Just as it was beginning to grow dark, two horsemen rode up to the door of Huddington, and the ambassadors, Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton, entered the house. Sir Everard Digby and Catesby eagerly went up to them and asked the result of their embassy; but, before they had had time to reply, it was evident from the expression of their faces that they brought bad news. On reaching Grafton, said Winter, they found that the report of the Gunpowder Plot and its failure had arrived there before them. Their approach had been observed, perhaps watched for, and, as they rode up to the curious "L"-shaped house, with its gothic chapel at one end of it, Sir John Talbot himself stood at its arched doorway,[294] with a frown upon his countenance.[295] As soon as they were within earshot, he forbade them to enter his house. He then told them that he had already heard of the plot, which he condemned in the strongest terms, together with all that had been, or were, connected with it, whether personal friends of his own or otherwise. He was a very zealous Catholic, and he regarded the whole conspiracy as one of the worst evils that could possibly have befallen the Catholics of England, since it would bring scandal upon their very name, and increase the persecutions which they suffered. [294] "Like the gateway of the schools of Oxford, but of much more antient date." _Nash's Worcestershire_, Vol. i. p. 258. [295] Possibly he may have remembered that a former owner of Grafton, Sir Humphrey Stafford, had been executed at Tyburn for treason, rather more than a century earlier. When Robert Winter not only defended the plot but urged Sir John to join the band of Catholics who intended to make a struggle for their freedom, his father-in-law threatened that, although he was a Catholic, a neighbour, and his son-in-law, he would have him arrested if he did not make off as quickly as his horse's legs could carry him.[296] [296] The greater part of Grafton was burned down about 1710. _Nash_, Vol. i. p. 158.