Free Selected Short Fiction by Charles Dickens Page B

James; ‘and you are my brother’s man, Robert.’
    â€˜Yes, sir. I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr John is ill. He is very bad, sir. It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death. He wants to see you, sir. I have a chaise here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.’
    Mr James and I looked at one another. ‘Wilhelm,’ said he, ‘this is strange. I wish you to come with me!’ I helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew under the horses’ iron shoes between Poland Street and the Forest.
    Now, mind! (said the German courier). I went with Mr James into his brother’s room, and I saw and heard myself what follows.
    His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a long bed-chamber. His old housekeeper was there, and others were there: I think three others were there, if not four, and they had been with him since early in the afternoon. He was in white, like the figure-necessarily so, because he had his night-dress on. He looked like the figure - necessarily so, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw him come into the room.
    But, when his brother reached the bed-side, he slowly raised himself in bed, and looking full upon him, said these words:
    â€˜JAMES, YOU HAVE SEEN ME BEFORE, TO-NIGHT - AND YOU KNOW IT!’
    And so died !

    I waited, when the German courier ceased, to hear something said of this strange story. The silence was unbroken. I looked round and the five couriers were gone: so noiselessly that the ghostly mountain might have absorbed them into its eternal snows. By this time, I was by no means in a mood to sit alone in that awful scene, with the chill air coming solemnly upon me - or, if I may tell the truth, to sit alone anywhere. So I went back into the convent-parlour, and, finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate the biography of the Honourable Ananias Dodger, heard it all out.

MUGBY JUNCTION
    No. 1 Branch Line. The Signalman
    â€˜HALLOA! Below there!’
    When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of bis 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.
    â€˜Halloa! Below!’
    From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.
    â€˜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