第12章

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.Icannot 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.""Oh, 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.

Bulwer LyttonThe Haunted and the Haunters;Or, The House and the BrainA friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest, "Fancy! since we last met I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London.""Really haunted,--and by what?--ghosts?"

"Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks ago my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment.Passing a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments, Furnished.' The situation suited us; we entered the house, liked the rooms, engaged them by the week,--and left them the third day.No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don't wonder at it.""What did you see?"

"Excuse me; I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer,--nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of your own senses.Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us away, as it was an indefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard anything.And the strangest marvel of all was, that for once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be,--and allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth in that house.Accordingly, on the fourth morning Isummoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week.She said dryly, 'I know why; you have stayed longer than any other lodger.Few ever stayed a second night; none before you a third.But I take it they have been very kind to you.'

"'They,--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.

"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are.I don't mind them.I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day.

I don't care,--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them, and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her further.I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off so cheaply.""You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to sleep in a haunted house.Pray give me the address of the one which you left so ignominiously."My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight toward the house thus indicated.