, our prayers have been answered, and His Grace is turning the green into a new model village for his tenants. There’s to be a schoolhouse on it, your ladyship. It’s myself that has seen the plans with my own eyes, and, what is more, the church is to be rebuilt and no expense to be spared, and the rectory greatly enlarged.”
“Why, Father O’Toole, I can’t believe you!” cried Beatrice. “It seems too good to be true.”
“’Tis true, though, my lady, and more to come. The O’Connors this very morning returned to their old home and word is out that Feargus may come back and no fear of arrest at all, at all.”
Here was news, indeed, for the Motor Maids!
“But, Father O’Toole,” cried Beatrice, “what has happened to His Grace?”
She had never called him uncle in all her life.
“It’s maybe a penance to bring back the little Lord Arthur,” said the good priest; “and I’m thinkin’, too,” he added in a lower voice, “the lad might be better off where he is, poor child. He wouldn’t have lasted another year under that blackguard of a doctor.”