Maggot was saved, but he was of too bold and kindly a nature to remain for a moment inactive after the explosion was over. At once he descended, and, groping about among the débris, soon found his friend—alive, and almost unhurt! A mass of rock had arched him over—or, rather, the hand of God, as if by miracle, had delivered the Christian miner.
After he was got up in safety to the level above they asked him why he had been so ready to give up his life to save his friend.
“Why,” said David quietly, “I did think upon his wife and the child’n, and little Grace seemed to say to me, ‘Take care o’ faither’—besides, there are none to weep if I was taken away, so the Lord gave me grace to do it.”
That night there were glad and grateful hearts in Maggot’s cottage—and never in this world was a more flat and emphatic contradiction given to any statement, than that which was given to David Trevarrow’s assertion—“There are none to weep if I was taken away.”
(A short but beautiful account of the above incident will be found in a little volume of poems, entitled Lays from the Mine, the Moor, and the Mountain, written by John Harris, a Cornish miner.)
Chapter Thirty.
Reveals some Astonishing Facts and their Consequences.
Sorrow and trouble now began to descend upon Mr Thomas Donnithorne like a thick cloud.