Some days yet remained before the opening of Parliament; during that time Percy, Catesby, Winter and others of the conspirators, formed such plans as would be to their advantage when the kingdom, shaken to its center by the death of the King and his ministers, should be thrown into confusion. As for Fawkes, each day found him in the fatal cellar, where he studied the condition of his coals and faggots, making sure that no prying eye had penetrated the covering, under which was hidden the "devil's powder" awaiting the spark which would free English Catholics from James of Scotland and his Parliament. CHAPTER XIX. THE NOTE OF WARNING. During the last week of October, sixteen hundred and five, near the day for the convening of Parliament, Lord Monteagle suddenly appeared in his house at Hoxton, from which he had been absent a month. His manner was perturbed and preoccupied in the extreme. Usually of a genial disposition, he surprised the servants who attended him, by an impatient order that supper be served at once, as he and the gentlemen accompanying him had already fasted too long. Soon after seven in the evening he dispatched a footman upon an errand into the neighboring street. This man shortly returned in haste, presenting to his lordship a sealed letter, addressed, in a cramped hand, to "The Right Honorable, the Lord Monteagle." He received the missive, handling it in a fastidious manner, and inquired with some show of spirit how it had come through a servant, instead of being delivered in the usual way. "'Twas given me," replied the footman, "by a reasonably tall person who stood upon a corner of the street, and directed with much semblance of authority that I give it into thy lordship's hand and to no other." "'Tis a most unwonted thing," said Monteagle, breaking the seal, "probably some petition for alms which----" Then, on glancing over the sheet, he started, and turned to a gentleman beside him. "Good Thomas Ward," said he, "'tis written in a most illegible and wretched hand which I can scarce decipher; neither bears it any date or superscription. I pray thee take and read aloud, that all may hear and pass opinion upon so strange a matter." Ward accepted the paper, and smoothed it out upon his hand. "It seems the writing of a laborer," said he, "one who doth wield a pick and spade with more ease than a quill. A most unmannerly jumble of ill-conditioned words, as thou shalt judge, my lord, upon hearing." So saying he read aloud as follows, while the others sat and listened: