The spoils were indeed very large; for, notwithstanding that much was consumed, a great deal of plate, rich armour, and splendid clothing, had been secured by the exertions of the dauntless outlaws, who could be appalled by no danger when such rewards were in view. Yet so strict were the laws of their society, that no one ventured to appropriate any part of the booty, which was brought into one common mass, to be at the disposal of their leader.

The place of rendezvous was an aged oak; not however the same to which Locksley had conducted Gurth and Wamba in the earlier part of the story, but one which was the centre of a silvan amphitheatre, within half a mile of the demolished castle of Torquilstone. Here Locksley assumed his seat⁠—a throne of turf erected under the twisted branches of the huge oak, and the silvan followers were gathered around him. He assigned to the Black Knight a seat at his right hand, and to Cedric a place upon his left.

“Pardon my freedom, noble sirs,” he said, “but in these glades I am monarch⁠—they are my kingdom; and these my wild subjects would reck but little of my power, were I, within my own dominions, to yield place to mortal man.⁠—Now, sirs, who hath seen our chaplain? where is our curtal Friar? A mass amongst Christian men best begins a busy morning.”⁠—No one had seen the Clerk of Copmanhurst . “Over gods forbode!” said the outlaw chief, “I trust the jolly priest hath but abidden by the wine-pot a thought too late. Who saw him since the castle was ta’en?”

“I,” quoth the Miller, “marked him busy about the door of a cellar, swearing by each saint in the calendar he would taste the smack of Front-de-Boeuf’s Gascoigne wine.”

“Now, the saints, as many as there be of them,” said the Captain, “forefend, lest he has drunk too deep of the wine-butts, and perished by the fall of the castle!⁠—Away, Miller!⁠—take with you enow of men, seek the place where you last saw him⁠—throw water from the moat on the scorching ruins⁠—I will have them removed stone by stone ere I lose my curtal Friar.”