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Meanwhile wait and, being a cub, hear how men talk. He slapped his chest and repeated to Hogben: 'Who be 'ee? Hogben, delighted to be asked at last a question, shewed his formidable teeth and beneath his familiar contortion of the eyelids brought out the words that one of the women who had brought him down was her that had brought Squahre Culpepper to sit on a squared stone before Calais gate.
When they parted company, because he could no longer keep his fingers clenched, Hogben fell back; he fell back, and they lay with their heels touching each other and their arms stretched out in the dust. Nicholas Hogben was the first to rise. He felt at his neck, swallowed as though a piece of apple were stuck in his throat, brushed his leather breeches, and picked up his pike.
Art Nick Hogben? Culpepper said. 'Hast that question answered, Hogben said. 'Now answer me one. Liedst thou when saidst what thou saidst of that wurman? Culpepper on the stone swung his legs vaingloriously: 'I sold three farms to buy her a gown, he said. 'Aye! Nick Hogben answered. 'So thou saidst in Stamford town three years gone by. And thou saidst more and the manner of it.
'Bean't but that good in all Calais town! Hogben grunted back to him. 'Curses on the two wurmen that sent me here. And indeed, to Lincolnshire men the water tasted good, since it reminded them of their dyke water, tasting of marshweed and smelling of eggs. 'Tü wurmen! Culpepper said lazily. 'Hast thou been jigging with tü puticotties to wunst? One is enow to undo seven men. Who be 'hee?
But Culpepper had turned a deaf ear to him, and, setting up a violent friendship with the Lincolnshire gatewarden over pots of beer in a brewhouse, had insisted on buying Hogben out of his company and taking him over the sea to be witness of his wedding with Katharine Howard.
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.
He started to his feet, loosed the sword in its scabbard; but the Lincolnshire man had his halberd across the gateway. 'Pass! Shew thy pass! he said vindictively. 'I go but to meet him, Poins snarled. 'A good lie; thou goest not, Hogben answered. 'No Englishman goes into the French lands without a pass from the lord controller. An thou keepest a shut head I can e'en keep a shut gate.
Culpepper lay in the dust, his arms stretched out to form a cross, his face dead white and his beard of brilliant red pointing at the keystone of the arch of Calais gate. Poins lifted his hand, but the pulse still beat, and he dropped it moodily in the dust. 'Not dead, he muttered. 'Dead! Hogben laughed at him. 'Hath been in a boosing ken.
In the Poultry he knocked over a man in a red coat that had a gold chain about his neck; on the Chepe he jumped his horse across a pigman's booth it brought down Hogben, horse and pike; three drunken men were fighting in Paternoster Street Culpepper charged above their bodies; but very shortly he came through Temple Bar and was in the marshes and fields.
He shut his eyes to let the Lincolnshire gatewarden's words go down to his brain; then with sudden violence he spat out: 'Give me water! What do ah ask but water! Pig! brood of a sow! gi'e me water and choke! Nicholas Hogben fetched a leather bottle as long as his leg, dusty and dinted, but nevertheless bedight with the arms of England, from the stone recess where the guard sheltered at nights.
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