Clare's flight from Dr. Allen's custody was accomplished by dint of
extraordinary perseverance, involving an amount of physical suffering
almost unexampled, and approaching starvation and the most horrible of
deaths. The poet started early on the morning of the 20th of July, with
not a penny in his pocket, and no other knowledge of the road than that
given to him by a gipsy whom he had met a few days before. This gipsy at
first promised more active assistance in his flight; but did not keep his
word, owing, probably, to the inability of the poor lunatic to procure
any tangible reward. However, urged onward by his intense desire to see
his 'Mary' again, Clare did not hesitate to start alone on his unknown
journey, and, groping his way along, like one wrapt in blindness, he at
once succeeded so far as to get into the right track homewards. The first
day he walked above twenty miles, to Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, where
he arrived late at night, footsore and faint, having been without any
refreshment the whole day. He rested for the night in an old barn, on
some trusses of clover, taking the singular precaution, before lying
down, of placing his head towards the north, so as to know in which
direction to start the next morning. This day, the 21st of July, he rose
early, pursuing his way northward, and crawling more than walking along
the road. A man threw him a penny which he used to get a glass of ale;
but beyond this he had again no refreshment. After a second night, spent
in the open air, he rose once more to crawl onward, slowly but steadily.
To stifle the torments of hunger, he now took to the frightful expedient
of eating grass with the beasts in the field. The grass served to appease
the dreadful pains of his stomach, yet left him in the same drowsy
condition in which he was before. His feet were bleeding, the dry gravel
of the road having penetrated his old worn-out shoes; but he heeded it
not, and stedfastly pursued his way northward. Alternately sleeping and
walking, sometimes wandering about in a circle, lying down in ditches at
the roadside, and continuing to eat grass, together with a few bits of
tobacco which he found in his pocket, he at length reached the
neighbourhood of Peterborough and scenes familiar to his eye. But he was
now fast breaking down under hunger and fatigue, having had no food for
more than ninety hours. Hearing the well-known place, he could get no
further, but sank down on the road, more dead than alive. A great many
people passed--people rich and poor, on foot and in carriages, in
clerical habit and in broadcloth; but not one gave alms, or even noticed,
or had a kind word for the dying man at the roadside. There was not one
good Samaritan among all the wayfarers from the rich episcopal city.
At last there passed a cart, containing some persons from Helpston. They
recognised their old neighbour, although he was terribly altered, with
the livid signs of starvation impressed upon his face. The wanderer, in a
faint voice, told those friends his tale of woe; but even they were not
Christians enough to lift him into their vehicle and take him home. All
that they did was to give him a few pence; not even placing the money in
his hand, with, perhaps, a kindly greeting, but throwing it at him from
their cart. The wretched poet crept along the road to gather the coppers,
and then crawled a little farther on to a public-house, where he procured
some refreshment. The food--the first he had taken for nigh four
days--enabled him to pursue his journey slowly, and he hobbled on through
Peterborough, the blood still trickling from his wounded feet. At every
stone-heap at the roadside he rested himself, until he came to the hamlet
of Werrington, where a cart ran up against him, out of which sprang a
woman who took him in her arms. It was Patty, who had heard from the
charitable Helpston people that her husband was lying on the road, and
had come in search of him. But Clare did not know her. He refused even to
take a seat at her side, until he was told that she was his 'second
wife.' Then he allowed himself to be taken to Northborough, where he
arrived in the evening of the 23d of July, utterly exhausted, and in a
state bordering upon delirium.
But already the next day he felt considerably better, and at once asked
for writing materials. Having obtained pen and ink, together with an old
blank ledger, in which he formerly entered his poems, he sat down to
write an account of his 'Journey from Essex.' Such another account,
probably, was never written before. Here it stands, unaltered from the
original, save in slight attempts at punctuation. The paper commences:--
'_July 24th 1841_.--Returned home out of Essex, and found no Mary. Her
and her family are nothing to me now, though she herself was once the
dearest of all. And how can I forget!'