Yet we must respect the two Jesuits--to omit the humbler services of Emerson--for refusing to save their lives by an immediate flight, and no historian, whatever his religious views, can read that first chapter of their story in England without sympathy and admiration. Each was provided by Gilbert with two horses and two suits and a servant, and they bade farewell to each other and set out to make their way, separately, through the legions of spies and officers. When they entered a county, the secret members of the association would send warning to the scattered Catholics along the route, and it would be given out that an acquaintance was expected. Toward evening the Jesuit, in some strange disguise, would ride into the courtyard and receive, under the eyes of the servants, the common civilities which one owed to a passing acquaintance; but when the inner chamber was reached, and the door closed, master and mistress would fall on their knees and kiss the hand of the traveller, and the broad-brimmed hat would be removed to disclose the face of the priest invoking a blessing on the persecuted faithful. Then Catholic neighbours might come, and confessions be heard, and the evening would be spent in sober discussion of the awful catastrophe that had befallen their Church. In the early morning a chalice and an altar-stone and vestments would be found among the luggage of the supposed soldier or merchant, and the little group would gather in a guarded chamber for mass. Possibly in the midst of the ceremony the sentinel would whisper that the pursuivants were upon them, and some stolid Catholic servant would hold the men at the door until priests and vestments were safely lodged in the pit which had been dug beneath the floor or the secret chamber cut out of the solid wall. When mass was over, the disguised Jesuit would, as a rule, give a last blessing and take to the road again, dining at inns where he might see on the wall a description of himself and an intimation that the Government wanted to hang, draw, and quarter him. Parsons carried his bluff so far as to tear down one of these bills, and ask the landlord what he meant by confronting an honest traveller with reminders of that villainous Jesuit.