"And mind! no stopping on the road. No drinking, to find the king's
cursed shilling at the bottom of the glass, like poor Bill, for thy
mother to come crying and pestering. Thee hasn't got one, eh? So
much the better, all women are born fools, especially mothers."

"Sir!" The lad's face was all crimson and quivering; his voice
choked; it was with difficulty he smothered down a burst of tears.
Perhaps this self-control was more moving than if he had wept--at
least, it answered better with my father.

After a few minutes more, during which his stick had made a little
grave in the middle of the walk, and buried something there--I think
something besides the pebble--Abel Fletcher said, not unkindly:

"Well, I'll take thee; though it isn't often I take a lad without a
character of some sort--I suppose thee hast none."

"None," was the answer, while the straightforward, steady gaze which
accompanied it unconsciously contradicted the statement; his own
honest face was the lad's best witness--at all events I thought so.

"'Tis done then," said my father, concluding the business more
quickly than I had ever before known his cautious temper settle even
such a seemingly trifling matter. I say SEEMINGLY. How blindly we
talk when we talk of "trifles."

Carelessly rising, he, from some kindly impulse, or else to mark the
closing of the bargain, shook the boy's hand, and left in it a
shilling.