Thoroughgood shook his head protestingly.
“Nay, the virago volunteered,” he explained, with a look that seemed to supplement speech in the suggestion that it were best to let Mistress Satchell have her own way. This was evidently Mistress Satchell’s own view of the matter.
“Truly,” she exclaimed, “if my lady, being no more than a woman, is man enough to garrison her house against the Roundheads, she cannot deny me, that am no less than a woman, the right to handle a pike.”
Halfman, eying the dame’s assertive rotundities, thought that he would be indeed a quarrelsome fellow who should deny her evident femininity.
“You are a lovely logician,” he approved. “Enough.”
Then resuming his sententious tone of military command, he took up the task where he had left it off.
“Trail your pikes.”
The order was this time obeyed by the company with something approaching resemblance to the action of Thoroughgood, and Halfman went on.
“Cheek your pikes.”
Out of the confused cluttering of weapons which ensued, Timothy Garlinge emerged tremulous.