For the passion — the concentrated, suppressed, yet volcanic passion — that had purposed so awful a catastrophe was deep as hell and high as heaven.
And well might it be, regard being had to the indisputable facts of English History from the year 1569 — the year of the Rising of the North, which was stamped out with such cruel severity — down to the year 1605. Truly, the measure of the Gunpowder conspirators’ personal guilt was the measure of their representative wrongs. Yet this, in itself, for these wrong-doers was no ground of pardon or release: for, by a steadfast decree of the universe, “The guilty suffer.”
CHAPTER X.
Now, according to the laws which govern human nature, a subordinate conspirator, introduced late into the conspiracy, whose early training was such as to lead him, on reflection, to regard as morally unlawful the taking of a secret oath, such as the Gunpowder conspirators had taken: a conspirator in whose heart emotions, not only of compassion but also of compunction, were likely to be awakened by the remembrance of that training, as the day was about to dawn and as the hour was about to strike when would be consummated one of the bloodiest tragedies that had ever stained an evil world: a conspirator answering to this, I say, was the most likely to be the conspirator who revealed this purposed appalling massacre, the bare thought of which causes strong men to shudder, even to this day.
Still more likely would be a conspirator who, fulfilling the description just mentioned, adds to that the following, namely — that he possessed an entirely trustworthy friend who would act as penman of any document he might wish to use as a means of communicating a secret yet warning note to a representative of the intended victims.
And yet still more likely would be a conspirator who, to the descriptions of the two preceding paragraphs, added a third, namely — that he possessed a second entirely trustworthy friend who would act as an “interpres” — a go-between — to drive home the full
intended effect of the document penned by the hand of the first; and this with the express knowledge and consent of that first.
Hence, such go-between would be the agent common to both the revealing conspirator and his scribe, and would be informed, directed and controlled by them.