The gold coins had been found while digging holes for the posts of a new stockade, and by the law should have been delivered to the prince's treasury.

All the gold discovered, whether in the form of coin or jewellery, was the property of the Prince, who was supposed to pay for its value in currency.
As the actual value of the currency was only half of its nominal value (and sometimes less), the transaction was greatly in favour of the treasury.

Such was the scarcity of gold that the law was strictly enforced, and had there been the least suspicion of the fact, the house would have been ransacked from the cellars to the roof.

Imprisonment and fine would have been the inevitable fate of Felix, and the family would very probably have suffered for the fault of one of its members.

But independent and determined to the last degree, Felix ran any risk rather than surrender that which he had found, and which he deemed his own.
This unbending independence and pride of spirit, together with scarce concealed contempt for others, had resulted in almost isolating him from the youth of his own age, and had caused him to be regarded with dislike by the elders.