ar Clement's Inn, now a
closely blocked-up part of London; and when they had all taken a great
oath of secrecy, Catesby told the rest what his plan was. They then went
up-stairs into a garret, and received the Sacrament from FATHER GERARD, a
Jesuit, who is said not to have known actually of the Gunpowder Plot, but
who, I think, must have had his suspicions that there was something
desperate afoot.

Percy was a Gentleman Pensioner, and as he had occasional duties to
perform about the Court, then kept at Whitehall, there would be nothing
suspicious in his living at Westminster. So, having looked well about
him, and having found a house to let, the back of which joined the
Parliament House, he hired it of a person named FERRIS, for the purpose
of undermining the wall. Having got possession of this house, the
conspirators hired another on the Lambeth side of the Thames, which they
used as a storehouse for wood, gunpowder, and other combustible matters.
These were to be removed at night (and afterwards were removed), bit by
bit, to the house at Westminster; and, that there might be some trusty
person to keep watch over the Lambeth stores, they admitted another
conspirator, by name ROBERT KAY, a very poor Catholic gentleman.

All these arrangements had been made some months, and it was a dark,
wintry, December night, when the conspirators, who had been in the
meantime dispersed to avoid observation, met in the house at Westminster,
and began to dig. They had laid in a good stock of eatables, to avoid
going in and out, and they dug and dug with great ardour. But, the wall
being tremendously thick, and the work very severe, they took into their
plot CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT, a younger brother of John Wright, that they
might have a new pair of hands to help. And Christopher Wright fell to
like a fresh man, and they dug and dug by night and by day, and Fawkes
stood sentinel all the time. And if any man's heart seemed to fail him
at all, Fawkes said, 'Gentlemen, we have abundance of powder and shot
here, and there is no fear of our being taken alive, even if discovered.'
The same Fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel, was always prowling
about, soon picked up the intelligence that the King had prorogued the
Parliament again, from the seventh of February, the day first fixed upon,
until the third of October. When the conspirators knew this, they agreed
to separate until after the Christmas holidays, and to take no notice of
e