obscure corners of the passages dim lamps peeped forth in the
darkness, and the flickering firelight in the houses fell upon the
stones through the open doorways, whereat sailors stood smoking
their pipes and gossiping women talked.

We turned up a little lane that led to the schoolhouse, and my dog
trotted home without me, to let my mother know I was near.



Chapter X. The Dominie Explains.


We found Grace Drever preparing the peat fire for frying the fish.
The good old woman did not hear us enter, but Andrew was a punctual
man, and it was with no show of surprise that his mother at length
recognized his presence.

Grace Drever was an active woman, somewhat bent with age, but with
no signs of decaying faculties, save in the case of her extreme
deafness. Her hair was still black, and her eyesight was quick. Her
memory for local events was as good as an almanac to the people of
Stromness, and there was something strangely uncanny about her
nature that was itself almost an excuse to those who hinted that
she had dealings with the underworld. She was one of the older
style of inhabitants, who retained the primitive habits and customs
of the island, whose spoken language had in it a mixture of the
Norse, which distinguished it from the simpler Scotch dialect
familiarly used by us of the younger generation, and yet more from
the purer English into which we were drilled at school.