was a hanging matter for a priest to be caught celebrating the
Mass. Yet with the facilities at Hindlip he might do so with
comfort, with every assurance that he had the means of evading
the law. The walls of the mansion were literally riddled with
secret chambers and passages. There was little fear of being
run to earth with hidden exits everywhere. Wainscoting, solid
brickwork, or stone hearth were equally accommodating, and would
swallow up fugitives wholesale, and close over them, to "Open,
Sesame!" again only at the hider's pleasure.




CHAPTER II

HINDLIP HALL

The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others,
Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript
in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof
merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: "_A true
discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr.
Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias
Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons,
there found in January last,_ 1605," and runs on:--

"After the king's royal promise of bountiful reward to such as
would apprehend the traitors concerned in the Powder Conspiracy,
and much expectation of subject-like duty, but no return made
thereof in so important a matter, a warrant was directed to the