"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?"

At this pertinent question, there was a general hush of displeasure and
disgust.

"For, look you, my masters," continued Sir Geoffrey, "as long as I and
my comrades here believed that the rich earl, who hath half England
for his provant, was at the head or the tail of this matter, we were
contented to wait a while; but devil a groat hath yet gone into my
gipsire; and as for pillage, what is a farm or a homestead? an' it were
a church or a castle there might be pickings."

"There is much plate of silver, and a sack or so of marks and royals,
in the stronghold of the Baron of Bullstock," quoth the Saxon squire,
doggedly hounding on to his revenge.

"You see, my friends," said Coniers, with a smile, and shrugging his
shoulders, "that men cannot gird a kingdom with ropes of sand. Suppose
we conquer and take captive--nay, or slay--King Edward, what then?"

"The Duke of Clarence, male heir to the throne," said the heir of
Latimer, "is Lord Warwick's son-in-law, and therefore akin to you, Sir
John."

"That is true," observed Coniers, musingly.

"Not ill thought of, sir," said Sir Geoffrey Gates; "and my advice is to
proclaim Clarence king and Warwick lord protector. We have some chance
of the angels then."

"Besides," said the heir of Fitzhugh, "our purpose once made clear, it
will be hard either for Warwick or Clarence to go against us,--harder
still for the country not to believe them with us. Bold measures are our
wisest