Everyone condemned the coal
company for what had happened, but over all there were the white-faced
women and the silent children; the muffled sobs, the tears, and the
agony of silent wet eyes that spoke more pain than all the tragedies
that had ever been written.
Robert could not help listening to one man--a big, raw, loosely-built
fellow, who stood in the midst of a group of women laying off his idea
of a rescue.
"I'm rale glad to be out of it," he said, "for Jean's sake, an' the
bairns; but for a' that I'd gang doon again an' try an' get them oot if
there was ony chance o' doin' it."
"Hoo is Jean?" one woman interposed to enquire about his wife, who had
been ill a long time.
"Oh, she's gettin' on fine noo, an' the doctor has a hopeful word o'
her," he answered. "In fact, I was just feeding the birds the last time
he was in, an' asked him hoo she was doin'."
This man, Dugald McIntosh, had one god--his canaries. He read all he
could get to read about them, and studied the best conditions under
which to rear them, sacrificed everything he could to breed better
birds, and this was always a topic for him to discourse upon.
"I was just busy feedin' them when he cam' in, and after he had examined
her, I asked him hoo she was gettin' on.
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