"What's that?" very alertly.
"The chance of going to heaven."
"Oh!" said Roger a little disappointed.
"Ah, just so. You're taking the chance of going—t'other way. A sharp lad like you ought to see to it."
Roger said nothing, but he felt oddly put out. He had been used in old times—they were only a year old, but they seemed far off to him—to go to church and say his prayers regularly; but his lot had never been cast among really religious people, and what Sparling said took him by surprise and puzzled him. Honest, industrious, active, and clever as Roger was, he was very little better than a heathen, as far as any sense of religion went. He knew that it was wrong to steal, and he thoroughly believed that "honesty is the best policy," also that it was wrong and foolish to tell a lie: all this he owed to being the native of a Christian country.
If asked, he would have said that he knew that he would be punished hereafter if he did wrong, and that if he did his best, he would go to heaven: and that was all. But Sparling's words about the "best chance of all" got into his head and stayed there. Only into his head as yet: the boy had no one to care for but himself, and at this time of his life may be said to have been all head and no heart.
He was soon very comfortably settled in the house with the Averys and Sparling, and began saving up money towards a project that was growing in his mind. Presently Tom Avery told him that if he continued to please him as well as he now did, he would take him to Birmingham, and get him taken on permanently in Deasy's place. Even then Roger did not give up his saving ways. Young Bowles laughed at him; but Roger said nothing, until he was asked what he was saving for. "One never knows what chance may turn up," was his answer. He was rather fond of the word "chance," meaning opportunity; and whenever he used it, Sparling would look at him with his grave grey eyes, reminding him always of that "best chance of all."
After a while, Roger took to going to church every Sunday with Sparling: and later in the day they often took a long walk into the country together. Sparling had taken a real liking to the boy, and Roger was not ungrateful. Little by little, he began to love this queer silent young man, ay, and to admire him. And no wonder.
Jack Sparling's life was one that bore looking into. Bess Avery was never weary of telling how, when she and Tom were down with fever, Sparling nursed them and worked for them, as if he had been a brother—though up to that time, they had hardly known him. A purer, holier, more self-denying life no man had ever lived than did this poor rough workman, who could read, but had never learned to write, and who was not even clever at his trade.
The job lasted some time; it was July before the rails were close to the town of Kingsmore, where they would join the rails already in use. And before that time, Sparling and Roger had had many walks and many talks, only one of which we can hear. This took place on a glorious day late in July, and the pair of friends had walked several miles into the country, and were resting under a big beech-tree which stood in the corner of a large field of wheat. It had been a hot summer, and the wheat was ripening early; and the fine full ears and long straw promised a good harvest.