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 recal 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 all view but a strip of
sky; the perspective one way, only a crooked prolongation
of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective
in the other direction, terminating in a
gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a
black tunnel, in whose massive architecture
there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding
air. So little sunlight ever found its way
to this spot, that it had an earthy deadly smell;
and so much cold wind rushed through it, that
it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural
world.

Before he stirred, I was near enough to
him to have touched him. Not even then removing
his eyes from mine, he stepped back one
step, and lifted his hand.

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I
said), and it had riveted my attention when I
looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a
rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome
rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a
man who had been shut up within narrow limits
all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a
newly-awakened interest in these great works.
To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far
from sure of the terms I used, for, besides that
I am not happy in opening any conversation,
there was something in the man that daunted
me.

He directed a most curious look towards the
red light near the tunnel's mouth, and looked
all about it, as if something were missing from
it, and then looked at me.

That light was part of his charge? Was it
not?

He answered in a low voice: " Don't you
know it is?"

The monstrous thought came into my mind
as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face,
that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated
since, whether there may have been infection
in his mind.

In my turn, I stepped back. But in making
the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear
of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight.

"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile,
"as if you had a dread of me."

"I was doubtful," he returned, " whether I
had seen you before."

"Where?"

He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

"There?" I said.

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but
without sound), Yes.

"My good fellow, what should I do there?
However, be that as it may, I never was there,
you may swear."

"I think I may," he rejoined. " Yes. I am
sure I may."

His manner cleared, like my own. He
replied to my remarks with readiness, and
in well-chosen words. Had he much to do
there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough
responsibility to bear; but exactness and watchfulness
were what was required of him, and of
actual work—- manual labour—- he had next to
none. To change that signal, to trim those
lights, and to turn this iron handle now and
then, was all he had to do under that head. Regarding
those many long and lonely hours of
which I seemed to make so much, he could only
say that the routine of his life had shaped itself
into that form, and he had grown used to it.
He had taught himself a language down here—-
if only to know it by sight, and to have formed
his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could
be called learning it. He had also worked
at fractions and decimals, and tried a little
algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor
hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when
on duty, always to remain in that channel of damp
air, and could he never rise into the sunshine
from between those high stone walls? Why,
that depended upon times and circumstances.
Under some conditions there would be less upon
the Line than under others, and the same held
good as to certain hours of the day and night.
In bright weather, he did choose occasions for
getting a little above these lower shadows; but,
being at all times liable to be called by his
electric bell, and at such times listening for it
with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than
I would suppose.

He took me into his box, where there was a
fire, a desk for an official book in which he
had to make certain entries, a telegraphic
instrument with its dial face and needles, and the
little bell of which he had spoken. On my trusting
that he would excuse the remark that he
had been well educated, and (I hoped I might
say without offence), perhaps educated above
that station, he observed that instances of slight
incongruity in such-wise would rarely be found
wanting among large bodies of men; that he had
heard it was so in workhouses, in the police
force, even in that last desperate resource, the
army; and that he knew it was so, more or less,