the king, is in heart against us? Nay, he may have entered Olney but
to capture the tyrant."

"If so," said Coniers, "all is as it should be: but if Earl Warwick,
who, though he hath treated me ill, is a stour carle, and to be feared
if not loved, join the king, I break this wand, and ye will seek out
another captain."

"And a captain shall be found!" cried Robin. "Are we so poor in
valour, that when one man leaves us we are headless and undone? What
if Warwick so betray us and himself,--he brings no forces. And never,
by God's blessing, should we separate till we have redressed the
wrongs of our countrymen!"

"Good!" said the Saxon squire, winking, and looking wise,--"not till
we have burned to the ground the Baron of Bullstock's castle!"

"Not," said a Lollard, sternly, "till we have shortened the purple
gown of the churchman; not till abbot and bishop have felt on their
backs the whip wherewith they have scourged the godly believer and the
humble saint."

"Not," added Robin, "till we have assured bread to the poor man, and
the filling of the flesh-pot, and the law to the weak, and the
scaffold to the evil-doer."

"All this is mighty well," said, bluntly, Sir Geoffrey Gates, the
leader of the mercenaries, a skilful soldier, but a predatory and
lawless bravo; "but who is to pay me and my tall fellows?"