two and two, so as to form the shape of one of those rounded waggon-
headed gipsy-tents, only very much larger. The spaces between were
filled with mud, stones, osiers, rubbish, mortar--anything to keep
out the weather. The fires were made in the centre of these rude
dwellings, a hole in the roof forming the only chimney. No Highland
hut or Irish cabin could be of rougher construction.

The owner of this property, at the beginning of the present century,
was a Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey. His family had kept to the old
faith, and were stanch Roman Catholics, esteeming it even a sin to
marry any one of Protestant descent, however willing he or she might
have been to embrace the Romish religion. Mr. Patrick Starkey's
father had been a follower of James the Second; and, during the
disastrous Irish campaign of that monarch he had fallen in love with
an Irish beauty, a Miss Byrne, as zealous for her religion and for
the Stuarts as himself. He had returned to Ireland after his escape
to France, and married her, bearing her back to the court at St.
Germains. But some licence on the part of the disorderly gentlemen
who surrounded King James in his exile, had insulted his beautiful
wife, and disgusted him; so he removed from St. Germains to Antwerp,
whence, in a few years' time, he quietly returned to Starkey Manor-
house--some of his Lancashire neighbours having lent their good
offices to reconcile him to the powers that were. He was as firm a
Catholic as ever, and as stanch an advocate for the Stuarts and the
divine rights of kings; but his religion almost amounted to
asceticism, and the conduct of these with whom he had been brought in
such close contact at St. Germains would little bear the inspection
of a stern moralist. So he gave his allegiance where he could not
give his esteem, and learned to respect sincerely the upright and
moral character of one whom he yet regarded as an usurper. King