The ease and comfort were broken up by this sudden and startling news.
“Pray you, flee, Mr Catesby, while you have time!” said Winter, anxiously.
“Nay, I will be further as yet,” was the resolute answer.
“What shall we now do? How say you?”
“Make sure how much is truth. Go you to Town, Mr Fawkes, to-morrow, as soon as may be, and bring us word what time of day it shall be with us. Try the uttermost; for if the part belonged to myself I would try the same adventure.”
Fawkes obeyed, on the Wednesday, returning at night, to the great relief of the conspirators, with reassuring news. There was no appearance of any attempt to meddle with the cellar; all seemed quiet in London: no excitement among the people, no signs of special precaution by the authorities. They might safely go on with the work.
On the following day, Thomas Winter returned to London, and Fawkes followed in the evening, arriving at the Chequers, in Holborn, just before it grew dark. He did not stay here, but proceeded to the house next to the House of Lords, where he slept that night in its solitary bed, turning out his supposed master, as the one bed would not accommodate both, and “when Mr Percy lay there, his man lay abroad.”
Percy, meanwhile, had not been idle. His vocation as gentleman pensioner gave him easy access to any part of the Palace; and the previous day had seen him making himself very agreeable in the apartments of the young Prince, playing with the child, and chatting in a very affable manner with his nurse.
The youthful Prince’s nurse, happily for him, was a shrewd Scotchwoman, and Percy took little by his motion, “Pray you, Mrs Fordun, whither leads that door?”
“Out o’ the chalmer, Sir,” said Agnes Fordun.