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'A year-old carrot to baste thee with! Culpepper answered. 'Swords are for men! He turned to Hogben, who was sitting on the ground furbishing his pikehead. 'Heard you the like of my tale? he asked lazily. 'Oh aye! the Lincolnshire man answered. 'The simple folk of Normandy are simple only because they have no suitors. But they ha' learned that marlock from the sailors of Rye town.
"One good thing, we've not got to keep watch," observed Tom Tubbs; "and I hope our black guards will keep a look-out for any snake, leopard, or lion who may chance to poke his nose into the camp; although I wish that Mr Pikehead had left us our arms to defend ourselves."
Still we would not yield without striking a blow, and we were on the point of firing when a white man appeared, followed by a fresh party of blacks, and as he advanced from the shadow of the wood, I recognised Mr Pikehead, the first mate of the "Vulture." On seeing only Harry, Tubbs, and me together, he exclaimed "Put down your arms and your lives are safe.
"Well, well, that'll be better than having to walk the plank or being run up at the yard-arm," said Tubbs. "We must not cry out until we are hurt, although I'll own that I'd rather have more room to stretch my legs in than this place affords. I hope Master Pikehead won't forget to send us the food he promised; I'm getting rather sharp set already."
Hogben would have been rating the angel's head in Paradise. But there had been great call for men to man the walls there in Calais, so Wallop's ancient had written his name down on the list, beneath the gallows tree, and had taken him away from the Sheriff of Lincoln's man. 'So here a be, he drawled, 'cutting little holes in my pikehead. ''Tis a folly, the young Poins said.
You will now come on board the `Vulture, and it is your own fault that you will not be treated with the same leniency that you were before. My crew will see that I do not allow such tricks to be played with impunity. Lash their hands behind them, Pikehead, and bring them along."
'Sir, the Lincolnshire man answered, 'you say 'tis a folly to make small holes in a pikehead. But for me 'tis the greatest of ornaments. Give you, it weakens the pikehead; but 'tis a gradely ornament. 'Ornaments be folly, the young Poins reiterated. 'Sir, the Lincolnshire man answered again, 'there is the goodliest folly that ever was.
He went on to tell, as if it had been a rosary, the names of the ruined women that the holes in his pikehead represented. There was one left by the wayside with her child; there was one hung for stealing cloth to cover her; there was one whipped for her naughty ways. He reached the square mark in the centre as the figure on the road reached the gateway. 'Huzzay, Squahre Tom!
Mr Pikehead had certainly no wish to be in the company of his black allies, whom he had instigated to attack the camp, for making them a speech in their own tongue, he sent them off in a different direction to that we were about to follow. He then directed each man to take up his package, gave the word to march, and we set off.
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