ver my
shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff; and which is Miss
Piff; and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get a chance to see Sniff,
because he disappeared that night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces,
I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the
servility of his disposition.

NO. 1 BRANCH LINE
THE SIGNAL-MAN

"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