* A fact!
On the 6th of November Fawkes was sent to the Tower, with instructions to squeeze out of him whatever could be elicited by the screw, which was then the usual method of scrutiny. For four days he would confess nothing at all; but his accomplices began to betray themselves by their own proceedings. Several of them fled; but Tresham exhibited the very height of impudence by coming down to the Council and asking if he could be of any use in the pursuit of the rebels. Nothing but the effrontery of the boots which ran after the stolen shoes, crying "Stop thief," and have never returned to this very hour, can be compared with the coolness of Tresham in offering to aid in effecting the capture of the conspirators.
Catesby and Jack Wright cut right away to Dunchurch, Percy filled his purse, and Christopher Wright packed up his kit, to be in readiness for making off when occasion required, while Keyes made a precipitate bolt out of London the morning after the plot was discovered.
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Rookwood, who had ordered relays of fine horses all along the road, went at full gallop through Highgate, and never slackened his pace till he reached Turvey, in Bedfordshire, where he came tumbling almost topsy-turvy over the inhabitants. Arriving at Ashby, St. Legers, with a légèrete quite worthy of the race for the St. Leger itself, he had already travelled eighty miles in six hours; but he nevertheless pushed along on his gallant steed—a magnificent dun—who always ran as if he had a commercial dun at his heels, to Dunchurch. Here he found Digby, enjoying his otium cum dig.—with a hunting party round him; but the guests guessed what was in the wind, and fearing they might come in for the blow, had vanished in the night-time. When Digby sat down to breakfast the next day, his circle of friends had dwindled to a triangle, consisting of Catesby, Percy, and Rookwood, who, with their host, now become almost a host in himself, took speedily to horse, and rode a regular steeple-chase to the borders of Staffordshire. Here they arrived on the night of the 7th of November, at Holbeach, where they took possession of a house; but by this time Sir Richard Walsh, the sheriff of Worcester, who had got writs out against them all, was close upon them with his officers.
In the morning their landlord, one Littleton, having been let into their secret, let himself out of his bedroom window through fear, and Digby decamped under pretence of going to buy some eggs to suck for breakfast, as well as to look for some succour. Digby had hardly shut the street door when its bang was echoed by a bang up stairs, occasioned by Catesby, Percy, and Rookwood having endeavoured to dry some gunpowder in a frying pan over the fire. Catesby was burnt and blackened, besides being blown up for having been the chief cause of the accident; and shortly afterwards, to add to their misfortunes, the sheriff, with the posse comitatus, surrounded the dwelling. The conspirators endeavoured to parry with their swords the bullets of their assailants, but this was a hopeless job, and keeping up their spirits as well as they could, they exclaimed at every shot fired on the side of the king, "Here comes another dose of James's powder." Catesby, addressing Thomas Winter, roared out, "Now then, stand by me, Tom!" and Winter, suddenly taking a spring to his friend's side, they were both shot by one musket. Their attendants, not being able to get the bullet out, issued a bullet-in to say they were both dead, and the brothers Wright were not long left to bewail the fate of their accomplices. Percy, who had persevered to the last, got a wound which wound him up, and Rookwood had received such a home-thrust in the stomach from a rusty pike, that the pike rust sadly disagreed with him. Digby, whose feelings had run away with him, was overtaken, caught, and made fast, because he had been too slow, while Keyes came to a dead-lock, and the prisoners being all brought to London, were lodged in the Tower.
Tresham, who had never left town, but was strutting about with all the easy confidence of a man with "nothing out against him," was suddenly nabbed, in spite of his remonstrances, conveyed in exclamations of "What have I done?"