“And so they went with her, not staying to examine whether the door had a lock or not. Thus did God blind the eyes of the Assyrians, that they should not find the place, nor the means of hurting His servants, nor know where they were going.
“When they had got below-stairs, the mistress of the house, who had great presence of mind, took them into a room in which some ladies were, the sister, namely, of my hostess in the country, and Mistress Line; and while the magistrates were questioning these ladies, she ran up to us, saying, ‘Quick, quick! get into the hiding-place!’ She had scarce said this and run down again, before the searchers had missed her and were for remounting the stairs. But she stood in their way on the bottom step, so that they immediately suspected what the case was, and were eager to [pg cxxxix] get past. This, however, they could not do without laying forcible hands on the lady, a thing which, as gentlemen, they shrank from doing. One of them, however, as she stood there purposely occupying the whole width of the stair-way, thrust his head past her, in hopes of seeing what was going on above-stairs. And indeed he almost caught sight of me as I passed along to the hiding-place. For as soon as I heard the lady's words of warning, I opened the door, and with the least possible noise mounted from a stool to the hiding-place, which was arranged in a secret gable of the roof. When I had myself mounted, I bade John Lilly come up also, but he, more careful of me than of himself, refused to follow me, saying: ‘No, Father; I shall not come. There must be some one to own the books and papers in your room; otherwise, upon finding them, they will never rest till they have found you too: only pray for me.’
“So spoke this truly faithful and prudent servant, so full of charity as to offer his life for his friend. There was no time for further words. I acquiesced reluctantly and closed the small trap-door by which I had entered, but I could not open the door of the inner hiding-place, so that I should infallibly have been taken if they had not found John Lilly, and mistaking him for a Priest ceased from any further search. For this was what happened, God so disposing it, and John's prudence and intrepidity helping thereto.
“For scarcely had he removed the stool by which I mounted, and had gone back to the room and shut the door, when the two chiefs of the searching party again came upstairs and knocked violently at the door, ready to break it open if the key were not found. Then the intrepid soldier of Christ threw open the door and presented himself undaunted to the persecutors.
“ ‘Who are you?’ they asked.
“ ‘A man, as you see,’ he replied.
“ ‘But what are you? Are you a Priest?’
“ ‘I do not say I am a Priest,’ replied John; ‘that is for you to prove. But I am a Catholic certainly.’
“Then they found there on the table all my meditations, my breviary, and many Catholic books, and what grieved me most [pg cxl] of all to lose, my manuscript sermons and notes for sermons, which I had been writing or compiling for the last ten years, and which I made more account of, perhaps, than they did of all their money. After examining all these they asked whose they were.
“ ‘They are mine,’ said John.