The Ballad of John Clare

by Hugh Lupton

  “Ay,” said Sam Billings. “And not for the first time.”

  He adjusted his drum straps.

  “By the way,” he looked round at the others as they were packing their instruments away, “Did anyone clap eyes on Kitty or Otter?”

  “No.”

  “They weren’t here …they’d have surely come and passed the time of day.”

  “That’s most odd,” said Sam. “They always come to Eastwell …without fail.”

  “I saw Otter last week,” said Jonathan, “he came to my shop for wood-shavings, as he often does when I’ve been planing a coffin. He was fit as a fiddle then.”

  Sam Billings frowned.

  “There’s something makes me uneasy. If I didn’t have to drive my baker’s dozen home to Deeping, I’d ride out to Snow Common now and make sure of ‘em.”

  He pushed his drum sticks into his belt.

  “Tomorrow’s a holiday though, I’ll go over in the morning.”

  “And I’ll come with ye,” said Dick Turnill.

  “And so will I,” said John Clare, glad of any way to fill a holiday that would keep his thoughts from Mary.

  “Alright then, I’ll pick you both up at Woodgate. At nine of the morning.”

  John, Dick and Sam Billings were walking ahead now. Jonathan and Betsy had fallen behind. The Eastwell Gate was pushed shut behind them as they stepped into the lane. The church clock was striking five. They could hear the clank of a chain and the clicking of a padlock as Ralph Wormstall’s cowman locked it.

  Jonathan was summoning all his mettle. He swung the weight of his instrument from one shoulder to the other.

  “Betsy.”

  She turned to him and smiled most demur.

  “Ay.”

  “I know you and I ain’t in the first flush of youth, and courtin’ might seem a foolish thing as we’d put behind us long ago.”

  She seemed to him to blush.

  “But would you consider walking out with me tomorrow afternoon. We could take a turn in Royce’s Wood, or take the coach to Stamford or …”

  “Thank you Jonathan Burbridge. I should like that very much …”

  She smiled at him more fully, and any sense that she was rallying against the buffetings of her misfortune were most artfully concealed behind that smile.

  “ …Very much indeed.”

  *******

  Easter Monday broke clear and fine, for the weather seldom gives away the secrets of the day. And it was a bright spring morning when Sam Billings reined Billy to a halt outside the Clare’s cottage. John and Dick Turnill had been sitting on the step awhile waiting for him.

  Dick had put his arm around John’s shoulder:

  “You seem a little down at heart these days John.”

  John had shrugged and said nothing.

  “It’s Mary … ain’t it? It’s weeks since I’ve seen you walk to Glinton.”

  “Ay.”

  He kicked a stone.

  “Did something happen between ye?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “That don’t explain much.”

  John sighed:

  “I wish I could unfathom it, Dick. She’ll have nothing of me and I don’t know why.”

  “But that ain’t like Mary …she’s such an open-hearted … such a spirited girl.”

  John buried his face in his hands.

  “Maybe it’s a judgement Dick …”

  “Now you’re sounding like my father!”

  “There are things I cannot understand, and things I cannot tell …”

  It was at that moment that Sam Billings had interrupted them:

  “Whoaaa …Good boy.”

  He looked down from the seat of the cart:

  “Climb up lads!”

  They climbed up and sat to either side of him. He shook the reins and they rattled along Woodgate, Sam sandwiched between John and Dick like a toby-jug between two pewter mugs on a mantleshelf. The sun warmed them. The rooks in Royce’s Wood were noisy in their ragged settlements, and behind the white veils of blackthorn blossom the hedgerow birds were busy with moss, twig, wool and hair, each fashioning its own nest according to ancient custom.

  John’s eyes darted from left to right, for although his spirits are low he relishes the busy industry of the hedges and all the scurrying insects that follow their courses and seem to know nothing of the seasons of the heart.

  As they moved away from the village the old ragged bushes gave way to fences and hedges of quick-set, and the road straightened as though a dropped ribbon had been pulled taut.

  “’Tis kinder weather than when you and I last drove the cart this way, John.” Said Sam.

  “Ay.”

  John nodded, though last December’s chill had held more of kindness for him than this April sunshine could ever hold.

  Then Dick put his hand on Sam Billings’ shoulder and stood. He sheltered his eyes from the sun and peered across the newly divided fields.

  “There he is!”

  “Who?” Said Sam.

  “My father.”

  “What, today of all days, when he could be taking his ease?”

  “It ain’t a sabbath,” said Dick, “so he’s been out since first light with his seed-lip at his waist.”

  Sam stopped the horse and Dick stood on tip-toe:

  “Here he comes look, and there’s poor mother at the field’s edge with a sack of corn to reload him.”

  All three of them stood up in the cart and peered over the hedges. Two fields away they could see Bob Turnill marching across the ploughed field towards them, his eyes were fixed ahead as though he was a soldier on parade. His step was to a steady measure. His hand dipped into the seed-lip, and then his arm swung out and scattered the grain first to the left and then to the right, then left and right again. When one hand was empty he lifted it to eye-height and dropped it into the lip just as the other hand swung out and scattered its seed.

  “He’d make a steady drummer Sam.”

  “He would Dick …but why don’t he get one of the proper sowers to do the job for him …Richard Royce or Jim Crowson or Jack Ward?”

  Dick sighed:

  “He has no wage to pay them.”

  They all sat down, Sam shook the reins and they trundled on again. For a while nothing was said. Then Sam turned to Dick:

  “I hear rumours that Mr Bull has been knocking at your father’s door and offering money for his entitlement.”

  “Ay,” Dick pressed his hands to his forehead, “he was urging what he calls his ‘sound proposition’ upon him again yesterday after church …But you know father, he would not speak of mammon on the Sabbath …least of all on Easter Sunday …”

  Dick stopped suddenly, as though he had already spoken more than he should. Sam Billings put his fat arm around Dick’s shoulder:

  “Don’t worry Dick, old mother tittle-tattle shall bite her tongue. I’ll not speak a word of it.”

  Dick smiled, part in gratitude and part in sorrow. They turned into Torpel Way. He looked down at his knees. There was more he could have told, but he chose to keep his council.

  When they came to the edge of Snow Common Sam whistled between his teeth.

  “Someone has been at work here.”

  The slats had been hammered to the posts. There was a new fence running along the edge of the road for the full length of the common. Inside it Mrs Elizabeth Wright’s cattle were grazing on the tussocky grass.

  “By God, she might have lost a husband and then a brother, but she ain’t called a halt to the enclosing of the common.”

  They clambered down from the cart. Sam tied Billy to the fence. John ran his hand along the wood. It was new-splintered and smelling of resin.

  “Look,” said Dick, “there’s a sign. Over there. On that post.”

  He pointed to the left. They strolled along the lane to take a closer look.

  Sam Billings sucked the breath in between his teeth.

  Each stood and read the words silently t
o himself. Then Dick spoke them aloud:

  “Private Property. Trespassers will be Prosecuted.”

  “That’s the sum of it,” said Sam Billings, “that’s the long and the short of it.”

  He put a hand to the sign and used it to pull himself up onto the fence. He swung one of his legs over the top. It creaked with his weight.

  “Come on lads, if Mrs Wright won’t forgive us our bloody trespasses there’s others as will.”

  He trudged away over the common. Dick and John climbed over and hurried after him. The cattle followed them at a distance, skipping and sniffing, kicking the mole-hills, delighting to be outside in the fresh air after their long winter’s confinement in the barns.

  As they threaded between blackthorn bushes and clumps of hazel trees the clean April air began to mingle with another, darker smell. It was the smell of burning, the smell of charred wood and scorched grass. They quickened their pace. Where the rounded form of the Otters squat should have risen above the bushes there was a pall of thin, acrid smoke. They broke into a run and soon found themselves standing at the edge of a blackened circle, a round smouldering heap of black ashes. Where the mottled hill of wood and canvas, leather and turf had stood there was the last smoking remnant of a great bonfire.

  “Look at this. We don’t need no Boneparte to wreak his devastation, we can do it to ourselves.”

  Sam Billings waded boot-deep into the warm ash. He kicked it into the air. There was nothing left, just a few pieces of charred timber that smoked a little fiercer with the sudden rush of air. All the Otter’s possessions, their kettles, buckets, pans, knives, baskets, sickles and the rest were gone. There was neither sight nor sign of Kitty’s geese.

  Sam reached down and picked up a piece of white clay pipe stem. He put it to his lips and blew through it. He dropped it into his pocket.

  “Bob Turnill ain’t the only one’s been at work this Easter when all eyes are turned elsewhere …”

  He kicked a piece of black canvas into the air. It glowed red at its margin.

  “Though I reckon this was Sabbath work.”

  He spat into the ash.

  “It’s the best part of a day since this lot went up in flames.”

  Sam followed the well-trodden track from the Otter’s door-way down to the stream that winds across the common. All along the edge of it the pollarded willows lay on their sides, felled and stretched out to show that their wounds of red paint had been mortal ones. The hollow dotterel lay shattered also, the hopeful new-budding leaves on its branches unfolding still, not having yet been told the news of their own death.

  Sam washed the ash from his boots with fistfuls of wet grass.

  “What about Otter and Kitty?” Said Dick.

  Sam shrugged.

  “Gone, I reckon. They’ve took what they could and flitted … the pair of ‘em …God knows where.”

  He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  John Clare stood and stared and, wordless, took inside himself the pitiless devastation of it all.

  Sam Billings turned his back on John and Dick and trudged back to the cart. They couldn’t see how his round cheeks were wet with an impotent and sorrowful fury. They trailed behind him. By the time they climbed up beside him on the cart every teardrop had been mopped away.

  “Go on Billy!”

  He shook the reins.

  “Good boy!”

  Then he whispered, half to himself, half to John and Dick:

  “The law will hang the man or woman

  Who takes a goose from off the common,

  But lets the greater thief go loose

  Who takes the common from the goose.”

  Sam Billings sighed:

  “Ay.”

  And then he whistled the same tune over and over to his horse as they rattled back to Helpston. And there was little else exchanged between the three of them but the mindless rise and fall of ‘Begone Dull Care’.

  17

  Rogation Sunday 1812

  Three nights ago John came home unsteady with ale from the Bluebell. He was chastised by Parker and Ann for frittering his wages away, and with good reason for he has little to show for his winter’s work save a new coat. He pulled a stool to the fire and nodded and waited for their thorny admonishments to cease their echoing clatter and exhaust themselves into stillness.

  “Ay, think on it John,” said Ann. “It’s been an easy winter for you with the enclosure work, but it won’t last far beyond the spring, and then it’ll be back to the old story. You need to keep something for the hard times.”

  “And think about a trade son,” said Parker, “you’ve a head for letters and figures. There must be a job out there somewhere … you take care or you’ll find yourself like me, threshing for farthings when you’re stiff and creaking with age.”

  He got up and cut John a slice of bread. He put it onto a wooden platter and dropped it onto John’s knee.

  “Get that down ye boy, it’ll lend ballast to the ale.”

  He ruffled John’s hair with his hand.

  “I know you’ve had a peck of sorrow these months John … but you’re young and the world beckons.”

  He lit his pipe. Ann picked up her knitting needles.

  John ate and then put his platter onto the floor. He sighed and said nothing. He went across to his cubby-hole and reached inside. He pulled out the battered volume he’d bought at Bridge Fair. One of its loose pages fluttered onto the floor.

  Sophie was sitting by the fire hugging her knees. John’s unhappiness seemed an affront to all her sound advice. Now she jumped to her feet and ran across the room. She picked up the piece of paper and thrust it into John’s hand. She leaned forwards and whispered fiercely into his ear:

  “If only you’d listened to me, John, things would have been otherwise.”

  He looked at her untroubled face that still had more of child than woman upon its smooth features. He squeezed her hand and whispered back:

  “That’s as maybe, Soph’.”

  There was a sharp knock at the door. Parker got stiffly to his feet. He crossed the room, pulled back the bolt and lifted the latch. At first there seemed to be no one there, there was nothing but the scrubbed doorstep before his eyes. But then, all of a sudden, a figure stepped out of the shadows to one side of the doorway and slipped into the cottage with a rustle of skirts.

  “Gracious sakes,” cried Ann Clare, “’Tis Lettuce Boswell!”

  Lettuce put her finger to her lips:

  “Shhhhh. Don’t speak my name. There’s no haven for any Boswell these days, for all are tarred by one brush.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “I ain’t asking to.”

  She pulled a stool to the fire and settled herself with her big basket between her feet. She pushed the black hair from her craggy face and pulled a pipe from her pocket. Parker offered her a fill of tobacco. Ann frowned at him and shook her head but he took little notice.

  “Thank you kindly.”

  She pulled a spill from her pocket and held it to a candle. She put the flame to the pipe bowl and filled her mouth with smoke.

  “Where are ye staying?”

  She gestured with her pipe stem:

  “Out beyond Bainton. On the Heath.”

  Parker nodded.

  “Ay I know it …You’ve heard they’ve fenced off Landyke Bush?”

  “So they tell me, but you won’t be seein’ the Boswell crew in Helpston no more.”

  Then Parker put the question that was forming in all of their minds:

  “But you ain’t all at Bainton? Not the whole crew?”

  She threw back her head and cackled with laughter.

  “With every hok-hornie-mush with his nose to our scent! Lord have mercy we are not. ‘Tis only me and little Liskey Smith. The rest are gone across the boro pawnee …ay, an we hope to be joining them afore too long.”

  And John, who had been listening to every word and hoping for some news of Wisdom lean
ed forwards then:

  “Over the water? Where are they gone?”

  “They took a big bero John, two months since. They are gone to Americay. And I pray that they are safe landed for Boneyparte is still playing skittles upon land and sea, and bolder they say than ever …and that’s why I’ve come this night …for I won’t be this-aways no more …I’ve something for thee, chal …Wisdom give it to me to pass on to thee. He found someone as knows his letters as has writ down his words to thee.”

  She rummaged in her basket and pulled out a scrap of grey folded paper. She pressed it into John’s hand.

  He held it to the candle-light and read aloud:

  “Farewell my brother who I shall not ever forget.”

  Lettuce Boswell nodded and got to her feet.

  “Ay chal, that’s the way of it, and your tears say all as needs to be said.”

  She picked up her basket and turned towards the door.

  “I’ll bid ye’all farewell.”

  She put her hand to the latch, then turned again.

  “Oh, and I was forgetting, one thing more. We was sitting by the fire at Bainton one evening a few weeks since, and who should come a-stepping between the bushes but old white-beard and his missus as used to squat on the common.”

  “Old Otter and Kitty!”

  “Ay, the very same, and we could not help but laugh. Each had a pole across their shoulders as a yoke, and clinkin’ and clankin’ from it there was pots and pans and kettles and baskets and all sorts tied with twine. And following behind them a flock of white geese stepping in a line as solemn as goslings behind a gander and his goose. Our dogs went wild, but those geese stretched out their necks and hissed and’d take no nonsense.”

  “Are they there yet?”

  “No, we welcomed them to our fires, and they stayed one night, but were gone next morn.”

  She pushed open the door, turned into the shadows and disappeared.

  *******

  Yesterday morning was the Rogation walk. John slung his battered fiddle under his arm and made his way with Parker, Ann and Sophie to Butter Cross. The village was gathered. The bells were ringing. Sam, Dick, Jonathan and Betsy were standing on the steps of the cross clutching their instruments of music and stamping the damp chill from their feet. John joined them.