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BOOK II

THE ARGUMENT

By effort and luck Fawkes is taken in good time, and explains the crime to Knyvett, and Book Two throws open the vault. Rousing himself from sleep, the King calmly permits new celebrations, which at daybreak wax warm throughout the city. Digby is led by his zeal for capturing Elizabeth to feign a hunt, surrounded by many friends. To popular acclaim, Parliament votes for punishment, while the ghost of Ignatius incites rebellious spirits to arms. Plotters’ faces are scorched with gunpowder, and they are either quickly killed in battle, or captured and languish in darkness.

Scarce had these things been appointed when the sun pressed upon Ocean’s border in the morning. Who does not know what spectacles were being readied for it, how full of furtive crime and bitter sorrow? But there were no prodigious fires, nor did the unwonted blast of some dark gale frighten the fiery spirits of bolting horses; night and the moon, content with her ancient stars, produced no fluxion or portent hung in mid-air, no apparition for the earth or new stars in the heaven. Rather, they blithely cruised through a friendly silence. No sighing was emitted from sealed tombs, no sound of screech-owl was heard, no weird shrieks, drubbing of drums, or bleary blaring of trumpets. No unlovely fear created by any occult sign yet announced the wrath of our offended Lord.
This was the time when, all cares conquered, mortal hearts were imbibing sleep, wafted down from above. Fawkes, to whom Percy had granted the liberty of the vacant house, stood alone in the doorway, the final figure in this daring enterprise, and its fitting agent. If he had been able to see the Abbey steeples in the twilight, and had let his depraved eyes survey its sacred precincts, venerable with the ancient tombs of sovereigns, which he hoped to ruin in a single moment, would he have kept his courage? To him sacred and profane were as one, imperturbably he burned to commit his crime, and for whatever might be able to render this colossal ruination famous. When Knyvett spotted him lurking there (for the Fates had commanded him to be present surrounded by a gaggle of watchmen), he commanded that the suspect be apprehended and closely examined to discover if he were concealing anything. Searching him, they pulled out of his clothing fuses created exclusively for starting fires, and the tools which criminals employ for such purposes. Without delay he was put under arrest and stripped, and with a bold face he confessed to the undertaking, but with pride, as if it were a just act and one deserving heaven, nor had he any regrets save that it had gone unaccomplished. And when the vault had been opened up, he fiercely added for the benefit of those gawking at the death-dealing mound, that if he had reached the place to which he was hastening, he would have sacrificed Fawkes along with the whole throng by blowing up the building before he would have worn chains. With such a wonderful order does God weave our doubtful affairs.
Stationing guards at the chamber, they straightway led the bound monster to the sacred palace, cursing him as they went, as happens when men drag a bear through the streets as faithful dogs yap and a large crowd tags along. At Court sleepless Lords awaited to discover what tidings a messenger would bring concerning the gunpowder, and when Knyvett disclosed the news they were amazed; nor, though it was late at night, could they restrain themselves from sharing their joy with the scepter-wielding prophet-king, like waking visions seen in sleep. The Lord Chamberlain, the scion of a Duke, Lord Suffolk, led the way, a man who loved his nation and sovereign as no other, and, impatient of delay, he shouted at his master, though he was scarce fully awake. “The entire plot stands revealed, as does a great ineffable crime. The places in Parliament about which we have been suspicious are packed with gunpowder. The watch has in hand the author of this great stratagem. O glory of kings, o thrice-great seer, you alone have preserved yourself for your people, your people for yourself, as well as three kingdoms, your forecasts never disappoint us. Thanks to you and your godhead, you, your divine wife, your royal offspring, and we too live and breathe. To you is owed the civic laurel, to your head is owed a brilliant crown of genuine stars.”
Happily, and as befitted a saintly man, the King quickly lifted his eyes and hands heavenward, and fervently began. “These things are Yours, o God our Patron, we confess these works are Yours alone, though Your mercy be yet greater.” Then in easier conversation they celebrated this festive joy, all sleep routed, and how it would be good for their children’s children to renew it annually. And thus at long length the shadows faded and the fifth of November dawned bright and clear; no day ever shone more propitiously on any age, nor ever will. And now, as soon as report made their doings known to the city populace, waking to their business and daily chores, alas, what amazement seized them! How lively did their joys flare up! Small minds cannot grasp the complexities of events, but they can never tire of discussing them, or can get their fill of thinking upon them.
In the countryside Digby feigned a hunting-party with many people: nothing better by nature, or less harmful, whether you want to track the hare or run down the coursing deer. But Digby intended something quite different; his countenance could not conceal his troubled mind, nor could he use his voice to raise the keen-scented hounds in the usual manner. He was paralyzed by anxiety and hung on his slack-reined horse, a burden to himself as well as it. His hastening doom and the idea of kidnapping the royal virgin obsessed this man whom Fortune had blessed. But, o sweet Elizabeth, you, having no fear of these men, were exercised by your love of piety, the arts of high virtue, and those things suitable to your tender years. Beauty was fair in your face, your mind was honest, and, full of light, you always shone like a star without spot or blemish. Did crime hope to find an opening thanks to you? Thanks to you did they dread wars which the Fury shall have announced on her trumpets? Would you be able to reign alone, after your brothers had been murdered, your parents offered up; or if, their booty, you had been so compelled, could you have taken a blood-stained husband from amongst your father’s enemies? An easier and better fate awaited you, divine girl, since you made a welcome marriage to a Palatine, and you were destined to yearn with a craving to see the Rhine with this triumphant guide, soon to be a most blessed mother of sons. And Harington with his faithful consort would go as your constant companion on the journey, in whose safe household you were now flourishing in despite of these brigands, the pious concern of them both, their delightsome charge. But his manor would never receive him back from the journey (for so the stars sadly decreed), nor would his native soil catch sight of him again, for death threw its roadblock across his way, and the effects of old age.
Retrace your steps, Muse, for city and inflamed Parliament were crying vengeance out of justifiable loathing of this accursed attempt. Our golden King entered its chamber with his accustomed pomp after having said his prayers at the Abbey, a chamber rescued from the flames, and took his seat on his ancestral throne. And when the leading men had taken their customary places on both sides of the aisle, Ellesmere rose to his feet, the Keeper of the Seal, who by exercise of his office was the moderator of the law that babbles its decrees, just as he was held in reverence for his distinguished gravity and mien, so by right of his high office he was the first to speak.
“This new development, foreseen by you alone, o King, has eclipsed what I had intended to say that was appropriate for this place and the business before us, a development greater than can be matched by any words, or fully understood by any stretch of the mind. Nothing of the sort, o fathers and Peers, has been heard of in any previous age, and posterity, perhaps, will scarce believe it. And men of this generation have barely credited it, though proofs of this unspeakable misdemeanor have been published for the eyes of the general public: although the notorious head of this monstrosity reveals all, he seems to be a madman spouting exaggerations. But real dangers lay underneath this building; the peril was near at hand, but nearer yet was God, Who disclosed the cloud pregnant with black thunderclaps, employing a light granted beforehand to James alone, our prophet-king. Therefore let the praise be his alone, the great gratitude due to the father of his country. But if you inquire into this crime’s origins, nurturing religion becomes the guilty party, for piety thirsts after murder and rapine: ‘ a merciful God demands these conflagrations.’ This man holds Rome’s servants to be his authorities, this immediate agent whose lethal task it was to burn down this structure. He alone is held in the Tower under proper guard: the rest are lurking in the city, or roam the countryside in obscurity. Once upon a time we were vexed enough by conspiracies and warfare, and now by fire set beneath us: what else are we to expect? Our hidden enemies, I shudder to say, aspired to explode our kingdom’s hope and glory in a single blast, scattering them through the blood-red air; they did not know how to spare a peaceable King or even, in the last analysis, how to refrain from harming their own kind. They have put beneath this House heavy casksful of powder meant to flash into lightning bolts for our destruction, and with much scrap iron mixed in they make up their volcanic subterfuges so that the blow might strike us unawares the surer, with greater loss of life, thus destroying the limbs along with the sacred head. Alas, in what darkness would poor Britain have lamented, bereft of her sun, moon, and lesser stars, with her sovereign lord and his starlike children removed? Who would have illuminated her churches? Who would have employed his skill to emend her rough-grown fields, imposed peace on her armaments? In her courts who would have settled suits by fatherly lawgiving? And, lastly, whose care would have guarded against foreign insults? What power could restrain the frenzy of this victorious crime, as it assaulted us internally? What solace could then have eased the grieving of mothers and wives, if in a trice such a great and unexpected slaughter had befallen the British, wholly at peace, with all orders of society thrown into confusion by a single bolt of lightning? Thus your madness rages, Rome, the fearful sons of Ignatius, a half-breed offspring with plenty of Devil in their blood. How long, o mildest of rulers, will you suffer so many evils? What limit has your ill-starred patience set on itself? Now peacefulness is harmful, unpunished wickedness, when fostered, at length grows into a calamity too late to avert. You need not fear acquiring a tyrant’s stigma, if punishment is now inflicted on all the guilty parties who have been detected. By being mild you will be cruel. Let your heat, equal to their guilt, oppress these plague-carriers, whom your prudence miraculously turned aside, and the heart in your breast, filled with illumination from above.”
When he had gravely uttered these things, thus the King spoke up in his ardor. “Let our salvation be ascribed to our great everlasting Father exclusively, for His mercy and great power brook no rival. It is enough that we have escaped our enemies’ bolts of lightning, let us not be ingrates by dwelling on honors.” Thus our pious monarch began his speech. But why do I launch into an uncrossable river of words? Perched on my tiny skiff, am I being swept out onto the boundless main, soon to be sunk in its towering waves? Thus Phoebus’ son drove his horses, thus the minuscule cicada apes Jove’s’ thunder in his feeble throat. As when springtime paints the meadows with newborn flowers, the chill clouds dissolve in mid-air, and sweet shower follow placidly upon showers, threatening nothing harsh if uncompelled by the North wind, not otherwise did our scepter-bearing sovereign’s lips melt as he spoke mild words, pouring them forth in golden streams, which, if they ever rage, seem to do so unwillingly, and are swept away as if by contrary breezes. He castigated the Papists as ingrates who had abused his goodness, fulminating with rage but irate against his will, as he thought over these savage prodigies and the dangers that had been leveled against his three kingdoms by crime, deceit, and, worst of all, fire. Therefore he loosened the reins of his irrepressible wrath and drew the sword that had long slumbered in its sheath. “This is a time,” he said, “for defending old laws, not for inventing new ones. Take vengeance: now our mercy serves as no impediment and, baffled, it retreats. And so let every man seek his borough, visit punishment on these enemies scattered everywhere, wash away this blemish with justifiable bloodletting, and cleanse our British land.” He spoke, and the assembly’s happy murmurs followed him as he took his leave, calling James gentle and just.
But the plotters, seeing the mists of their wrongdoing blown away, and their terrible undertakings open to view, began to tremble and, like Gorgons when they see their reflections in limpid water, were oppressed by shame and dread. Just as when the stage swells grandly with the tragic buskin as mad Hercules is enacted, Nessus’ fatal gift is donned, Thyestes’ fatal meal steams, or the glowing brand blazes as Althaea looks on, and some tale of cruelty is enacted with gloomy ceremony, and the shades of the damned pop up from Cocytus, spewing all manner of evil, Acts One and Two go off well. At length the spectators’ eyes well up with tears as the final horror draws near, as the actors split their sides and touch the audience, but soon they grow weary of acting or their voices fail and, hissed off the stage, they fear to linger and run for cover. In this way, when the climax of their effort, their harvest and victory-palm, ought to have summoned the conspirators to their prize, they kept their silence, the vault discovered. Everywhere the specter of bloodthirsty Nemesis hovered before them after they had been detected, to their terrification, and they entrusted their lives and hopes to shadow rather than to any resources. Under the darkness of midnight they collected at Lambeth and pondered events. First to make his complaint was Wright. “What action of the black Devil brought to light our secret crime? For neither God nor any of the Saints would have betrayed such bonny adventures. We are ruined: our great hope has collapsed, o my friends, and the glory of merit has evaporated into dreams and shadows. What harbor are we seeking? Contrary to our hopes, the wind has disrupted our voyage, everywhere the sky roughens with storms, disclosing sandbanks and jagged reefs to our sight, as well as a thousand Scyllas and Charybdes. There is no safety in arms, nor, if flight was somehow honorable for men who have dared so sublimely. would it do us any good. Unknown watchers are on every side, hourly we catch sight of many enemies. Everything bodes certain death.” “Sooner or later every creature will die;” exclaimed Percy, “let this be permitted to mortals, nor should we regret our undertaking, nor our unjust fate: bear what you cannot change. One fate does not hang over all men, although one fate hangs over each. Thus, perhaps, a traveler begins a journey over a barren plain under a clear sky; neither the homes of men or beasts greet his eye, no thicket or bramble bush casts its humble shadow, the land lies open to heaven and the angry Easterlies. So far he takes pleasure in his travels and in the kindly sunshine, but if the weather suddenly changes, if lightning and thunder roar and the South wind oppresses him with downpours, what is the poor man to do? Surely he should not grow fainthearted and abandon his journey? Rather, will he not fearlessly press on in his attempt and bear what he must? With our plot failing, why rest on our arms? Let these dangers now sharpen our courage. Our goal was war, and let us employ that which is not yet taken from us.” Percy urged a fight, Wright escape, promising that a ship lay at the ready, preferring the useful to the honorable but doubtful, for it could offer assured safety.
“But whither or to what people are we spreading our refugees’ sails?” asked Catesby. “What friends are we to beseech? Those whose cause we ruined by our vain efforts? Those whose altars we have rashly desecrated? Though had our endeavors been successful they would have been welcome and fair, when unaccomplished they will breed odium and disgrace for us, held in disdain. Rather, let us achieve some deed, let us resort to arms, and thus we shall not die disgraced and unavenged.” When he had said these things, the others repeated “Arms, arms!” with a furious uproar, lifting their spirits with forced courage, as when no route for escape and rescue remains, stags wheel on the hounds and, tossing their antlers, fight back with fearful struggle though they lack any hope. The most strenuous advice that they incite new wars had been given by the Jesuits, who shared in the guilt with these laymen, and they were motivated by an intention liable to the same bill of charges. Thereupon a horseman was sent by night to explain the whole sad business to Garnet, and to tell him in their extreme condition they were declaring war. Trembling with fright, he summoned his confederates, first whetting their ardor by summarizing what the had learned by despatches about the immediacy of their danger, lest any delay hinder them in their folly
These Fathers convened a council venerable in name alone, for the terrified plotters betrayed their fear by words and looks, nor was their speech coherent. Finally Garnet’s words tumbled forth when he had summoned his courage, but these too were loaded with timidity. “O friends, ah I fear lest our association collapse utterly, and groan under the weight of our abortive endeavor. Up to this point it smacks of unworthiness and a barbarity at which any man would shudder, though were it to be accomplished it would perhaps wear another aspect, so that what now seems black would change to white. What man, forgetful of the loyalty of our compact, and of his own, came forth at the final hour to give evidence, so unhappy for the state of his own soul, and for our safety? But I believe that such dire endeavors have never been very pleasing to God; the mercy of our heavenly Father requires something else, His mind that pities the unhappy. Why should I have to remind you of the more than miraculous escapes of the poor dead Queen? As an example, it suffices for me to mention this one interpreter, all too accurate, all too aided by divine inspiration, who turned a trifling screed into our destruction - a destruction we had planned for him. Even before his birth he exhibited contempt for conspiracies, in his cradle he was stronger than Hercules, whom the Greeks aver to have throttled a pair of snakes with his hands. Jupiter is said to have been his father and patron, but for the James the true, omnipotent Lord is present in all things with His godhead.”
“Why, Father, do you judge matters by their outcomes more than by true reason?” expostulated ”Hall.” ”Twice armies mustered by divine will were routed by their enemies — do they therefore strike you as worse and contemptible? The King of France was defeated by the Turks: so was he inferior because of his cause or by happenstance? Surely we do not think those bugles that blew when Rhodes was taken worthy of a triumph, or better, because unjust victory scorned the besieged? Right is on our side, it is not ours to lose faith in our cause.” Gerard and Tesimond forbade them to argue these things at such a time, now the need was for them to succor themselves and their own kind with money, advice, and assistance. They urged that arms be taken up, nor was delay safe for these actions. But Garnet argued that, since the strength of the realm had not yet been shattered, the King was thriving, and the people howling for revenge, it was a difficult thing to resort to a fight. Hall adhered to this view, but they could not agree among themselves as this argument divided their doubtful minds.
And to their astonishment, the ghost of Ignatius unexpectedly appeared, of baleful aspect, threatening savage things, just as once he was when, tired of the ordinary military life, he bade adieu to the colors and chose to be the founder of a new order, having no fear to use that Name at which the earth trembles, by which Orcus is humbled. And of its own will this fierce apparition addressed the panic-stricken plotters with these words. “Whence such suffering of mind? Lo, I am here, Ignatius Loyola, acknowledge your patron and general. Ah, I am ashamed, comrades, that you are swayed even by Phlegethon vomiting forth its terrors; for us, let it be a crime to blanch. It is reasonable for you to trample kings’ gilded heads underfoot, and to exhibit disdain for all reverses, spreading your sails even when the winds blow contrary. I shall confess that great praise has been earned by your undertaking, even if your intention has been cheated. For if it had turned out well, if the powder had done its work and Parliament had gone a-flying, wholly destroyed by Roman gunpowder along with its King, how much glory would have been won? What fame would have quite rightly shone for me and for mine? How much our wonderful order would have filled the world with all sorts of fear! But Glory begrudged us things, and cheated with bile my sons, whom Hope had fed on nectar. So farewell to both goddesses, let a new hope inspire your minds, a new glory happily with follow. Turn your minds to arms, and let treachery not absent itself from them: first, broadcast idle rumors, frighten Papists with fear of a coming massacre; feign that extermination awaits them, that the business is being managed in secret but that a sudden violent stroke is readied and impends, unless they are the first to resort to violence. And you yourselves must range farther and wider than your words, running hither and thither, everywhere soliciting your acquaintances, filling their womenfolk with miserable complaints, filling every place with the suspicion of evil, so that they will think nothing safer than arms. I myself shall incite the Fears of Tartarus, the dire Furies, and whatever savage thing lurks in the shadows.” Scarcely had he spoken these thing when the earth split open and revealed the waters of Avernus with their crackling flames, and Ignatius mingled with his own kind, disrupting all at his first arrival. He screamed the names of the Dire Ones, summoned the timid Fears, and busily called each of the Furies from their caverns, ignobly adding a horrible throng of ordinary demons, lacking number or order. Thus he shrewdly led his serried army into the upper light, waving and pointing a blazing flail he held in his hand as the lord of Tartarus looked on, feeling no chagrin at yielding his command to this equal, for their two hearts beat as one. But these specters, suddenly disappearing from the onlookers’ sight, restored the earth by closing Tartarus’ chasm. The weird vision petrified the Fathers, and rightly so, and if Ignatius had not lent them courage in their terror, it would have driven them out of their wits with its stark horror. But to their elated minds everything now seemed contemptible and reduced in size: great Hercules lifting Antaeus would scarcely have been a pygmy wrestling a crane, or a monkey carrying its nurseling. Thus they grew elated, swept along by a black tide of arrogance, and in comparison (now lords in a new world, and masters of the mighty) they disdained consecrated scepters and royal crowns. And now the greatest of the Furies, released from Erebus, who engenders wars, and who dotes on strife between kingdoms, threw her fire in the Jesuits’ faces like lightning, her crazed madness invaded their bowels. She scattered them headlong, crying havoc, filling their dire bugles with whispers about religion. And to Garnet, now truly burning for war with a greater flame, terrible Nemesis appeared, armed with a great razor-sharp axe dripping with gore, and flourishing its edge at him she intoned, “Madman, why are you trying to incite war with this vain effort, or to set yourself up in opposition to the Fates? You have meddled in crime more than enough, your depraved deeds, now brought to light, demand a penalty you will pay with your blood, nor has the twilight of your life many days to run. Lest you be deceived in your credulity, the foreign help you seek is cut off by treacherous Ocean, the Rome upon which you call is far away. What of heaven, if there is any heaven for great sinners?” Having made such prophecies, she vanished like a ghost, leaving Garnet in a daze, near-dead from fear of death.
But at length, thanks to such teachers, their crimes learned how to withstand the light, throngs assembled openly and attempted to begin hostilities. They broke into other men’s houses, smashing down locked doors, stealing horses trained for battle, and everywhere they grabbed down weapons hung on doorways forbidden them. Their city coreligionists, inspired by greater ardor, joined with them, and everywhere they were on the increase, as when a sudden storm turns a tranquil sea green, with the North wind rushing from one quarter, the wild East wind swooping in from another, and the waves are gradually made to rear up, clouds reveal themselves in the sky, and sailors begin to fear increasingly for themselves and their rich galleons. Thus while the shire, for which a profound and easy peace had once been habitual, burned with sudden disturbances, and the common folk saw laws which they had held in even deeper reverence than the powers of heaven no flouted and counted for naught, Justice yielded to insanity, business was conducted by the sword. Each man feared shipwreck for himself and scarcely entrusted life or property to his own house. And so now the inhabitants of the Midlands, past whose age-old fields peacefully glided sweet Avon, a rival of the sun’s rising and setting, shuddered at discord a-borning. Greville, a man graver than the rest in years and birth, to whom the troubled county looked as its protector, heard that various rumors were being spread and that pillage was occurring (though nothing significant or worthy of such an impressive name). But when a starry youth from on high routed this Stygian power with his countenance, the gang below trembled deeply with fear, just as the lesser birds are scattered when an eagle is on the wing. And lo, he caught sight of this old man as he was hesitating, pondering the future in his mind, and so, wrapped in thick mist, he flew to him and with his rosy fingers plucked one of those rays which envelop his head as an eternal garland, like a star. And he cast this beam at Greville’s right eye and struck home, and then sought the upper air on golden pinions. The mortal shivered at this celestial strike, and felt his head and heart suffused with greater illumination. He saw everything with far greater clarity, and understood things both present and future. Now he feared the rumors he had lately disdained, weighing the balance what he had heard before. He reckoned that these beginnings, though not so great, portended grave movements, which he prepared either to settle by his gentle art, or at least to quench by raising a force. He opined that great fires have sometimes grown from a small spark, neglected in its fury, and that careful vigilance is useful even in the smallest matters. Therefore to enhance his own strength he first gathered weapons which had not been well guarded, and with a prudent oration incited the zeal of strong, good men, reminding them of their wealth or breeding, reminding them of their station and family.He kindled in all the citizenry a common love of country, covering the rebel gangs with odium and reproaches. Such was the vigor of his eloquent tongue that of their own will the enemy, held in contempt and abandoned, took to their heels faster than any force, no matter how active, could have compelled. Traveling swiftly they passed fertile Avon’s pastures and the groves that surge up on its facing banks, and in their exhaustion settled in your adjacent fields, Severn. A single private house received all these outcasts, which in their feeble ardor they prepared to fortify and defend in a fight. The place retains the name of Holbeach, scarcely an ill place because it was guilty of offering this hospitality, would fame but hold its tongue.
But behold, the lord of Tartarus, never loyal, never bound by any league, out of hatred now killed the wretches whom he had previously supported in their prosperity, abandoning them as a useless burden, and taking his pleasure in hastening their impending doom. Thus he sent into this fatal house one of the Furies, one fit for gloomy transactions and thoroughly destructive. She was given to our dejected plotters as a companion, sitting with them day and night, instilling horror, offering dreadful visions, encouraging a loathing for life in their diseased souls, and offering their persons to an early death. Skilled in nature’s secret lore, she filled their quivering veins with her black fluid, enveloping their minds in shadow (oh, this accursed artist!), when they slept she gave them dreams worse than apparitions, and when they were awake she brought night upon them. The unhappy name of this fiend is Despair; by cares she destroys tender gentle lovers, those affected by disgrace or burdened by poverty, and those whose enjoyment of things has begun to be gripped by ennui. She is an insidious plague, more fatal than any disease, but at this point she did not come amiss, a guest fit for such hosts. In dreams she approached Winter, whom an altered fortune had put on an equal footing with his younger brother, as he was stripped of his elegance and patrimony, and, by foretelling the truth, she terrified him, hostile to his sweet repose. She showed him church steeples tottering on the brink of collapse, their bells a-clanging, and on their sacred portals, which he dreamt he was approaching, she affixed ghastly faces such as he could not identify, yet that were not wholly unfamiliar.
The feverish wretch, regarding this all with consternation, soaked his temples with sweat, a panic gripped him. But the dawning of a new day and quick drumbeats dispelled their sleep, when with his sudden posse Walsh besieged their walls, and with a ruffle on the drumhead summoned his pent-up enemy to a parlay. Then he offered peace and the hope of amnesty to these renegades, as he had no notion of the degree of their offenses. But the guilty gang derided his offers and quickly armed themselves in turn. They loaded their thundering muskets for a fight, drying their damp powder by a handy fireplace. But when a servant poked at the slow-burning fire, behold, the Fury (unseen to all) guided the shivering fellow’s hand and dropped some embers in among the black grains. These quickly took fire and, like a thunderbolt, the house exploded, a hole blown through the roof, begriming their half-burnt faces and throwing everything into confusion with pitch-black night. But as soon as the fumes cleared and the nurturing daylight returned, and they could make out each others’ fearsome faces, “It was these,” cried out Winter, “these faces that I saw in my sleep, alas, these are the all too true signs of divine wrath! Alas, how well this explosion suits our endeavors.” They raised their hands and monstrous faces to heaven, praying pardon and mercy for their horrendous enterprise, but the Fury quickly turned aside their piety, wafting through the air a thousand imaginary drumbeats to their ears. The gang leapt to arms and dashed out the open doorways, scarcely out of any hope for victory, but eager to gain an honorable death. Walsh fought back with his untrained militia. At their initial onrush, Percy and Catesby were the first to die, struck by the selfsame shot, and next both Wrights shed their crimson blood. But Grant, Rookwood, and both the Winters were arrested and led off by their foe, along with Bates and Keyes, not to meet a very different fate: for soon they all paid the price with richly deserved bloodshed.

Finis