ELIZABETH FITZGERALD.

My great-aunt, Elizabeth—Beseiged in her castle of Moret-My uncle seized and hanged before the walls-Attempted abduction of Elizabeth, whose forces surprise the castle of Reuben-Severe battle.

A GREAT AUNT of mine, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, whose husband, Stephen, possessed the castle of Moret, near Bally-Brittis and not very far from Cullenagh, did not fare quite so well as my great-grandfather, before-mentioned.

She and her husband held their castle firmly during the troubles. They had forty good warders; their local enemies had no cannon, and but few guns. The warders, protected by the battlements, pelted their adversaries with large stones, when they ventured to approach the walls; and in front of each of that description of castles, there was a hole perpendicularly over the entrance, wherefrom any person, himself unseen, could drop down every species of defensive material upon assailants.

About the year 1690, when Ireland was in a state of great disorder, and no laws were really regarded, numerous factious bodies were formed in every part of the country to claim old rights, and take possession of estates under legal pretences.

My uncle and aunt, or rather my aunt and uncle (for she was said to be far the most effective of the two,) at one time suffered the enemy (who were of the faction of the O'Cahils, and who claimed my uncle's property, which they said Queen Elizabeth had turned them out of,) to approach the gate in the night-time. There were neither out works nor wet fosse; the assailants therefore, counting upon victory, brought fire to consume the gate, and so gain admittance. My aunt, aware of their designs, drew all her warders to one spot, large heaps of great stones being ready to their hands at the top of the castle.

When the O'Cahils had got close to the gate, and were directly under the loop-hole, on a sudden streams of boiling water, heated in the castle coppers, came showering down upon the heads of the crowd below: this extinguished their fire, and cruelly scalded many of the besiegers.

The scene may be conceived which was presented by a

multitude of scalded wretches, on a dark night, under the pow. er and within the reach of all offensive missiles. They attempted to fly; but whilst one part of the warders hurled volleys of weighty stones beyond them, to deter them from retreating, another party dropped stones more ponderous still on the heads of those who, for protection, crouched close under the castlewalls: the lady of the castle herself, meantime, and all her maids, assisting the chief body of the warders in pelting the Jacobites with every kind of destructive missile, till all seemed pretty still; and wherever a groan was heard, a volley quickly ended the troubles of the sufferer.

The old traditionists of the country often told me, that at day-break there were lying above one hundred of the assailants under the castle-walls-some scalded, some battered to pieces, and many lamed so as to have no power of moving off: but my good aunt kindly ordered them all to be put out of their misery, as fast as ropes and a long gallows, erected for their sakes could perform that piece of humanity.

After the victory, the warders had a feast on the castle-top, whereat each of them recounted his own feats. Squire Fitzgerald, who was a quiet easy man, and hated fighting, and who had told my aunt, at the beginning, that they would surely kill him, having seated himself all night peaceably under one of the parapets, was quite delighted when the fray was over. He had walked out into his garden outside the wall to take some tranquil air, when an ambuscade of the hostile survivors surrounded and carried him off. In vain his warders sallied-the squire was gone past all redemption!

It was supposed he had paid his debts to nature-if any he owed-when, next day, a large body of the O'Cahil faction appeared near the castle. Their force was too great to be attacked by the warders, who durst not sally; and the former assault had been too calamitous to the O'Cahils to warrant them in attempting another. Both were therefore standing at bay, when to the great joy of the garrison, Squire Fitzgerald was produced, and one of the assailants, with a white cloth on a pike, advanced to parley.

The lady attended his proposals, which were very laconic. "I'm a truce, lady!-Look here (showing the terrified squire,) we have your husband in hault-yee's have yeer 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 hesitation; "mark the words of Elizabeth Fitzgerald, of Moret Castle: they may serve 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 hardest, your skull or a stone bullet."

The O'Cahils kept their word, and old Squire Stephen Fitzgerald, in a short time, was seen dangling and performing various evolutions in the air, to the great amusement of the Jacobites, the mortification of the warders, and chagrin (which however was not without a mixture of consolation) of my greataunt, Elizabeth.

This magnanimous lady, after Squire Stephen had been duly cut down, waked and deposited in a neighbouring garden, conceived that she might enjoy her castle with tranquillity: but, to guard against every chance, she replenished her stony magazine; had a wide trench dug before the gate of the castle; and pit-falls, covered with green sods, having sharp stakes driven within, scattered round it on every side-the passage through these being only known to the faithful warders. She contrived, besides, a species of defence that I have not seen mentioned in the Peccata Hibernia, or any of the murderous aunals of Ireland: it consisted of a heavy beam of wood, well loaded with iron at the bottom, and suspended by a pulley and cord at the top of the castle, and which, on any future assault, she could let down through the projecting hole over the entrance; alternately, with the aid of a few strong warders above, raising and letting it drop smash among the enemy who attempted to gain admittance below, thereby pounding them as if with a pestle and mortar, without the power of resistance on their part.

The castle-vaults were well victualled, and at all events could safely defy any attacks of hunger; and as the enemy had none of those despotic engines called cannon, my aunt's garrison were in all points in tolerable security. Indeed, fortunately for Elizabeth, there was not a single piece of ordnance in the country, except those few which were mounted in the Fort of Dunnally, or travelled with the king's army: and, to speak truth, fire-arms then would have been of little use, since there was not sufficient gun-powder among the people to hold an hour's hard fighting.

With these, and some interior defences, Elizabeth imagined

herself well armed against all marauders, and quietly awaited a change of times and a period of general security.

Close to the castle there was, and I believe still remains, a dribbling stream of water, in which there is a large stone with a deep indenture on the top. It was always full of limpid water, and called St. Bridget's Well,-that holy woman having been accustomed daily to kneel in prayer on one knee, till she wore a hole in the top of the granite by the cap of her pious joint.

To this well, old Jug Ogie, the oldest piece of furniture in Moret Castle, (she was an hereditary cook,) daily went for the purpose of drawing the most sacred crystal she could, wherewith to boil her mistress's dinner; and also, as the well was naturally consecrated, it saved the priest a quantity of trouble in preparing holy water for the use of the warders.

On one of these sallies of old Jug, some fellows (who, as it afterwards appeared, had with a very deep design lain in ambush) seized and were carrying her off, when they were perceived by one of the watchmen from the tower, who instantly gave an alarm, and some warders sallied after them. Jug was rescued, and the enemy fled through the swamps; but not before one of them had his head divided into two equal parts by the hatchet of Keeran Karry, who was always at the head of the warders, and the life and soul of the whole garrison.

The dead man turned out to be a son of Andrew M'Mahon, a faction-man of Reuben; but nobody could then guess the motive for endeavouring to carry off old Jug. However, that matter soon became developed.

Elizabeth was accounted to be very rich,-the cleverest woman of her day, and she had a large demesne into the bargain: and, finding the sweets of independence, she refused matrimonial offers from many quarters; but as her castle was, for those days, a durably safe residence, such as the auctioneers of the present time would denominate a genuine undeniable mansion, the country squires determined she should marry one of them, since marry willingly she would not-but they nearly fell to loggerheads who should run away with her. Almost every one of them had previously put the question to her by flag of truce, as they all stood in too much awe of the lady to do it personally) and at length, teased by their importunities, she gave notice of her intention to hang the next flag of truce who brought any such impudent proposals.

Upon this information, they finally agreed to decide by lot who should be the hero to surprise and carry off Elizabeth, which was considered a matter of danger on account of the warders, who would receive no other commandant.

Elizabeth got wind of their design and place of meeting, which was to be in the old castle of Reuben, near Athy. Eleven or twelve of the squires privately attended at the appointed hour, and it was determined that whoever should be the lucky winner, was to receive the aid and assistance of the others in bearing away the prize, and gaining her hand. To this effect, a league offensive and defensive was entered into between them one part of which went to destroy Elizabeth's warders, root and branch; and, to forward their object, it was desirable, if possible, to procure some inmate of the castle, who, by fair or foul means, would inform them of the best mode of entry: this caused the attempt to carry off old Jug Ogie.

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However, they were not long in want of a spy: for Elizabeth, hearing of their plan from the gassoon of Reuben (a nephew of Jug's,) determined to take advantage of it. My lady," said Jug Ogie, "pretend to turn me adrift in a dark night, and give out that my gassoon here was found robbing you-they'll soon get wind of it, and I'll be the very person the squires want-and then you'll hear all."

The matter was agreed on, and old Jug Ogie and the gassoon were turned out, as thieves. to the great surprise of the warders and the country. But Jug was found and hired, as she expected; and soon comfortably seated in the kitchen at Castle Reuben, with the gassoon, whom she took in as kitchen boy. She gave her tongue its full fling,-told a hundred stories about her "devil of a mistress,"-and undertook to inform the squires of the best way to get to her apartment.

Elizabeth was now sure to learn every thing so soon as determined on. The faction had arranged all matters for the capture the night of its execution approached:-the old cook prepared a good supper for the quality-the squires arrived, and the gassoon had to run only three miles to give the lady the intelligence. Twelve cavaliers attended, each accompanied by one of the ablest of his faction, for they were all afraid of each other, whenever the wine should rise upwards.

The lots, being formed of straws of different lengths, were held by the host, who was disinterested, and the person of Elizabeth, her fortune, and Moret Castle, fell to the lot of Cromarty O'Moore, one of the Cremorgan squires, and, according to tradition, as able-bodied, stout a man as any in the whole county. The rest all swore to assist him till death; and one in the morning was the time appointed for the surprise of Elizabeth and her castle-while in the meantime they began to enjoy the good supper of old Jug Ogie.

Castle Reuben had been one of the strongest places in the