Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/332

300 them which fled out of London, as also Grant and his accomplices, met all together at Dunchurch, at Sir Everard Digby's lodging, the Tuesday at night, after the discovery of his treacherous attempt; the which Digby had likewise, for his part, appointed a match of hunting, to have been hunted the next day, which was Wednesday, though his mind was, Nimrod-like, upon a far other manner of hunting, more bent upon the blood of reasonable men than brute beasts.

'This company, and hellish society, thus convened, finding their purpose discovered, and their treachery prevented, did resolve to run a desperate course; and since they could not prevail by so private a blow, to practice by a public rebellion, either to attain to their intents, or at least to save themselves in the throng of others. And, therefore, gathering all the company they could unto them, and pretending the quarrel of religion, having intercepted such provision of armour, horses, and powder, as the time could permit, thought, by running up and down the country, both to augment piece and piece their numbers (dreaming to themselves, that they had the virtue of a snowball, which being little at the first, and tumbling down from a great hill, groweth to a great quantity, by increasing itself with the snow that it meeteth by the way), and also, that they beginning first this brave shew, in one part of the country, should by their sympathy and example, stir up and encourage the rest of their religion, in other parts of England to rise, as they had done there. But, when they had gathered their force to the greatest, they came not to the number of