But, for the matter of character within, Roger is quite another man.  If his rank in this world is the lowest, many potentates may envy him his state elsewhere.  His heart is as soft, as his hand is horny; with the wandering gipsy or the tramping beggar, thrust aside, perhaps deservedly, as impudent impostors from the rich man’s gate, has he often-times shared his noon-day morsel:  upright and sincere himself, he thinks as well of others:  he scarcely ever heard the Gospels read in church, specially about Eastertide, but the tears would trickle down his weather-beaten face:  he loves children—­his neighbour’s little ones as well as his own:  he will serve any one for goodness’ sake without reward or thanks, and is kind to the poor dumb cattle:  he takes quite a pride in his little rod or two of garden, and is early and late at it, both before and after the daily sum of labour:  he picks up a bit of knowledge here and there, and somehow has contrived to amass a fund of information for which few would give him credit from his common looks; and he joins to that stock of facts a natural shrewdness to use his knowledge wisely.  Though with little of what is called sentiment, or poetry, or fancy in his mind (for harsh was the teaching of his childhood, and meagre the occasions of self-culture ever since), the beauty of creation is by no means lost upon him, and he notices at times its wisdom too.  With a fixed habit of manly piety ever on his lips and ever in his heart, he recognises Providence in all things, just, and wise, and good.  More than so; simply as a little child who endures the school-hour for the prospect of his play-time, Roger Acton bears up with noble meekness against present suffering, knowing that his work and trials and troubles are only for a little while, but his rest and his reward remain a long hereafter.  He never questioned this; he knew right well Who had earned it for him; and he lived grateful and obedient, filling up the duties of his humble station.  This was his faith, and his works followed it.  He believed that God had placed him in his lot, to be a labourer, and till God’s earth, and, when his work is done, to be sent on better service in some happier sphere:  the where, or the how, did not puzzle him, any more than divers other enigmatical whys and wherefores of his present state; he only knew this, that it would all come right at last:  and, barring sin (which he didn’t comprehend), somehow all was right at present.  What if poverty pinched him? he was a great heir still; what if oppression bruised him? it would soon be over.  He trusted to his Pilot, like the landsman in a storm; to his Father, as an infant in the dark.  For guilt, he had a Saviour, and he thought of him in penitence; for trouble, a Guardian, and he looked to him in peace; and as for toil, back-breaking toil, there was another Master whom he served with spade, and mattock, and a thankful heart, while he only seemed to be working for the landlord or his bailiff.