'How so? 'asked the Parson with a laugh, for he was by this time well used to his kinsman's efforts to convert him. 'How shall a Catholic creep out of the Tower more easily than a Protestant?'
'Because a Catholic can break his parole. It's a great sin, to be sure, but I can absolve him for it afterwards.'
To Mr. Kelly's thinking (and, indeed, to Mr. Wogan's) this was no sterling theology, and he would not be persuaded. Another device had to be invented, and when at last a satisfactory plan was resolved upon, the plotters must wait for the quick nightfalls of autumn.
It was on Guy Fawkes day, the fifth of November, 1736, that Mr. Kelly made his escape. On the morning of that day he drove out to Epsom in the custody of his warder and upon his parole to return before dark. At four o'clock, when the light was just beginning to fall, Father Myles Macdonnell came into the Tower by the Sally Port Stairs opposite the Mint. He was told that the Parson was taking the air, and replied that he would go to the Parson's room and wait. Thereupon he crossed the precincts of the Tower, and coming over the green and down the steps of the main-guard, he inquired of the porter at Traitor's Gate whether or no Mr. Kelly had returned.
The porter answered 'Not yet.'
'It is a great pity,' said the Reverend Myles, who seemed much flustered. 'I am in a great hurry, and would you tell him, if you please, the moment he comes, to run with all haste to his room?'
Upon that he turned off under the archway of the Bloody Tower, and again mounted the steps of the main-guard.
About half-an-hour afterwards, in the deepening twilight, Mr. Kelly was set down within the Traitor's Gate; he had kept his parole. The porter gave him Father Myles's message; and the warder, since it appeared that he could only proceed as usual to his lodging, took his leave of him.
The Parson accordingly ran up the steps of the main-guard on to the green, which was by this time very obscure. Three minutes afterwards Father Myles Macdonnell hurried past the sentry at the Sally Port Stairs opposite the Mint, grumbling that he would wait no longer, and so came out upon Tower Hill. Just at that time to a moment another Father Myles Macdonnell accosted the porter at Traitor's Gate and requested him to let him out, seeing that he was, as he had already said, in a great hurry. The porter let him out with no more ado.
The second Father Myles was the real Father Myles; the first one who went grumbling out by the Sally Port Stairs was Parson Kelly. He had met Father Myles in the dark corner by Beauchamp Tower, had slipped over his head a cassock which the Father had brought with him, and had run across to the entrance over against the Mint, and so into freedom.