The Ballad of John Clare Read Online Free Page A

bend this way nor that, like a hardwood I reckon, that ain’t stood too long, and with a shapely curve to it.”
    “Well Jonathan,” says Sam, “I reckon I’ve got the very lass for thee.”
    “Who?”
    “She’ll make you a tidy little wife.”
    Sam Billings disappears into the next room and comes back with a piece of broken shelf. He drops it onto Jonathan’s knee.
    “She’s fallen for you already my friend. I’ll get old Mossop to read the banns next Sabbath.”

    *******

    The Clares are gathered round the fire cooking eggs in a skillet that hangs from the chimney hook. Little Sophie stirs them with a wooden spoon. Ann slices hard bread upon the board and John and Parker warm their knees before the flames. No word is spoken between them as the food is spooned onto plates and eaten. John pours some water from a wooden jug into his mug.
    Ann breaks the quiet:
    “Ay, water tonight John, no frittering your wage on ale.”
    John drinks.
    “Now Sophie, mop the yolk from your platter, ’tis time for your bed!”
    They climb the wooden steps and Ann tucks Sophie snug beside the little cot where once poor Bessie slept. Downstairs Parker has thrown some more sticks on the fire. He and John watch the smoke as it’s sucked up the chimney. Ann comes down and picks up her knitting, the ball of coarse woollen yarn on her lap.
    There’s a sudden knocking at the door. Ann puts down her needles. She goes across and lifts the latch. The light of fire and candle shows Wisdom Boswell standing on the threshold. She frowns:
    “Away with ye! You gypsies are steering our John to the bad. There’ll be no drunken capers tonight! There’s them as have to be up wi’ the dawn and earn an honest wage. Away with ye!”
    Parker calls out:
    “Twas only the frolicsomeness of youth Annie, let him in for God’s sake. What are you after lad?”
    Ann still bars the doorway. Wisdom calls past her shoulder.
    “It’s nothing of the ale Mr Clare, I swear on my mother’s grave.”
    Then he looks at Ann with a tender pleading:
    “’Tis a matter of scholarship, Ma’am, your John bein’ a por-engro and master of his ABCs, and none of us Boswells havin’ the skill.”
    Wisdom has struck a tender place, for it is a source of pride to Ann Clare that she should have set aside shillings enough to give John a few months schooling each year when he was a heedless boy. And his skill at mouthing aloud the silent markings of the printed page is a wonder to her yet.
    She sighs and stands aside. Parker beckons to him:
    “Pull a stool up to the fire. Warm thyself.”
    Wisdom fetches a stool and sits down beside John. John turns to him.
    “What is it you’re after?”
    Wisdom hands across a scrap of paper.
    “That game-keeper from Milton, he flung it after me this afternoon, tied to the riddy stone, there are words on it but I cannot unfathom them. Read it for me.”
    Parker Clare chuckles:
    “Will Bloodworth, the man with two sweet-hearts.”
    John holds the scrap with its pencil scratchings to a rush candle:
    “Tis writ in capitals and reads thus:
    ‘I SHALL HAVE SATISFACTION OF THEE
    NO GYPSY WHELP MAKES MOCKERY OF ME’.”
    John passes it to Wisdom who scrunches up the paper in his fist and throws it into the fire. Parker looks across at him:
    “I fear you’ve made an enemy Wisdom Boswell, and of one better left uncrossed.”
    Wisdom shrugs.
    “I meant no harm. ’Twas all in jest. And now he’s tippoty dre mande. And to tell you the truth of the matter, there were lines on that man’s hand that were better left unread.”

2
May Day
    This fortnight last John has worked the gardens of John Close’s farm. Thistle, campion, poppy, fumitory, yellow charlock, pimpernel, groundsel, all must yield to the hoe before they bloom and seed and overwhelm, for all they’re the common flowers that he loves best. But a man must work and John must sentence them as weeds and condemn them to have their green grip upon the soil scratched away. And