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

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THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.
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king. It was also arranged that Warwickshire should be the general rendezvous, and that supplies 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 intelligenee that the Parliament had again been prorogued from the 7th of February to the 3d of October following. The conspirators, therefore, separated for a time; and, in the mean while, John Grant of Norbrook, in Warwiekshire, and Robert Winter of Huddington, were sworn in among their number. In February (1604-5,) their labours were resumed, and the stone wall nearly half broken through.

Father Greenway observes, that 'it seemed almost incredible that men of their quality, aeeustomed to live in ease and delieaey, could have undergone sueh severe labour; and especially that, in a few weeks, they could have effeeted much more than as many workmen would have done who had been all their lives in the habit of gaining their daily bread by their labour.' In particular, he remarks that 'it was wonderful how Perey 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 diseovered; but Fawkes, being despatched to reconnoitre, found that one Bright, to whom the cellar belonged, was sell-