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 attempted to escape, but was detected by the Mason on guard. Her life was spared, it is said, at the intercession of her brother, but on condition of her becoming a member. She afterward married Richard Aldworth of Newmarket, and lived and died much respected. On public occasions she walked at the head of the Freemasons wearing the apron and insignia of the order. Her portrait in this attire is in the lodge-rooms of several Irish lodges and also in the family mansion of the Aldworths. This family is of English descent, and settled in the north-west of the county of Cork, where an ancestor of theirs got a grant of land from James I. They patronized Curran's father, and appointed him seneschal of their manor of Newmarket, in which town the great wit and patriot was born.