The Ballad of John Clare Read Online Free PDF Page A

kitchen when I was helping mother, for I had a notion you was courting.”
    She pressed a little screw of paper into John’s hand.
    “Chew these John, cloves.”
    She lowered her voice to a tiny whisper:
    “Then your mouth’ll be sweet for kissing.”
    She began to laugh and pushed the blanket into her mouth to quieten herself.
    John cuffed her gently and bade her sweet dreams. He dropped the cloves into his pocket and went downstairs.
    He’d not been down for long when Parker Clare lifted the latch and came in through the garden door. He’d been shutting up the chickens for the night. He put his hand to John’s shoulder:
    “That’ll win her John, whoever she is! Though I’d sooner you hadn’t broke those blossoms from the pear.”
    John sighed. There is little privacy to be had in either cottage or parish. He picked up a candle and reached into his cubby hole. There his precious volumes lean side by side: Thomson’s Seasons , Watts’ Hymns and Spiritual Songs , Abercrombie’s Every Man his own Gardener , Burns’ Poems . Alongside them his chap-books are stacked: Robin Hood’s Garland , Tom Hickathrift , The Seven Sleepers , The King and the Cobbler , Old Moore’s Almanack . And tucked into all of them are his own precious scribblings on shop paper and pages torn from old copy books.
    He pulled one out and settled down with it.

    *******

    This Mayday morning John was up and dressed in clean linen shirt and yellow scarf before the church clock had struck four. He ate a hunk of bread and washed it down with water. He took his garland from the shed and slung it across his shoulder. Then he made his way out of the village and across Woodcroft field towards Glinton, following the stony track between the furlongs. The sky was bright with spring stars. The young beans stuck their dark green heads out of the tilth and seemed to glister with all the silver dews of Eden. The knee-high barley brushed his breeches and soaked them through.
    The first light of morning etched Glinton steeple against the sky and the cockerels of both villages began to call out their clarion. A barn-owl, quartering the field, shrieked close and sudden and John’s heart raced, for he is easy frit. When he came to Glinton he cut through the churchyard and along the street to Joyce’s Farm.
    He came between the gateposts into Farmer Joyce’s yard, that is always swept clean. The last of the ricks loomed high above him. In the kitchen garden to one side all the birds were singing now, pigeon, robin, starnel, sparrow, finch, the shrieking swifts were swooping low across the yard and the rasp-throated rooks busy about their nests high in the elms. The chickens were scratching outside the barns, and inside the stables he could hear the horses snorting and shifting in their stalls.
    Then the mastiffs in their kennel began to bark at John and alerted Will Farrell, Joyce’s stockman and groom. He pushed open the stable door and came sauntering across the yard, his breeches tucked into his boots, his grubby smock tied at the waist with a piece of twine, his bald head seeming to mirror the sky. For even though it is a holiday the master’s horses must be fed, and they must shine at the fair too, combed and brushed and sleek as chestnuts. Will looked John up and down with a knowing smile.
    “What do you want?”
    John reached into his pocket.
    “Two pennyworth of ale, Will, if you’ll tell me which is Mary’s bedroom window.”
    Will looked at the Mayday garland and laughed:
    “Here comes John Clare sniffing at Mary Joyce’s door like a dog that scents a bitch on heat. You’re wasting your time boy, she’ll never give ye the time of day, she’s way above your station.”
    John rubbed the two coins together and Will shrugged.
    “It’ll do you no good.”
    He took the two pennies and dropped them into the pocket of his breeches.
    “’Tis the casement window above the front door Johnny, but you won’t thank me for telling ye.”
    John went