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On the borders of the Lincolnshire fens, half-way between Stamford and Peterborough, stands the little village of Helpston. One Helpo, a so-called 'stipendiary knight,' but of whom the old chronicles know nothing beyond the bare title, exercised his craft here in the Norman age, and left his name sticking to the marshy soil. But the ground was alive with human craft and industry long before the Norman knights came prancing into the British Isles. A thousand years before the time of stipendiary Helpo, the Romans built in this neighbourhood their Durobrivae, which station must have been of great importance, judging from the remains, not crushed by the wreck of twenty centuries. Old urns, and coins bearing the impress of many emperors, from Trajan to Valens, are found everywhere below ground, while above the Romans left a yet nobler memento of their sojourn in the shape of good roads. Except the modern iron highways, these old Roman roads form still the chief means of intercommunication at this border of the fen regions. For many generations after Durobrivae had been deserted by the imperial legions, the country went downward in the scale of civilization. Stipendiary and other unhappy knights came in shoals; monks and nuns settled in swarms, like crows, upon the fertile marsh lands; but the number of labouring hands began to decrease as acre after acre got into the possession of mail-clad barons and mitred abbots. The monks, too, vanished in time, as well as the fighting knights; yet the face of the land remained silent and deserted, and has remained so to the present moment. The traveller from the north can see, for thirty miles over the bleak and desolate fen regions, the stately towers of Burleigh Hall—but can see little else beside. All the country, as far as eye can reach, is the property of two or three noble families, dwelling in turreted halls; while the bulk of the population, the wretched tillers of the soil, live, as of old, in mud hovels, in the depth of human ignorance and misery. An aggregate of about a hundred of these hovels, each containing, on the average, some four living beings, forms the village of Helpston. The place, in all probability, is still very much of the same outer aspect which it bore in the time of Helpo, the mystic stipendiary knight.
Helpston consists of two streets, meeting at right angles, the main thoroughfare being formed by the old Roman road from Durobrivae to the north, now full of English mud, and passing by the name of Long Ditch, or High Street. At the meeting of the two streets stands an ancient cross, of octangular form, with crocketed pinnacles, and not far from it, on slightly rising ground, is the parish church, a somewhat unsightly structure, of all styles of architecture, dedicated to St. Botolph. Further down stretch, in unbroken line, the low huts of the farm labourers, in one of which, lying on the High Street, John Clare was born, on the 13th July, 1793. John Clare's parents were among the poorest of the village, as their little cottage was among the narrowest and most wretched of the hundred mud hovels. Originally, at the time when the race of peasant-proprietors had not become quite extinct, a rather roomy tenement, it was broken up into meaner quarters by subsequent landlords, until at last the one house formed a rookery of not less than four human dwellings. In this fourth part of a hut lived the father and mother of John, old Parker Clare and his wife. Poor as were their neighbours, they were poorer than the rest, being both weak and in ill health, and partly dependent upon charity. The very origin of Parker Clare's family was founded in misery and wretchedness. Some thirty years previous to the birth of John, there came into Helpston a big, swaggering fellow, of no particular home, and, as far as could be ascertained, of no particular name: a wanderer over the earth, passing himself off, now for an Irishman, and now for a Scotchman. He had tramped over the greater part of Europe, alternately fighting and playing the fiddle; and being tired awhile of tramping, and footsore and thirsty withal, he resolved to settle for a few weeks, or months, at the quiet little village. The place of schoolmaster happened to be vacant, perhaps had been vacant for years; and the villagers were overjoyed when they heard that this noble stranger, able to play the fiddle, and to drink a gallon of beer at a sitting, would condescend to teach the A B C to their children. So 'Master Parker,' as the great unknown called himself for the nonce, was duly installed schoolmaster of Helpston: The event, taking place sometime about the commencement of the reign of King George the Third, marks the first dawn of the family history of John Clare.
The tramping schoolmaster had not been many days in the village before he made the acquaintance of a pretty young damsel, daughter of the parish-clerk. She came daily to wind the church clock, and for this purpose had to pass through the schoolroom, where sat Master Parker, teaching the A B C and playing the fiddle at intervals. He was as clever with his tongue as with his fiddlestick, the big schoolmaster; and while helping the sweet little maiden to wind the clock in the belfry, he told her wonderful tales of his doings in foreign lands, and of his travels through many countries. And now the old, old story, as ancient as the hills, was played over again once more. It was no very difficult task for the clever tramp to win the heart of the poor village girl; and the rest followed as may be imagined. When spring and summer was gone, and the cold wind came blowing over the fen, the poor little thing told her lover that she was in the way of becoming a mother, and, with tears in her eyes, entreated him to make her his wife. He promised to do so, the tramping schoolmaster; but early the next day he left the village, never to return. Then there was bitter lamentation in the cottage of the parish-clerk; and before the winter was gone, the poor man's daughter brought into the world a little boy, whom she gave her own family name, together with the prefixed one of the unworthy father. Such was the origin of Parker Clare.
What sort of existence this poor son of a poor mother went through, is easily told. Education he had none; of joys of childhood he knew nothing; even his daily allowance of coarse food was insufficient. He thus grew up, weak and in ill-health; but with a cheerful spirit nevertheless. Parker Clare knew more songs than any boy in the village, and his stock of ghost stories and fairy tales was quite inexhaustible. When grown into manhood, and yet not feeling sufficiently strong for the harder labours of the field, he took service as a shepherd, and was employed by his masters to tend their flocks in the neighbourhood, chiefly in the plains north of the village, known as Helpston Heath. In this way, he became acquainted with the herdsman of the adjoining township of Castor, a man named John Stimson, whose cattle was grazing right over the walls of ancient Durobrivae. John Stimson's place was taken, now and then, by his daughter Ann—an occurrence not unwelcome to Parker Clare; and while the sheep were grazing on the borders of Helpo's Heath, and the cattle seeking for sorrel and clover over the graves of Trajan's warriors, the young shepherd and shepherdess talked sweet things to each other, careless of flocks and herds, of English knights and Roman emperors. So it came that one morning Ann told her father that she had promised to marry Parker Clare. Old John Stimson thought it a bad match: 'when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window,' he said, fortified by the wisdom of two score ten. But when was ever such wisdom listened to at eighteen!
The girl resolved to marry her lover with or without leave; and as for Parker Clare, he needed no permission, his mother, dependent for years upon the cold charity of the workhouse, having long ceased to control his doings. Thus it followed that in the autumn of 1792, when Robespierre was ruling France, and William Pitt England, young Parker Clare was married to Ann Stimson of Castor. Seven months after, on the 13th day of July, 1793, Parker Clare's wife was delivered, prematurely, of twins, a boy and a girl. The girl was healthy and strong; but the boy looked weak and sickly in the extreme. It seemed not possible that the boy could live, therefore the mother had him baptized immediately, calling him John, after her father. However, human expectations were not verified in the twin children; the strong girl died in early infancy, while the sickly boy lived—lived to be a poet.
Of Poeta nascitur non fit there never was a truer instance than in the case of John Clare. Impossible to imagine circumstances and scenes apparently more adverse to poetic inspiration than those amidst which John Clare was placed at his birth. His parents were the poorest of the poor; their whole aim of life being engrossed by the one all-absorbing desire to gain food for their daily sustenance. They lived in a narrow wretched hut, low and dark, more like a prison than a human dwelling; and the hut stood in a dark, gloomy plain, covered with stagnant pools of water, and overhung by mists during the greater part of the year. Yet from out these surroundings sprang a being to whom all life was golden, and all nature a breath of paradise. John Clare was a poet almost as soon as he awoke to consciousness. His young mind marvelled at all the wonderful things visible in the wide world: the misty sky, the green trees, the fish in the water, and the birds in the air. In all the things around him the boy saw nothing but endless, glorious beauty; his whole mind was filled with a deep sense of the infinite marvels of the living world. Though but in poor health, the parents were never able to keep little John at home. He trotted the lifelong day among the meadows and fields, watching the growth of herbs and flowers, the chirping of insects, the singing of birds, and the rustling of leaves in the air. One day, when still very young, the sight of the distant horizon, more than usually defined in sharp outline, brought on a train of contemplation. A wild yearning to see what was to be seen yonder, where the sky was touching the earth, took hold of him, and he resolved to explore the distant, unknown region. He could not sleep a wink all night for eager expectation, and at the dawn of the day the next morning started on his journey, without saying a word to either father or mother. It was a hot day in June, the air close and sultry, with gossamer mists hanging thick over the stagnant pools and lakes. The little fellow set out without food on his long trip, fearful of being retained by his watchful parents. Onward he trotted, mile after mile, towards where the horizon seemed nearest; and it was a long while before he found that the sky receded the further he went. At last he sank down from sheer exhaustion, hungry and thirsty, and utterly perplexed as to where he should go. Some labourers in the fields, commiserating the forlorn little wanderer, gave him a crust of bread, and started him on his home journey. It was late at night when he returned to Helpston, where he found his parents in the greatest anxiety, and had to endure a severe punishment for his romantic excursion. Little John Clare did not mind the beating; but a long while after felt sad and sore at heart to have been unable to find the hoped-for country where heaven met earth.
The fare of agricultural labourers in these early days of John Clare was much worse than at the present time. Potatoes and water-porridge constituted the ordinary daily food of people in the position of Clare's parents, and they thought themselves happy when able to get a piece of wheaten bread, with perhaps a small morsel of pork, on Sundays. At this height of comfort, however, Parker Clare and his wife seldom arrived. Sickly from his earliest childhood, Parker Clare had never been really able to perform the work required of him, though using his greatest efforts to do so. A few years after marriage, his infirmities increased to such an extent that he was compelled to seek relief from the parish, and henceforth he remained more or less a pauper for life. Notwithstanding this low position, Parker Clare did not cease to care for the well-being of his family, and, by the greatest privations on his own part, managed to send his son to an infant school. The school in question was kept by a Mrs. Bullimore, and of the most primitive kind. In the winter time, all the little ones were crowded together in a narrow room; but as soon as the weather got warm, the old dame turned them out into the yard, where the whole troop squatted down on the ground. The teaching of Mrs. Bullimore did not make much impression upon little John, except a slight fact which she accidentally told him, and which took such firm hold of his imagination that he remembered it all his life. There was a white-thorn tree in the school-yard, of rather large size, and the ancient schoolmistress told John that she herself, when young, had planted the tree, having carried the root from the fields in her pocket. The story struck the boy as something marvellous; it was to him a sort of revelation of nature, a peep into the mysteries of creation at the works of which he looked with feelings of unutterable amazement, not unmixed with awe. But there was little else that Mrs. Bullimore could teach John Clare, either in her schoolroom or in the yard. The instruction of the good old woman was, in the main, confined to two things—the initiation into the difficulties of A B C, and the reading from two books, of which she was the happy possessor. These books were 'The Death of Abel' and Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Their contents did not stir any thoughts or imaginings in little John, whose mind was filled entirely with the pictures of nature.
When John Clare had reached his seventh year, he was taken away from the dame-school, and sent out to tend sheep and geese on Helpston Heath. The change was a welcome one to him, for, save the mysterious white-thorn tree, there was nothing at school to attract him. Helpston Heath, on the other hand, furnished what seemed to him a real teacher. While tending his geese, John came into daily contact with Mary Bains, an ancient lady, filling the dignified post of cowherd of the village, and driving her cattle into the pastures annually from May-day unto Michaelmas. She was an extraordinary old creature, this Mary Bains, commonly known as Granny Bains. Having spent almost her whole life out of doors, in heat and cold, storm and rain, she had come to be intimately acquainted with all the signs foreboding change of weather, and was looked upon by her acquaintances as a perfect oracle. She had also a most retentive memory, and being of a joyous nature, with a bodily frame that never knew illness, had learnt every verse or melody that was sung within her hearing, until her mind became a very storehouse of songs. To John, old Granny Bains soon took a great liking, he being a devout listener, ready to sit at her feet for hours and hours while she was warbling her little ditties, alternately merry and plaintive. Sometimes the singing had such an effect that both the ancient songstress and her young admirer forgot their duties over it. Then, when the cattle went straying into the pond, and the geese were getting through the corn, Granny Bains would suddenly cease singing, and snatching up her snuff-box, hobble across the fields in wild haste, with her two dogs at her side as respectful aides-de-camp, and little John bringing up the rear. But though often disturbed in the enjoyment of those delightful recitations, they nevertheless sunk deep into John Clare's mind, until he found himself repeating all day long the songs he had heard, and even in his dreams kept humming—
'There sat two ravens upon a tree,
Heigh down, derry, O!
There sat two ravens upon a tree,
As deep in love as he and she.'
It was thus that the admiration of poetry first awoke in Parker Clare's son, roused by the songs of Granny Bains, the cowherd of Helpston.
The extreme poverty of Parker Clare and his wife compelled them to put their son to hard work earlier than is usual even in country places. John was their only son; of four children born to them, only he and a little sister, some six years younger, having remained alive; and it was necessary, therefore, that he should contribute to the maintenance of the family, otherwise dependent upon parish relief. Consequently, John was sent to the farmer's to thrash before he was twelve years old, his father making him a small flail suited to his weak arms. The boy was not only willing, but most eager to work, his anxious desire being to assist his poor parents in procuring the daily bread. However, his bodily strength was not equal to his will. After a few months' work in the barn, and another few months behind the plough, he came home very ill, having caught the tertiary ague in the damp, ill-drained fields. Then there was anxious consulting in the little cottage what to do next. The miserable allowance from 'the union' was insufficient to purchase even the necessary quantity of potatoes and rye-bread for the household, and, to escape starvation,—it was absolutely necessary that John should go to work again, whatever his strength. So he dragged himself from his bed of sickness, and took once more to the plough, the kind farmer consenting to his leading the horses on the least heavy ground. The weather was dry for a season, and John rallied wonderfully, so as to be able to do some extra-work, and earn a few pence, which he saved carefully for educational purposes. And when the winter came round, and there was little work in the fields, he made arrangements with the schoolmaster at Glinton, a man famed far and wide, to become his pupil for five evenings in the week, and for as many more days as he might be out of employment. The trial of education was carried on to John Clare's highest satisfaction, as well as that of his parents, who proclaimed aloud that their son was going to be a scholar.
Glinton, a small village of about three hundred inhabitants, stands some four or five miles east of Helpston, bordering on the Peterborough Great Fen. It was famous in Clare's time, and is famous still, for its educational establishments, there being three daily schools in the place, one of them endowed. The school to which John went, was presided over by a Mr. James Merrishaw. He was a thin, tall old man, with long white hair hanging down his coat-collar, in the fashion of bygone days. It was his habit to take extensive walks, for miles around the country, moving forward with long strides, and either talking to himself or humming soft tunes; on which account his pupils styled him 'the bumble-bee.' The old man was passionately fond of music, and devoted every minute spared from school duties and his long walks, to his violin. To the more promising of his pupils Mr. James Merrishaw showed great kindness, allowing them, among other things, the run of his library, somewhat larger than that of ordinary village schoolmasters. John Clare had not been many times to Glinton, before he was enrolled among these favourites of Mr. Merrishaw. Being able already to read, through his own exertions, based on the fundamental principles instilled by Dame Bullimore, little John dived with delight into the treasures opened at the Glinton school, never tired to go through the somewhat miscellaneous book stores of Mr. Merrishaw. In a short while, the young student was seized with a real hunger for knowledge. He toiled day and night to perfect himself, not only in reading and writing, but in some impossible things which he had taken into his head to learn, such as algebra and mathematics. Coming home late at night, from his long walk to school, he astonished and not a little perplexed his poor parents by crouching down before the fire, and tracing, in the faint glimmer of a burning log, incomprehensible signs upon bits of paper, or sometimes pieces of wood. Far too poor to buy even the commonest kind of writing paper, John was in the habit of picking up shreds of the same material, such as used by grocers and other village shopkeepers, and to scratch thereon his signs and figures, sometimes with a pencil, but oftener with a piece of charcoal. Perhaps there never was a more unfavourable study of mathematics and algebra.
For two winters and part of a wet summer, John Clare went to Mr. Merrishaw's school at Glinton, during short intervals of hard labour in the fields. At the end of this period a curious accident seemed to give a sudden turn to his prospects in life. A maternal uncle, called Morris Stimson, one day made his appearance at Helpston, having been previously on a visit to his father and sisters at Castor. Uncle Morris was looked upon as a very grand personage, he holding the post of footman to a lawyer at Wisbeach, and as such clad in the finest plush and broadcloth. Being duly reverenced, the splendid uncle in his turn thought it his duty to patronize his humble friends, and accordingly was kind enough to offer little John a situation in his master's office. There was a vacancy for a clerk at Wisbeach, and Uncle Morris was sure his nephew was just the man to fill it. John himself thought otherwise; but was immediately overruled in his opinion by father, mother, and uncle. A boy who had been to Mr. Merrishaw's for ever so many evenings; who could read a chapter from the Bible as well as the parson, and who was drawing figures upon paper night after night: why, he was fit enough to be not only a lawyer's clerk, but, if need be, a minister of the church. So they argued, and it was settled that John should go to Wisbeach, and be duly installed as a clerk in the office just above the pantry in which dwelt Uncle Morris. Mr. Morris Stimson did not stop at Helpston longer than a day; but, before leaving, made careful arrangements that his nephew should follow him to Wisbeach precisely at the end of seven days.
Those were stirring seven days in the little hut of Parker Clare. The poor mother, anxious to assist to the best of her power in her son's rise in life, ransacked her scanty wardrobe to the utmost, to put John in what she deemed a proper dress. She mended all his clothes as neatly as possible; she made him a pair of breeches out of an old dress, and a waistcoat from a shawl; and then ran up and down the village to get a few more necessary things, including an old white necktie, and a pair of black woollen gloves. Thus equipped, John Clare started for Wisbeach one Friday morning in spring—date not discoverable, but supposed to be somewhere about the year 1807. The poor mother cried bitterly when John shook hands for the last time at the bottom of the village; the father tried hard to hide his tears, but did not succeed; and John himself, light-hearted at first, had a good cry when he turned his face at Elton, and got a final glimpse of the steeple of Helpston church. Beyond Elton John Clare had never been in his life, and it was with some sort of trembling, mixed with a strong feeling of homesickness, that he inquired his way to Peterborough. His confusion was great when he found that the people stared at him on the road; and stared the more the nearer he approached the episcopal city. No doubt, a thin, pale, little boy, stuck in a threadbare coat which he had long outgrown, and the sleeves of which were at his elbows; with a pair of breeches a world too large for his slender legs; with a many-coloured waistcoat, an immense pair of woollen gloves, a white necktie, and a hat half a century old, was a rare sight, even in the fen country. Poor John, therefore, had to march into Peterborough followed by the curious eyes of a hundred male and female idlers, who opened doors and windows to see him pass along. Happily the trial was not a long one, for, having discovered his way to the Wisbeach boat, he ran to it as fast as his legs would carry him, and, fairly on board, ensconced himself behind a bale of goods. Oh, how he repented having ever left Helpston, in the fatal ambition of becoming a lawyer's clerk!
The journey from Peterborough to Wisbeach, in those days, was by a Dutch canal boat—a long narrow kind of barge, drawn by one horse, with a large saloon in front for common passengers, and a little room for a possible select company behind, near the steersman. The boat only ran once a week, on Friday, from Peterborough to Wisbeach, returning the following Sunday; and, as far as it went, the passage was cheap as well as convenient—the charge for the whole distance of twenty-one miles being but eighteen-pence. But John Clare, fond though he was of water, and trees, and green fields, did not much enjoy the river journey, his heart being big with thoughts of the future. What the great lawyer to whom he was going would say, and what replies he should make, were matters uppermost in his mind. To prepare for the dreaded interview John at last set himself to compose an elaborate speech, on the model of one which he had seen in the 'Royal Magazine' at Mr. Merrishaw's school. The speech, however, was not quite ready when the boat stopped at Wisbeach, landing John Clare, together with the other passengers. One more source of trouble had to be overcome here. When the young traveller inquired for the house of Mr. Councillor Bellamy, the people, instead of replying, stared at him. 'Mr. Councillor Bellamy? You are not going to Mr. Bellamy's house?' said more than one of the Wisbeach citizens, until poor John got fairly frightened. He was still more frightened when he at last arrived before the house of Mr. Councillor, and found that it was a stately building, bigger and nobler-looking than any he had ever entered in his life. He had not courage enough to ring the bell or knock at the door, but stood irresolute at the threshold. At last John ventured a faint tap at the door; and, luckily, Uncle Morris appeared in answer to the summons, and welcomed the visitor by leading him down into the kitchen, where the board was spread. 'I have told master about your arrival,' said Uncle Morris; 'and meanwhile sit down to a cup of tea. Do not hang your head, but look up boldly, and tell him what you can do.' John sat down to the table, yet was unable to eat anything, in fear and trembling of the things to come. It was not long before Mr. Councillor Bellamy made his appearance. Poor John tried hard to keep his head erect as ordered, and made a convulsive effort to deliver himself of the first sentences of his prepared speech. But the words stuck in his throat. 'Aye, aye; so this is your nephew, Morris?' now said Mr. Councillor Bellamy, addressing his footman. 'Yes, sir,' replied the faithful servant; 'and a capital scholar he is, sir.' Mr. Councillor glanced at the 'scholar' from the country—at his white necktie, his little coat, and his large breeches. 'Aye, aye; so this is your nephew,' Mr. Councillor repeated, rubbing his hands; 'well, I may see him again.' With this Uncle Morris's master left the room. He left it not to return; and John Clare had never in his life the honour of seeing Mr. Councillor Bellamy again. There next came an order from the upper regions to make Morris's nephew comfortable till Sunday morning, and to put him, at that time, on board the Peterborough boat for the return journey. The behest of Mr. Councillor was duly executed, and John Clare, on the following Sunday evening, after three days' absence, again walked into his father's cottage at Helpston, a happier and a wiser lad. He had discovered the great truth that he was not fit for the profession of the law.
The mother cried for joy when her John again entered the little cottage; but the father welcomed him with a melancholy smile. John himself, though with a little mortified vanity, felt rather pleased than otherwise. His good sense told him that this journey to Wisbeach had been but a fool's errand, and that, in order to rise in the world, he had to look into other directions than to a lawyer's office. He therefore fell back with a strong feeling of contentment into his old occupation, holding the plough, carting manure to the field, and studying algebra. In the latter favourite labour he was much assisted by a young friend, whose acquaintance he had made at Glinton school, named John Turnill, the son of a small farmer. The latter, having a little more money at his command than his humble companion, was able to purchase the necessary books, as well as a modest allowance of paper and pencils, the gift of which threw John Clare into ecstasies of delight. With Master Turnill, the attachment to mathematics and algebra was a real love, though it was otherwise with Clare, who pursued these studies solely out of ambition, and with a hope of raising himself in the world. The desire to improve his position became stronger than ever after his return from Wisbeach. The sneers of the people who met him during the journey had sunk deep into his sensitive mind, and he determined to make a struggle for a better position. How far mathematics and the pure sciences would help him on the road he did not trouble himself to consider; he only had a vague notion that they would lead him to be a 'scholar.' So he toiled with great energy through the algebraic and mathematical handbooks purchased by friend Turnill, often getting so warm on the subject as to neglect his dinner-hour, in brown studies over the plus and minus, squares, cubes, and conic sections. Every evening that he could possibly spare he walked over to Turnill's house, near Elton, regardless of wind, rain, and snow, and regardless even of the reproaches of his kind parents, who began to be afraid of his continued dabbling in the occult arts. However, little John stuck to his algebra, and it was nearly two years before he discovered that he was as little fit to be a mathematician as a lawyer's clerk.
Meanwhile, and before the algebraic studies came to an end, there occurred a somewhat favourable change in the circumstances of John Clare. Among the few well-to-do inhabitants of Helpston was a person named Francis Gregory, who owned a small public-house, under the sign of the 'Blue Bell,' and rented, besides, a few acres of land. Francis Gregory, a most kind and amiable man, was unmarried, and kept house with his old mother, a female servant, and a lad, the latter half groom and half gardener. This situation, a yearly 'hiring,' being vacant, it was offered to John, and eagerly accepted, on the understanding that he should have sufficient time of his own to continue his studies. It was a promise abundantly kept, for John Clare had never more leisure, and, perhaps, was never happier in his life than during the year that he stayed at the 'Blue Bell.' Mr. Francis Gregory, suffering under constant illness, treated the pale little boy, who was always hanging over his books, more like a son than a servant, and this feeling was fully shared by Mr. Gregory's mother. John's chief labours were to attend to a horse and a couple of cows, and occasionally to do some light work in the garden or the potato field; and as these occupations seldom filled more than part of the day or the week, he had all the rest of the time to himself. A characteristic part of Clare's nature began to reveal itself now. While he had little leisure to himself, and much hard work, he was not averse to the society of friends and companions, either, as in the case of Turnill, for study, or, as with others, for recreation; but as soon as he found himself, to a certain extent, his own master, he forsook the company of his former acquaintances, and began to lead a sort of hermit's life. He took long strolls into the woods, along the meres, and to other lonely places, and got into the habit of remaining whole hours at some favourite spot, lying flat on the ground, with his face toward the sky. The flickering shadows of the sun; the rustling of the leaves on the trees; the sailing of the fitful clouds over the horizon, and the golden blaze of the sky at morn and eventide, were to him spectacles of which his eye never tired, with which his heart never got satiated. And as he grew more and more the constant worshipper of nature, in any of her aspects, so his mind gradually became indifferent to almost all other objects. What men did, what they had done, or what they were going to do, he did not seem to care for, or had the least curiosity to know. In the midst of these solitary rambles from his 'Blue Bell' home, the news was brought of some extraordinary discoveries at Castor, his mother's native village. It was news which, one might have thought, would fire the imagination of any man gifted with the most ordinary understanding. In a part of the township of Castor called Dormanton Fields, the greater part of the vast ruins of Durobrivae were discovered: temples and arches crumbled into dust; many-coloured tiles and brickwork; urns and antique earthen vessels; and coins, with, the images of many emperors—so numerous that it looked as if they had been sown there. To reconstruct the ancient Roman city, to people it anew with the conquerors of the world, was a task at once undertaken by zealous antiquarians; yet Clare, though he heard the matter mentioned by numerous visitors to the 'Blue Bell,' and had plenty of time for investigation, took so little interest in it as not even to attempt a walk to the city of ruins, on the borders of which he was feeding his cattle. Now, as up to a late period of his life, a bunch of sweet violets was worth to John Clare more than all the ruins of antiquity.
While at the 'Blue Bell' John gradually dropped his algebra and mathematics, and began to read ghost-stories. The reason of his leaving the 'sciences called pure' was the discovery that the further he proceeded on the road the more he saw his utter incapacity to understand and to master the subjects. His friend and guide, John Turnill,—subsequently promoted to a post in the excise—was equally unable to throw light into the darkness of plus and minus, and after a few last convulsive struggles to get through the 'known quantities' into the unknown regions of x, y, and z, he gave it up as a hopeless effort. The spare hours henceforth were devoted to studies of a very different kind, namely, fairy tales and ghost stories. Under the roof of the 'Blue Bell' no other literature was within his reach, and he was quite content to draw temporary nourishment from it. Scarcely any books but these highly spiced ones, stuffed in the pack of travelling pedlars, ever found their way to Helpston. There was 'Little Red Riding-hood,' 'Valentine and Orson,' 'Sinbad the Sailor,' 'The Seven Sleepers,' 'Mother Shipton,' 'Johnny Armstrong,' 'Old Nixon's Prophecy,' and a whole host of similar 'sensation' stories, printed on coarse paper, with a flaming picture on the title-page. John Clare scarcely knew that there were any other books than these and the few he had seen at Glinton school in existence; he had never heard of Shakespeare and Milton, Thompson and Cowper, Spenser and Dryden; and, therefore, with the natural eagerness of the young mind just awoke to its day dreams, eagerly plunged into the new realm of fancy. The effect soon made itself felt upon the ardent reader, fresh from his undigested algebraic studies. He saw ghosts and hobgoblins wherever he went, and after a time began to look upon himself as a sort of enchanted prince in a world of magic. He had no doubt whatever about the literal truth of the stories he read; the thought of their being mere pictures of the imagination not entering his mind for a moment. It was natural, therefore, that he should come to the conclusion that, as the earth had been, so it was still peopled with fairies, dwarfs, and giants, with whom it would be his fate to come into contact some time or other. So he buckled his armour tight, ready to do battle with the visible and invisible world.
Opportunity came before long. Among his regular duties at the 'Blue Bell' was that of fetching once a week flour from Maxey, a village some three miles north of Helpston, near the Welland river. The road to Maxey was a very lonely one, part of it a narrow footpath along the mere, and the superstition of the neighbourhood connected strange tales of horror and weird fancy with the locality. In the long days of summer, John Clare, who had to start on his errand to the mill late in the afternoon, managed to get home before dark, thus avoiding unpleasant meetings; but when the autumn came, the sun set before he left Maxey, and then the ghosts were upon him. They always attacked him half way between the two villages, in a low swampy spot, overhung by the heavy mist of the fens. Poor John battled hard, but the spirits nearly always got the upper hand. They pulled his hair, pinched his legs, twisted his nose, and played other tricks with him, until he sank to the ground in sheer exhaustion. Recovering himself after a while, the fairies then let him alone, and he staggered home to the 'Blue Bell,' pale and trembling, and like one in a dream. His good friend and master, Francis Gregory, wondering at the haggard look of the lad, thought he was going to have another attack of the tertiary ague, and spoke to his parents; but John, in his silent mood, said it was nothing, and begged to be left alone. So they let him have his way, and he continued his weekly errands to Maxey, with the same result as before. At last, when thoroughly wearied of this repetition of supernatural terrors, he hit upon an ingenious plan for breaking the chain connecting him with the invisible world. The plan consisted in concocting, on his own part, a story of wonders; a story, however, 'with no ghost in it.' Now a king, and now a prince—in turn a sailor, a soldier, and a traveller in unknown lands—John himself was always the hero of his own story, and, of course, always the lucky hero. With his vast power of imagination, this calling up of a new world of bright fancies to destroy the lawless apparitions of the air had the desired effect, and the ghosts troubled John Clare no more on his way to and from the mill.
Nevertheless, his constant reading of fairy tales, with incessant play on the imagination and surexcitation of the mind, was not without leaving its ill effect upon the bodily frame. John sickened and weakened visibly, and his general appearance became the talk of the village. His long solitary roamings through the woods and fields, his habits of reading even when tending the cattle, and his apparent dislike to hold converse with any one, were things which the poor labourers, young and old, could not understand; and when, as it happened, people met him on the road to Maxey in the dark, and heard that he was talking to himself in a loud excited manner, they set him down as a lunatic. Some few of the coarsest among the youngsters went so far as to greet him with volleys of abuse when he happened to come near them, while the old people drew back from him as in disgust. His sensitive feelings suffered deep under this treatment of his neighbours, which might have had the worst consequences but for one great event which suddenly broke in upon him. John Clare fell in love.
'Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of
sight.'
John Clare's first love—the deepest, noblest, and purest love of his whole life—was for 'Mary,' the Mary of all his future songs, ballads, and sonnets. Petrarch himself did not worship his Laura with a more idealized spirit of affection than John Clare did his Mary. To him; she was nothing less than an angel, with no other name than that of Mary; though vulgar mortals called her Mary Joyce, holding her to be the daughter of a well-to-do farmer at Glinton. John Clare made her acquaintance—if so it can be called what was the merest dream-life intercourse—on one of his periodical journeyings to and from the Maxey mills. She sat on a style weaving herself a garland of flowers, and the sight so enchanted him that he crouched down at a distance, afraid to stir and to disturb the beautiful apparition. But she continuing to sit and to weave her flowers, he drew nearer, and at last found courage to speak to her. Mary did not reply; but her deep blue eyes smiled upon him, lifting the humble worshipper of beauty into the seventh heaven of bliss. And when he met her again, she again smiled; and he sat down at her feet once more, and opened the long pent-up rivers of his heart. Mute to all the world around him, he to her for the first time spoke of all he felt, and dreamt, and hoped. He told her how he loved the trees and flowers, and the singing nightingales, and the lark rising into the skies, and the humming insects, and the sailing clouds, and all the grand and beautiful works of nature. But he never told her that he thought her more beautiful than ought else in God's great world. This he never said in words, but his eyes expressed it; and Mary, perhaps, understood the language of his eyes. Mary always listened attentively, yet seldom said anything. Her eyes hung upon his lips, and his lips hung upon her eyes, and thus both worshipped the god of love.
The sweet dream lasted full six months—six glorious sunlit months of spring and summer. Then the father of Mary Joyce heard of the frequent meetings of his daughter with John Clare, and though looking upon both as mere children, he sternly forbid her to see 'the beggar-boy' again. His heart of well-to-do farmer revolted at the bare idea of his offspring talking with the son of one who was not even a farm-labourer, but had to be maintained as a pauper by the parish. Explaining this great fact to his blue-eyed daughter, he deeply impressed its terrible importance upon her soft little heart, making her think with a sort of shudder of the pale boy who told her such pretty stories. Perhaps Mary nevertheless preserved a lingering fondness for her little lover's memory, for though many wooed her in after life, she never wedded, and died a spinster. As for John Clare, he fretted long and deeply, and all his life thought of Mary Joyce as the symbol, ideal, and incarnation of love. With the exception of a few verses addressed to 'Patty,' his future wife, the whole of Clare's love poetry came to be a dedication and worship of Mary. As yet, in these youthful days of grief and affection, he wrote no verses, though he felt a burning desire to give vent to his feelings in some shape or other. Having lost his Mary, he carved her name into a hundred trees, and traced it, with trembling hand, on stones, and walls, and monuments. There still stands engraven on the porch of Glinton churchyard—or stood till within a recent time—a circular inscription, consisting of the letters, 'J. C. 1808,' cut in bold hand, and underneath, in fainter outline, the name 'Mary.'
Just before quitting the 'Blue Bell,' at the end of his twelve months' service, another important event took place in the life of John Clare. One morning, while tending his master's cattle in the field, a farmer's big boy, with whom he had but a slight acquaintance, showed him a copy of Thomson's 'Seasons.' Examining the book, he got excited beyond measure. It was the first real poem he had ever seen, and in harmony as it was with all his feelings, it made upon him the most powerful and lasting impression. Looking upon the book as a priceless treasure, he expressed his admiration in warm words, asking, nay, imploring the possessor to lend it him, if only for an hour. But the loutish boy, swollen with pride, absolutely refused to do so; it was but a trumpery book, he said, and could be bought for eighteen-pence, and he did not see why people who wanted it should not buy it. The words sunk deep into John Clare's heart; 'Only eighteen-pence?' he inquired again and again, doubting his own ears. The big boy was quite sure the book cost no more than eighteen-pence; he had himself bought it at Stamford for the money, and could give the name and address of the bookseller. It was information eagerly accepted by John, who determined on the spot to get the coveted poem at the earliest opportunity. His wages not being due at the moment, he hurried home to his father in the evening, entreating the loan of a shilling, as he himself possessed but sixpence. But Parker Clare, willing though he was to gratify his son, was unable to render help on this occasion. A spare shilling was not often seen in the hut of the poor old man, dependent chiefly upon alms, and in want, not unfrequently, of the bare necessaries of life. But the loving mother could not listen to her son's anxious entreaty without trying to assist him, and by dint of superhuman exertions she managed to get him sevenpence. The fraction still wanting to complete the purchase-money of the book was raised by sundry loans at the 'Blue Bell,' and John waited with eagerness for the coming Sunday, when he would have time to run to Stamford. The Sunday came—a Sunday in spring; and he was up soon after midnight, and stood before the bookseller's shop in Stamford when the eastern clouds assumed their first purple hue. John Clare patiently waited one hour, two hours, three hours, yet the treasure store which contained Thomson's 'Seasons' remained closed. Tremblingly he asked a boy who came along the street at what time the shop would be opened: 'It will not be open at all to-day, for it is Sunday, rejoined the other. Then John went home in bitter sorrow to Helpston, not knowing how to get the much-coveted book. On the way, a bright thought struck him. If he could but raise twopence, in addition to the capital already acquired, he thought he could manage the matter. So by making extraordinary efforts, he got his twopence, and then held a long conversation with the cowherd of a neighbouring farmer. Clare's occupation on the following morning was to take his master's horses to the pasture, and he offered the cowherd the sum of one penny to look after the horses for him, and one more penny for 'keeping the secret.' The bargain was struck, after an animated discussion, in which the conscientious cowherd strove hard to get a total reward of threepence, so as to be able to keep the secret for any length of time. But John was inflexible, for strong reasons of his own, and thus gained the victory.