But he thanked me for my friendly zeal, and rewarded me with ten shillings." "Oh!" cried Walter, and hid his face in his hands.

As for Mary, she put her hand gently but quietly on Hope's shoulder, as if to protect him from such insults.
"Why, children," said Hope, pleased at their sympathy, but too manly to hunt for it, "it was more than he thought the information worth, and I assure you it was a blessed boon to me.

I had spent my last shilling, and there I was trapesing across the island on a wild-goose chase with my reaping-hook and my fiddle; and my poor little Grace, that I--that I--" Mary's hand went a moment to his other shoulder, and she murmured through her tears, "You have got _me_." Then Hope was happy again, and indeed the simplest woman can find in a moment the very word that is balm of Gilead to a sorrowful man.
However, Hope turned it off and continued his theme.

The jury, he said, would pounce on that ten shillings as the Colonel's true estimate of his coal, and he would figure in the case as a dog in the manger who grudged Bartley the profits of a risky investment he had merely sneered at and not opposed, until it turned out well; and also disregarded the interests of the little community to whom the mine was a boon.

"No," said Hope; "tell your lawyer that I am Bartley's servant, but love equity.