"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 labor--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 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
offense), 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 color,
turned his face toward 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 toward 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 toward 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.