"he knew how to
conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,
to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,
and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But
what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised
the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they
really were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret
with himself that he would never disclose to another the place
of concealment of any Catholic. He alone was both their architect
and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry
and labour, for generally the thickest walls had to be broken
into and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than
were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname
of 'Little John,' and by this his skill many priests were preserved
from the prey of persecutors. Nor is it easy to find anyone who
had not often been indebted for his life to Owen's hiding-places."

How effectually "Little John's" peculiar ingenuity baffled the
exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants," or priest-hunters,
has been shown by contemporary accounts of the searches that
took place frequently in suspected houses. Father Gerard, in
his Autobiography, has handed down to us many curious details of
the mode of procedure upon these occasions--how the search-party
would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every
possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to
bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It
was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight
and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps
the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's
thickness of his pursuers, half starved, cramped and sore with
prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe, lest the
least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where
he lay immured.

After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and
his master, Father Garnet, were arrested at Hindlip Hall,
Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's
servant Bates. Cecil, who was well aware of Owen's skill in
constructing hiding-places, wrote exultingly: "Great joy was
caused all through the kingdom by the arrest of Owen, knowing
his skill in constructing hiding-places, and the innumerable
number of these dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests