The Englishman seated himself upon his stool, and set her upon his knees.
“Begin upon the right, my pretty she, slowly, purposefully, and with valiancy. I would as lief have your lips as a bombard of sherris. If it were not for one Betty Tucker, a dainty piece at the ‘Knight in Armour’ public-house hard by to the town of Barnet, in the kingdom of Great Britain, I would bear you at my saddle-bow all the way back to our little England, and marry you at the church of Saint Clement the Dane, which is in London city. For next to sack I love valour, and next to valour I love my soul. Now then, thou nice miniard, I must taste thy lips softly, courteously, but yet with valiancy as becomes thy disposition.”
It was never my fortune to behold a sight more whimsical than that of this monstrous fellow seated with the blood still trickling down to his chin, while this little black-eyed wench, not much bigger than his fist, with her skin the colour of a walnut, her hair hanging loose, and her rough clothes stained and in tatters, dealt out her kisses first to one side of his ugly mouth and then to the other, yet making as she did so lively gestures of disgust.
“Courteously, courteously!” cried the giant. “Let us have no unmannerly haste in this operation, or I will have them all over again.”
“Nay, you shall not; I will take heed of that. That is fifteen. Another ten, you foreign villain, would give me a canker in my front teeth.”
“Nay, that is but fourteen, my pretty mouse. Here we have the fifteenth. Courteously, courteously, do I not tell thee. See to it that it is so long drawn out that I may count nine.”
“There’s twenty, you large villain!” cried the little creature in huge disgust, and slipping off his knee as quickly as a lizard.
“Aye, but where’s the lucky one, the one right i’ th’ middle, that I was to have for good fellowship?”
“It was not in the terms, and I will not give it thee.”
“Not in the terms, pretty titmouse! By my hand I will not be cozened in this manner.”