As he made his way down the zigzag path, the signal man looked as though he was awaiting his arrival. He had his left hand at his chin, and his left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness, that the man stopped at it a moment, wondering at it. This could suggest that the signal man was wondering weather the narrator was a ghost or not. The signal man had a very weary appearance; it says that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal place as ever. 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, in the shorter perspective in the other direction was a gloomy red light and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, the narrator describes there to be a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. ‘So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthly, deadly smell: and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.’ This builds up tension for the reader and it may also give the reader a clue for supernatural things happening here.
As the narrator made his way over to the Signal man, he stared at him with such ferocity. The narrator referred to his post to be a lonesome post to occupy. The narrator then started to question the signal man.
The monstrous thought came into the narrator’s mind, as he perused, the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. The narrator repeats himself to emphasize his monstrous thought. The next part of the story uses tension in the form of short sentences and then the signal man points to a red light to emphasize danger. It then refers that the signal man works for many long and lonely hours at his post, and the story suggests that loneliness equals to madness, so the signal man could be quite loopy after spending many hours on his own, with no one to talk to or spend time with.
In brighter weather the signal man does 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 he would listen for it with redoubled anxiety.
The signal man then takes the narrator 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.
It says that the signal man was a very well educated man. A student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again.
The narrator observed the signal man to be a remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking of his discourse at a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done. While the signal man was speaking to the narrator, he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face towards the little bell when it hadn’t rang, opened the door of the hut, and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which the narrator had remarked, without being able to define, when they were so far asunder. This is very strange behaviour coming from the signal man.
The signal man tells the narrator that he is troubled but he mutters on how he can’t tell the narrator what’s troubling him. He tells the narrator to come back the next night and also tells him not to cry out ‘Halloa! Below!’ and then he will tell him what’s on his mind. But before the signal man lets him leave, he asks him a parting question; ‘What made you cry, “Halloa! Below!” tonight?’
The narrator came back the next night and the signal man told him what was troubling him. It seems that the signal man had his first meeting, with a very peculiar supernatural being – a spirit. The signal man was very distressed with this troubling matter; he had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon him. The narrator tried to clam him down by saying that the figure must have been a deception of his sense of sight.
Dickens uses metaphors to describe how weary and spooky this dark deep valley is, ‘…do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it make of the telegraph wires.’
They sat in an uninterrupted silence, and then the signal man started talking in a solemn tone. He explained to the narrator that within 6 hours of the ghost’s appearance, the memorable accident happened on this Line, and within 10 hours the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the ghostly spirit had stood.
A disagreeable shudder crept over the narrator. Dickens creates a strong sense of horror here and makes the reader feel curious to read on.
The narrator admits, in his minds eye that men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of like.
The signal tells the narrator that he spotted the spectre again, standing at the door looking towards the red light.
Dickens refers to this red light through out the passages as a sign of danger.
He then goes on and motions what the spectre’s actions were, and it was an action of mourning.
There’s more, he adds, that the very day the ghost was spotted for the second time a young woman had died instantaneously in one of the compartments on the train, and was brought into the signal man’s box and laid on the floor. The narrator started to worry. He resumes and tells the narrator that the ghost is coming back more and more often and is lingering around the danger light. Again, Dickens refers to the ‘red light’ as the danger light which’s suggests a warning to the reader.
The narrator doesn’t believe what the signal man is telling him. He starts to piece it together in his minds eye and starts to believe that the signal man is imaging this.
He’s telling him that the ghost was there and rang the bell twice, the night the narrator was there for the first time, but the narrator thinks it impossible! But, the signal man is sure that he was there both times.
The signal man’s pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life. Dickens use of language here shows the reader, the signal man’s desperation.
What ran most in the narrators thoughts was the consideration how ought he had to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? He had proved to the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might the signal man remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a subordinate position, still the signal man held a most important trust, and would the narrator for instance, like to stake his own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?
The next evening before the sun went down, the narrator looked down to see what the commotions was below, at the signal mans box. He saw an appearance of a man gesticulating up to him, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm. This makes the reader believe that, that man is the spectre, but is it?
The signal man descended down the path at a great speed, to see what had happened, but only to find, lying on a small bed, was the signal man. He was killed that morning by a train. The strange thing was that what the driver shouted out to the signal man standing on the tracks was of the same kind which came from the spectre’s mouth: “Below there! Look out! Look out! For God’s sake clear the way!” That gives the reader something to think about, as Dickens bring the story to a cliff hanging hault.