when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the
appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across
liis 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.

"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 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 cheek 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.

"All! 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 Signalman 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.

No. 2 BRANCH LINE.
THE ENGINE-DRIVER.

"Altogether? Well. Altogether, since 1841,
I've killed seven men and boys. It ain't many
in all those years."

These startling words he uttered in a serious
tone as he leaned against the Station-wall. He
was a thick-set, ruddy-faced man, with coal-black
eyes, the whites of which were not white, but
a brownish- yellow, and apparently scarred and
seamed, as if they had been operated upon.
They were eyes that had worked hard in looking
through wind and weather. He was dressed
in a short black pea-jacket and grimy white
canvas trousers, and wore on his head a flat black
cap. There was no sign of levity in his face.
His look was serious even to sadness, and there
was an air of responsibility about his whole bearing
which assured me that he spoke in earnest.

"Yes, sir, I have been for five-and-twenty
years a Locomotive Engine-driver; and in all
that time, I've only killed seven men and boys.
There's not many of my mates as can say as
much for themselves. Steadiness, sir—- steadiness
and keeping your eyes open, is what
does it. When I say seven men and boys, I
mean my mates—- stokers, porters, and so forth.
I don't count passengers."

How did he become an engine-driver?

"My father," he said, " was a wheelwright
in a small way, and lived in a little
cottage by the side of the railway which
runs betwixt Leeds and Selby. It was the
second railway laid down in the kingdom, the
second after the Liverpool and Manchester,
where Mr. Huskisson was killed, as you may
have heard on, sir. When the trains rushed by,
we young 'uns used to run out to look at 'em,
and hooray. I noticed the driver turning handles,
and making it go, and I thought to myself it
would be a fine thing to be a engine-driver,
and have the control of a wonderful machine
like that. Before the railway, the driver of the
mail-coach was the biggest man I knew. I
thought I should like to be the driver of a
coach. We had a picture in our cottage of
George the Third in a red coat. I always mixed
up the driver of the mail-coach—- who had a red
coat, too—- with the king, only he had a low-
crowned broad-brimmed hat, which the king
hadn't. In my idea, the king couldn't be a
greater man than the driver of the mail-coach,
had always a fancy to be a head man of some
kind. When I went to Leeds once, and saw a
man conducting a orchestra, I thought I should
like to be the conductor of a orchestra. When
I went home I made myself a baton, and went
about the fields conducting a orchestra. It
wasn't there, of course, but I pretended it was.
At another time, a man with a whip and a
speaking-trumpet, on the stage outside a show,
took my fancy and I thought I should like to
be him. But when the train came, the engine-