Page:Guy Fawkes, or, The history of the gunpowder plot.pdf/13

Rh king. It was also arranged that Warwickshire should be the general rendezvous, and that sup plies of horses and armour should be sent to the houses of several of the conspirators in that county, to be used as occasion might require all which was accordingly attended to. In the midst of these deliberations, Fawkes brought intelligence that the Parliament had again been prorogued from the 7th of February to the 3d of October following. The conspirators, therefore, separated for a timer; and, in the mean while, John Grant of Norbrook, in Warwickshire, and Robert Winter of Haddington, were sworn in among their number. In February (1G04-5,) their labours were resumed, and the stone wall nearly half broken through.

Father Green way observes, that ‘it seemed almost incredible that men of their quality, accustomed to live in ease and delicacy, could have undergone such severe labour; and especially that, in a few weeks, they could have effected much more than as many workmen would have done who had been ail their lives in the habit of gaining their daily bread by their labour.’ In particular, he remarks that ‘it was wonderful how Percy and Catesby, who were unusually tall men, could endure for so long a time the intense fatigue of working day and night in the stooping posture which was rendered necessary by the straightness of the place,’

One morning, while working upon the wall, they suddenly heard a rushing noise in a cellar nearly above their heads. At first, they feared they had been discovered; but Fawkes, being despatched to reconnoitre, found that one Bright, to whom the cellar belonged, was