THE HOLYHEAD ROAD 



339 



for their horses. The heavy relays on the North- Western 

 Road were now to be put to their proper use. But great 

 caution had to be exercised. The appalHng news had 

 circulated in the city with the rapidity of poison. 

 Barricades were being hastily erected at the ends of the 

 streets; passengers were being stopped and questioned ; 

 any appearance of hurry would have led to instant 

 arrest. It was eleven o'clock therefore before the two 

 gentlemen got clear of London — and they were but just 

 in time : for rumours were already in the air of a 

 proclamation forbidding anybody to leave the town for 

 three days. Once clear of London they rode desperately. 



Few incidents I think in history seize the imagination 

 so forcibly as that wild flight of the Gunpowder Con- 

 spirators northward. Thomas Winter made for his 

 brother's house at Huddington in Worcestershire ; but 

 Rookwood rode fiercely down the North- W^estern Road 

 to bear the fatal news to the conspirators already 

 assembling on Dunsmoor. Catesby, Piercy, John and 

 Christopher Wright were he knew on the road in front. 

 But the relays already placed for him, and the desperate 

 fear which urged him forwards enabled Rookwood to over- 

 take the others as they were rising the ascent at Brickhill. 



In a few words he told them what had happened in 

 London — that Fawkes had been arrested and lodged in 

 the Tower — that at any moment torture might make 

 him give up their names — that the whole scheme had 

 fallen through, and that their only chance of safety lay 

 in instantly joining their friends. From this moment the 

 flight became a stampede. " They devoured the ground," 

 .shouting as they rode through startled towns and villages 

 that they were carrying despatches from the King to 

 Northampton, flinging off their large cloaks, heavy with 

 the rain that still poured remorselessly, that they might 

 add wings even to their precipitate flight. Rookwood 

 rode thirty miles in two hours on one horse. At six in 

 the evening the fugitives arrived atCatesby's house at Ash- 

 by St. Legers, about three miles from Daventry. They 

 had ridden the eighty miles from London in seven hours. 



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