, and from her they learned that the missing
Martha Percy was "not far off." Sir Richard Verney, however, found it
no easy matter to keep his prisoners when he had got them. Twice his
house was set on fire, evidently by design; but he held stoutly to the
lively ladies in his care, and delivered them all safely in London in
due time.

We must now, for a short time, follow the two conspirators who had
escaped in company, and whose wanderings are not devoid of interest.
Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton got safely away from Holbeach, thus
evading the miserable fate of their fellow-conspirators. They succeeded
in reaching the house of a certain Christopher White, a servant of
Stephen's cousin, Humphrey Littleton, who lived in the village of King's
Rowley. This man they bribed to allow them to remain in his barn until
the search for the fugitives should have ceased, when they promised to
give him a substantial reward, and no longer to endanger him by their
presence. "There they abode a great while, but with very poor and
slender fare, such as otherwise had been too coarse and out of fashion
for them." A proclamation was meanwhile set forth by Government for
their discovery, wherein Robert Winter was described as "of mean
stature, rather low than otherwise; brown hair and beard, not much
beard, short hair; somewhat stooping, square made, near forty." Stephen
Littleton was "a very tall man; swarthy complexion, no beard or little,
brown coloured hair; about thirty." A neighbour of White's, named
Smart, and apparently smart by nature as well as name, noticed the
unusual evidences of prosperity in his neighbour's dwelling, and
shrewdly surmised the reason. Upon due consideration of the subject,
Mr Smart, like a good many people both before and after him, came to
the conclusion that it was highly unreasonable that his neighbour should
be mounting the social ladder when he remained at the bottom. He
therefore applied himself to the matter, discovered the refugees in the
barn, and strongly recommended his barn as far preferable to White's.
The fugitives were persuaded to change their hiding-place. This was no
sooner done, than another neighbour, named Hollyhead, set his wits also
to work, and dulcetly represented that Smart's barn was a much less safe
and attractive locality than his house: each of these worthy individuals
being of course moved by respect to the pecuniary reward for which he
hoped. On the departure of