Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/103

Rh soon after with Christopher Wright and Percy, who had also been travelling very rapidly. All five then proceeded to Dunchurch, viâ Ashby St. Legers, the house of Catesby's mother. Rookewood having, by the time of his arrival at Ashby, completed something like eighty miles in less than eight hours! Such an adventure reminds us, curiously enough, of Ainsworth's account in his novel, Rookwood, of Dick Turpin's wholly mythical ride from London to York.

Arrived at Ashby, the party found Thomas Winter there. With him they soon took to saddle again for Dunchurch, where their dejected looks told Digby that all was up. Of the Roman Catholic 'huntsmen,' the greater number disappeared when Catesby avowed his plan of raising the standard of rebellion, one of the first to depart being Digby's uncle, Sir Robert. After much discussion, Catesby resolved, instead of seeking safety in flight, on marching towards Wales, traversing en route the counties of Warwick, Worcester, and Hereford or Stafford. He expected that the local Roman Catholics would rise and join him, but in this he was bitterly mistaken.

From the moment of his decision until the date of his death, the march was to prove hopelessly to be a forlorn hope, undertaken in the insanity of despair. The first check came