n kept very secret, and that to-morrow he would set a light to
that match and hurry away, and before he had got very far he would hear
a sound that would seem to tear the very sky, and with a crash the
Houses of Parliament would reel and fall, burying in their ruins
hundreds of men and the King of England. These were not the same Houses
of Parliament that stand now, but were burnt down many years after.

In the dark shadows Guy waited; perhaps a mouse ran across the floor,
and made him start. And then there was a sound of footsteps at the door,
a whispering and a creaking of boots, and before he had time to do
anything he found himself surrounded by soldiers, and knew that all was
over; that the least he could hope for was death, which he had richly
deserved, for he had intended to murder hundreds of men who had never
wronged him.

All the implements for his terrible scheme were found upon him--the slow
match and the lights, and when the faggots were thrown aside there were
the barrels of gunpowder. If the people could have got at Guy Fawkes, he
would have been torn in pieces; but he was kept from them by the
soldiers, and hurried off to the Tower. So all the people could do was
to make a false Guy Fawkes stuffed with straw and burn him on a bonfire,
and that is the origin of our fifth of November.

Guy Fawkes was not put to death at once, as you will hear in the account
of the Tower; he was tortured on the rack to make him give up the names
of those who had been in the conspiracy with him. Again and again he
refused, but at last the awful suffering weakened him so that he hardly
knew what he was doing; and when the torturers told him some of his
comrades had been taken, which was not true, he believed them, and
moaned out the names of two or three of his fellow-conspirators. Among
them was poor young Sir Everard Digby, who, when he heard that all was
lost, mounted his horse and tried to get away to the sea to go across to
the Continent; but he was taken, and with many of the others, including
Guy Fawkes himself, was hanged.

This, then, was the famous Gunpowder Plot which we celebrate on the
fifth of November.

CHAPTER XVI

CHARLES I

The story of Charles I. is one of the most dreadful in English history.
It seems impossible to believe that so many of the English people could
stand calmly round and watch their King executed like a common criminal
without raising a finger to save him.

We have met Char