to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take his
opinion. A change in his time of duty would come round next night, he had
apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon
after sunset. I had appointed to return accordingly.
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 signalman'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. I cannot 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 selfreproachful
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.
'Signalman 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.'
'O! 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
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