"With incomparable skill," says Father Tanner, writing in the seventeenth century, "he knew how to conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages, to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses, and to entangle them in labyrinths of a thousand windings.
"He alone was both their architect and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry and labour; for generally the thickest walls had to be broken into, and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname of 'Little John'; and by this his skill many priests were preserved from becoming the prey of the persecutors."
SWINGING SHELVES IN A CUPBOARD AT ABBOTS SALFORD OPENING INTO A SECRET RECESS.
The shelves closed.
After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and his master Father Garnet were arrested at Hindlip Hall, Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's servant, Bates.
The grey old Jacobean mansion, Chastleton, preserves in its oak-panelled hall the sword and portrait of the gallant Cavalier, Captain Arthur Jones, who, narrowly escaping from the battlefield, rode home with all speed with some of Cromwell's soldiers at his heels, and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed him in the secret chamber, when the enemy arrived to search the house.
PRIEST'S HOLE AT BOSCOBEL HOUSE USED BY CHARLES II.
Little daunted, the lady, with great presence of mind, made no objection whatever—indeed, facilitated their operations by personally conducting them over the mansion. Here, as in so many other instances, the secret room was entered from the principal bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the suspicion of the Roundheads was in some way or other aroused. So here they determined to remain for the rest of the night.