The stranger waited, though rather impatiently, till Bennet reappeared, leading a rough Dunsmoor pony, with a horsecloth tied round it, on which he mounted without saddle.
“Now then, my master. Nay, not that way! You’re turning your back on Dunchurch so.”
The horseman checked his hasty, start with a smile, and followed his guide. As they reached the other end of the village, and came out into the open, Catesby and his companions emerged from the trees, and joined Robert Winter.
“Him’s growed!” said Bennet Leeson to himself, as he glanced round at the increased sound of horses’ hoofs. “First time I ever see one man split his self into thirteen. The beast’s split his self too. Wonder if them’ll ha’ come to six-and-twenty by the time us gets at Dunchurch!”
The company, however, grew no further, and Bennet led them up to the door of the Lion at Dunchurch without any more marvels. It was now about “seven or eight o’clock in the night.” Catesby, the only one whom he knew by sight, said to the smith as he dismounted—
“Here, smith, wilt walk the horses a few moments? It shall not be forgot in the reckoning.”
The whole party then went into the Lion, where Sir Everard Digby and others awaited them. A hurried, eager discussion of future plans took place here. The drawer was called to bring bottles of sack and glasses, and before he was well out of hearing, impetuous Percy cried, “We are all betrayed!”
“Softly, an’t like you!” responded the cooler Catesby.
“We must go on now,” cried Percy: “we shall die for it else.”
“But what must we now do?” asked Rookwood. “Go, even yet, to Combe Abbey, and seize on the Lady Elizabeth?”