ad
stacked them in the cellar. The key of the house next door had been at
times left in charge of his wife. So much he knew, and no more.

The examination of "John Johnson" was another matter. The King himself
had drawn up a paper containing questions to be put to him, and he
answered these and all others with an appearance of perfect frankness
and wish to conceal nothing. His replies were in reality a mixture of
truth and falsehood, which was afterwards proved.

The catechism began as usual, "What is your name?"

"John Johnson." To this he adhered through two more examinations.

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-six." This was true.

"Where were you born?"

"In Netherdale, in the county of York."

"How have you lived hitherto?"

"By a farm of thirty pounds a year."

"How came those wounds in your breast?"

"They are scars from the healing of a pleurisy."

The treatment of pleurisy in the seventeenth century was apparently
rather severe.

Fawkes went on to reply to the articles demanded, that he had never
served any man but Percy--though he had been in the service of Anthony
Browne, Lord Montague, a few months before: that he obtained Percy's
service "only by his own means, being a Yorkshire man"; that he had
learned French in England, and increased it when abroad; that he was
born a Papist, and not perverted--which was false.

Being asked why he was addressed as "Mr Fauks" in a letter (as he
alleged) from Mrs Colonel Bostock, which was found in his pocket, Mr
"Johnson" replied with the coolest effrontery, that it was because he
had called himself so in Flanders, where Mrs Bostock resided. This
letter was subsequently discovered to come from Anne Vaux.

Thus far went King James's queries: in respect of which the King desired
"if he will no other ways confesse, the gentle tortours to be first used
unto him, _et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur_; and so God speede your
good work!"

It was not, however, necessary to urge a confession: Mr Percy's man
seemed anxious to make a clean breast of it, and promised to tell
everything. He proceeded accordingly to lead his examiners astray by a
little truth and a good deal of falsehood. He gave a tolerably accurate
account of the hiring of the house and the cellar, the bringing in of
the powder, etcetera, except that he refrained from implicating any one
but himself. There was, at first, a certain air of nobility about
Fawkes, and he sternly refused to become a