erty, at the beginning of the present century,
was a Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey. His family had kept to the old faith,
and were staunch 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 Roman Catholic as ever, and as
staunch an advocate for the Stuarts and the divine right of kings; but
his religion almost amounted to asceticism, and the conduct of those
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 William's government had little need to fear such a
one. So he returned, as I have said, with a sobered heart and
impoverished fortunes, to his ancestral house, which had fallen sadly
to ruin while the owner had been a courtier, a soldier, and an exile.
The roads into the Trough of Bolland were little more than cart-ruts;
indeed, the way up to the house lay along a ploughed field before you
came to the deer-park. Madam, as the country-folk used to call Mrs.
Starkey, rode on a pillion behind her husband, holding on to him with a
light hand by his leather riding-belt. Little master (he that was
afterwards Squire Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by a
serving-man. A woman past middle age walked, with a firm and strong
step, by the cart that held much of the baggage; and, high up on the
mails and boxes, sat a girl of dazzling beauty, perched lightly on the
topmost trunk, and swaying herself fearlessly to and fro, as the cart
r