"Do you know my son is dead?" he shouted.
He flung the man on the ground and ran on to the porter's lodge.
"Hallo, there! Call up all the men! Let them all come in front of my house!"
He ran back to his dead son's room as fast as he had run out of it, sat down, and looked and looked at him in silence for half an hour. Then he suddenly started up.
"What does this silence mean?" he asked. "Has the machinery broken down?"
"You ordered all the hands to be called up, sir," answered Johann, "so they stopped the machinery, and are now waiting in the yard."
"What for? There is no reason for them to wait! Let them go back to work, and weave and spin and make a noise...."
He clasped his head with both hands.
"My son!... My son!... My son!..."
Someone had sent for the pastor, and he now came hurrying into the room, weeping.