“It hath not befallen me, Mrs Edith,” was the answer; “and may God avert it from us all! But these men that Aubrey was wont to visit—Mr Catesby, Mr Winter, and the rest—are now confessed by the caitiff in the Tower to have an hand in the plot.”
“Aubrey?” The word was only just breathed from Edith’s lips.
“I went thither at once, and spake with Aubrey, whom I found to have heard nought, and to be very sore troubled touching Mr Winter, whose friendship I can see hath been right dear unto him. I besought him to lie very close,—not to come forth at all, and if he would communicate with us these next few days, to send a messenger to me at Mr Leigh’s, and not here, for it seemed to me there was need of caution. After a time, if all blow over, there may be less need. Will you tell my Lady Lettice, or no?”
“Dear Hans, thou art ever thoughtful and good. Thou hast done very well. But I think my mother must be told. Better softly now, than roughly after—as it may be if it be let alone.”
Lady Louvaine sat silent for a few minutes after that gentle communication had been made. Then she said—
“‘The floods lift up themselves, and rage mightily: but yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier.’ ’Tis strange that it should be so much harder to trust Him with the body than with the soul! O father, keep my boy from evil!—what is evil, Thou knowest: ‘undertake for us!’”
On the 23rd of November, one of the prisoners in the Tower escaped the sentence of the law, by an inevitable summons to the higher tribunal of God Almighty. Francis Tresham died in his prison cell, retracting with his last breath, and “upon his salvation,” the previous confession by which he had implicated Garnet in the Spanish negotiations. It has been suggested that he was poisoned by Government because he knew too much; but there is no foundation for the charge except the possibility that his death might have been convenient to the Government, and the fact that they allowed his wife and servant to be with him in his last illness goes far to disprove this improbable accusation.
The authorities were now engaged in lively pursuit of the new track which Fawkes had indicated to them. A house in Enfield Chase where Garnet was or might be found, was too appetising a dainty to be lightly resigned. On the 23rd, they obtained a full confession from Thomas Winter, and the actual name of White Webbs. From this moment White Webbs became their Ultima Thule of hope and expectation.
A poor and mean revenge was taken on the dead Catesby and Percy. Their bodies were exhumed, and beheaded, and their heads set on the pinnacles of the Houses of Parliament. The spectators noticed with superstitious terror that blood flowed from Percy’s wound. The authorities seem to have regarded Percy as the head and front of the conspiracy; they term him “the arch-traitor.” But by the testimony of both Fawkes and Winter, Catesby was the original deviser of the Gunpowder Plot.