'And ye'll have reckoned what the consequences may be?'
'I think I have!'
'Well, well; I'm sorry for ye. Downright sorry, laddie. I thought ye had more strength of mind than that. However, it's no care of mine; ye'll have your own day of reckoning I make no doubt.'
'I cannot see that what I do concerns anyone but myself,' I answered hotly.
He looked at me under his bushy eyebrows for a second or two, and then said, shaking his old head,—
'Foolish talk—vain and verra foolish talk!'
By this time my temper, never one of the best, as you already know, had got completely out of my control, and I began to rage and storm against those who had spoken against me to him, at the same time crying out against the narrowness and hypocrisy of the world in general. Old McLeod gravely heard me to the end, visibly and impartially weighing the pros and cons of all I said. Then, when I had finished, he remarked,—
'Ye're but a poor, half-baked laddie, after all, to run your head against a wall in this silly fashion. But ye'll see wisdom some day. By that time, however, 'twill be too late.'
Never has a prophecy been more faithfully fulfilled than that one. I have learned wisdom since then—learned it as few men have done, by the hardest and bitterest experience. And when I got it, it was, as he had said, too late to be of any use to me. But as that has all to be told in its proper order, I must get on with my story.