Stories of Ourselves: "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question.

There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate.

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows.

On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air.

This was a lonesome post to occupy, I said, and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder.

To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me.

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.

But in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me.

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), ‘Yes.’

He had taught himself a language down here – if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it.

On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any great railway staff.

In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done.

In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done.

On both of those occasions he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far asunder.

‘It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you.’

‘You have no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way?’

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, ‘For God’s sake, clear the way!’

I ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again, and ran back here.

It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind.

‘This,’ he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, ‘was just a year ago. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again.’

The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail.

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of ‘For God’s sake, clear the way!’

The ghost’s ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don’t wonder that you failed to hear it.

His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same spot.

‘What is its warning against?’ he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me.

Some dreadful calamity will happen.

It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.

It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.

‘When it first stood under the Danger-light,’ he went on, putting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, ‘why not tell me where that accident was to happen – if it must happen?'

Why not tell me how it could be averted – if it could have been averted?

Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding Appearances.

He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention; and I left him at two in the morning.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure?

I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind?

A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset.

The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the fieldpath near the top of the deep cutting.

‘Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir,’ he said, ‘I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. There was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he didn’t seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call.’