Page 41 - The English Carnival 7

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.

“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.”

“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 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.
–Charles Dickens

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The Englsih Carnival-8