e mentioned in connection with the memorable
Plot--houses that were rented by the conspirators as convenient
places of rendezvous an account of their hiding-places and masked
exits for escape. One of them stood in the vicinity of the Strand,
in the fields behind St. Clement's Inn. Father Gerard had taken
it some time previous to the discovery of the Plot, and with
Owen's aid some very secure hiding-places were arranged. This he
had done with two or three other London residences, so that he
and his brother priests might use them upon hazardous occasions;
and to one of these he owed his life when the hue and cry after
him was at its highest pitch. By removing from one to the other
they avoided detection, though they had many narrow escapes. One
priest was celebrating Mass when the Lord Mayor and constables
suddenly burst in. But the surprise party was disappointed: nothing
could be detected beyond the smoke of the extinguished candles;
and in addition to the hole where the fugitive crouched there
were two other secret chambers, neither of which was discovered.
On another occasion a priest was left shut up in a wall; his
friends were taken prisoners, and he was in danger of starvation,
until at length he was rescued from his perilous position, carried
to one of the other houses, and again immured in the vault or
chimney.

The other house was "White Webb's," on the confines of Enfield
Chase. In the Record Office there is a document describing how,
many Popish books and relics were discovered when the latter
was searched. The building was full of trap-doors and secret
passages. Some vestiges of the out-buildings of "White Webb's"
may still be seen in a quaint little inn called "The King and
Tinker."

But of all the narrow escapes perhaps Father Blount's experiences
at Scotney Castle were the most thrilling. This old house of
the Darrells, situated on the border of Kent and Sussex, like
Hindlip and Braddocks and most of the residences of the Roman
Catholic gentry, contained the usual lurking-places for priests.
The structure as it now stands is in the main modern, having
undergone from time to time considerable alterations. A vivid
account of Blount's hazardous escape here is preserved among the
muniments at Stonyhurst--a transcript of the original formerly
at St. Omers.

One Christmas night towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the
castle was seized by a party of priest-hunters, who, with their
usual mode of procedur