Culpepper to be other than
Thomas Culpepper,' the young Poins said. 'I will go meet him.'

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.'

None the less he must needs talk or stifle.

'Thee, with thy Kat Howard,' he snarled. 'Would 'ee have me think thy
Kat was my kitten whose name stunk in our nostrils?'

He shook his finger in Poins' face.

'Here be three of us know Kat Howard,' he said. 'For I know her, since
for her I must leave home and take the road. And _he_ knoweth her over
well or over ill, since, to buy her a gown, he sold the three farms,
Maintree, Durford and Sallowford--which last was my father's farm. And
_thee_ knowest her. Thee knowest her. To no good, I'se awarned. For
thou stoppedst in thy speech like a colt before a wood snake. God
bring down all women, I pray!'

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! Here bay three kennath Kat Howard. Let us three
tak part to kick her down.'

Thomas Culpepper like a green cat flew at his throat, clutched him
above the steel breastplate, and shook three times, the gatewarden's
uncovered, dun-coloured head swaying back and forward as if it were a
loose bundle of clouts on a mop. 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.

II

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.

'Why,' he said, 'you may hold it for main and certain that he have not
had Kat Howard down. For, having had her down, a would never have
thrown a man by the throat for miscalling of her. Therefore Kat Howard
is up for