"The patient on hearing this said to me, 'Since this doctor is known to your Reverence, and is chosen by you, I give myself willingly into his hands.'
"By this doctor, then, he was cured beyond all expectation, and so completely restored to perfect health that there was not a more robust or stalwart man in a thousand. He was a most devoted friend to me, just as if he had been my twin-brother. And this name of brother we always used in writing to each other. How greatly he was attached me, may be seen from the following incident. Once when I had gone to a certain house to assist a soul in agony, he got to learn that I was in great danger there: upon this he at first expressed a terrible distress, and then immediately said to his wife that if I should be taken, he was resolved to watch the roads by which I should be carried prisoner to London, and take with him a sufficient number of friends and servants to rescue me by force from those who had me in custody; and if he should miss me on the road, he would accomplish my release one way or another, even though he should spend his whole fortune in the venture. Such, then, was his attachment to me at that time, and this he retained always in the same--nay, rather in an increased--degree to the end of his life; as he showed by the way he spoke of me when pleading for his life before the public court. At this time, however, as I said, he was restored to health; and he and his wife got together a little domestic church after the pattern of that in our own house, and built a chapel with a sacristy, furnishing it with costly and beautiful vestments, and obtained a Priest of the Society for their chaplain, who remained with them to Sir Everard's death.
"What was done by this family was done by others also. For many of the Catholic gentry coming to our house, and seeing the arrangements and manner of life, followed the example themselves, establishing a sort of congregation in each of their houses, providing handsome altar furniture, making convenient arrangements for the residence of Priests, and showing especial respect and reverence to them.
"Among those who came to this determination was a certain lady resident near Oxford, whose husband was indeed a Catholic, but overmuch devoted to worldly pursuits. She, however, gave herself to be directed by me as far as she could, having such a husband. I often visited them, and was always welcomed by both; and there I established one of our Fathers, Edward Walpole, whom I mentioned at an early part of this narrative as having left a large patrimony for the sake of following Christ our Lord, in the first year of my residence in England.