"Boys, boys," he said slowly at last, "it is a long, long time ago since my real life-story began. Thirty years and over, lads. Is that not so, Eppie?"
Birr—rr—rr! went the spinning-wheel.
"Imphm," assented Eppie.
"But go on, Eean," she continued; "and if ye ravel in the thread o' your discoorse, I'll try to pit ye straight again."
Thus encouraged, Eean took a few more pulls at his pipe and went on.
"Thirty years seem a long time to look forward to; but looking back, boys, why it's all like a dream. Yet, my lads, life has no business to be a dream. 'Life is real, life is earnest,' as the hymn says; and if your eyes don't open before you are out of your teens, I tell you this, it is a poor look out for you in after-life.
"I notice a weary kind of a light in your eyes, young Master Frank. I know what you're thinking: 'The old man is not telling a story, he's only preaching.' But the ways of old men must be borne with. So patience for a moment, boy; patience!
"I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Oh, not a big one, I assure you! But I knew right well that when twenty-one I should have a few thousands to begin life with; and it was this very knowledge, I believe, that made me careless and a dreamer.
"My father was a Highlander, like myself. He had been rich, but he had also been a soldier, and squandered all his own money, though he retired on half-pay with fame and glory; for on many a blood-red field in India his sword had rang and clashed, and his slogan been heard wherever the battle raged the fiercest.
"That was my father, and I was his only son. I had a dear mother that doted on me, and could scarcely bear to have me out of her sight. She would have me to be a child even when I was seventeen years of age. I tell you that up till that age I did nothing on earth but dream my life away. I was to be something great in futuro. There was a castle building for me somewhere, in which I should live when a man. The good fairies were building it, I suppose; but woe is me, boys, fairy promises are but like soap-bubbles that rise and float on the soft summer air, all glitter and beauty, then—burst.