Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/319

Rh hatched thunder begin to cast forth the first flashes and flaming lightnings of the approaching tempest. For, the Saturday week immediately preceeding the King's return, which was upon a Thursday, being but ten days before the Parliament, the Lord Monteagle, son and heir to the Lord Morley, being in his own lodgings, ready to go to supper, at seven of the clock at night, one of his footmen, whom he had sent of an errand over the street, was met by a man of a reasonable tall personage, who delivered him a letter, charging him to put it in my Lord his master's hands; which my Lord no sooner perceived, but that having broken it up, and perceiving the same to be of an unknown and somewhat unlegible hand, and without either date or superscription, did call one of his men unto him, for helping him to read it. But no sooner did he conceive the strange contents thereof, although he was somewhat perplexed what construction to make of it, as whether a matter of consequence, as indeed it was, or whether some foolish devised pasquil by some of his enemies to scare him from his attendance at the Parliament, yet did he, as a most dutiful and loyal subject, conclude not to conceal it, whatever might come of it.

'Whereupon, notwithstanding the lateness and darkness of the night in that season of the year, he presently repaired to his Majesty's