Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens
Page: 11

been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why not
tell me, instead, 'She is going to die. Let them keep her at home'?
If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its
warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn
me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor signal-man on
this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be
believed, and power to act?"

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as
well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to
compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality
or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever
thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it
was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not
understand these confounding Appearances. In this effort I
succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his
conviction. He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post
as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention:
and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through
the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the
pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have
slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to
conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the
dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I
to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had
proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact;
but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a
subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and
would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of
his continuing to execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something
treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors
in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing