’So the mother said to the girl, “Run, run, and see what she has got in it.”  For they weren’t up to the ways of witches, and they were astonished like.  But the girl, she said, “Oh, mother, I don’t like.”  Well, she was timid, anyway, the eldest girl.  But the second girl was a romping thing, not afraid of anything, so they sent her.  By this time the wicked old woman was high on the hill; so she ran and ran, but she could not catch her before she was in at her own door; but that second girl, she was not afraid of anything, so she runs in at the door, too.  Now, in those days they used to have sailing-chests that lock up; they had iron bars over them, so you could keep anything in that was a secret.  They got them from the ships, and this old woman kept her milk in hers.  So when the girl bounced in at the door, there she saw that wicked old woman pouring milk out of the tub into her chest, and the chest half full of milk, and the old man looking on!  So then, of course they knew where the good of their milk had gone.’

The story was finished.  The old dame looked at the student and nodded her head with eyes that awaited some expression of formal disapproval.

‘What did they know?’ asked he.

’Know!  Oh, why, that the old woman was an awful wicked witch, and she’d taken the good of their milk.’

‘Oh, indeed!’ said the student; and then, ’But what became of the widow and the seven daughters?’

’Well, of course she had to sell her cows and get others, and then it was all right.  But that old man and his wife were that selfish they’d not have cared if she’d starved.  And I tell you, it’s one of the things witches can do, to take the good out of food, if they’ve an eye to it; they can take every bit of nouriture out of it that’s in it.  There were two young men that went from here to the States—­that’s Boston, ye know.  Well, pretty soon one, that was named M’Pherson, came back, looking so white-like and ill that nothing would do him any good.  He drooped and he died.  Well, years after, the other, whose name was McVey, came back.  He was of the same wicked stock as the old folks I’ve been telling ye of.  Well, one day, he was in low spirits like, and he chanced to be talking to my father, and says he, “It’s one of the sins I’ll have to ’count for at the Judgment that I took the good out of M’Pherson’s food till he died.  I sat opposite to him at the table when we were at Boston together, and I took the good out of his food, and it’s the blackest sin I done,” said he.

’Oh, they’re awful wicked people, these witches!  One of them offered to teach my sister how to take the good out of food, but my sister was too honest; she said, “I’ll learn to keep the good of my own, if ye like.”  However, the witch wouldn’t teach her that because she wouldn’t learn the other.  Oh, but I cheated a witch once.  Donald, he brought me a pound of tea.  ’Twasn’t always we got tea in those days, so I put it in the tin box; and there