The Ballad of John Clare

by Hugh Lupton

  “Who collected these?”

  Bill Henderson’s face softened.

  “When the Earl was but a boy it was his passion. Every spring when we was on our rounds we’d keep our eyes open and take note of any nests we found. And the old Earl, God rest his soul, would send him out with us, I can see him now skipping alongside us, and we’d help him take the eggs himself, as long as he were’nt put into too much danger. Ay, and he’d blow them too, and cook would make him an omelette of their meat. By the time they sent him away for his schooling he’d collected most of the common-place eggs, and the old Earl had this little chest o’ drawers made for him special, for his ninth birthday as I remember. But look here …”

  Bill pushed the drawer to, and pulled open another marked ‘N’. He ran his finger down the glass again.

  “See here. This empty place. This waits on the nightingale. It was the one nest we could not find …and haven’t yet. The Earl is in his forties now and with sons of his own, and he ain’t forgotten. We’ll be out shooting and he’ll turn to me: ‘What about that nightingale’s nest Mr Henderson?’ he’ll say, and I’ll have to own that of all the songbirds ‘tis the most cunning concealed.”

  He pushed the drawer gently in.

  “I reckon he’d pay a florin apiece, two shillings an egg, to any as could bring a clutch of ‘em to Milton Hall.”

  He turned to John:

  “I don’t suppose it’s a nest that you’ve ever clapped eyes on?”

  John shook his head.

  “I never have Mr Henderson, nor know of any as have.”

  Bill Henderson looked the squat, awkward village youth up and down: the tousled hair, the thick neck, the greasy smock and tattered breeches. He remembered the caked boots that lay beside the kitchen door and the filthy unstockinged feet beneath them. He shook his head and said, kindly enough but not without condescension:

  “No lad, I don’t suppose you have.”

  *******

  Half an hour later John found Wisdom. He was stretched out fast asleep in the place beneath the trees where he had left him. He shook his shoulder:

  “Wisdom!”

  Wisdom sleepily opened his eyes, then sat straight up.

  “John. How did ye fare?”

  “Look.”

  John reached into his pocket and scooped out eighteen pennies. He cupped them in his hands and rattled them under Wisdom’s nose. Then he dropped the fat coppers onto the ground one at a time. Each of them struck the moist earth with a soft thud.

  Wisdom grinned his lop-sided grin and punched John’s shoulder.

  “Good work bau …did you see Bloodworth?”

  “No, only Bill Henderson, the Head Keeper. He seemed a kindly old soul.”

  Wisdom shook his head:

  “Not if you’re a Romany he ain’t. King Boswell reckons we ain’t no better than stoats or foxes to him, and he’d be happy to see us swinging from a keeper’s gibbet.”

  He divided the pennies into two piles.

  “Here’s good work though, God bless the Earl of Fitzwilliam for these. Nine for you and nine for me.”

  He dropped his nine pennies into his shirt.

  “Did you sniff out any other ways that we might earn a few coins?”

  John shook his head:

  “No.”

  He shoved his coins into his pocket.

  “Come on, let’s get ourselves to Bachelor’s Hall and drink the Sabbath dry.”

  4

  Sheepshearing (Day)

  Bright June has come, and the barley’s silken beard grows long and green, and on Lolham Bridge Field it nods and dances to every shifting whim of the wind.

  From dawn to dusk the frantic bees wallow in fox-glove and bean flower as though no glut of labour or journeying could fill their store with honey enough for all. And from dawn to dusk, when the sun shines, the mowing teams are out upon Heath Field. The swish of their curved scythes is the sound of June breathing and the rasp of the whet-stones against the iron blades is the sound of June coughing. For sickness and health are as rain and shine, and all men know that for every week of fine weather there will be a debt to pay in slanting showers. And a closer look betrays the rotten teeth, the small-pox scars, the twisted spines, the swollen joints and all the curses that hard labour and a scant wage bring.

  Parker Clare swings his blade in the mowing line, as ready as any though stiffer than some. From time to time he calls a halt to mop his face. Around him the cut swathes sweeten the air. Behind him the raking women turn and toss yesterday’s labour and at the far end of the field the lifted hay-cocks wait upon the wain.

  On Woodcroft Field Ann and Sophie Clare have been gathering and shelling beans with the other women in John Close’s employ, Sophie’s ears acute to the rise and fall of the gossip that surrounds her, gleaning what she can.

  John has joined a shearing team, working his way from farm to farm these last five weeks.

  Such is the timeless round of summer labour upon the face of the parish, an old, hard, familiar melody. But there is a new sound alongside the sighing of the scythe, the bleating of the sheep and the rising and falling of the talk. It is the sound of posts being hammered into the ground and measuring chains pulled tight between. The sound of ropes being stretched across fields and commons where new boundaries will fall, of men shouting from mark to mark where roads will be cut or streams straightened, of splashes of red paint being daubed onto trees that are to be felled. The Earl of Fitzwilliam has sent surveyors out to mark the lie of the land for enclosure. Slowly, from day to day, a new pattern of squares, fine as the web of a net or a snare, is set across the looping, winding limbs of the parish.

  But John Clare, moving from farm to farm in the accustomed way, has been too busy to pay it any heed. There are nine in all in the shearing team: Jack Ward is Captain. There are seven Lieutenants. And John, who catches and carries and folds up the fleeces, is Corporal.

  Last week they worked for Ralph Wormstall, and were given a shearing supper of such pinch-purse, nip-cheese paucity that they had to spend their own wages at the Bluebell when it was done in order to feel their bellies comfortably lined with food and ale.

  This week they have worked for Farmer Joyce at Glinton and their hope has been for kinder treatment and fuller fare at the week’s end. From Monday to Thursday they laboured in his threshing barn, stripped to the waist in the June heat as John Fell brought the sheep in from the fat grass at the fen margin. Yesterday was the fifth and last day and they had high hopes of Joyce’s hospitality, for he is known to be open-handed.

  John was up before the dawn and when he had eaten a crust he made his way out of the cottage and along Heath Lane. The first birds were stirring and moistening their throttles. As he passed Snip Green the song began in earnest. He followed the stream across Heath Field, where the hay, cut and uncut, was too soaked with dew for any early mower to venture out. A family of hares were gambolling across the furlongs, stopping to lick the dew-fall, then dancing, squatting, loitering like happy thoughts. He walked on, past Swordy Well with its worked facing of yellow stone. Behind him the first smoke began to rise from the village chimneys and the bustling clatter of the village farmyards made itself distantly heard. There were no bounds to his exultation, though he gave it no more mind than did the singing birds.

  When he came to Langdyke Bush there was smoke before him as well as behind. Lettuce Boswell was leaning an iron snottum over the flames and hanging a kettle from it. She looked up at John and nodded towards a cart.

  “That’s where you’ll find him chal.”

  John squatted down beside the cart and whistled between his fingers. There was a stirring from beneath it. A rustling of dried bracken and straw. Wisdom, wrapped in blankets, poked his lean head out into the morning. He looked up between the shafts and blinked blearily at John.

  “What do you want brother, it’s scarcely dawn?”

  He wormed his way from his sleeping place and they both walked across to the fir
e and sat side by side, holding out their hands to the heat.

  “There is to be a shearing supper tonight, Wisdom, at Joyce’s in Glinton. His table will be groaning with frumity and ale and good vittles. Bring your fiddle and I’ll warrant he’ll find a place for you …or if he won’t Mary will.”

  Wisdom shook his head.

  “I can’t John, not tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are other plans afoot.”

  He lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “I tell you but I’d tell no other. There will be a full moon and ….”

  “Tel te jib!”

  From behind the door-flap of an ancient, patched, military tent that bordered the fire came a voice as gruff and abrupt as the bark of a mastiff. Wisdom fell suddenly silent. The flap lifted and King Boswell’s ancient head appeared. Two dogs that had been dozing placidly jumped up and danced about John, snapping at his ankles. King Boswell lifted one of his huge hands and waved it at them.

  “Shhhhhh.”

  They quietened and lay down again.

  He looked at John, his eyes sharp as a hawk’s beneath great shaggy over-arching eyebrows, his face as wrinkled and brown as an old dish-clout, his hair jackdaw-black.

  He uncurled a finger and pointed it at him.

  “Ja! Ja! Go!”

  He looked at Wisdom.

  “Tell your boshomengro friend to keep to his own.”

  He looked back at John.

  “And mind to his own, and ask no more questions …and we shan’t have to tell him no lies.”

  He disappeared back into his tent. Wisdom rolled his eyes and shrugged, and John could see that there was nothing he could do to make things otherwise. He nodded and got up to his feet.

  “I’ll see you another time Wisdom.”

  Then he remembered a phrase he’d heard King Boswell use before.

  “And the luck of the blessed be with you.”

  From inside the tent he heard King Boswell’s rumbling voice again, as though it came from beneath a pool of phlegm in the deep of his belly:

  “You’re a good boy John Clare, for all you’re a gorgio, now piss off and keep your own council!”

  John made his way back across the fields. The village had wakened now and Jack Ward and the rest of the threshing team were waiting for him at Butter Cross. Together they trudged along the track through Woodcroft Field to Farmer Joyce’s threshing barn.

  *******

  The sheep were huddled tight into a corner of the barn, fenced in with hurdles. The shearing platform was laid out ready upon the floor as it had been these last four days. As soon as they had sharpened their shears against the whet-stones the team started work. Jack Ward, as Captain, set the pace.

  John dragged a ewe across to him from the holding pen. Jack seized her, flung her onto her back and clipped the tresses of wool from her forehead, neck and shoulders, then, with his knee on her head, he opened up the front as though he was unbuttoning a waistcoat. He cut away the wool down to her back legs where it hung thick. Then he sat the ewe up on her backside and clipped the fleece away from her flank. He spun her round as though she was his partner in some dance that was not of her choosing and did the same to the other side. With a final flourish he snipped the last of the wool from the top of her tail so that the whole fleece fell away from her like a coat.

  There was no mark or cut upon her body for the gentils to get in by, she was pink as a babe. For a moment she stood in amaze, then she bleated and trotted back towards the rest of the flock. John seized her, lifted her up in his arms and carried her over to the empty pen where the tar pot was waiting.

  Farmer Joyce stood watching Jack with an indulgent eye. He came forwards and clapped him on the back and filled his mug with small ale from the barrel against the wall, he pressed it into Jack’s hand. Jack grinned and nodded his thanks and drank.

  As Jack worked, so with varied skill did his lieutenants in the shearing team. Wherever they nicked or cut the creature’s hides with their shears John had to staunch them with tar, so the sheared sheep in their pens bore a speckled testament to the skill – or lack of it – of their barbers. It was John’s job too to roll and tie the fleeces, and to stamp the new-shorn sheep with Farmer Joyce’s mark ‘JJ’. So he laboured and sweated in the June heat as busy as the rest of them.

  Slowly the long day passed, the barn echoed with grunting and clipping and bleating, and with every five sheep shorn there would be the pause for a ‘pull up and sharp’ when shears were whetted and thirsts quenched. As the afternoon dwindled, so did the sheep still wearing their ragged, slomekin fleeces.

  There were only a few waiting in the pens when young Jim Crowson cut the best part of a ewe’s ear off with his shears. It was his first season with the team and he was tiring. His hand slipped and the damage was done. The ewe cried most pitiful and the platform was awash with blood.

  “What the devil!”

  Farmer Joyce strode forwards.

  “I ain’t paying you to butcher my flock.”

  He seized the shears from Jim’s hands and finished the job himself without doing any more damage to the ewe, but by the time he’d finished he was daubed with blood from head to foot like a butcher. He turned to the shearing team and grinned:

  “There, I ain’t altogether lost the knack boys.”

  He nodded to Jim, who grabbed hold of the ewe while John staunched the blood as best he could.

  “You leave the shears to the old hands now.”

  The work continued. Jim helped John. As the clock struck five the last of the sheep was dragged onto the polished platform. By six o’clock the threshing barn had been cleared of all but its heap of tied fleeces.

  John and the rest of the team wasted no time. They washed away the dirt of the day under the pump in the yard. They piled their greasy smocks against the barn door and pulled clean shirts over their shoulders. Bone-weary and famished they made their way round to the back of the farm house.

  Farmer Joyce was waiting for them, scrubbed and fresh-dressed. The great kitchen table had been carried out onto the lawn and covered with a clean white cloth. Benches had been set to either side of it. John Fell the shepherd, Nathaniel Cushion, Will Farrell and a few other farm-hands were already seated. The shearing team sat down beside them. Farmer Joyce turned on his heel and strode into the house. Soon he returned carrying in his hands a large beech-wood bowl filled with frumity. He set it down. Mary Joyce and Kate Dyball followed with pewter bowls and horn spoons, one to each of the team. The men at the table cheered. John tried to catch Mary’s eye as she hurried past him but she seemed to pay him no heed. Farmer Joyce served his men with his own hands, ladling the sweet, thick, spicy, creamy mixture into the bowls

  They supped it down in silence.

  Then a great steaming rack of lamb was fetched and set on the table, with fresh bread, onions, new potatoes, peas, beans, cabbage and thick gravy. The tap was opened on a barrel of Joyce’s strong beer,

  “Let it run like a well,” said Farmer Joyce, “and not be staunched ‘til it is dry.”

  Pewter mugs were filled and filled again. Plates were piled with food. More and more was brought to the table: cheeses, hams, bowls of strawberries and redcurrants. Little was said, the sound of the scraping of knives and forks against pewter and the chomping of jaws was a conversation all its own.

  From inside the house the women watched the men through the window.

  “Just look at ‘em,” said Lizzie Tucker shaking her head, “the flower of English manhood!”

  “Heads down, tails up, like porkers at the trough,” said Hope Farrell. “And if the Frenchie come, what then? They’d only have to show this lot a ripe cheese and they’d be kissing Boney’s arse afore ye could say ‘bonjeer’.”

  Mary Joyce stood at the window too and smiled. She was watching John Clare, who she’s barely seen these five weeks of the shearing, and waiting for her moment. She’d been out that afternoon when there was a lull in the
cooking and had gathered a Clipping Posey from the garden: pansies, roses, sweet-peas, honey-suckle, snap-dragons, pinks, fox-gloves, lavender. She’d tied them with a ribbon and hidden them among the shadows by the pantry door.

  Her secret had not passed unnoticed, though the other women had bitten their tongues and said nought. But now, seeing Mary’s fixed attention on the table Lizzie Tucker raised an eye-brow:

  “What Mary? Has one of them fine beaus caught your eye?”

  Mary didn’t answer but blushed.

  “Is it the one wiping its mouth against its shirt sleeve I wonder, or the one that’s licking its plate?”

  Then Hope Farrell nudged Mary:

  “I’ll tell you what Mary, steer clear of any that ain’t Glinton men, for you know that what they keep in their breeches is the same as what they keep in their belfries.”

  Then the two chanted the old rhyme together:

  “Helpston cracked pippins, Northborough cracked pans,

  Glinton fine organs, Peakirk tin cans.”

  When at last even the heartiest eater had pushed his plate away and loosened his belt, Lizzie, Mary and Hope gathered up the empty vessels and carried them indoors. Now that the cooking and serving was done it was their turn to sit down at table.

  “It’ll do the dirty dishes no harm to stand awhile,” said Lizzie, “and there’s plenty of good lean left on the lamb yet.”

  Outside Jack Ward got up to his feet and struck the table with his fist. He lifted his tankard and began to sing in a voice that proved that whatever Helpston men may keep in their breeches there is some truth in the old rhyme when it comes to their throats.

  Farmer Joyce called for pipes and tobacco, that were a little slow in coming, the women being loath to leave their table. And song followed song, the choruses filling the fragrant air and growing more raucous as the evening darkened and mugs were emptied over and over again.

  A full moon was sliding up through the hedge and the horn lanterns were being lit and set upon the table when Mary seized her moment. She grabbed the posey from its hiding place, slipped out of a side door and ran behind the yew hedge that divided the lawn and flowerbeds from the orchard. She lowered her head and followed it to the woodbine arch, halfway along its length. She peered through. The men were singing still, her father at the head of the table, John at the near end, his back to her.