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; 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 fagots and coals. Then they all
dispersed again till September, when the following new conspirators
were admitted; Sir Edward Baynham, of Gloucestershire; Sir Everard
Digby, of Rutlandshire; Ambrose Rookwood, of Suffolk; 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 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 Everard Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day, that
they might be ready to act together. And now all was ready.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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