ach other in the meanwhile, and never to write letters to one another on
any account. So, the house in Westminster was shut up again, and I
suppose the neighbours thought that those strange-looking men who lived
there so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were gone away to have a merry
Christmas somewhere.

It was the beginning of February, sixteen hundred and five, when Catesby
met his fellow-conspirators again at this Westminster house. He had now
admitted three more; JOHN GRANT, a Warwickshire gentleman of a melancholy
temper, who lived in a doleful house near Stratford-upon-Avon, with a
frowning wall all round it, and a deep moat; ROBERT WINTER, eldest
brother of Thomas; and Catesby's own servant, THOMAS BATES, who, Catesby
thought, had had some suspicion of what his master was about. These
three had all suffered more or less for their religion in Elizabeth's
time. And now, they all began to dig again, and they dug and dug by
night and by day.

They found it dismal work alone there, underground, with such a fearful
secret on their minds, and so many murders before them. They were filled
with wild fancies. Sometimes, they thought they heard a great bell
tolling, deep down in the earth under the Parliament House; sometimes,
they thought they heard low voices muttering about the Gunpowder Plot;
once in the morning, they really did hear a great rumbling noise over
their heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine. Every man stopped
and looked aghast at his neighbour, wondering what had happened, when
that bold prowler, Fawkes, who had been out to look, came in and told
them that it was only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar under
the Parliament House, removing his stock in trade to some other place.
Upon this, the conspirators, who with all their digging and digging had
not yet dug through the tremendously thick wall, changed their plan;
hired that cellar, which was directly under the House of Lords; put six-
and-thirty barrels of gunpowder in it, and covered them over with fagots
and coals. Then they all dispersed again till September, when the
following new conspirators were admitted; SIR EDWARD BAYNHAM, of
Gloucestershire; SIR EVERARD DIGBY, of Rutlandshire; AMBROSE ROOKWOOD, of
Suffolk; FRANCIS TRESHAM, of Northamptonshire. Most of these were rich,
and were to assist the plot, some with money and some with horses on
which the conspirators were to ride through the country and rouse the
Catholics a