Three Ghost Stories | Page 3

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Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens

Contents:

The Signal-Man The Haunted-House The Trial For Murder

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 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