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.
"What is this for ?" "To show I have hired thee as my servant." "Servant!" John repeated hastily, and rather proudly.

"Oh yes, I understand--well, I will try and serve you well." My father did not notice that manly, self-dependent smile.

He was too busy calculating how many more of those said shillings would be a fair equivalent for such labour as a lad, ever so much the junior of Bill Watkins, could supply.