"I'm not going to do either. Besides, I daresay you have got a Saxon wife somewhere, for you are all deceitful—Norman and Saxon alike."
"Nonsense, Jeannette! I have no wife, or sweetheart either, and I have made up my mind now, that my wife shall be Norman—just such a wife as yourself, Jeannette."
"Why, what would such a giant as you want a wife like me for?"
"Why? Well, I can hardly answer that question, I declare. But something must be put down to your pretty face, something to your slender waist, and a good deal to something I can't explain; but I never felt anything like it before, for no sooner did I set eyes upon that pretty face of yours than I felt I should like to kiss it."
"Oh, you horrid, naughty man!" said Jeannette, slipping her slender hand into Wulfhere's huge paw, and unconsciously hitching closer to him on the log, "to try and deceive me with such nonsense! I know you are deceiving me! Why, where should we live? I don't know where you live now. I should die if I had to live in the woods, and had no home. I should like a home of my own, where I could play my guitar and spin my wool, and make you some better garments than those coarse ones you wear."
"Oh, you shall not be my wife until I can find you a home, and protect you! We shall probably have to teach the Normans another lesson or two. Then they will listen to reason. When we have got a settlement of our own, then you shall be my wife, Jeannette."
"Oh, but I dare not! I should be frightened to live amongst the Saxons. But you wouldn't harm a little woman like me? That would be cowardly."
"I think it would, Jeannette," said Wulfhere, passing his arm around her slim waist, drawing her to him, and planting a kiss on her sunny cheek. "When I go to war I should like a sturdier foe to wreak my vengeance on."
"But would you be a serf, and wear one of those horrid iron collars the serfs wear? I shouldn't like a husband who was a bondman."
"No, my pretty one, I have never been a bondman; and, what is more, I never shall. I am a Saxon freeman."