“Are there more verses?” Cousin Dick asked.
“No.”
“I wonder what treason the ballad deals with?” said the boy.
“Don’t you know?” It was then that Elfrida made the mistake of showing off her historical knowledge. “I know. And I know some of the names of the conspirators, too, and who they wanted to kill, and everything.”
“Tell me,” said Cousin Richard idly.
“The King hadn’t been fair to the Catholics, you know,” said Elfrida, full of importance, “so a lot of them decided to kill him and the Houses of Parliament. They made a plot—there were a whole lot of them in it. They said Lord Arden was, but he wasn’t, and some of them were to pretend to be hunting, and to seize the Princess Elizabeth and proclaim her Queen, and the rest were to blow the Houses of Parliament up when the King went to open them.”
“I never heard this tale from my tutor,” said Cousin Richard laughing. “Proceed, cousin.”
“Well, Mr. Piercy took a house next the Parliament House, and they dug a secret passage to the vaults under the Parliament Houses; and they put three dozen casks of gunpowder there and covered them with faggots. And they would have been all blown up, only Mr. Tresham wrote to his relation, Lord Monteagle, that they were going to blow up the King and——”
“What King?” said Cousin Richard.
“King James the First,” said Elfrida. “Why—what——” for Cousin Richard had sprung to his feet, and old Parrot-nose had Elfrida by the wrist.