On the borders of the Lincolnshire fens, half-way between Stamford and
Peterborough, stands the little village of Helpston. One Helpo, a
so-called 'stipendiary knight,' but of whom the old chronicles know
nothing beyond the bare title, exercised his craft here in the Norman
age, and left his name sticking to the marshy soil. But the ground was
alive with human craft and industry long before the Norman knights came
prancing into the British Isles. A thousand years before the time of
stipendiary Helpo, the Romans built in this neighbourhood their
Durobrivae, which station must have been of great importance, judging
from the remains, not crushed by the wreck of twenty centuries. Old urns,
and coins bearing the impress of many emperors, from Trajan to Valens,
are found everywhere below ground, while above the Romans left a yet
nobler memento of their sojourn in the shape of good roads. Except the
modern iron highways, these old Roman roads form still the chief means of
intercommunication at this border of the fen regions. For many
generations after Durobrivae had been deserted by the imperial legions,
the country went downward in the scale of civilization. Stipendiary and
other unhappy knights came in shoals; monks and nuns settled in swarms,
like crows, upon the fertile marsh lands; but the number of labouring
hands began to decrease as acre after acre got into the possession of
mail-clad barons and mitred abbots. The monks, too, vanished in time, as
well as the fighting knights; yet the face of the land remained silent
and deserted, and has remained so to the present moment. The traveller
from the north can see, for thirty miles over the bleak and desolate fen
regions, the stately towers of Burleigh Hall--but can see little else
beside. All the country, as far as eye can reach, is the property of two
or three noble families, dwelling in turreted halls; while the bulk of
the population, the wretched tillers of the soil, live, as of old, in mud
hovels, in the depth of human ignorance and misery. An aggregate of about
a hundred of these hovels, each containing, on the average, some four
living beings, forms the village of Helpston. The place, in all
probability, is still very much of the same outer aspect which it bore in
the time of Helpo, the mystic stipendiary knight.
Helpston consists of two streets, meeting at right angles, the main
thoroughfare being formed by the old Roman road from Durobrivae to the
north, now full of English mud, and passing by the name of Long Ditch, or
High Street. At the meeting of the two streets stands an ancient cross,
of octangular form, with crocketed pinnacles, and not far from it, on
slightly rising ground, is the parish church, a somewhat unsightly
structure, of all styles of architecture, dedicated to St. Botolph.
Further down stretch, in unbroken line, the low huts of the farm
labourers, in one of which, lying on the High Street, John Clare was
born, on the 13th July, 1793. John Clare's parents were among the poorest
of the village, as their little cottage was among the narrowest and most
wretched of the hundred mud hovels. Originally, at the time when the
race of peasant-proprietors had not become quite extinct, a rather roomy
tenement, it was broken up into meaner quarters by subsequent landlords,
until at last the one house formed a rookery of not less than four human
dwellings. In this fourth part of a hut lived the father and mother of
John, old Parker Clare and his wife. Poor as were their neighbours, they
were poorer than the rest, being both weak and in ill health, and partly
dependent upon charity. The very origin of Parker Clare's family was
founded in misery and wretchedness. Some thirty years previous to the
birth of John, there came into Helpston a big, swaggering fellow, of no
particular home, and, as far as could be ascertained, of no particular
name: a wanderer over the earth, passing himself off, now for an
Irishman, and now for a Scotchman. He had tramped over the greater part
of Europe, alternately fighting and playing the fiddle; and being tired
awhile of tramping, and footsore and thirsty withal, he resolved to
settle for a few weeks, or months, at the quiet little village. The place
of schoolmaster happened to be vacant, perhaps had been vacant for years;
and the villagers were overjoyed when they heard that this noble
stranger, able to play the fiddle, and to drink a gallon of beer at a
sitting, would condescend to teach the A B C to their children. So
'Master Parker,' as the great unknown called himself for the nonce, was
duly installed schoolmaster of Helpston: The event, taking place sometime
about the commencement of the reign of King George the Third, marks the
first dawn of the family history of John Clare.
The tramping schoolmaster had not been many days in the village before he
made the acquaintance of a pretty young damsel, daughter of the
parish-clerk. She came daily to wind the church clock, and for this
purpose had to pass through the schoolroom, where sat Master Parker,
teaching the A B C and playing the fiddle at intervals. He was as clever
with his tongue as with his fiddlestick, the big schoolmaster; and while
helping the sweet little maiden to wind the clock in the belfry, he told
her wonderful tales of his doings in foreign lands, and of his travels
through many countries. And now the old, old story, as ancient as the
hills, was played over again once more. It was no very difficult task for
the clever tramp to win the heart of the poor village girl; and the rest
followed as may be imagined. When spring and summer was gone, and the
cold wind came blowing over the fen, the poor little thing told her lover
that she was in the way of becoming a mother, and, with tears in her
eyes, entreated him to make her his wife. He promised to do so, the
tramping schoolmaster; but early the next day he left the village, never
to return. Then there was bitter lamentation in the cottage of the
parish-clerk; and before the winter was gone, the poor man's daughter
brought into the world a little boy, whom she gave her own family name,
together with the prefixed one of the unworthy father. Such was the
origin of Parker Clare.
What sort of existence this poor son of a poor mother went through, is
easily told. Education he had none; of joys of childhood he knew nothing;
even his daily allowance of coarse food was insufficient. He thus grew
up, weak and in ill-health; but with a cheerful spirit nevertheless.
Parker Clare knew more songs than any boy in the village, and his stock
of ghost stories and fairy tales was quite inexhaustible. When grown into
manhood, and yet not feeling sufficiently strong for the harder labours
of the field, he took service as a shepherd, and was employed by his
masters to tend their flocks in the neighbourhood, chiefly in the plains
north of the village, known as Helpston Heath. In this way, he became
acquainted with the herdsman of the adjoining township of Castor, a man
named John Stimson, whose cattle was grazing right over the walls of
ancient Durobrivae. John Stimson's place was taken, now and then, by his
daughter Ann--an occurrence not unwelcome to Parker Clare; and while the
sheep were grazing on the borders of Helpo's Heath, and the cattle
seeking for sorrel and clover over the graves of Trajan's warriors, the
young shepherd and shepherdess talked sweet things to each other,
careless of flocks and herds, of English knights and Roman emperors. So
it came that one morning Ann told her father that she had promised to
marry Parker Clare. Old John Stimson thought it a bad match: 'when
poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window,' he said,
fortified by the wisdom of two score ten. But when was ever such wisdom
listened to at eighteen!
The girl resolved to marry her lover with or without leave; and as for
Parker Clare, he needed no permission, his mother, dependent for years
upon the cold charity of the workhouse, having long ceased to control his
doings. Thus it followed that in the autumn of 1792, when Robespierre was
ruling France, and William Pitt England, young Parker Clare was married
to Ann Stimson of Castor. Seven months after, on the 13th day of July,
1793, Parker Clare's wife was delivered, prematurely, of twins, a boy and
a girl. The girl was healthy and strong; but the boy looked weak and
sickly in the extreme. It seemed not possible that the boy could live,
therefore the mother had him baptized immediately, calling him John,
after her father. However, human expectations were not verified in the
twin children; the strong girl died in early infancy, while the sickly
boy lived--lived to be a poet.
Of _Poeta nascitur non fit_ there never was a truer instance than in the
case of John Clare. Impossible to imagine circumstances and scenes
apparently more adverse to poetic inspiration than those amidst which
John Clare was placed at his birth. His parents were the poorest of the
poor; their whole aim of life being engrossed by the one all-absorbing
desire to gain food for their daily sustenance. They lived in a narrow
wretched hut, low and dark, more like a prison than a human dwelling; and
the hut stood in a dark, gloomy plain, covered with stagnant pools of
water, and overhung by mists during the greater part of the year. Yet
from out these surroundings sprang a being to whom all life was golden,
and all nature a breath of paradise. John Clare was a poet almost as soon
as he awoke to consciousness. His young mind marvelled at all the
wonderful things visible in the wide world: the misty sky, the green
trees, the fish in the water, and the birds in the air. In all the things
around him the boy saw nothing but endless, glorious beauty; his whole
mind was filled with a deep sense of the infinite marvels of the living
world. Though but in poor health, the parents were never able to keep
little John at home. He trotted the lifelong day among the meadows and
fields, watching the growth of herbs and flowers, the chirping of
insects, the singing of birds, and the rustling of leaves in the air. One
day, when still very young, the sight of the distant horizon, more than
usually defined in sharp outline, brought on a train of contemplation. A
wild yearning to see what was to be seen yonder, where the sky was
touching the earth, took hold of him, and he resolved to explore the
distant, unknown region. He could not sleep a wink all night for eager
expectation, and at the dawn of the day the next morning started on his
journey, without saying a word to either father or mother. It was a hot
day in June, the air close and sultry, with gossamer mists hanging thick
over the stagnant pools and lakes. The little fellow set out without food
on his long trip, fearful of being retained by his watchful parents.
Onward he trotted, mile after mile, towards where the horizon seemed
nearest; and it was a long while before he found that the sky receded the
further he went. At last he sank down from sheer exhaustion, hungry and
thirsty, and utterly perplexed as to where he should go. Some labourers
in the fields, commiserating the forlorn little wanderer, gave him a
crust of bread, and started him on his home journey. It was late at night
when he returned to Helpston, where he found his parents in the greatest
anxiety, and had to endure a severe punishment for his romantic
excursion. Little John Clare did not mind the beating; but a long while
after felt sad and sore at heart to have been unable to find the
hoped-for country where heaven met earth.
The fare of agricultural labourers in these early days of John Clare was
much worse than at the present time. Potatoes and water-porridge
constituted the ordinary daily food of people in the position of Clare's
parents, and they thought themselves happy when able to get a piece of
wheaten bread, with perhaps a small morsel of pork, on Sundays. At this
height of comfort, however, Parker Clare and his wife seldom arrived.
Sickly from his earliest childhood, Parker Clare had never been really
able to perform the work required of him, though using his greatest
efforts to do so. A few years after marriage, his infirmities increased
to such an extent that he was compelled to seek relief from the parish,
and henceforth he remained more or less a pauper for life.
Notwithstanding this low position, Parker Clare did not cease to care for
the well-being of his family, and, by the greatest privations on his own
part, managed to send his son to an infant school. The school in question
was kept by a Mrs. Bullimore, and of the most primitive kind. In the
winter time, all the little ones were crowded together in a narrow room;
but as soon as the weather got warm, the old dame turned them out into
the yard, where the whole troop squatted down on the ground. The teaching
of Mrs. Bullimore did not make much impression upon little John, except a
slight fact which she accidentally told him, and which took such firm
hold of his imagination that he remembered it all his life. There was a
white-thorn tree in the school-yard, of rather large size, and the
ancient schoolmistress told John that she herself, when young, had
planted the tree, having carried the root from the fields in her pocket.
The story struck the boy as something marvellous; it was to him a sort of
revelation of nature, a peep into the mysteries of creation at the works
of which he looked with feelings of unutterable amazement, not unmixed
with awe. But there was little else that Mrs. Bullimore could teach John
Clare, either in her schoolroom or in the yard. The instruction of the
good old woman was, in the main, confined to two things--the initiation
into the difficulties of A B C, and the reading from two books, of which
she was the happy possessor. These books were 'The Death of Abel' and
Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Their contents did not stir any thoughts
or imaginings in little John, whose mind was filled entirely with the
pictures of nature.
When John Clare had reached his seventh year, he was taken away from the
dame-school, and sent out to tend sheep and geese on Helpston Heath. The
change was a welcome one to him, for, save the mysterious white-thorn
tree, there was nothing at school to attract him. Helpston Heath, on the
other hand, furnished what seemed to him a real teacher. While tending
his geese, John came into daily contact with Mary Bains, an ancient lady,
filling the dignified post of cowherd of the village, and driving her
cattle into the pastures annually from May-day unto Michaelmas. She was
an extraordinary old creature, this Mary Bains, commonly known as Granny
Bains. Having spent almost her whole life out of doors, in heat and cold,
storm and rain, she had come to be intimately acquainted with all the
signs foreboding change of weather, and was looked upon by her
acquaintances as a perfect oracle. She had also a most retentive memory,
and being of a joyous nature, with a bodily frame that never knew
illness, had learnt every verse or melody that was sung within her
hearing, until her mind became a very storehouse of songs. To John, old
Granny Bains soon took a great liking, he being a devout listener, ready
to sit at her feet for hours and hours while she was warbling her little
ditties, alternately merry and plaintive. Sometimes the singing had such
an effect that both the ancient songstress and her young admirer forgot
their duties over it. Then, when the cattle went straying into the pond,
and the geese were getting through the corn, Granny Bains would suddenly
cease singing, and snatching up her snuff-box, hobble across the fields
in wild haste, with her two dogs at her side as respectful aides-de-camp,
and little John bringing up the rear. But though often disturbed in the
enjoyment of those delightful recitations, they nevertheless sunk deep
into John Clare's mind, until he found himself repeating all day long the
songs he had heard, and even in his dreams kept humming--
'There sat two ravens upon a tree,
Heigh down, derry, O!
There sat two ravens upon a tree,
As deep in love as he and she.'
It was thus that the admiration of poetry first awoke in Parker Clare's
son, roused by the songs of Granny Bains, the cowherd of Helpston.
JOHN CLARE LEARNS THRESHING, AND MAKES AN ATTEMPT TO BECOME A LAWYER'S
CLERK.
The extreme poverty of Parker Clare and his wife compelled them to put
their son to hard work earlier than is usual even in country places. John
was their only son; of four children born to them, only he and a little
sister, some six years younger, having remained alive; and it was
necessary, therefore, that he should contribute to the maintenance of the
family, otherwise dependent upon parish relief. Consequently, John was
sent to the farmer's to thrash before he was twelve years old, his father
making him a small flail suited to his weak arms. The boy was not only
willing, but most eager to work, his anxious desire being to assist his
poor parents in procuring the daily bread. However, his bodily strength
was not equal to his will. After a few months' work in the barn, and
another few months behind the plough, he came home very ill, having
caught the tertiary ague in the damp, ill-drained fields. Then there was
anxious consulting in the little cottage what to do next. The miserable
allowance from 'the union' was insufficient to purchase even the
necessary quantity of potatoes and rye-bread for the household, and, to
escape starvation,--it was absolutely necessary that John should go to
work again, whatever his strength. So he dragged himself from his bed of
sickness, and took once more to the plough, the kind farmer consenting to
his leading the horses on the least heavy ground. The weather was dry for
a season, and John rallied wonderfully, so as to be able to do some
extra-work, and earn a few pence, which he saved carefully for
educational purposes. And when the winter came round, and there was
little work in the fields, he made arrangements with the schoolmaster at
Glinton, a man famed far and wide, to become his pupil for five evenings
in the week, and for as many more days as he might be out of employment.
The trial of education was carried on to John Clare's highest
satisfaction, as well as that of his parents, who proclaimed aloud that
their son was going to be a scholar.
Glinton, a small village of about three hundred inhabitants, stands some
four or five miles east of Helpston, bordering on the Peterborough Great
Fen. It was famous in Clare's time, and is famous still, for its
educational establishments, there being three daily schools in the place,
one of them endowed. The school to which John went, was presided over by
a Mr. James Merrishaw. He was a thin, tall old man, with long white hair
hanging down his coat-collar, in the fashion of bygone days. It was his
habit to take extensive walks, for miles around the country, moving
forward with long strides, and either talking to himself or humming soft
tunes; on which account his pupils styled him 'the bumble-bee.' The old
man was passionately fond of music, and devoted every minute spared from
school duties and his long walks, to his violin. To the more promising of
his pupils Mr. James Merrishaw showed great kindness, allowing them,
among other things, the run of his library, somewhat larger than that of
ordinary village schoolmasters. John Clare had not been many times to
Glinton, before he was enrolled among these favourites of Mr. Merrishaw.
Being able already to read, through his own exertions, based on the
fundamental principles instilled by Dame Bullimore, little John dived
with delight into the treasures opened at the Glinton school, never tired
to go through the somewhat miscellaneous book stores of Mr. Merrishaw. In
a short while, the young student was seized with a real hunger for
knowledge. He toiled day and night to perfect himself, not only in
reading and writing, but in some impossible things which he had taken
into his head to learn, such as algebra and mathematics. Coming home late
at night, from his long walk to school, he astonished and not a little
perplexed his poor parents by crouching down before the fire, and
tracing, in the faint glimmer of a burning log, incomprehensible signs
upon bits of paper, or sometimes pieces of wood. Far too poor to buy even
the commonest kind of writing paper, John was in the habit of picking up
shreds of the same material, such as used by grocers and other village
shopkeepers, and to scratch thereon his signs and figures, sometimes with
a pencil, but oftener with a piece of charcoal. Perhaps there never was a
more unfavourable study of mathematics and algebra.
For two winters and part of a wet summer, John Clare went to Mr.
Merrishaw's school at Glinton, during short intervals of hard labour in
the fields. At the end of this period a curious accident seemed to give a
sudden turn to his prospects in life. A maternal uncle, called Morris
Stimson, one day made his appearance at Helpston, having been previously
on a visit to his father and sisters at Castor. Uncle Morris was looked
upon as a very grand personage, he holding the post of footman to a
lawyer at Wisbeach, and as such clad in the finest plush and broadcloth.
Being duly reverenced, the splendid uncle in his turn thought it his duty
to patronize his humble friends, and accordingly was kind enough to offer
little John a situation in his master's office. There was a vacancy for a
clerk at Wisbeach, and Uncle Morris was sure his nephew was just the man
to fill it. John himself thought otherwise; but was immediately overruled
in his opinion by father, mother, and uncle. A boy who had been to Mr.
Merrishaw's for ever so many evenings; who could read a chapter from the
Bible as well as the parson, and who was drawing figures upon paper night
after night: why, he was fit enough to be not only a lawyer's clerk, but,
if need be, a minister of the church. So they argued, and it was settled
that John should go to Wisbeach, and be duly installed as a clerk in the
office just above the pantry in which dwelt Uncle Morris. Mr. Morris
Stimson did not stop at Helpston longer than a day; but, before leaving,
made careful arrangements that his nephew should follow him to Wisbeach
precisely at the end of seven days.
Those were stirring seven days in the little hut of Parker Clare. The
poor mother, anxious to assist to the best of her power in her son's rise
in life, ransacked her scanty wardrobe to the utmost, to put John in what
she deemed a proper dress. She mended all his clothes as neatly as
possible; she made him a pair of breeches out of an old dress, and a
waistcoat from a shawl; and then ran up and down the village to get a few
more necessary things, including an old white necktie, and a pair of
black woollen gloves. Thus equipped, John Clare started for Wisbeach one
Friday morning in spring--date not discoverable, but supposed to be
somewhere about the year 1807. The poor mother cried bitterly when John
shook hands for the last time at the bottom of the village; the father
tried hard to hide his tears, but did not succeed; and John himself,
light-hearted at first, had a good cry when he turned his face at Elton,
and got a final glimpse of the steeple of Helpston church. Beyond Elton
John Clare had never been in his life, and it was with some sort of
trembling, mixed with a strong feeling of homesickness, that he inquired
his way to Peterborough. His confusion was great when he found that the
people stared at him on the road; and stared the more the nearer he
approached the episcopal city. No doubt, a thin, pale, little boy, stuck
in a threadbare coat which he had long outgrown, and the sleeves of which
were at his elbows; with a pair of breeches a world too large for his
slender legs; with a many-coloured waistcoat, an immense pair of woollen
gloves, a white necktie, and a hat half a century old, was a rare sight,
even in the fen country. Poor John, therefore, had to march into
Peterborough followed by the curious eyes of a hundred male and female
idlers, who opened doors and windows to see him pass along. Happily the
trial was not a long one, for, having discovered his way to the Wisbeach
boat, he ran to it as fast as his legs would carry him, and, fairly on
board, ensconced himself behind a bale of goods. Oh, how he repented
having ever left Helpston, in the fatal ambition of becoming a lawyer's
clerk!
The journey from Peterborough to Wisbeach, in those days, was by a Dutch
canal boat--a long narrow kind of barge, drawn by one horse, with a large
saloon in front for common passengers, and a little room for a possible
select company behind, near the steersman. The boat only ran once a week,
on Friday, from Peterborough to Wisbeach, returning the following Sunday;
and, as far as it went, the passage was cheap as well as convenient--the
charge for the whole distance of twenty-one miles being but
eighteen-pence. But John Clare, fond though he was of water, and trees,
and green fields, did not much enjoy the river journey, his heart being
big with thoughts of the future. What the great lawyer to whom he was
going would say, and what replies he should make, were matters uppermost
in his mind. To prepare for the dreaded interview John at last set
himself to compose an elaborate speech, on the model of one which he had
seen in the 'Royal Magazine' at Mr. Merrishaw's school. The speech,
however, was not quite ready when the boat stopped at Wisbeach, landing
John Clare, together with the other passengers. One more source of
trouble had to be overcome here. When the young traveller inquired for
the house of Mr. Councillor Bellamy, the people, instead of replying,
stared at him. 'Mr. Councillor Bellamy? _You_ are not going to Mr.
Bellamy's house?' said more than one of the Wisbeach citizens, until poor
John got fairly frightened. He was still more frightened when he at last
arrived before the house of Mr. Councillor, and found that it was a
stately building, bigger and nobler-looking than any he had ever entered
in his life. He had not courage enough to ring the bell or knock at the
door, but stood irresolute at the threshold. At last John ventured a
faint tap at the door; and, luckily, Uncle Morris appeared in answer to
the summons, and welcomed the visitor by leading him down into the
kitchen, where the board was spread. 'I have told master about your
arrival,' said Uncle Morris; 'and meanwhile sit down to a cup of tea. Do
not hang your head, but look up boldly, and tell him what you can do.'
John sat down to the table, yet was unable to eat anything, in fear and
trembling of the things to come. It was not long before Mr. Councillor
Bellamy made his appearance. Poor John tried hard to keep his head erect
as ordered, and made a convulsive effort to deliver himself of the first
sentences of his prepared speech. But the words stuck in his throat.
'Aye, aye; so this is your nephew, Morris?' now said Mr. Councillor
Bellamy, addressing his footman. 'Yes, sir,' replied the faithful
servant; 'and a capital scholar he is, sir.' Mr. Councillor glanced at
the 'scholar' from the country--at his white necktie, his little coat,
and his large breeches. 'Aye, aye; so this is your nephew,' Mr.
Councillor repeated, rubbing his hands; 'well, I _may_ see him again.'
With this Uncle Morris's master left the room. He left it not to return;
and John Clare had never in his life the honour of seeing Mr. Councillor
Bellamy again. There next came an order from the upper regions to make
Morris's nephew comfortable till Sunday morning, and to put him, at that
time, on board the Peterborough boat for the return journey. The behest
of Mr. Councillor was duly executed, and John Clare, on the following
Sunday evening, after three days' absence, again walked into his father's
cottage at Helpston, a happier and a wiser lad. He had discovered the
great truth that he was not fit for the profession of the law.