A Child's History of England.179

The ministers and courtiers made out [编出] that his Sowship, by a direct miracle from Heaven, found out what this letter meant. The truth is, that they were not long (as few men would be) in finding out for themselves; and it was decided to let the conspirators alone, until the very day before the opening of Parliament. That the conspirators had their fears, is certain; for, Tresham himself said before them all, that they were every one dead men; and, although even he did not take flight [flee], there is reason to suppose that he had warned other persons besides Lord Mounteagle. However, they were all firm; and Fawkes, who was a man of iron, went down every day and night to keep watch in the cellar as usual. He was there about two in the afternoon of the fourth, when the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Mounteagle threw open the door and looked in. 'Who are you, friend?' said they. 'Why,' said Fawkes, 'I am Mr. Percy's servant, and am looking after his store of fuel here.' 'Your master has laid in [储存] a pretty good store,' they returned, and shut the door, and went away. Fawkes, upon this, posted off [离开他驻扎的地方] to the other conspirators to tell them all was quiet, and went back and shut himself up in the dark, black cellar again, where he heard the bell go twelve o'clock and usher in [cause to start] the fifth of November. About two hours afterwards, he slowly opened the door, and came out to look about him, in his old prowling [悄悄地] way. He was instantly seized and bound, by a party [group] of soldiers under Sir Thomas Knevett. He had a watch upon him, some touchwood [decayed wood used for tinder], some tinder [干燥易燃物], some slow matches; and there was a dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind the door. He had his boots and spurs on - to ride to the ship, I suppose - and it was well for the soldiers that they took him so suddenly. If they had left him but [only] a moment's time to light a match, he certainly would have tossed it in among the powder, and blown up himself and them.

They took him to the King's bed-chamber first of all, and there the King (causing [make] him to be held very tight, and keeping a good way off), asked him how he could have the heart to intend to destroy so many innocent people? 'Because,' said Guy Fawkes, 'desperate diseases need desperate remedies.' To a little Scotch favourite, with a face like a terrier [活泼的小狗], who asked him (with no particular wisdom) why he had collected so much gunpowder, he replied, because he had meant to blow Scotchmen back to Scotland, and it would take a deal of powder to do that. Next day he was carried to the Tower, but would make no confession. Even after being horribly tortured, he confessed nothing that the Government did not already know; though he must have been in a fearful state - as his signature, still preserved, in contrast with his natural hand-writing before he was put upon the dreadful rack [拉肢刑架], most frightfully shows. Bates, a very different man, soon said the Jesuits [耶稣会会士] had had to do with the plot, and probably, under the torture, would as readily have said anything. Tresham, taken and put in the Tower too, made confessions and unmade them, and died of an illness that was heavy upon him. Rookwood, who had stationed [派驻] relays [接力] of his own horses all the way to Dunchurch, did not mount [上马] to escape until the middle of the day, when the news of the plot was all over London. On the road, he came up with the two Wrights, Catesby, and Percy; and they all galloped together into Northamptonshire. Thence to Dunchurch, where they found the proposed party assembled. Finding, however, that there had been a plot, and that it had been discovered, the party disappeared in the course of the night, and left them alone with Sir Everard Digby. Away they all rode again, through Warwickshire and Worcestershire, to a house called Holbeach, on the borders of Staffordshire. They tried to raise [召集] the Catholics on their way, but were indignantly driven off by them. All this time they were hotly pursued by the sheriff of Worcester, and a fast increasing concourse [群众] of riders. At last, resolving to defend themselves at Holbeach, they shut themselves up in the house, and put some wet powder before the fire to dry. But it blew up, and Catesby was singed [singe:烧焦] and blackened, and almost killed, and some of the others were sadly hurt. Still, knowing that they must die, they resolved to die there, and with only their swords in their hands appeared at the windows to be shot at by the sheriff and his assistants. Catesby said to Thomas Winter, after Thomas had been hit in the right arm which dropped powerless by his side, 'Stand by me, Tom, and we will die together!' - which they did, being shot through the body by two bullets from one gun. John Wright, and Christopher Wright, and Percy, were also shot. Rookwood and Digby were taken: the former with a broken arm and a wound in his body too.

It was the fifteenth of January, before the trial of Guy Fawkes, and such of the other conspirators as were left alive, came on. They were all found guilty, all hanged, drawn, and quartered: some, in St. Paul's Churchyard, on the top of Ludgate-hill; some, before the Parliament House. A Jesuit priest, named Henry Garnet, to whom the dreadful design was said to have been communicated, was taken and tried; and two of his servants, as well as a poor priest who was taken with him, were tortured without mercy. He himself was not tortured, but was surrounded in the Tower by tamperers [tamper:乱改;篡改] and traitors, and so was made unfairly to convict himself out of his own mouth. He said, upon his trial, that he had done all he could to prevent the deed, and that he could not make public what had been told him in confession [告借] - though I am afraid he knew of the plot in other ways. He was found guilty and executed, after a manful defence, and the Catholic Church made a saint of him; some rich and powerful persons, who had had nothing to do with the project, were fined and imprisoned for it by the Star Chamber; the Catholics, in general, who had recoiled [畏缩] with horror from the idea of the infernal [地狱般的] contrivance [an unfair or dishonest scheme or trick], were unjustly put under more severe laws than before; and this was the end of the Gunpowder Plot.

In the Catholic church and in some other churches, if you go to confession, you privately tell a priest about your sins and ask for forgiveness.

六级/考研单词: miracle, parliament, besides, tentative, cellar, bind, spur, gradual, powder, innocent, confess, torture, dread, rack, plot, probable, relay, mount, assemble, indignant, pursuit, resolve, sword, shot, potent, bullet, wound, guilt, priest, mercy, convict, deed, execute, catholic, saint, imprison, chamber, contrive, sinister