Returned to Helpston, Clare made immediate preparations for carrying out
Mr. Taylor's project to become a hawker. He sorted the little parcel of
books which he had brought from London, and having divided the volumes
into sets, each containing the 'Rural Poems,' 'Village Minstrel,' and
'Shepherd's Calendar,' he set out in regular pedlar fashion. By dint of
complex reasoning he had persuaded himself, to his own entire
satisfaction, that the profession of selling would be fully as honourable
as that of writing books; nay, that there was greater merit in being the
distributor than the author, and consequently, that the highest vocation
was that of being both together. He therefore resolved to devote himself
with the greatest energy to his new business, and to leave no stone
unturned to succeed in it. As to his attempt at farming, carried on
during the past year, in a very unprofitable manner, he had already come
to the conclusion to abandon it, by letting the land fall back to the
original tenant. Though in reality more attached to field labour than any
other kind of work, his love of it was for the moment all obscured by the
vision of the brilliant prospects open in the new career as bookseller.
His sufferings from poverty had been so fearful, that the one
all-absorbing aim to him now was that of amassing a small capital and
getting out of debt.
It was on one of the first days in April when Clare commenced his trade
as pedlar. With a dozen volumes of his poems in a canvas bag, slung by a
strap over his shoulders, he bravely issued forth from his little hut,
taking the road to Market Deeping. The people of the village, well
acquainted with all his doings, peeped at him from out of doors and
windows, shaking their heads in wonder at the strange sight. To his
Helpston countrymen, Clare's new calling did not seem at all degrading,
but, on the contrary, too ambitious. They looked upon a bagman as a
person of superior social rank--decidedly higher than a poet. Their
conclusions were fully justified from their own point of view, in a
material sense. The hawkers who passed through Helpston were mostly men
of substance, putting-up at the 'Blue Bell,' and ordering the best of
everything from kitchen and cellar; while the poet among them was a
starving wretch, over head and ears in debt, and with one foot in the
workhouse. When Clare set out as a pedlar, therefore, they all declared
that his ambition was carrying him too high. 'Pride comes before the
fall,' said the old ones, tottering to, the door, and stretching their
necks to get a sight of neighbour John. He took no heed of all the signs
of curiosity, but walked briskly up the road towards the north. The sun
shone bright when he started; but before long it began to rain heavily,
so that he was wet all through when arrived at Market Deeping. According
to his carefully-arranged plan, he first called upon the rector. The
reverend gentleman was at home, and condescended to see the poet. But his
brow darkened when learning the errand of his visitor. He told Clare
sharply that he did not intend buying his poems, and that, moreover, he
held it unbecoming to see them hawked about in this manner. Having said
this, he bowed his visitor out of the room, perceiving that his clothes
were dripping wet, and likely to spoil his carpet. The poor pedlar-poet
left the house with, an ill-suppressed tear in his eye.
It still rained heavily, and Clare took refuge in a covered yard attached
to an inn. There were some horse-dealers lolling about, talking of the
state of the weather and the forthcoming races. One of them, a
jolly-looking man with red hair and a red nose, after scanning Clare for
a while, engaged him in conversation. 'You have got something to sell
there: what is it?' The answer was, 'Books.'--'Whose books?'--'My
own.'--'Yes, I know they are your own; or at least I suppose so. But what
kind of books, and by what author?'--'Poems, written by myself.' The
horse-dealer stared. He looked fixedly at Clare, who was sitting on a
stone, utterly dejected, and scarcely noticing his interlocutor. The
latter seemed to feel stirred by sympathy, and in a more respectful tone
than before exclaimed, 'May I ask your name?'--'My name is John Clare,'
was the reply, pronounced in a faint voice. But the words were no sooner
uttered, when the jolly man with the red nose seized Clare by both hands.
'Well, I am really glad to meet you,' he cried; 'I often heard of you,
and many a time thought of calling at Helpston, but couldn't manage it.'
Then, shouting at the top of his voice to some friends at the farther end
of the yard, he ejaculated, 'Here's John Clare: I've got John Clare.' The
appeal brought a score of horse-jobbers up in a moment. They took hold of
the poet without ceremony, dragged him off his stone, and round the yard
into the back entrance of the inn. 'Brandy hot, or cold?' inquired the
eldest of Clare's friends. There was a refusal under both heads, coupled
with the remark that a cup of tea would be acceptable. An order for it
was given at once, and after a good breakfast, and a long conversation
with his new acquaintances, Clare left the inn, delighted with the
reception he had met with. He had sold all his books, and received for
them more than the full price, several of his customers refusing to take
change. It altogether seemed a good beginning of a good trade.
Nevertheless Clare was uneasy in his mind. Not all the kindness of his
friends at the inn could compensate him for the harsh words he had heard
at the rectory. Clare asked himself whether, supposing Market Deeping to
be a fair sample of the towns which he was going to visit, he would be
able to bear such treatment. And then the words of Allan Cunningham
recurred to his mind, and his noble scorn of the career in which he was
embarking. However, it seemed too late now to repent, having gone beyond
the starting point. The next day, therefore, Clare once more slung his
pack across his shoulders, and sallied forth towards Stamford. He did not
expect to sell any of his books within the town, the market having been
abundantly supplied by Mr. Drury; but he had hopes to meet with some
success among the residents in the neighbourhood, to many of whom he was
personally known. But his hopes were doomed to entire disappointment. He
went to numerous farmhouses, mansions, and parsonages, and everywhere
encountered refusal to purchase his ware. Some persons upon whom he
called treated him politely; others with marked rudeness; and the great
majority with indifference. Nearly all knew him by name, and had heard of
his poems; and nearly all, too, like the rector of Market Deeping,
expressed their surprise that an author should retail his own
productions. One irascible old gentleman, living close to the village of
Easton, told Clare, after some conversation, that he ought to be ashamed
to go through the country with a bundle on his back The poet mildly
suggested that to go with a bundle might be better than to go to the
workhouse--the possible other alternative. There was huge astonishment
depicted in the countenance of the old gentleman, and he furtively left
the room, evidently frightened at having talked with a man likely to go
to the workhouse.
It was late at night when Clare arrived home. He felt footsore, and
fainting almost from hunger and thirst, not one of all the persons whom
he had seen during sixteen hours having offered him as much as a crust of
bread or a glass of water. The next day and the day after he was too ill
to leave home, and remained on his couch, pondering on the subject
uppermost in his mind. A fresh resolve to make still greater efforts to
succeed was the result, come to after anxious consideration. As soon as
recovered, he started again, this time to Peterborough. Though somewhat
afraid of the inmates of the episcopal palace, he was in hopes of
discovering a few friends in the city, having met with several people who
knew his name and admired his writings during his previous short stay at
the 'Red Lion.' Clare, therefore, once more visited this hospitable
tavern, as well as the 'Angel,' but with no result whatever, as far as
the sale of his books was concerned. The people were quite willing to
talk with him for whole hours, and were willing even to pay for such
slight refreshments as he might require; but they would not buy his
books. They did not want poetry, they said; or they did not care for
poetry; or they were, not in the habit of reading poetry. Clare felt very
depressed and sad at heart when starting on his homeward journey, after a
day's ineffectual labour. He had left the 'Angel' inn, and was passing
near the western front of the cathedral, when all on a sudden he found
himself face to face with Mrs. Marsh. The active lady was bustling along
in great haste, but recognised her poet at once. Escape being utterly
impossible, he awaited his fate with resignation. But contrary to his
anticipation, the bishop's wife was not in the least angry or resentful;
she smiled upon him as benignly as if he had never escaped from her
custody at a most trying moment. Clare did not know it at the time, but
discovered afterwards, that Mrs. Marsh was pleased to allow him the
privilege of unlimited eccentricity. That a poet should be playing
fantastic tricks seemed to her the most natural thing in the world;
perhaps she would not have held a man to be a true poet unless invested
with this peculiar gift. Therefore, when Clare ran away in fear of her
grand party, she did not wonder much; only she blamed her servants for
permitting him to run away. That he had taken the coach to London she
knew an hour after he had started; but it was too late to follow him, and
too difficult to look for a single eccentric poet in the streets of the
metropolis. Great now was the joy of Mrs. Marsh that accident threw him
again into her way.
Being questioned as to his present movements, Clare was simple enough,
from a feeling of both diffidence and pride, to hide his actual
occupation. It was the greatest fault he committed in his whole career of
perambulating bookseller, and fatal, in a sense, to his future prospects.
With a better acquaintance of the world and the human heart, he might
have known that Mrs. Marsh would have assisted him in sailing ten times
as many books as he could ever hope to do in his whole life; that she
would have spread his 'Shepherd's Calendar,' like the Catechism, through
the whole diocese of Peterborough, and would have made every clerk in
holy orders, down to the lowest curate, buy the 'Village Minstrel.' But
Clare had no idea how active a friend he possessed in Mrs. Marsh, and
thereby lost the finest opportunity he ever had of succeeding in his
career as a bagman. He left the bishop's wife somewhat abruptly, on her
renewed invitation to pay a visit to the palace, and stay a week or two
in the chamber of genius. Hurrying home, very low in spirits, Clare found
the inmates of his little hut all in trouble and consternation. A doctor
was urgently needed to attend to Patty, she having been suddenly seized
with the pains of labour. Though fearfully tired with his day's march, he
trotted back to Peterborough to fetch the medical man. His assistance
proved to be superfluous, for when Clare returned he found that another
member had meanwhile been added to his household: a little son, who was
christened William Parker on the 4th of May, 1828. The poet's family was
increasing rapidly--too rapidly, alas, for his slender means. Little
William Parker was the third son and fifth child, and there were now nine
living beings within the narrow hut depending upon Clare for bread. His
head throbbed in terrible anxiety when thinking that he might not always
be able to give them bread.
There was not much progress made in the bookselling business during the
next six months. Clare tried all possible means to secure a sale of his
works, walking not unfrequently twenty and even thirty miles a day in all
directions, through Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, and Rutland; but
meeting with scarcely any success whatever. Sometimes, when most
fortunate, he sold two or three volumes a week, but oftener did not find
a single purchaser. Kindness, too, he met but little, most of the people
treating him as a pauper or a vagrant. Many advised him to try the sale
of trinkets and drapery, or of pills and 'patent medicines,' instead of
poetry; while others went so far as to recommend him to become an
itinerant musician. Having traversed the country in all directions,
suffering from want and fatigue, and, more still, from insults, and not
gaining enough, to purchase the coarsest food, he at last began to see
the utter uselessness of persevering further in his new occupation.
However, as a last attempt to succeed, he inserted a few advertisements
in the 'Stamford News,' informing the public that he was selling his own
poems at his cottage at Helpston. This step was taken by Mr. Taylor's
advice, Clare having informed his publisher of the failure of all his
former operations. The announcement in the 'Stamford News' did not remain
altogether without result, though its immediate effect was rather
unprofitable, the poet being visited by a number of strangers, chiefly
elderly ladies from the neighbouring towns, who were kind enough to take
his books upon credit, and never ceased being creditors.
However, in spite of these constant disappointments, Clare did not give
up all hope of ultimately prospering as a hawker of books. 'Though I have
not as yet opened any prospect of success respecting my becoming a
bookseller,' he wrote to Mr. Taylor, under date August 3d, 1828, 'yet I
still think there is some hopes of selling an odd set now and then, and
as you are so kind as to let me have them at a reduced rate, when I do
sell them I shall make something, if only a trifle. I thought of more in
my days of better dreams, but now even trifles are acceptable. For I do
assure you I have been in great difficulties, and though I remained
silent under them, I felt them oppress my spirits to such a degree that I
almost sunk under them. Those two fellows of Peterborough in the
character of doctors have annoyed and dunned me most horribly, and though
their claims are unjust, I cannot get over them by any other method than
paying.' The 'two fellows from Peterborough in the character of doctors'
were quacks into whose hands Clare, or rather his old father, had
unfortunately fallen. They promised to cure the poor invalid of his
lameness and all other ailings, and after nearly killing him with noxious
drugs, made an exorbitant demand for 'professional assistance.' The
demand was reduced ultimately, when they became aware of the utter
poverty of Clare, to less than a tenth, which they extracted in small
instalments, often taking the last penny from his pocket. For the
present, Clare had hopes to pay 'those two fellows' out of the income
from 'annuals' to which he was contributing. 'I am going to write for the
Spirit of the Age,' he informed Mr. Taylor, 'for which I am to have a
pound a page, and more when it becomes established. But promises, though
they produce a good seedtime, generally turn out a bad harvest. Yet be it
as it will, I am prepared for the worst. I have long felt a dislike to
these things, but necessity leaves no choice.' Considering what Clare got
for his other writings, the 'pound a page' from the 'Spirit of the Age'
was no bad pay. But the poet's unqualified disgust of 'these things,' the
annuals, was so great as often to counterbalance even his desire to gain
a living by his pen. He not unfrequently refused to write for the
'Souvenir' and 'Keepsake' family, and the only annual to which he
contributed with real pleasure was that under the editorship of Allan
Cunningham.
The advertisement in the 'Stamford News' brought some curious letters to
Helpston at the beginning of the autumn. A few of the papers having been
wafted into the eastern parts of Lincolnshire, there came invitations
from several places for John Clare to show himself to the natives.
Feeling naturally dull in the Fens, they thought the sight of a live
poet, being a pedlar in the bargain, might be productive of a mild kind
of excitement, highly moral, and very cheap. The mayor of Boston was the
first to be struck with this idea, which he communicated to the more
distinguished of his townsmen, and finally embodied in a most polite note
of invitation. Clare felt exceedingly flattered by the compliments of the
mayor of Boston, and in reply stated that he would be happy to pay a
visit to the ancient borough. The answer had no sooner been sent when
there came summonses from other places within the counties of
Lincolnshire and Norfolk. At Grantham, too, they wanted to see John
Clare, as well as at Tattershall, at Spalding, and at Lynn Regis. There
seemed to be a slow poetic fever raging among the people of the Fens.
Clare sent polite replies to all the courteous invitations, and having
procured a small parcel of books from Mr. Taylor, started for Boston at
the end of September. He walked all the way, and arriving in the evening
of a beautiful day, ascended the steeple of the old church, just when the
sun was sending his last rays over the surging billows of the North Sea.
The view threw Clare into rapturous delight. He had never before seen the
ocean, and felt completely overwhelmed at the majestic view which met his
eyes. So deep was the impression left on his mind that it kept him awake
all night; and when he fell asleep, towards the morning, the
white-crested waves of the sea, stretching away into infinite space,
hovered in new images over his dreams.
The few days which he remained at Boston turned out a continual round of
excitement. The worthy mayor called upon him at the 'White Hart,' the
morning after his arrival, and insisted that he should be present at a
grand dinner-party the same day. Finding all resistance useless, Clare
submitted to his fate. The consequences he related to Mr. Taylor, in a
letter written some time after. 'The mayor of the town,' Clare informed
his publisher, 'was a very jolly companion, and made me so welcome, while
a lady at the table talked so sweetly of the poets, that I drank off my
glass very often, almost without knowing it, and he as quickly filled
it--but with no other intention than that of hospitality--that I felt
rather queer. It was strong wine, and I was not used to it.' After years
of almost total abstinence from intoxicating drink, the effect was
disastrous. For a whole day, the poet was confined to his little room at
the inn, feeling very ill, and wishing himself back at Helpston. But the
men of Boston had not yet done with him, and seemed determined to have as
much lionizing as the occasion allowed. The mayor was preparing another
dinner; and the lady who 'talked so sweetly of the poets' made strong
attempts to get up a poetical conversazione, with sandwiches and
lemonade; while some lively youths went so far as to order a supper at
Clare's inn, thinking to make sure of their lion in this way. But he was
not to be so easily caught, and, with some pride, let Mr. Taylor know how
he escaped the ordeal. 'Several young men,' he informed his patron, 'had
made it up among themselves to give me a supper, when I was to have made
a speech. But as soon as I heard of it, I declined it, telling them if
they expected a speech from me they need prepare no supper, for that
would serve me for everything. And so I got off.' To which the
pedlar-poet appended some moralizings, exclaiming, 'Really this
speechifying is a sore humbug, and the sooner it is out of fashion the
better.' It was strange how little John Clare understood the world in
which he lived.
The visit to Boston was to have been followed by a trip to other places
in the eastern counties, but Clare felt unequal to the task. A three
days' sojourn at the 'White Hart' gave him an insight into the nature of
the work required from a travelling provincial lion, and he became
conscious that he was not fitted for the calling. So he hurried home in
great haste, after having sold his little stock of books. The 'jolly
mayor' was kind enough to purchase two sets of the poetical works, on the
condition of getting the author's autograph, together with his own name
at full length, in every volume. But the lady who talked so sweetly of
the poets, refused to buy anything, pleading that her bookcase was quite
full already. The truly liberal among the people of Boston were the young
men whose supper Clare refused. They made a collection among themselves,
and, unknown to the poet, put ten pounds into his little wallet. He did
not find the gift of his unknown friends till he returned to Helpston,
and the discovery affected him to tears. For the first time in his life
he regretted not having made a speech, even at the risk of breaking down
in the middle of it.