‘The Signalman’ by Charles Dickens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2Yar03BVZ8&t=63s [Audio Book 31.09 mins]
'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
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