Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/174

150 for when they had found them they were curious to find their place. The search at Hendlip was not for me but for Mr. Hall, as an abettor of Robert Wintour. Then came a second charge to search for Mr. Gerard. Of me never no expectation.'

From this account, it is plain that Garnet and Oldcorne (Hall) gave themselves up, without any discovery being made of their 'hole,' which, if it had not been so much filled up with 'books and furniture,' might have afforded them a safe refuge till Bromley had departed. Garnet is evidently in error as to the 'second charge to search' being 'for Mr. Gerard,' for we know that this further charge was the result of Lyttleton's implicating Oldcorne. Garnet's theory that 'we had escaped,' but for the 'hidden soldiers,' is curious, but hardly tenable when we consider how weak he and his comrade must have been. It is, however, a fact that Owen and Chambers were actually within an ace of escaping, when they quietly emerged from their hiding-place. According to Gerard (who here completely contradicts his own story of their voluntary surrender), 'They, perceiving, that some of the searchers did continually by turns watch and walk up and down the room where they were hidden, which was a long gallery foursquare going round the house, watched their time when the searchers were