[Footnote 1: See Autobiography of Father John Gerard.]

"The searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in,
spread through the house with great noise and racket.

"Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house[2] in
her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants
they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the
house.

[Footnote 2: Jane Wiseman, wife of William Wiseman. N.B.--The
late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of this
family. See Life of Father John Gerard, by John Morris.]

"They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good
size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting
even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners
they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever
they began to break down certain places that they suspected.
They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not
tally they might pierce the part not accounted for. Then they
sounded the walls and all the floors to find out and break into
any hollow places there might be.

"They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking
therefore that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates
went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take
the mistress of the house and all her Catholic servants of both
sexes to London to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to
leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor