“Yes,” said Andrew, when he had returned the greeting.  “They’re not so bad, and I’ve had some fine sport with them.  Are you coming from Kirkwall?”

“No,” replied the sailor.  “I was just up the hill there for a saunter in the gloaming.  The gloaming lasts very long here, I notice.  What time is it dark in midsummer?”

“In midsummer?” replied Andrew.  “Well, it’s seldom darker than this; and on the twenty-first of June you can see the sun even at midnight from the top of the Ward Hill yonder.  You’ll belong to one of the ships here, no doubt, sir?”

“Yes, that barque out there with the tall masts.”

“Ay, she came in today.  That will be the Lydia, I’m thinking, and you will be Captain Gordon?  Bailie Duke was telling me you were in the port.  And when do you sail?”

“Tomorrow,” said the captain.  “We’re bound for Brazil; but I was wanting to see some people tonight.  Pilot Ericson asked me to smoke a pipe with him.  Then I have to see Grace Drever, to—­”

“Grace Drever!” exclaimed the dominie, evidently wondering what the sailor could want to see his mother for.

“Yes,” continued Captain Gordon.  “My ship’s overrun with mice, and I was directed to Grace Drever, who, I am told, deals in all the charms and cantrips a sailor can require.”

“Charms and cantrips!” echoed the schoolmaster.  “Why, who on earth has been putting such notions into your head?  I doubt if you go to Grace Drever on such an errand you’ll be disappointed, sir.”

“You know the old lady, then?” said the captain.

“Just as well as a man can know his own mother,” replied Andrew.

“Oh! then, you’ll be the schoolmaster?  Really, I beg your pardon; but I was told that Mistress Drever had dealings with such things; and although I am not exactly superstitious—­”

“Never mind, sir, never mind.  It’s just some ignorant lads have been making up the story; and it’s all one to me, for I know well it’s not true.  There was once a woman in Stromness, I will allow, who used to sell favourable winds to the sailors.  But though there is still a most lamentable amount of superstition in the Orkney folk—­belief in witches and warlocks and such nonsense—­it’s gradually, just gradually, dying away.”

“No doubt the influence of your schools,” observed the captain, anxious to conciliate.

“Ay, no doubt,” said Andrew.  “But what was it you were saying about mice?”

“Why, we’re just infested with them, and I must get either cats or poison for them, or I’ll not say but we may be manned by mice instead of men before we get beyond Cape Wrath.”

“My mother has a cat,” quietly remarked Andrew, “one of the few we have in Orkney.  And though she does not deal in witchery, you might bring her to part with Baudrons.  Now, if you’ll come home with me and have a taste of these trout—­”

“Oh, thanks, thanks, most happy!” said the captain.