The Ballad of John Clare Read Free Page B

Then he spoke in a whisper, loud enough for all to hear and filled with portent, his face fixed as though staring beyond Will’s hand into some world no one else could see.
    “I see rivals in love. I see two as both nurse a tender affection for thee in their secret hearts.”
    Will turned and winked at the crowd.
    “Two you say?”
    “Ay, two there are, and each would have thee to husband. And if they knew as they was rivals in love there would be such a scratching and a shrieking as would shame a cage of cats.”
    Will made as if to yawn:
    “And both of them beauties I’ve little doubt. One dark perhaps? One fair?”
    He threw his pipe onto the grass and thrust his other hand under Wisdom’s nose so the blunt fingertips caught his chin.
    “Come on sir, be plain!”
    The crowd’s mocking laughter echoed Will’s mocking grin, but Wisdom did not change his tune.
    “Ay, one is dark right enough,” he whispered, “But no stranger to you Will Bloodworth, for she has rolled you in her arms full many’s the time.”
    “Tell me more!”
    Wisdom lifted his voice to a tremulous note.
    “I see her stand before me now ….she is ninety and nine years old with leathery dugs as a spaniel’s ears and one black tooth to her gums ….and the bits and the bobs that dangle from her tail would muck an acre.”
    There was a pause when all the air seemed to hold its breath, and then the cackling, guffawing, shrieking, barking laughter began. Wisdom raised his voice above the din:
    “And as to the fair one …”
    But no one heard more of her for Will Bloodworth had seized him by the collar and would have struck him where he stood, had not John Close stepped forward and put his arm about Will’s trembling shoulders. He whispered:
    “Easy Will, this ain’t the place to settle scores.”
    Will Bloodworth shook Wisdom, then let go. He turned away with his shoulders hunched and his fists knotted. John Close steered him back towards the clump of tussocks where his sister and the other farmers’ families sat.
    The children danced behind him:
    “Riddy riddy wry rump! Riddy riddy wry rump!”
    And no scowl of Will Bloodworth’s could stop them now.
    The parson, seeing that decency had been thrown into confusion, tapped his stick against a cartwheel, Sam Billings took up the rhythm with his drum, and the crowd began to carry all the empty wooden platters and horn mugs back to the cart.
    But as the congregation made ready to move, the children, grown wild now with laughter and too long sitting, tipped over a basket of walnuts and began to throw them in all directions. There was such a shouting and dodging, with mothers scolding, fathers clipping ears, the old swinging their sticks at ducking boys, and the shrill voice of the parson trying to call order that Jonathan’s drum was drowned.
    Little Henry Snow flung a nut that caught John Clare upon the chin. John picked it up and threw it hard back again. It was at that moment that Farmer Joyce called:
    “Mary!”
    She jumped to her feet and caught John’s nut full in the eye. She let out a sudden little cry and lifted up her hand, and though she was nine parts woman the tears came spilling down her cheeks. John froze, he was become wood again, and knew neither what to do nor say to make amends. He looked at her. She looked at him. They stood for a moment in all the confusion like mawkins in some storm-tossed field. Then Farmer Joyce called out again:
    “Mary! Come now. Glinton calls.”
    She turned and ran back to the cart, climbed up beside him, and with a flick of the reins they were trundling along the track. Her hand was still lifted to her eye when she disappeared from sight. And John Clare stood frozen, as though a terrible weight bore down upon his heart.
    It was the first psalm of the afternoon that seemed to wake him from himself. He pulled out his fiddle and picked up the tune that the band had launched upon.
    The procession made its way around the skirts of Snow Common.