The Signal-man by Charles Dickens
“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
refurling 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 zigzag 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 zigzag
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 zigzag 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
some one else yesterday evening. That troubles
me.”
“That mistake?”
“No. That some one 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 the
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 signal-man
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 signal-man’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.
“Signal-man 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 Signal-man 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.
