"So you are, as the saying is," said Kerry.
"I'd have the law on the lot of them, if I had my way," said Thorkell, still holding the book.
"Aw, and shockin' powerful luck it would be, as the old body said, if all the witches and boaganes in the island could be run into the sea," said Kerry.
"Pshaw! I'm talking of the simpletons that believe in them," said Thorkell, snappishly. "I'd clap them all in Castle Rushen."
"Aw, yes, and clean law and clean justice, too, as the Irishman said."
"So don't think I want the midwife to take her oath in my house," said Thorkell.
"Och, no, of course not. You wouldn't bemean yourself, as they say."
"But, then, you know what the saying is, Kerry. 'Custom must be indulged with custom, or custom will weep;'" and, saying this, Thorkell's voice took a most insinuating tone.
"Aw, now, and I'm as good as here and there one at standing up for custom, as the saying is," said the midwife.
The end of it all was that Kerry Quayle took there and then a solemn oath not to use sorcery or incantation of any kind in the time of travail, not to change the infant at the hour of its birth, not to leave it in the room for a week afterward without spreading the tongs over its crib, and much else of the like solemn purport.