hile Winter tried to effect safe entrance. They rode up to
the yard door, and having dismounted, were about to investigate
possibilities, when without any warning the doors were flung open, and
the sturdy old loyalist owner appeared behind them.

"How dare you come hither?" was his fierce greeting to the unwelcome
visitors, "considering what speech there is of your tumultuous rising."

"Sir," answered Winter, deprecatingly, "my meaning was not to speak with
you, but with one in your house; and I am very sorry I have met with
you."

"So am I, too!" said John Talbot. "Your coming may be as much as my
life is worth. It is very fit you should be taken."

"I shall not easily be taken," was the reply.

"Fare you well! Get you away!" answered Talbot, as he slammed the gate
in Winter's face.

They came to the conclusion that discretion would be the better part of
valour, and retraced their steps to Holbeach. Here Stephen went into
the house, leaving Winter outside. The former found his friends very
busily engaged in making preparations for resistance, for they had now
determined that at Holbeach their last stand should be made. Their
gunpowder, like themselves, had been soaked in the rain, the Stour being
extremely high, and the cart which they had stolen from Hewell Grange a
very low one. Catesby, Rookwood, and Grant, applied themselves to the
drying of the powder. They laid about sixteen pounds of it in a linen
bag on the floor, and heaping about two pounds on a platter, placed it
in the chimney-corner to dry by the fire. A servant entering to put
fresh logs on the fire, was not sufficiently careful of the platter. A
spark flew out, lighted on the powder, and it exploded. Part of the
roof was blown off, the linen bag was carried through the hole thus
made, and afterwards taken up uninjured in the court-yard: but the three
powder-dryers, with Henry Morgan, were severely injured both in face and
body. In the same pit that they had dug privily, was their own foot
taken.

When the conspirators thus beheld themselves "hoist with their own
petard," the first feeling among them was less fear for their safety
than awe at the just judgment of God. The most guilty among them were
also the most horrified. For a moment those nearest the powder were
supposed to be killed. John Wright lost his head, flung himself on what
he believed to be the corpse of his leader, with a wild cry--

"Woe worth the time that we have