You don’t know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I think
you must. Look here. I am the Boy at what is called The Refreshment
Room at Mugby Junction, and what’s proudest boast is, that it never yet
refreshed a mortal being.
Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the
height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I’ve often counted ’em while they
brush the First Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among
the glasses, bounded on the nor’-west by the beer, stood pretty far to
the right of a metallic object that’s at times the tea-urn and at times
the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to
its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller
by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and
lastly exposed sideways to the glare of our Missis’s eye—you ask a Boy so
sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink;
you take particular notice that he’ll try to seem not to hear you, that
he’ll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent
medium composed of your head and body, and that he won’t serve you as
long as you can possibly bear it. That’s Me.
What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are, at Mugby.
Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be
finished off by our Missis. For some of the young ladies, when they’re
new to the business, come into it mild! Ah! Our Missis, she soon takes
that out of ’em. Why, I originally come into the business meek myself.
But Our Missis she soon took that out of _me_.
What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters as ockipying
the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There’s Papers for
instance—my honourable friend if he will allow me to call him so—him as
belongs to Smith’s bookstall. Why he no more dares to be up to our
Refreshmenting games, than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her
steam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at
limited-mail speed. Papers, he’d get his head punched at every
compartment, first, second and third, the whole length of a train, if he
was to ventur to imitate my demeanour. It’s the same with the porters,
the same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the
whole way up to the secretary, traffic manager, or very chairman. There
ain’t a one among ’em on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you
ever catch one of _them_, when you wanted anything of him, making a
system of surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed of
your head and body? I should hope not.
You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It’s led to, by
the door behind the counter which you’ll notice usually stands ajar, and
it’s the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their
hair. You should see ’em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if
they was anointing themselves for the combat. When you’re telegraphed,
you should see their noses all a going up with scorn, as if it was a part
of the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery.
You should hear Our Missis give the word “Here comes the Beast to be
Fed!” and then you should see ’em indignantly skipping across the Line,
from the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale
pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass
covers, and get out the—ha ha ha!—the Sherry—O my eye, my eye!—for your
Refreshment.
It’s only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of
course I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effective, so
’olesome, so constitutional, a check upon the public. There was a
foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young
ladies and Our Missis for “a leetel gloss hoff prarndee,” and having had
the Line surveyed through him by all and no other acknowledgment, was a
proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own
country, when Our Missis with her hair almost a coming un-Bandolined with
rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out
of his hand, and said: “Put it down! I won’t allow that!” The foreigner
turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him,
his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed: “Ah! Is it
possible this! That these disdaineous females and this ferocious old
woman are placed here by the administration, not only to empoison the
voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! How arrives it? The
English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot?” Another time, a
merry wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust and spit it out, and
had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to sustain
exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather extra Bandolined
and Line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and he paid Our
Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: “I tell Yew what ’tis,
ma’arm. I la’af. Theer! I la’af. I Dew. I oughter ha’ seen most
things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I
haive travelled right slick over the Limited, head on through
Jee-rusalemm and the East, and likeways France and Italy, Europe Old
World, and am now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village; but such
an Institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin’s solid
and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I
hain’t found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew,
and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin’s solid and liquid, all as
aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute
Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the
innermostest grit! Wheerfur—Theer!—I la’af! I Dew, ma’arm. I la’af!”
And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all
the way to his own compartment.
I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner, as giv’ Our Missis the
idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt
Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as
triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of
course I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff,
Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going; for, as
they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of
the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but
above all of business. Why then should you tire yourself to prove what
is aready proved? Our Missis however (being a teazer at all pints) stood
out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by South-Eastern Tidal, to go
right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.
Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He
looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes when
we are very hard put to it let in behind the counter with a corkscrew;
but never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being
disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as
to marry him, I don’t know; but I suppose _he_ does, and I should think
he wished he didn’t, for he leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn’t be
much harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss
Piff; taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is
let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in
his servility he is a going to let the public have ’em, and they snap him
up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a going to answer a
public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the
mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain’t
strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get
the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch
him by both his shoulders and spin him out into the Bandolining Room.
But Mrs. Sniff. How different! She’s the one! She’s the one as you’ll
notice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at her.
She’s the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with
the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter
before her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams. This
smoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams, is
the last accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to be
finished by Our Missis; and it’s always taught by Mrs. Sniff.
When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in
charge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful! In all my
time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people
as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people
as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say: “Then
you’d better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another.”
It was a most highly delicious lark. I enjoyed the Refreshmenting
business more than ever, and was so glad I had took to it when young.
Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, and it as
it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the Bandolining
Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could
be dignified with the name. Agitation become awakened. Excitement was
up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a tiptoe. At length it was put
forth that on our slackest evening in the week, and at our slackest time
of that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of
foreign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room.
It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table and
glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case for
Our Missis’s ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry in it,
thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, the season being
autumn, and hollyhocks and daliahs being in, ornamented the wall with
three devices in those flowers. On one might be read, “MAY ALBION NEVER
LEARN;” on another, “KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN;” on another, “OUR
REFRESHMENTING CHARTER.” The whole had a beautiful appearance, with
which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded.
On Our Missis’s brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatal
platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff and Miss Piff
sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have been
perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was
accommodated. Behind them, a very close observer might have discerned a
Boy. Myself.
“Where,” said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, “is Sniff?”
“I thought it better,” answered Mrs. Sniff, “that he should not be let to
come in. He is such an Ass.”
“No doubt,” assented Our Missis. “But for that reason is it not
desirable to improve his mind?”
“O! Nothing will ever improve _him_,” said Mrs. Sniff.
“However,” pursued Our Missis, “call him in, Ezekiel.”
I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed with
disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought his
corkscrew with him. He pleaded “the force of habit.”
“The force!” said Mrs. Sniff. “Don’t let us have you talking about
force, for Gracious sake. There! Do stand still where you are, with
your back against the wall.”
He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which
he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say no
meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his
head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and
measure his heighth for the Army.
“I should not enter, ladies,” says Our Missis, “on the revolting
disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will
cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you
wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the
constitutional motto which I see before me;” it was behind her, but the
words sounded better so; “‘May Albion never learn!’”
Here the pupils as had made the motto, admired it, and cried, “Hear!
Hear! Hear!” Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got
himself frowned down by every brow.
“The baseness of the French,” pursued Our Missis, “as displayed in the
fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses,
anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Buonaparte.”
Miss Whiff, Miss Piff and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying,
“We thought as much!”
Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object to my droring mine along with
theirs, I drored another, to aggravate ’em.
“Shall I be believed,” says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, “when I tell
you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore—”
Here Sniff, either busting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low
voice: “Feet. Plural, you know.”
The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to
his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so
grovelling. In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the
turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on:
“Shall I be believed when I tell you that no sooner had I landed,” this
word with a killing look at Sniff, “on that treacherous shore, than I was
ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were, I do not exaggerate,
actually eatable things to eat?”
A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honour of
jining, but also of lengthening it out.
“Where there were,” Our Missis added, “not only eatable things to eat,
but also drinkable things to drink?”
A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, trembling with
indignation, called out: “Name!”
“I _will_ name,” said Our Missis. “There was roast fowls, hot and cold;
there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was
hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it,
and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold
dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was—mark me!—_fresh_
pastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of
fruit. There was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every
size and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply to
brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help
themselves.”
Our Missis’s lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less
convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.
“This,” proceeds Our Missis, “was my first unconstitutional experience.
Well would it have been, if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I
proceeded further into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became
more hideous. I need not explain to this assembly, the ingredients and
formation of the British Refreshment sangwich?”
Universal laughter—except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook his
head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the
wall.
“Well!” said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. “Take a fresh crisp long
crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flower. Cut it longwise
through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of ham. Tie
a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind it
together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which to
hold it. And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your
disgusted vision.”
A cry of “Shame!” from all—except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a
soothing hand.
“I need not,” said Our Missis, “explain to this assembly, the usual
formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?”
No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin
the wall.
“Well,” said Our Missis, “what would you say to a general decoration of
everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to
abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright
waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and
tastefulness positively addressing the public and making the Beast
thinking itself worth the pains?”
Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff looking as
if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else looking as if
they’d rayther not.
“Three times,” said our Missis, working herself into a truly
terrimenjious state, “three times did I see these shamful things, only
between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at Hazebroucke, at
Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, what would you call a
person who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at
our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted
cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each
within a passenger’s power to take away, to empty in the carriage at
perfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred
miles further on?”
There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whether
revolutionist, atheist, Bright (_I_ said him), or Un-English. Miss Piff
screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: “A malignant maniac!”
“I adopt,” says Our Missis, “the brand set upon such a person by the
righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A malignant maniac. Know
then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of
France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this
same part of my journey.”
I noticed that Sniff was a rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got
her eye upon him. But I did not take more particular notice, owing to
the excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself
called upon to keep it up with a howl.
“On my experience south of Paris,” said Our Missis, in a deep tone, “I
will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancy this. Fancy
a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many
for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward, the number of diners. Fancy
every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party.
Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned
for the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket
and cap. Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast,
and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be
done for it!”
A spirited chorus of “The Beast!”
I noticed that Sniff was agin a rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand,
and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn’t take particular
notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimilate public feeling. It
being a lark besides.
“Putting everything together,” said Our Missis, “French Refreshmenting
comes to this, and O it comes to a nice total! First: eatable things to
eat, and drinkable things to drink.”
A groan from the young ladies, kep’ up by me.
“Second: convenience, and even elegance.”
Another groan from the young ladies, kep’ up by me.
“Third: moderate charges.”
This time, a groan from me, kep’ up by the young ladies.
“Fourth:—and here,” says Our Missis, “I claim your angriest
sympathy—attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!”
Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.
“And I cannot in conclusion,” says Our Missis, with her spitefullest
sneer, “give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what
I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn’t bear our
constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a
single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put
another system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for
I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice.”
The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his
servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher
relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head.
It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep’ her eye upon him like
the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our Missis followed them
both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.
You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making believe
you don’t know me, and I’ll pint you out with my right thumb over my
shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff; and which is Miss
Piff; and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won’t get a chance to see Sniff,
because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces,
I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the
servility of his disposition.
NO. 1 BRANCH LINE
THE SIGNAL-MAN
“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 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.