Meanwhile, Robin returned to the buttery, and waited for events to shape themselves. Ere long the butchers began yawning and quarrelling betwixt themselves; and Robin artfully persuaded them, by setting one against the other, to a free fight.
The servants separated them, and in anger bade them all begone. Robin besought them to let him stay, saying that he wished an audience with my lord the Sheriff.
"Out upon you, pestilent fellow!" cried one of the servants. "You scum of the earth! This comes of hobnobbing with such rascals. Go hence quickly, with your fellows, or we will break all your bones."
So were they all bustled out into the cold streets, and Robin, in his butcher's smock, went back, as if very crest-fallen, to his empty cart and lean horse.
In due season the servants found that the Sheriff's new kitchen-hand was gone, and with him the gold plate. Then they remembered how he had been found with the cook.
Roger was plucked out of his bed, with all his bruises and wounds upon him, to give evidence before Monceux, who was in a great fume. All that spite and jealousy might do Roger performed with gusto, and so fixed the blame upon Little John that no one else was even suspected.
Roger would have now spoken as to Barnesdale, and betrayed the secret caves to the Sheriff; but he had once before persuaded them to search the cave near Gamewell, with ill results.
"Enough of these tales," snarled the Sheriff; "keep them for the Bishop's ears. I am concerned for my plate; and will recover it ere I put forth on any other enterprise."
He sent out his archers and men-at-arms, with such an incoherent description of Little John that near all the tall men of Nottingham were brought under arrest. The gate-keeper who had been so foolish as to open to Little John became so fearful of the Sheriff's anger that, when they questioned him, he vowed by all the saints that he had clapped eyes on no such fellow in his life.
Monceux, getting more and more enraged, chanced at last upon the butchers. He bade them all to be brought before him.