'No!' cried Trotty eagerly.

'Never done us foul, and false, and wicked wrong, in words?'
pursued the Goblin of the Bell.

Trotty was about to answer, 'Never!' But he stopped, and was
confused.

'The voice of Time,' said the Phantom, 'cries to man, Advance!
Time is for his advancement and improvement; for his greater worth,
his greater happiness, his better life; his progress onward to that
goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the
period when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and
violence, have come and gone--millions uncountable, have suffered,
lived, and died--to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn
him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which
will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder,
ever, for its momentary check!'

'I never did so to my knowledge, sir,' said Trotty. 'It was quite
by accident if I did. I wouldn't go to do it, I'm sure.'

'Who puts into the mouth of Time, or of its servants,' said the
Goblin of the Bell, 'a cry of lamentation for days which have had
their trial and their failure, and have left deep traces of it
which the blind may see--a cry that only serves the present time,
by showing men how much it needs their help when any ears can
listen to regrets for such a past--who does this, does a wrong.
And you have done that wrong, to us, the Chimes.'