A Child's History of England.178

They found it dismal [凄凉的] 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 [惊恐地] at his neighbour, wondering what had happened, when that bold prowler [夜贼], 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 [交易中的存货] 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 [firewood] 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 [唤醒] the Catholics after the Parliament should [表推断] be blown into air.

be to do sth: 1. used to talk about arrangements; 2. used to give an order; 3. used to ask sth

Parliament being again prorogued [休会] from the third of October to the fifth of November, and the conspirators being uneasy lest [唯恐] their design should have been found out, Thomas Winter said he would go up into the House of Lords on the day of the prorogation [休会], and see how matters looked. Nothing could be better. The unconscious Commissioners [委员] were walking about and talking to one another, just over the six-and-thirty barrels of gunpowder. He came back and told the rest so, and they went on with their preparations. They hired a ship, and kept it ready in the Thames, in which Fawkes was to sail for Flanders after firing with a slow match the train [a string of gunpowder that acts as a fuse for exploding a charge] that was to explode the powder. A number of Catholic gentlemen not in the secret, were invited, on pretence of a hunting party, to meet Sir Everard Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day, that they might be ready to act together. And now all was ready.

But, now, the great wickedness and danger which had been all along at the bottom of this wicked plot, began to show itself. As the fifth of November drew [移动] near, most of the conspirators, remembering that they had friends and relations who would be in the House of Lords that day, felt some natural relenting [手软], and a wish to warn them to keep away. They were not much comforted by Catesby's declaring that in such a cause he would blow up his own son. Lord Mounteagle, Tresham's brother-in-law, was certain to be in the house; and when Tresham found that he could not prevail upon [说服] the rest to devise any means of sparing [放过] their friends, he wrote a mysterious letter to this lord and left it at his lodging in the dusk, urging him to keep away from the opening of Parliament, 'since God and man had concurred [一致] to punish the wickedness of the times.' It contained the words 'that the Parliament should receive a terrible blow, and yet should not see who hurt them.' And it added, 'the danger is past, as soon as you have burnt the letter.'

六级/考研单词: subway, toll, shallow, parliament, mutter, powder, plot, dig, sweat, bold, cellar, tremendous, disperse, rouse, tertiary, lest, sail, fuse, explode, catholic, hunt, fatal, wicked, prevail, devise, lodge, dusk, punish