The Ballad of John Clare

by Hugh Lupton

  Dedalus Original Fiction in Paperback

  The Ballad of John Clare

  For thirty years Hugh Lupton has been a central figure in the British storytelling revival. He tells myths, legends and folk-tales from many cultures but his particular passion is for the hidden layers of the English landscape and the stories and ballads that give voice to them. He has written several collections of folk-tales for children.

  The Ballad of John Clare is his first novel.

  For Elizabeth McGowan, with love.

  Contents

  Title

  Dedalus Original Fiction in Paperback

  Dedication

  1 Rogation Sunday 1811

  2 May Day

  3 Bird Nesting

  4 Sheepshearing (Day)

  5 Sheepshearing (Night)

  6 July Storm

  7 Harvest (The Assize)

  8 Harvest (Horkey)

  9 Michaelmas

  10 All Hallows’ Eve

  11 St Thomas’ Eve

  12 Christmas

  13 Plough Monday

  14 St Valentine’s Day

  15 Shrove Tuesday

  16 Easter Monday

  17 Rogation Sunday 1812

  18 A Dream

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Copyright

  …While the mice in the field are listening to the Universe, and moving in the body of nature, where every living cell is sacred to every other, and all are interdependent, the Developer is peering at the field through a visor, and behind him stands the whole army of madmen’s ideas, and shareholders, impatient to cash in on the world.

  Ted Hughes

  1

  Rogation Sunday 1811

  There is nothing of the parish of Helpston that I cannot see and hear. Like the bees whose skeps nestle against the churchyard wall and who have been busy in the April sun, I scatter myself across the parish and return at dusk burdened with happenstance.

  And so it must be until he who keeps me from sleep joins his loam to mine.

  At eight o’clock this morning the bells swung and filled the air with such sound as sundered the people of the parish from breakfast or kitchen or stable or yard and out to Butter Cross where Parson Mossop waited upon their coming. Almost every soul was there, for who among the hungry would not tread a few miles for the promise of meat and ale? And who among the prosperous would not gloat upon their charity?

  The Turnills were there, the Crowsons, Closes, Wrights, Dolbys, Bains, Wormstalls, Bullimores, Royces, Samsons, Bellars, Farrars, Clares, Burbridges, Billings, Turners, Dyballs …every one of them buttoned up tight against the damp. The air was racked with sounds of coughing, of scolding mothers, murmured talk and stamping feet. There was a thin drizzle and the air was chill.

  On the steps of the cross Jonathan Burbridge and Samuel Billings waited. Jonathan sat with his bass-viol enclosed entire in its canvas sack between his knees, only the spike jutting out beneath and stirring the wet turf at his feet. A few wood shavings, that any wife would have brushed away, clung to his beard, betraying that he had been at work upon the Sabbath. Sam Billings, who is as fat as Jonathan is lean, hammered wedges beneath the cords of the great bass drum that had grown slack with the dampness of the air. He looked up from time to time at the gathering crowd, his eyes shrewd and blue as corn-flowers.

  Then Dick Turnill pushed forward from the crowd and sat between them, screwing together the three parts of his flute and blowing it clear.

  Parson Mossop pulled the watch from his pocket, studied it, shook his head and slipped it back. He whispered to Sam:

  “You promised me the full village band Mr Billings, and there are but three of you.”

  Sam turned his pink face to the parson, frank as the full moon:

  “They’ll come sir, I give you my word, they’ll come.”

  The clock was creeping upon the quarter hour when they came, all three at once.

  “Here are your fiddles, sir.”

  “Ah,” said Parson Mossop. “Three sheep that have wandered from the fold. But no doubt they can bleat as well as any.”

  Leading the way came Old Otter, his white beard spread square as a spade across his horn-buttoned jerkin, bright-eyed as a robin. He had the smell of an old ham that has been long smoked in the chimney. He stepped down the street jaunty as a jackanape, his fiddle tucked under his arm. Behind him trailed the other two who had tried to match him pot for pot the night before. John Clare and Wisdom Boswell dragged their feet up Woodgate, past the Bluebell towards the waiting congregation.

  The curled crown of John’s head, lowered as though a little heavy for its neck, fell short of Wisdom’s shoulder. Broad shouldered, high of forehead, shaped a little as a circus dwarf though with legs that are in proportion and comely, John stands dimute and small, being some five feet tall from head to foot. His mouth is full and red and wet as though he would lift the rim of the world to his lips and gulp it down. Few in the village can get the measure of him. He is bookish and solitary and cannot seem to set his hand to any trade. One minute he will be muttering to himself and crouching beneath a hedge or inside a hollow dotterel scribbling onto a scrap that he holds against the crown of his hat, the next he will be picking a quarrel with some village Hickathrift. Around his neck he was wearing a scarf as yellow as gorse.

  Wisdom Boswell cut a very different figure. Dark where John is fair, thin where John is stocky, tall where John is squat. He has the restless, hungry, gangling stance of an unbroken colt. His sharp, high cheek-bones are softened by a dark down that has never known a razor. He is one of the Boswell crew that camps on Emmonsales Heath, and as close a friend as John has got. Though he’s seen no more than seventeen winters there’s more he could tell of the roads and lanes that snake beyond the parish bound than most who have lived here a lifetime. But such knowledge counts for little. He and his kind are considered little better than vermin by most in the village, for even the poorest of the poor know their place and must find some soul to hold in greater contempt. Wisdom, though, because he can scrape such a reel from his fiddle as’d set the dead to cutting capers, has won a place in the village band.

  John and Wisdom stepped gingerly up to Butter Cross, their bedraggled coats drawn across their shoulders, their fiddles held beneath. They were greeted with a tutting and a muttering and a shaking of heads from the waiting crowd.

  Bob Turnill whispered to his wife:

  “There’s Parker’s boy going to the devil again, and keeping company with tinkers.”

  Parson Mossop nodded to the churchwardens, who tapped the stone of Butter Cross with the foot of the processional cross. Sam Billings began to beat a steady measure from his drum. The bells fell silent and the congregation made its way along West Street following parson and churchwardens towards the open fields. Each kept to his own. Farmers walked ahead with their wives or aged parents on their arms. Tradesmen walked with their families. Apprentices and housemaids bantered and gave each other the eye. There were babes in arms and toddlers clutching mothers’ skirts. There were children squabbling and laughing and weaving in and out of the crowd, some bare-footed and others with shoes to their feet. Labourers and their families came next. Those with a few farthings to spare had brightened their working smocks with ribbons or printed cotton scarves to their bonnets or throats.

  Last of all came the parish paupers, the old and sick, some with their feet bound with rags, eager for the promise of food. They clicked and clacked their sticks and crutches, they coughed and cursed and called upon the rest to slow down. When the village houses were left behind they broke from the procession and turned away from the crowd. They made their hobbling, shuffling way stra
ight to Snow Common to wait upon the Rogation feast.

  The rest of the procession followed the road westwards, with Heath Field lands all fallow to the south and speckled with sheep and cattle. To the north the long furlongs of Lolham Bridge Field, with their new growth of wheat and barley, made a patchwork of dark and paler greens.

  When King Street came into view the children - all at once - surged forwards with a sudden shout and raced towards the meer-stone that marks the parish bound. The first of them to beat the bound and strike head to stone receives some sweet token. They ran full tilt, their heads back, gasping at the air. The little ones were quickly left behind. It was Tom Dolby who first butted the stone and he will not forget it, for he was rubbing his head still when Mrs Bullimore caught up with him and popped the sugar plum between his lips that made all well again.

  The churchwardens tapped their cross against the stone and Parson Mossop lifted his Bible and read from the book of Joel:

  “Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit …and the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil … and ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.”

  “Ay,” whispered Parker Clare, “Ay, if you be a parson.”

  “Shush.” Ann Clare put her hand across his mouth.

  “We will sing psalm one hundred and four.”

  High above the parson’s head a lark spilled its melody out upon the air. The band, all but Wisdom Boswell who knows nothing of hymns or psalms, lifted their instruments and played the opening phrase. The crowd broke into song.

  A little apart from the rest of the congregation stood a cluster of farmers with the breakfasted look of those that keep a well-stocked larder. There was John Close, churchwarden, and his wife and daughters. There were Mr and Mrs Bull, Ralph Wormstall, churchwarden also, with his wizened mother. And there was the recently widowed Mrs Elizabeth Wright and her brother Will Bloodworth. All sang with heads thrown back as though each word might bring profit pushing up from the quickening earth. Will Bloodworth, though, is no farmer. He is a keeper of the game at the Milton estate, visiting his sister this Sabbath, and dressed in the livery of the Earl of Fitzwilliam, a claret-coloured frock coat with crimson lining. He stood in contrast to the brown and lawn jackets of the farmers with their cocked hats. His clear tenor rang out above the other voices with the easy confidence of one who believes the world to be in his thrall and pliable to his will, though he was by far the poorer member of the company.

  Wisdom Boswell had settled himself on a stile. He pulled a lump of yellow rosin from his pocket and set to rubbing it up and down his fiddle bow. A cluster of children gathered round him, a little shy for they had been told over and over to steer clear of gypsies. He looked down at them and grinned. Tom Dolby took courage, he came closer and reached out his arm, he uncurled his fingers. He was holding a stone with a hole clean through the heart of it. He offered it to Wisdom and whispered:

  “Riddy Riddy Wry Rump.”

  Wisdom took it. He knew the game.

  “Have you got any string?”

  “Ay.”

  Tom handed him a piece of twine. Wisdom threaded it through the stone and tied it tight. He winked at Tom:

  “Who?”

  Tom Dolby turned back to his friends. They stood in a circle their arms about each other’s shoulders whispering fiercely. Then Tom broke away. He pointed with his finger.

  “Him!”

  Will Bloodworth was standing a few paces from them, his back towards the stile. He was holding the hymnal high for his sister to read.

  Wisdom Boswell knotted the end of the twine into a loop. The children watched as he crept behind Will as quiet and subtle as a cat. He knelt on the grass and gently drew the loop over the two tin buttons at the back of Will’s jacket. Then slowly he lowered the stone so that the weight of it would not be suddenly felt. The children smothered their laughter with the backs of their hands. The twine was hanging like a tail, the stone just behind Will Bloodworth’s knees. Wisdom edged away from him and back to the stile.

  But though Will had seen nothing, his sister had. Mrs Elizabeth Wright had watched Wisdom from the corner of her eye and seemed to take little pleasure in what she saw.

  As soon as the psalm was spent John Clare and Old Otter struck up ‘Jockey to the Fair’. Sam Billings beat his drum in time. Dick Turnill blew his flute, his parents frowning that he should have fallen so far into the clutches of mammon as to know such a tune, let alone blow it upon the Sabbath. Jonathan Burbridge sawed his bass viol. And Wisdom lifted his fiddle to his shoulder and joined them. The churchwardens held up the cross and set off striding towards Lolham Bridge, the congregation trailing behind. The rain had eased and the warm April wind seemed to have blown away all aches and cares.

  Will Bloodworth pulled a little clay pipe from his pocket and filled it from his pouch. He took a tinder box and struck flint to iron. Soon he was puffing smoke and smiling, the pipe clenched between his teeth, with that tight drawn smile of a man who enjoys his tobacco. His sister took his arm and they joined the crowd. The children had been waiting for their moment. They began to dance behind him:

  “Riddy Riddy Wry Rump

  Riddy Riddy Wry Rump!”

  Will strode on all innocent that he was the butt of their laughter.

  “Riddy Riddy Wry Rump!”

  Then his sister tugged his arm. He stopped. She leaned across and whispered into his ear. The children held their breath and watched as he reached behind himself. His fingers closed around the twine. He lifted the stone into his hand. Suddenly they were dancing round him again:

  “Riddy Riddy Wry Rump!”

  He pulled the pipe from his mouth and turned. There was no easy smile on his features now:

  “Which one of you little varmints has made a mock of me?”

  The children scattered and threaded through the crowd, soon they were running ahead. There had been something in the measure of those whispered words that had told them their game was over. His sister shook her head:

  “’Twas none of them Will.” She said, “’Twas the gypsy whelp. I saw him with my own eyes.”

  The band were still playing at the meer-stone. Will looked back towards Wisdom Boswell who drew his bow across the strings of his fiddle mindless of all but the swelling melody that filled the air. A shadow fell across Will Bloodworth’s face. He pushed the stone into his pocket, turned on his heel and strode on in silence.

  *******

  All morning I followed the village congregation as it circled the bounds of Helpston as though it edged the very rim of the world. Every sod they trod I know as familiar as my own face, more so since flesh has folded into clay. With scripture and song, with tune and meer-stone and sugared plums they came to Lolham Bridge and followed the stream that skirts the fen. Where the stream marks the bound they threw sweets into the water and the children plunged in, for now the sun shone and the air was sweet as the very first morning. Then all of a straggle they came round by Green Dyke and Rhyme Dyke and Woodcroft Field, with Glinton spire pricking the sky beyond, where the furlongs are sprouting with beans whose green leaves break the loam and swallow the sunlight. And as I followed their compass I was at the edge of all knowledge, for beyond the parish the world begins to sink away into reaches and distances that are beyond my naming.

  Meer-stone followed meer-stone and the church clock had long struck noon when the crowd reached Snow Common. The parish paupers were standing waiting, shivering by the lane-side. By now there wasn’t a soul that wasn’t bone weary and ready to sit and take its ease. Parson Mossop lifted up his frock coat and rested himself upon a tussock. Churchwardens followed suit and soon all were settled, all but a few children and dogs that ran and shouted and barked as tireless as the first swooping swallows.

  The crowd had not been waiting long when there came the sound that all had been straining for. The clattering of a horse’s hooves, the rattling of
a cart, the “Whoaa” and “Easy” of the driver and then above the tops of the bushes three heads appeared: Farmer Joyce, his daughter Mary sitting beside him, and the black ears of his mare Bessy. They made their way along the track towards the congregation. Farmer Joyce, who is churchwarden at Glinton, reined in, swung down from his seat and tied the horse to a post.

  The waiting crowd cheered and there was a surge towards the cart, as men, women and children clambered forward and would have scrambled up had not the churchwardens moved between the cart and congregation.

  “Now, now, stand back! Easy! Bide your time!”

  The churchwardens pushed some backwards so that they sat suddenly on the turf at the track’s edge and they stood in a row as sentinels before the cart.

  The cart was filled with victuals and small ale and sweetened water that had been paid for by subscription by the people of the parish according to their means. Farmers had thrown in their shillings, tradesmen their thruppences and the rest their thin farthings. There were pies, meats and conserves, there were loaves, nuts and dried fruits, free to all however great or modest their contribution.

  The parson opened his Bible to Deuteronomy and tapped the iron shod wheel of the cart with his cane:

  “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy ground and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.”

  He snapped the Bible shut as the village answered “Amen”.

  The parson was the first to tuck a handkerchief under his chin. The churchwardens parted as he poured himself a pot and sank his teeth into a pie. Others followed according to their station. They clustered round the cart, helping themselves and carrying armfuls across to families that were waiting on the tussocked grass. Farmer Joyce and Mary passed and poured and made themselves agreeable to all. When everyone else had taken their fill the churchwardens stood aside and the parish paupers pushed forward and grabbed their share. Charlie Turner pressed bread and pastry with his fingers into his half-wit daughter’s mouth, as though he was some hedge-row bird that has hatched a cuckoo. Like the birds of the field the village paupers filled their crops.