the intelligence that the King had prorogued
the Parliament again, from the seventh of
February, the day first fixed upon, until
the third of October. When the conspirators
knew this, they agreed to separate
until after the Christmas holidays, and to
take no notice of each other in the
meanwhile, and never to write letters to one
another, on any account. So, the house in
Westminster was shut up again, and I
suppose the neighbours thought that those
strange looking men who lived there so
gloomily, and went out so seldom, were
gone away to have a merry Christmas
somewhere.

It was the beginning of February, sixteen
hundred and five, when Catesby met his
fellow conspirators again at this Westminster
house. He had now admitted three more:
JOHN GRANT, a Warwickshire gentleman of
a melancholy temper, who lived in a doleful
house near Stratford-upon-Avon, with a
frowning wall all round it, and a deep moat;
ROBERT WINTER, eldest brother of Thomas;
and Catesby's own servant, THOMAS BATES,
who, Catesby thought, had had some suspicion
of what his master was about. These
three had all suffered more or less, for their
religion, in Elizabeth's time. And now they
all began to dig again, and they dug and dug
by night and by day.

They found it dismal work alone there,
underground, with such a fearful secret on
their minds, and so many murders before
them. They were filled with wild fancies.
Sometimes, they thought they heard a great
bell tolling, deep down in the earth under the
Parliament House; sometimes, they thought
they heard low voices muttering about the
Gunpowder Plot; and once in the morning,
they really did hear a great rumbling
noise over their heads, as they dug and
sweated in their mine. Every man stopped
and looked aghast at his neighbour, wondering
what had happened, when that bold
prowler, Fawkes, who had been out to look,
came in and told them that it was only a
dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar
under the Parliament House, removing his
stock in trade to some other place. Upon
this, the conspirators, who with all their
digging and digging had not yet dug through
the tremendously thick wall, changed their
plan, hired that cellar, which was directly
under the House of Lords, put six-and-thirty
barrels of gunpowder in it, and covered them
over with faggots and coals. Then they all
dispersed again until September, when the
following new conspirators were admitted:
Sir EDWARD BAYNHAM, of Gloucestershire;
Sir EDWARD DIGBY, of Rutlandshire;
AMBROSE ROOKWOOD, of Suffolk; and FRANCIS
TRESHAM, of Northamptonshire. Most of
these were rich, and were to assist the plot,
some with money and some with horses, on
which the conspirators were to ride through
the country and rouse the Catholics, after
the Parliament should be blown into the
air.

Parliament being again prorogued from
the third of October to the fifth of November,
and the conspirators being uneasy lest their
design should have been found out, Thomas
Winter said he would go up into the House
of Lords on the day of the prorogation and
see how matters looked. Nothing could be
better. The unconscious Commissioners
were walking about, and talking to one
another, just over the six-and-thirty barrels
of gunpowder. He came back, and told the
rest so, and they went on with their preparations.
They hired a ship, and kept it ready
in the Thames, in which Fawkes was to sail
for Flanders after firing with a slow match
the train that was to explode the powder. A
number of Catholic gentlemen not in the
secret, were invited, on pretence of a hunting-
party, to meet Sir Edward Digby at
Dunchurch on the fatal day, that they might be
ready to act together. And now all was
ready.

But, now, the great weakness and danger
which had been all along at the bottom of
this wicked plot began to show itself. As
the fifth of November drew near, most of
the conspirators remembering that they had
friends and relations who would be in the
House of Lords that day, felt some natural
relenting, and a wish to warn them to keep
away. They were not much comforted by
Catesby's declaring that in such a cause he
would blow up his own son. LORD MOUNTEAGLE,
Tresham's brother-in-law, was certain
to be in the house, and when Tresham found
that he could not prevail upon the rest to
devise any means of sparing their friends, he
wrote a mysterious letter to this lord and
left it at his lodging in the dusk, urging him
to keep away from the opening of Parliament,
"since God and man had concurred to punish
the wickedness of the times". It contained
the words "that the Parliament should
receive a terrible blow, and yet should not see
who hurt them," and it added, "the danger
is past, as soon as you have burnt the letter".

The ministers and courtiers made out that
his Sowship, by a direct miracle from Heaven,
found out what this letter meant. The truth
is, that they were not long (as few men
would be) in finding it out for themselves, and
that it was decided to let the conspirators
alone, until the very day before the opening
of Parliament. That the conspirators had
their fears, is certain; for, Tresham himself
said before them all, that they were every
one dead men; and, although even he did not
take flight, there is reason to suppose that
he had warned other persons besides Lord
Mounteagle. However, they were all firm,
and Fawkes, who was a man of iron, went
down every day and night to keep watch in
the cellar as usual. He was there about
two in the afternoon of the fourth, when the
Lord Chamberlain and Lord Mounteagle