The cutting was extremely deep and unusually precipitate.

It was made through a clammy stone that became uzier and wetter as I went down.

For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand on his chin, and that left elbow

rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way and stepping out upon the level of the railroad and drawing nearer to him,

saw that he was a dark sallow man with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows.

His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw.

On either side a dripping wet wall of jagged stone excluded all view but a strip of sky.

The perspective one way only a crooked

prolongation of this great dungeon. The shorter perspective in the other

direction terminating in a gloomy red light and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous of depressing and forbidding air.

So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot that it had an earthy,

deadly smell. And so much cold wind rushed through it that it struck chill to me as if I had left the natural world.

H.P. pondcraft.com.

That was from the opening section of Charles Dickens, The Signal Man, setting the scene there for a classic ghost story.

And you are listening to the H.P. Lovecraft literary podcast.

Here at HP Podcast.

I'm Chad Fyfer.

And I'm Chris Lackey.

We're talking about a Charles Dickens story

on the H.P Lovecraft literary podcast

...