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 his guests, White took fright and fled: which caused "much rumour to be blabbed abroad" concerning the vain search and the probable vicinity of the fugitives. Humphrey Littleton, who was in the secret, began to be alarmed, and removed his friends from Hollyhead's house to that of a man named John Perks, in the village of Hagley, close to Hagley Park, the residence of his widowed sister-in-law. It was before dawn on New Year's Day that they reached the cottage of Perks, a warrener or gamekeeper, who had been dismissed from Mrs Littleton's service for dishonesty. The wearied men knocked at his door; and when Perks came forth, said they were friends, and begged him to help them to food and shelter. "Ye be Mr Stephen Littleton, and Mr Winter," said Perks.