THE LAMPLIGHTER'S ROUND

Being a Full Account of Every Light in the Realm and the Order in Which It Is Kindled, Kept by the Man Who Holds Back the Dark.

Kept by Enoch Wick, Lamplighter of Drudgeford and Murkminster, who has gone before the night every dusk for five-and-twenty years and never once let the dark have a street that was his to keep.

At the Lighting Hour

You do not think about it, and that is because I do it. Every evening the dark comes up out of the fen — you may watch it come, if you have the stomach, a great cold tide of it rising off the Slough to take the realm — and every evening I go out before it with my pole and my little flame, and I kindle the lamps in their order, and I lay down a line of light against the whole weight of the night.

It is a sacred trust, and I keep it sacred. Miss a lamp, light them out of order, let one gutter — and the dark has a foothold, and a foothold is how a thing takes a kingdom. Without me the realm would be swallowed. I am the one thin bright line between Sogmarsh and the dark, and I have held it, unbroken, five-and-twenty years.

Each entry: The Lamp · The Hour · The Dark It Holds — the Dark being vast, and mine, alone, to keep back.

1 · The Gate Lamp

The Lamp. The first of the round, at the Drudgeford gate, by Tuck's window. The Hour. First. Always first. The round has an order and the order is law. The Dark It Holds. The whole of the coming night begins here, at my flame, and is, from here, held.

2 · The Market Cross

The Lamp. The great lamp over the square, the finest on my round. The Hour. Third, after the two by the ferry. The Dark It Holds. The heart of the town. Let this one fail and the very middle of the realm goes dark, and I do not permit it, and it does not fail.

3 · The Last Lit Window

The Lamp. Not mine — a cottage window, out past the paved streets, that keeps a candle burning for someone not yet home. The Hour. All hours. It does not go out. The Dark It Holds. A small, private, stubborn patch of it. I tip my pole to that window every night of my life. There are lights a lamplighter may only salute.

4 · The Lamp That Will Not Take

The Lamp. The one by the Damp Stoat, forever guttering. The Hour. Late, and twice, for it goes out to spite me. The Dark It Holds. As much as any, when it is lit, which is the trouble; my adversary the wind, and my adversary the damp, conspire on that one corner nightly, and nightly I best them, and go home wet.

5 · The Order of the Round

The Lamp. All of them, in their sequence. The Hour. Each in its turn, and woe to the man who alters the turn. The Dark It Holds. The order is the whole of the craft. A lamplighter who lit as he pleased would leave a ragged line, and a ragged line the dark pours through. Straight, and in order, and unbroken. That is how you hold a night.

6 · The Dark Itself

The Lamp. — The Hour. The lighting hour, and every hour after. The Dark It Holds. It comes up off the Slough every dusk to take the realm, and every dusk I turn it back at the edge of my light, and it waits there, all night, just past the last lamp, for me to falter, and I do not falter, and at dawn it goes back down into the fen defeated, and the realm wakes safe, and does not know how near a thing it was.

7 · The Trust

The Lamp. — The Hour. — The Dark It Holds. Everything. I am the one thing between this kingdom and the night, and I have been, faithfully, unthanked, five-and-twenty years, and I ask no thanks, only that you remember, when you walk home safe under my lamps, that a man went before you with a flame.

8 · What Lies Beyond the Last Lamp

The Lamp. None. There are no lamps out there. That is the point I have been twenty-five years not seeing. The Hour. Every hour of every night since the world began. The Dark It Holds. Nothing needs holding. Beyond my last lamp the realm goes on a hundred dark miles and lives there — the fen-folk to bed with the sun and up with it, the Drownings by starlight, the far cottages that never saw a lamp in their lives and never once wished for one — and my bright, straight, sacred line holds back only the dark on the paved streets of the two towns that could afford to pay for it. The great dark realm beyond, that I fancy myself the sole and lonely defence of, was never in a moment's danger, never once looked to me, and rises every single morning, unlit and unlost, and does not know my name. The dark was never coming for anyone. I light my lamps, in their order, against a tide that was never rising, and I am proud of it, and in the small paid circle of my light I am not, I suppose, entirely wrong — only very small, and very late to learn it, and, on the whole, I find, still glad to go out at dusk with a flame, there being worse ways to be wrong than to spend your life making a little more light than the dark strictly requires.