“But while he and the others were engaged privately in their chambers in the study of this heroic philosophy, suddenly the storm burst upon us. I, too, in fact, after finishing my business in town, had taken the opportunity of a little quiet to begin my own retreat, giving out that I had returned into the country. I was now in the fourth or fifth day of the retreat, when about three o'clock in the afternoon John Lilly hurried to my room, and without knocking, entered with his sword drawn.
“Surprised at this sudden intrusion, I asked what was the matter.
“ ‘It is a matter of searching the house,’ he replied.
“ ‘What house?’
“ ‘This very house: and they are in it already!’
“In fact, they had been cunning enough to knock gently, as friends were wont to do, and the servant opened readily to them, without the least suspicion until he saw them rush in and scatter themselves in all directions.
“While John was telling me this, up came the searching party, together with the mistress of the house, to the very room in which we were. Now, just opposite to my room was the chapel, so that from the passage the door of the chapel opened on the one hand, and that of my room on the other. The magistrates, then, seeing the door of the chapel open, went in, and found there an altar richly adorned, and the priestly vestments laid out close by, so handsome as to cause expressions of admiration from the heretics themselves. In the meanwhile I, in the room opposite, was quite at my wit's end what to do; for there was no hiding-place in the room, nor any means of exit except by the open passage were the enemy were. However, I changed the soutane which I was [pg cxxxviii] wearing for a secular coat, but my books and manuscript meditations, which I had there in considerable quantities, I was quite unable to conceal.
“We stood there with our ears close to the chink of the door, listening to catch what they said: and I heard one exclaim from the chapel, ‘Good God! what have we found here? I had no thoughts of coming to this house to-day!’ From this I concluded that it was a mere chance search, and that they had no special warrant. Probably, therefore, I thought they had but few men with them. So we began to consult together whether it were not better to rush out with drawn swords, seize the keys from the searching party, and so escape; for we should have Master Lee and the master of the house to help us, besides two or three men-servants. Moreover, I considered that if we should be taken in the house, the master would certainly be visited with a far greater punishment than what the law prescribes for resistance to a magistrate's search.
“While we were thus deliberating, the searchers came to the door of my room and knocked. We made no answer, but pressed the latch hard down, for the door had no bolt or lock. As they continued knocking, the mistress of the house said, ‘Perhaps the man-servant who sleeps in that room may have taken away the key. I will go and look for him.’
“ ‘No, no,’ said they, ‘you go nowhere without us, or you will be hiding away something.’