Jeannette uttered an inimitable little scream. "You horrid man, I shall jump into the water if you stir! I'm sure I shall!" Then, bursting into a little laugh, all the more bewitching as it came, rainbow-like, betwixt smiles and tears, she said, "You are trying to frighten me, I know; but all the same you Saxons do eat people. I've heard it said hundreds of times. And once, as we came along, we saw a pile of bones, and Paul Lazaire said they were the bones of people whom the Saxons had eaten. So you see we know all about you."
"Oh, but that's all fudge, pretty one. You shall be my sweetheart, and then you'll soon learn quite different."
"But I'm not going to be your sweetheart. So you see. I wouldn't have any one for a sweetheart with hair and beard as long as yours. Normans have more sense than to wear horrid beards."
"Oh, but you shall cut my hair, and trim my beard; and I would try to look like a little Norman ninny of five feet six. Then you wouldn't be frightened in the least, would you?"
Jeannette thought to herself she would rather take him as he was, though she kept the matter to herself. The upshot of the whole was this: Wulfhere found himself sitting by her side on the fallen tree, with the hound in front, and neither party very anxious for the return of the boat and its occupants.
"So they say we eat such as you, do they, sweetheart?"
"Yes, they do. And they don't call me 'Sweetheart,' either. And don't you think I don't know you, for I saw you fighting on that wall."
"Well, don't be offended now; but what do they call you?"
"They call me Jeannette—and that's nothing to you."
"Oh dear, no! nothing whatever. And do they really say that we eat such as you?"