A Plot Of Gunpowder

"I will tell you what we will do," said Quidd. "There is in our outhouse an old wheeled chair which my mother used to ride about in when she was so long ill, a year or two ago. Now, I know old Dame Clackett is very lame just now, from having let fall her fender on her foot. I will take this chair down, and offer to draw her to church in it, and then, when we have once got her in the chair, we can do as we like with her. Hurrah!"

"Won't that be fun?" continued Quidd. "Let us do it—let us do it. There is no law against it; the thing was never thought of. It is just like the law that was never made among the Romans that I read about in my lessons yesterday: there was no law against a child killing his own father. I tell you," said he, "if there were twenty old women to be seized and burnt, nobody could be hurt for it. But you do not mean to burn her, I suppose, do you?"

"Oh no," said we; "we only want to have some fun. We should like to make a guy of her, that is all, and rare fun it will be."

"Let me join you," said one; "Let me join," said another, till at last the whole school entered into the plot.

We all forgot what we should have remembered—namely, that, instead of despising or ridiculing people who are old and helpless and poor, we ought to treat them with kindness, respect, and consideration. We forgot that we, if suffered to live long [pg 430] enough, should also become old, and that it would be hard for us to bear the coldness and neglect of the world, but much harder to endure the ridicule and ill-behavior of wicked children. Ay, we were thoughtless lads, and so we suffered for it, as you will afterwards hear.

The old lady whom I had seen sitting in the church porch, who was so ugly, as I thought, and so withered and old, was a very poor widow. Her husband had died in battle long ago, and she had from year to year supported herself by her spinning wheel and the little relief she had from the parish. She lived in a little hut on a piece of waste ground, and kept a little poultry, and now and then a pig or two.

Among other animals, the old lady kept an enormous goat, or, rather, he kept himself. It was one her husband had brought her from abroad, of the Syrian breed. It was quite young when it came over, but at last grew and grew so, as to become a very formidable animal, so strong and fierce, that every dog was afraid of it, being, no doubt, terrified by the sight of its large horns and undaunted aspect. The name of this dread animal was Hannibal.

Poor old Goody Clackett—for that was her name—had little thoughts of ever being "smugged," as it was termed, by our schoolfellows to make a guy on the fifth of November, and sat quietly enough spinning her wheel and drawing out her yarn. Sometimes the thrum of the old wheel would send her soundly to sleep, and then she never dreamed of such a thing as was to happen to her.

Every boy was delighted with this proposition, and it was arranged that on the following evening I and my cousin Simon should assist in the endeavor to get the chair from the outhouse to a convenient place, while Hardy was to provide lantern, matches, cap, and feathers, with red and black paint to disfigure the features of the poor old creature.

"We will make her amends," said Quidd, "all the money we get shall be hers."

"Oh yes; that is quite fair," said I.

When the evening came and it was quite dark, Simon and [pg 431] I went to the back part of Quidd's father's house. After waiting some little time we heard a knock. Presently Quidd opened the gates and came out.

"There, get it," said he. "Look about to see if anybody is coming, and you can take it away."

We did so. The coast was clear, and out rolled the chair.

Simon and I took hold of it, one behind and one before at the handle-stick. Away we went, as had been preconcerted between us in the stable-yard of another schoolfellow of ours in the plot, who placed it near the gate and covered it over with loose straw, so that no one could see it.

The next evening, which was the fourth of November, we met again by appointment at the dark hollow of the churchyard. This meeting was for the purpose of determining about the way in which Dame Clackett should be dressed in her triumphal entry to the Town Hall, the place where the bonfires were usually made. Hardy had brought what was of essential service—namely, an old coat which had formerly belonged to his father when in the yeomanry cavalry, an old helmet, a cartridge-box, and a pair of boots.

"We shall never get the boots on," said I.

Another boy brought an old lantern with the horn burnt out, a third a bunch of matches; then there was a mask and a lath-sword and a drum, with sticks and straw in abundance. They were all deposited in the same place with the chair. The conspirators (for conspirators we were) then made a promise to each other not to split, as they call it—that is, not to betray each other, and to go through with our work like Britons; so we all shook hands and parted.

The next morning was a holiday, and we were up betimes. After a consultation it was determined that I and Quidd should go to the old dame and see how she was, and if she was determined to go to church, and if there would be any difficulty to get her to accept of the convenience of our vehicle; so off we set. In less than half-an-hour we reached the old dame's cottage, and found her at that very moment dressing her foot.

Quidd was the first who spoke.

"Good morning, Goody," said he. "What, is not your [pg 432] foot well yet? Why, I hear you have not been to church lately. The curate was at father's last night, and said if you were so lame that you could not walk, you might have our easy four-wheeled chair. But I suppose you won't go to church to-day—it is only the fifth of November?"

"Not go to church!" said the old woman—"not go to church! I have always gone on the fifth of November for forty years. My poor husband was in a French prison, and he knew well enough what the Jacobites are. Was he not blown up, poor fellow, in the 'Glorious?' and were not King James and all his people to have been blown up so high by the horrid Papist plot that I suppose they would not have been down by this time? No Popery, I say! I would sooner crawl to church on my hands and knees than not go to-day, young gentlemen. And then Mr. Hassock, the kind, good curate, to ask for me!"

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