"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."