THE SIGNALMAN
by Charles Dickens
from ALL THE YEAR ROUND (1866-Christmas issue)
"Halloa! Below there!"
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he
was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his
hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought,
considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have
doubted from what quarter the voice came; but, instead of
looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting
nearly over his head, he turned himself about and looked
down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner
of doing so, though I could not have said, for my life,
what. But, I know it was remarkable enough to attract my
notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and
shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above
him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset that I had
shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.
"Halloa! Below!"
From looking down the Line, he turned himself
about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above
him.
"Is there any path by which I can come
down and speak to you?"
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. Just then, there came a
vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into
a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to
start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When
such vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train, had
passed me and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked
down again, and saw him re-furling the flag he had shown
while the train went by.
I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during
which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he
motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my
level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called
down to him, "All right!" and made for that point.
There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough
zig-zag descending path notched out: which I followed.
The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually
precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone that became
oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found
the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air
of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out
the path.
When I came down low enough upon the zig-zag
descent, to see him again, I saw that he was standing
between the rails on the way by which the train had lately
passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to
appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left
elbow rested on his right hand crossed over his breast. His
attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness, that
I stopped a moment, wondering at it.
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. His post was in as solitary and
dismal a place as ever I saw. 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. So little sunlight ever found its way to
this spot, that it had an earthy deadly smell; and so much
cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as
if I had left the natural world.
Before he stirred, I was near enough to him
to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from
mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand.
This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said),
and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up
yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an
unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a man who
had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who,
being at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in
these great works. 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.
He directed a most curious look towards the
red light near the tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it,
as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me.
That light was part of his charge? Was it
not?
He answered in a low voice: "Don't you
know it is?"
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. I have speculated since, whether there
may have been infection in his mind.
In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the
action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This
put the monstrous thought to flight.
"You look at me," I said, forcing a
smile, "as if you had a dread of me."
"I was doubtful," he returned,
"whether I had seen you before."
"Where?"
He pointed to the red light he had looked at.
"There?" I said.
Intently watchful of me, he replied (but
without sound), Yes.
"My good fellow, what should I do there?
However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may
swear."
"I think I may," he rejoined.
"Yes. I am sure I may."
His manner cleared, like my own. He replied
to my remarks with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had
he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough
responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness were
what was required of him, and of actual work--manual labour
he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those
lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all
he had to do under that head. Regarding those many long and
lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could
only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into
that form, and he had grown used to it. 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. He had also worked at fractions
and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, and
had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary
for him when on duty, always to remain in that channel of
damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from
between those high stone walls? Why, that depended upon
times and circumstances. Under some conditions there would
be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held
good as to certain hours of the day and night. In bright
weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above
these lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be
called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for
it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would
suppose.
He took me into his box, where there was a
fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make
certain entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial face
and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken. 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. He had been,
when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that, hut; he
scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and had
attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his
opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. He had no
complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed and he
lay upon it. It was far too late to make another.
All that I have here condensed, he said in a
quiet manner, with his grave dark regards divided between me
and the fire. He threw in the word "Sir" from time
to time, and especially when he referred to his youth: as
though to request me to understand that he claimed to be
nothing but what I found him. He was several times
interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off
messages, and send replies. Once, he had to stand without
the door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make
some verbal communication to the driver. 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 a word, I should have set this man down as
one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity,
but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he
twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face
towards the little bell when it did NOT ring,
opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the
unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near
the mouth of the tunnel. 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.
Said I when I rose to leave him: "You
almost make me think that I have met with a contented
man."
(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said
it to lead him on.)
"I believe I used to be so," he
rejoined, in the low voice in which he had first spoken;
"but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled."
He would have recalled the words if he could.
He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly.
"With what? What is your trouble?"
"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."
"But I expressly intend to make you
another visit. Say, when shall it be?"
"I go off early in the morning, and I
shall be on again at ten to-morrow night, sir."
"I will come at eleven."
He thanked me, and went out at the door with
me. "I'll show my white light, sir," he said, in
his peculiar low voice, "till you have found the way
up. When you have found it, don't call out! And when you are
at the top, don't call out!"
His manner seemed to make the place strike
colder to me, but I said no more than "Very well."
"And when you come down to-morrow night,
don't call out! Let me ask you a parting question. What made
you cry 'Halloa! Below there!' to-night?"
"Heaven knows," said I. "I
cried something to that effect----"
"Not to that effect, sir. Those were the
very words. I know them well."
"Admit those were the very words. I said
them, no doubt, because I saw you below."
"For no other reason?"
"What other reason could I possibly
have!"
"You had no feeling that they were
conveyed to you in any supernatural way?"
"No."
He wished me good night, and held up his
light. I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with
a very disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me),
until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to
descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure.
Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot
on the first notch of the zig-zag next night, as the distant
clocks were striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the
bottom, with his white light on. "I have not called
out," I said, when we came close together; "may I
speak now?" "By all means, sir." "Good
night then, and here's my hand." "Good night, sir,
and here's mine." With that, we walked side by side to
his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down by the
fire.
"I have made up my mind, sir," he
began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and
speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, "that
you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took
you for someone else yesterday evening. That troubles
me."
"That mistake?"
"No. That someone else."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know."
"Like me?"
"I don't know. I never saw the face. The
left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved.
Violently waved. This 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!"
"One moonlight night," said the
man, "I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry
'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked from that door,
and saw this Some one else standing by the red light near
the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice
seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look
out!' And then again 'Halloa! Below there! Look out!' I
caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the
figure, calling, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?'
It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I
advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the
sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had my
hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was
gone."
"Into the tunnel," said I.
"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five
hundred yards. I stopped and held my lamp above my head, and
saw the figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet
stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the
arch. 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. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm
has been given. Is anything wrong?' The answer came back,
both ways: 'All well.'"
Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger
tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure must
be a deception of his sense of sight, and how that figures,
originating in disease of the delicate nerves that minister
to the functions of the eye, were known to have often
troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the
nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by
experiments upon themselves. "As to an imaginary
cry," said I, "do but listen for a moment to the
wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to
the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires!"
That was all very well, he returned, after we
had sat listening for a while, and he ought to know
something of the wind and the wires, he who so often passed
long winter nights there, alone and watching. But he would
beg to remark that he had not finished.
I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these
words, touching my arm:
"Within six hours after the Appearance,
the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within ten
hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the
tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood."
A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I
did my best against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined,
that this was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to
impress his mind. But it was unquestionable that remarkable
coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken
into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be
sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was
going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common
sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the
ordinary calculations of life.
He again begged to remark that he had not
finished.
I again begged his pardon for being betrayed
into interruptions.
"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 that door,
looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre
again." He stopped, with a fixed look at me.
"Did it cry out?"
"No. It was silent."
"Did it wave its arm?"
"No. It leaned against the shaft of the
light, with both hands before the face. Like this."
Once more, I followed his action with my
eyes. It was an action of mourning. I have seen such an
attitude in stone figures on tombs.
"Did you go up to it?"
"I came in and sat down, partly to
collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint.
When I went to the door again, daylight was above me, and
the ghost was gone."
"But nothing followed? Nothing came of
this?"
He touched me on the arm with his forefinger
twice or thrice, giving a ghastly nod each time:
"That very day, as a train came out of
the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what
looked like a confusion of hands and heads, and something
waved. I saw it, just in time to signal the driver, Stop! He
shut off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past
here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and,
as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A
beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the
compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this
floor between us."
Involuntarily, I pushed my chair back, as I
looked from the boards at which he pointed, to himself.
"True, sir. True. Precisely as it
happened, so I tell it you."
I could think of nothing to say, to any
purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires
took up the story with a long lamenting wail.
He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and
judge how my mind is troubled. The spectre came back, a week
ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits
and starts."
"At the light?"
"At the Danger-light."
"What does it seem to do?"
He repeated, if possible with increased
passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of
"For God's sake clear the way!"
Then, he went on. "I have no peace or
rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together, in
an agonised manner, 'Below there! Look out! Look out!' It
stands waving to me. It rings my little bell----"
I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell
yesterday evening when I was here, and you went to the
door?"
"Twice."
"Why, see," said I, "how your
imagination misleads you. My eyes were on the bell, and my
ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living man, it did
NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any
other time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical
things by the station communicating with you."
He shook his head. "I have never made a
mistake as to that, yet, sir. I have never confused the
spectre's ring with the man's. 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. But I heard
it."
"And did the spectre seem to be there,
when you looked out?"
"It WAS there."
"Both times?"
He repeated firmly: "Both times."
"Will you come to the door with me, and
look for it now?"
He bit his under-lip as though he were
somewhat unwilling, but arose. I opened the door, and stood
on the step, while he stood in the doorway. There, was the
Danger-light. There, was the dismal mouth of the tunnel.
There, were the high wet stone walls of the cutting. There,
were the stars above them.
"Do you see it?" I asked him,
taking particular note of his face. 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.
"No," he answered. "It is not
there."
"Agreed," said I.
We went in again, shut the door, and resumed
our seats. I was thinking how best to improve this
advantage, if it might be called one, when he took up the
conversation in such a matter of course way, so assuming
that there could be no serious question of fact between us,
that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.
"By this time you will fully understand,
sir," he said, "that what troubles me so
dreadfully, is the question, What does the spectre
mean?"
I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully
understand.
"What is its warning against?" he
said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by
times turning them on me. "What is the danger? Where is
the danger? There is danger overhanging, somewhere on the
Line. Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be
doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But
surely this is a cruel haunting of me. What can
I do?"
He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the
drops from his heated forehead.
"If I telegraph Danger, on either side
of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it," he
went on, wiping the palms of his hands. "I should get
into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was mad.
This is the way it would work:--Message: 'Danger! Take
care!' Answer: 'What danger? Where?' Message: 'Don't know.
But for God's sake take care!' They would displace me. What
else could they do?"
His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. 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? When on its second coming it hid
its face, why not tell me instead: 'She is going to die. Let
them keep her at home'? If it came, on those two occasions,
only to show me that its warnings were true, and so to
prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now? And
I, Lord help me! A mere poor signalman on this solitary
station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed,
and power to act!"
When I saw him in this state, I saw that for
the poor man's sake, as well as for the public safety, what
I had to do for the time was, to compose his mind.
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. In this
effort I succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason
him out of his conviction. 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. I had offered to stay through the night, but he
would not hear of it.
That I more than once looked back at the red
light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red
light, and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had
been under it, I see no reason to conceal. Nor, did I like
the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see
no reason to conceal that, either.
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? Though in a
subordinate position, still he held a most important trust,
and would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the
chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?
Unable to overcome a feeling that there would
be something treacherous in my communicating what he had
told me, to his superiors in the Company, without first
being plain with himself and proposing a middle course to
him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him
(otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest
medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to
take his opinion. 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. I
had appointed to return accordingly.
Next evening was a lovely evening, and I
walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down
when I traversed the field-path near the top of the deep
cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to
myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would
then be time to go to my signalman's box.
Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the
brink, and mechanically looked down, from the point from
which I had first seen him. I cannot describe the thrill
that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel,
I saw the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across
his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.
The nameless horror that oppressed me, passed
in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a
man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group of
other men standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to
be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not
yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely
new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and
tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed.
With an irresistible sense that something was
wrong--with a flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal
mischief had come of my leaving the man there, and causing
no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he did--I
descended the notched path with all the speed I could make.
"What is the matter?" I asked the
men.
"Signalman killed this morning,
sir."
"Not the man belonging to that
box?"
"Yes, sir."
"Not the man I know?"
"You will recognise him, sir, if you
knew him," said the man who spoke for the others,
solemnly uncovering his own head and raising an end of the
tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed."
"O! how did this happen, how did this
happen?" I asked, turning from one to another as the
hut closed in again.
"He was cut down by an engine, sir. No
man in England knew his work better. But somehow he was not
clear of the outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had
struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the
engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and
she cut him down. That man drove her, and was showing how it
happened. Show the gentleman, Tom."
The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped
back to his former place at the mouth of the tunnel!
"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."
"What did you say?"
"I said, Below there! Look out! Look
out! For God's sake clear the way!"
I started.
"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I
never left off calling to him. I put this arm before my
eyes, not to see, and I waved this arm to the last; but it
was no use."
Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on
any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other,
I may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the
warning of the Engine-Driver included, not only the words
which the unfortunate Signalman had repeated to me as
haunting him, but also the words which I myself--not he--had
attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation
he had imitated.
(End.)
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