"Well, call yourselves men, and let your friends perish; I am a man, and
I can die."
Then he threw himself wildly on his knees over his insensible daughter.
"But my child! Oh God! look down upon my child! Do, pray, see the horror of it. The horror and the hellish injustice! She has but just found her father. She is just beginning life; it's not her time to die! Why, you know, she only came here to save her father. Heaven's blessing is the right of pious children; it's promised in God's Word. They are to live long upon earth, not to be cut off like criminals."
Then he rose wildly, and raged about the place, flinging his arms on high, so that even Burnley, though his own reason was shaken, cowered away from the fury of a stronger mind.
"Men and angels cry out against it!" he screamed, in madness and despair. "Can this thing be? Can Heaven and earth look calmly on and see this horror? Are men all ingratitude? IS GOD ALL APATHY?"
A blow like a hammer striking a church bell tinkled outside the wall, and seemed to come from a great distance.
To him who, like the rugged Elijah, had expostulated so boldly with his Maker, and his Maker, who is not to be irritated, forgave him, that blow seemed at first to ring from heaven. He stood still, and trembled like a leaf; he listened; the sound was not repeated.
"Ah," said he, "it was an illusion like hers."
* * * * *
But for all that he seized his hammer, and darted to the back of the hall, and mounting on a huge fragment of coal struck the seam high above his head. He gave two blows at longish intervals, and then three blows in quick succession.