“I pray you, no more of this!” said Robert Winter. “It will but further increase the wrath of the King.”
“Some of us may not look back,” said Catesby.
Robert replied with some spirit, for he knew himself to be among the less guilty of the plotters. “Yet others, I hope, may; and therefore, I beg you, let this alone.”
Catesby looked up with a faint, sad smile, and tired sleepless eyes. “What, hast thou any hope, Robin? I assure thee, there is none that knoweth of this action but shall perish.”
When the body of the conspirators reached Warwick, about 3 a.m., the horses were almost ready for them to mount. Ten were seized at the the livery-stable, and a few more were either stolen or borrowed from the Castle. Thus provided, and now about eighty in number, they rode on to Grant’s house at Norbrook. On arrival here, they despatched Bates to Coughton, with a letter to Garnet from Digby. This letter was read by Garnet to Greenway, both of whom are represented by Bates as spotlessly ignorant of the plot until that moment. Greenway returned with Bates, at his earnest request, attired in “coulored satten done with gould lace,” and was met by Catesby with the exclamation—
“Here is a gentleman who will live and die with us!”
From Norbrook Robert Winter despatched a servant in advance, summarily ordering his wife to “go forth of the house, and take the children with her,” which the obedient Gertrude did. About two o’clock on the afternoon of the sixth, thirty-six worn-out men arrived at Huddington, to be re-armed from Robert Winter’s armoury; after which, finding himself rather at a loss in the housekeeping department, the master of the house recalled his Gertrude to minister to the comfort of himself and his guests.
That submissive lady did her duty, and leaving the children with the neighbour at whose house she had taken refuge, returned to her own kitchen to superintend a hastily-prepared supper for the weary travellers. Before this was ready, Catesby and John Wright took Robert Winter aside, and tried hard to induce him to write to his father-in-law, attempting to draw him into the now almost hopeless rebellion.
“There is no remedy, Robin,” said John Wright, “but thou must write a letter to thy father Talbot, to see if thou canst therewith draw him unto us.”
“Nay, that will I not,” was the determined answer.