THE YORK ROAD 293 



waited impatiently for his rival, in order that he might 

 wipe out a long score in a quiet glade ; here, as he 

 shaded his eyes with his hands and gazed eagerly down 

 an alley, he received a shot which, grazing his hand, 

 passed right through his brain, and laid him a lifeless 

 corpse at the feet, or rather across the lap of the un- 

 fortunate victim of his profligacy. A very fitting close 

 to a consummate scoundrel's career, and in most 

 picturesque, in almost too picturesque surroundings. 



It is not however by romance alone that Enfield Chase 

 earns fame as a trysting-place for people whose characters 

 are doubtful. More sinister associations cling to it, 

 associations linked with one of the most lurid episodes 

 of a nation's history. The old house of White Webbs, 

 which in 1570 Elizabeth granted to Robert Huicke, her 

 physician, was pulled down in 1790. A portion of the 

 grounds of Middleton, however, still marks its site ; and 

 its position about a mile to the left of Enfield Wash, 

 going north, gives to my gossip about the great roads of 

 England its first batch of conspirators, in the authors of 

 the Gunpowder Treason. For here, at this lonely house, 

 then in the middle of Enfield Chase, nearly all the actors 

 in the dark catastrophe, imminent at Westminster, at 

 one time or another gathered. Over and over again the 

 ten miles between Enfield Wash and London must have 

 rung to the sound of their horses' hoofs, as they rode 

 fiercely through the night — always through the night we 

 may well believe — between White Webbs and London. 

 That Catesby was here ten days before the meditated 

 explosion is evident from Winter's confession : — 



" Then was the parliament anew prorogued until the 

 fifth of November, so as we all went down until 

 some ten days before, when Mr. Catesby came up with 

 Mr. Fawkes to an house by Enfield Chase, called White 

 Webbs, whither I came to them, and Mr. Catesby willed 

 me to inquire whether the young prince came to the 

 parliament ; I toldc him I heard that his grace thought 

 not to be there. ' Then must we have our horses,' said 



