The Lamplighter

by Maria S. Cummins

"He freely emptied his pockets at my bidding, and restored to me the gold, for the loss of which I never should have repined. As the base metal rolled at my feet, there glittered among the coins a jewel as truly mine as any of the rest, but which, as it met my sight, filled me with greater surprise than if it had been a new-fallen star.

"It was a ring of peculiar design and workmanship, which had once been the property of my father, and after his death had been worn by my mother until the time of her marriage with Mr. Graham, when it was transferred to myself. I had ever prized it as a precious heirloom, and it was one of the few valuables which I took with me when I fled from my step-father's house. This ring, with a watch and some other trinkets, had been left in the possession of Lucy when I parted with her at Rio, and the sight of it once more seemed to me like a voice from the grave. I eagerly sought to learn from my prisoner the source whence it had been obtained, but he maintained an obstinate silence. It was now my turn to plead; and at length the promise of instant permission to depart, 'unwhipped by justice,' at the conclusion of his tale, wrung from him a secret fraught to me with vital interest.

"This man was Stephen Grant, the son of my old friend Ben. He had heard from his father's lips the story of your mother's misfortunes; and the circumstance of a violent quarrel which arose between Ben and his vixen wife at the young stranger's introduction to their household impressed the tale upon his recollection. From his account it appeared that my long-continued absence from Lucy, during the time of my illness, was construed by her honest but distrustful counsellor and friend into cruel desertion. The poor girl, to whom my early life was all a mystery which she had never shared, and to whom much of my character and conduct was inexplicable, began soon to feel convinced of the correctness of the old sailor's suspicions and fears. She had already applied to my employer for information concerning me; but he, who had heard of the pestilence to which I was exposed, and fully believed me to be among the dead, forbore to distress her by a communication of his belief, and replied to her questionings with an obscurity which served to give new force to her hitherto uncertain surmises. She positively refused, however, to leave our home; and, clinging to the hope of my final return thither, remained where I had left her until the terrible fever began its ravages. Her small stock of money was by this time consumed; her strength both of mind and body gave way; and Ben, becoming every day more confident that the simple-hearted Lucy had been betrayed and forsaken, persuaded her at last to sell her furniture, and with the sum thus raised flee the infected country before it should be too late. She sailed for Boston in the same vessel in which Ben shipped before the mast; and on reaching that port her humble protector took her to the only home he had to offer.

"There your mother's sad fate found a mournful termination; and you, her infant child, were left to the mercy of the cruel woman who, but for consciousness of guilt and her fear of its betrayal, would doubtless have thrust you at once from the miserable shelter her dwelling afforded. This guilt consisted in a foul robbery committed by Nan and her infamous son upon your innocent mother, now rendered, through her feebleness, an easy prey to their rapacity. The fruits of this vile theft, however, were not participated in by Nan, whose promising son so far exceeded her in duplicity and craft that, having obtained possession of the jewels for the alleged purpose of bartering them away, he reserved such as he thought proper, and appropriated to his own use the proceeds of the remainder.

"The antique ring which I now hold in my possession, the priceless relic of a mournful tragedy, would have shared the fate of the rest but for its apparent worthlessness. To the luckless Stephen, however, it proved at last a temporary salvation from the felon's doom which must finally await that hardened sinner; and to me—ah! to me—it remains to be proved whether the knowledge of the secrets to which it has been the key will bless my future life or darken it with a heavier curse! Notwithstanding the information thus gained, and the exciting idea to which it gave rise, that my child might be still living and finally restored to me, I could not yet feel any security that these daring hopes were not destined to be crushed in their infancy, and that my newly-found treasure might not again elude my eager search. To my inquiries concerning you, Gertrude, Stephen, who had no longer any motives for concealing the truth, declared his inability to acquaint me with any particulars of a later period than the time of your residence with Trueman Flint. He knew that the lamplighter had taken you to his home, and was accidentally made aware, a few months later, of your continuance in that place of refuge from the old man's being such a fool as to call upon his mother and voluntarily make compensation for the injury done to her windows in your outburst of childish revenge.

"I could learn nothing more; but it was enough to inspire all my energies to recover my child. I hastened to Boston, had no difficulty in tracing your benefactor, and, though he had been long dead, found many a truthful witness to his well-known virtues. Nor, when I asked for his adopted child, did I find her forgotten in the quarter of the city where she had passed her childhood. More than one grateful voice was ready to respond to my questioning, and to proclaim the cause they had to remember the girl who, having experienced the trials of poverty, made it both her duty and her pleasure of prosperity to administer to the wants of a neighbourhood whose sufferings she had aforetime both witnessed and shared. But, alas! to complete the sum of sad vicissitudes with which my unhappy destiny was already crowded, at the moment when I was assured of my daughter's safety, and my ears were greeted with the sweet praises that accompanied the mention of her name, there fell upon me like a thunderbolt the startling words, 'She is now the adopted child of sweet Emily Graham, the blind girl.'

"Oh, strange coincidence! Oh, righteous retribution! which, at the very moment when I was picturing to myself the consummation of my cherished hopes, crushed me once more beneath the iron hand of a destiny that would not be cheated of its victim! My child, my only child, bound by the gratitude and love of years to one in whose face I scarcely dared to look, lest my soul should be withered by the expression of condemnation which the consciousness of my presence would inspire!

"The seas and lands which had hitherto divided us seemed not, to my tortured fancy, so insurmountable a barrier between myself and my long-lost daughter as the dreadful reflection that the only earthly being whose love I had hoped in time to win had been reared from her infancy in a household where my name was a thing abhorred.

"Stung to the quick by the harrowing thought that all my prayers, entreaties, and explanations could never undo her early impressions, and that all my labours and all my love could never call forth other than a cold and formal recognition of my claims, I half resolved to leave my child in ignorance of her birth and never seek to look upon her face, rather than subject her to the terrible necessity of choosing between the friend whom she loved and the father from whose crimes she had learned to shrink with horror and dread. After struggling long with contending emotions, I resolved to make one effort to see and recognize you, Gertrude, and at the same time guard myself from discovery. I trusted to the change which time had wrought in my appearance to conceal me effectually from all eyes but those which had known me intimately, and therefore approached Mr. Graham's house without the slightest fear of betrayal. I found it empty and apparently deserted.

"I now directed my steps to the well-remembered counting-house, and here learned from the clerk that the whole household, including yourself, had been passing the winter in Paris, and were at present at a German watering-place. Without further inquiry I took the steamer to Liverpool, thence hastened to Baden-Baden—a trifling excursion in the eyes of a traveller of my experience. Without risking myself in the presence of my step-father, I took an early opportunity to obtain an introduction to Mrs. Graham, and, thanks to her unreserved conversation, learned that Emily and yourself were left in Boston, and were under the care of Dr. Jeremy.