I assume that you are talking about the part in the story
where the narrator has gone to see the signalman for the second time. At this point,
the signalman is telling the narrator about the (he thinks) supernatural things he has
seen. When he does this, the narrator tries to calm him down by providing explanations
of how the signalman might have been mistaken.
What is
going on here is that the narrator is representing an enlightened person who believes in
science and not in the supernatural. Here is a quote that shows what the narrator is
trying to do:
I showed him how that this figure must be a
deception of his sense of sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the
delicate nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often
troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their affliction,
and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I,
"do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low,
and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph
wires."
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