’That is an unfair way of putting it,’ laughed Herring. ’I put it the way it be written in the Book of Light,’ answered Genefer, doggedly. ’She is a Roman Catholic,’ said Herring. ’I hope now you are satisfied.’ ’See there!’ exclaimed Genefer. ’What sez the Scriptur?—"Thou shalt not plough with the ox and the ass together." What do that mean but that two of a sort should run together under the same yoke of matrimony? If you be Church, take a Church wife; if you be a Cornishman, don’t fetch an ass out of Devon to plough the lands of Welltown wi’ you. What sez the prophet?—"Can two walk together except they be agreed?" Here be you two arn’t agreed about what be chiefest of all, and how will you walk together along the way of life?’ ’My dear Jenny, you have had the management so long that you presume. I am not any longer a boy to be ordered about, and I must insist on no more of this sort of interference with my affairs. You acted as a mother to me when I was deprived as an infant of my own natural mother, and I shall ever love you dearly for all you have done for me. But, Jenny, there are limits to forbearance, and you transgress.’ ’Ah, sure!’ exclaimed Genefer Benoke, ’it were I as made you what you ’m be. I didn’t spoil you as some would have done. You ’m a good and proper squire, because I trained the sapling. "Spare the rod, spoil the child," said the wise king, Master John, when the old miners were seeking a lode they took a hazel-rod in their hands, and they went over the ground a holding of thicky. And when they passed above a lode the rod turned in their hands. It were all the same wi’ hidden treasure. I’ve a heard of a Trevalga man, as he went over the mounds of Bosinney wi’ such a divining-rod, and it turned, and he dug and found King Arthur’s golden crown and table. It be all the same with mortal earth. If you want to bring to light the pure ore, the hidden treasure, you must go over it wi’ a stick. There be good metal in you, Master John, and you may thank your old nurse that her didn’t spare the rod. Her explored you pretty freely with the divining-wand.’ ’I am thankful, Genefer,’ said Herring, laughing; ’I recall many of these same explorations, and they have left on me an ineffaceable respect for you, and some fear is mingled with the love I bear you.’