He looked on me a little, and I saw his hand go to his fob.

'Here, take that! no sense in fretting,' he said, and, putting a silver two-penny-bit in my hand, he left me.
I should have had that twopenny framed to hang upon the wall, for it was the man's one act of charity in all my knowledge of him.

Instead of that, I stood looking at it in my hand and laughed out bitterly, as I realised his mistake; then went to the ramparts, and flung it far into the air like blood money.

The night was falling; through an embrasure and across the gardened valley I saw the lamplighters hasting along Princes Street with ladder and lamp, and looked on moodily.

As I was so standing a hand was laid upon my shoulder, and I turned about.