husband in
hault: yees have yer castle sure enough. Now we'll change, if you please:
we'll render the squire, and you'll render the keep; and if yees won't do
that same, the squire will be throttled before your two eyes in half an
hour."--"Flag of truce," said the heroine with due dignity and without the
slightest hesitation, "mark the words of Elizabeth Fitzgerald of Moret
Castle: they may answer for your own wife upon some future occasion. Flag
of truce, I _won't_ render my keep, and I'll tell you why: Elizabeth
Fitzgerald may get another husband, but Elizabeth Fitzgerald may never get
another castle; so I'll keep what I have; and if you can't get off faster
than your legs can readily carry you, my warders will try which is the
hardest--your skull or a stone bullet." It were too long a story to relate
how this Irish Penelope, unsustained by the hope of the return of her
Ulysses, inasmuch as she had seen him hanged before her eyes, defended her
castle and her liberty against all the neighboring squires, who had agreed
to decide by lot which should carry her off. Nearly every one of them had
previously tried to persuade her to accept his hand, the proposal being
made by "flag of truce," till at length she threatened to hang the next
messenger.

These events took place in 1690. Later on, such women as Elizabeth
Fitzgerald became more rare, but there is one noted example of womanly
daring which must not be passed over. The celebrated "Lady Freemason"
confronted the terrors of a Masonic lodge, and, unlike our mother Eve, the
forbidden knowledge has brought no evil consequences on her posterity, who
continue to be reckoned among the most estimable and most respected
families of the county of Cork. The Hon. Elizabeth St. Leger, daughter to
Lord Doneraile, was descended from Robert de St. Leger, who accompanied
William the Conqueror to England, and cousin to the General St. Leger who
instituted the Doncaster St. Leger race. When a young girl she was seized
with a desire to see the mysteries of the initiation of a Mason which were
about to be celebrated at her father's house. The generally-received
tradition is that she concealed herself behind a large old-fashioned
eight-day clock, but another version of the story is that some alterations
being in progress, she picked a brick out of the partition which divided
the room occupied by the Masons from the adjoining apartment. However this
may be, the young lady got frightened and