'Portez à lous maisons!' Hogben commanded.
They stood one on each side and bent down, extending skinny arms to lift him. Thomas Culpepper sat up and spat in their faces—they fled like scared wolves, noiselessly, gazing behind them in trepidation.
'Stay them; thieves ho! Stay them!' Culpepper panted. He scrambled to his feet, and stood reeling, his face like death, when he tried to make after them.
'God!' he said. 'Give me to drink.'
The young Poins mused under his breath because the man had neither sword nor dagger. Therefore it would be impossible to have sword play with him. He had, the young man, no ferocity—but he was set there to stay Thomas Culpepper's going on to England; he was to stay him by word or by deed. Deeds came so much easier than words.
'Squahre Tom!' the Lincolnshire man grunted. 'Reckon you have no money. Without groats and more ye shall get nowt to drink in Calais town, save water. Water you may have in plenty.'
With a sigh the young Poins unbuckled his belt to get his papers.
'Money I have for you,' he said. 'A main of money.' He was engaged now to pass words with this man—and he sighed again.
But Thomas Culpepper disregarded his words and his sigh. He was more in the mood to talk Lincolnshire than Kent, for his fever had given him a touch of homesickness and the young Poins to him was a very foreigner. 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!'