The Ballad of John Clare Read Free

his cane:
    “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy ground and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.”
    He snapped the Bible shut as the village answered “Amen”.
    The parson was the first to tuck a handkerchief under his chin. The churchwardens parted as he poured himself a pot and sank his teeth into a pie. Others followed according to their station. They clustered round the cart, helping themselves and carrying armfuls across to families that were waiting on the tussocked grass. Farmer Joyce and Mary passed and poured and made themselves agreeable to all. When everyone else had taken their fill the churchwardens stood aside and the parish paupers pushed forward and grabbed their share. Charlie Turner pressed bread and pastry with his fingers into his half-wit daughter’s mouth, as though he was some hedge-row bird that has hatched a cuckoo. Like the birds of the field the village paupers filled their crops.
    All hearts and minds were on the food except for one. John Clare sat a little apart, upon a stump and so still it was as though its timber had spread through him and he was himself wood from head to foot. No one paid him any mind for he is often considered strange. When Old Otter pressed a pot into his hand he took it but did not sup. He sat like one amazed. His eyes were fixed on Mary Joyce who stood waist deep among ragged children pouring sugared water from a jug.
    His eyes were fixed on Mary, who he remembered as a child in Glinton vestry school, as shy and quick then as a wild thing, and bold besides, and as nimble to scramble up onto the church roof and scratch her name upon the lead as any. And now she was become a woman. John’s mind was quick with calculation, if he was seventeen then she was three behind. And she was grown lovely. Her hair was dressed in ringlets and covered with a lace cap, and over it a wide brimmed hat. Her cotton gown was yellow as a cowslip and underneath it the firm shapely rounding of her breasts, and loose over her shoulders a russet cloak …he shook himself from his reverie, supped his ale for courage, straightened, and casting all thought of station aside walked across to the cart.
    “Mary.”
    She turned to him. He saw that her face still had something of the impishness he remembered as a child, but there were other layers beside, of thought and sorrow, and then a soft kindness about the eyes that was beyond her years. John remembered that she had lost her mother a year since.
    “Mary, have you forgot me?”
    She broke into a smile and a new light seemed to shine from her face.
    “John Clare!”
    “Will you come and sit with us Mary?”
    He offered his hand and she took it, light as a bird, and sprang down from the cart.
    “Of course I’ve never forgot you John.”
    They walked across to where the band was gathered on the grass. John unbuttoned his coat and threw it down for her.
    “Here’s Sam and Jonathan, Old Otter who the whole world knows, Wisdom who you have not met before, and Dick who you’ve met a thousand times.”
    She laughed and kissed Dick Turnill on the cheek, for she had schooled with him too, which made him blush and which in turn made the rest laugh out loud. And she shook hands with Wisdom. Then she sat on the coat and gathered her knees up to her chin.
    “’Tis two years since last I saw you John.”
    “I’ve been away Mary.”
    John suddenly found himself awkward at a divide that seemed to him to have grown between them. She smiled:
    “Seeking fame and fortune in the French war?”
    He shook his head and said nothing.
    “A trade then?”
    “Hardly, though my parents would wish it so.”
    “Well, here you are, and home again, and I for one am glad of it.”
    She broke a piece of twig and flicked it at him. There was quiet between them for a while.
    “Do you recall John,” she said, “the time that Mr Merrishaw put a question to the class and I put up my