The Ballad of John Clare

by Hugh Lupton

  He lifted the black cap, then, and fitted it carefully to his head.

  “And as for you, Mr William Samson, poverty can be no excuse. On Wednesday next you will be taken to a place of execution and there hanged by the neck until dead, so help me God.”

  William Samson crumpled to the floor and sobbed like a child. The turn-keys jerked him to his feet again. Wisdom merely opened his mouth as though to speak. Then he closed it and turned away from the silent eyes that scrutinised him.

  *******

  On the outer edges of the Milton Estate Will Bloodworth walked briskly homewards along the ride beneath the dappled shade of the beeches that were beginning to turn to their autumn browns and yellows. There was an ease in his manner, a lilt to his stride that had eluded him these last months. He knew that he would be ribbed by Bill Henderson for pleading on a gypsy’s behalf. He knew Bill wanted Wisdom and his kind to swing like stoats and weasels on a keeper’s gibbet. But for Will Bloodworth the verdict was neat and trim as a well sewn seam. He settled down on a stile and scraped his pipe clean with a piece of twig. He filled it from his pouch, struck fire and sucked it to life. Yes, the damned gypsy youth had been properly rewarded and there was to be no hanging to trouble his conscience. He blew a mouthful of smoke into the warm evening air and got up to his feet. Life was sweet again and he its master, and the cold dread of the court-house and his glimpse of damnation all but forgotten.

  8

  Harvest (Horkey)

  Farmer Joyce had been overseeing the thatching of the last of the ricks in his yard. He watched the four men on their ladders that were set against the round bastion of straw. He watched them as they passed the coils of sisal rope from one to the other and pulled the knots true, fastening an intricate web and weighing it with stones so that the rush thatch was held firm over the precious corn until the time came for threshing. As they climbed down he surveyed his fourteen golden ricks, like round towers with conical rooves, a testament to the labours of the year. Behind them stood the green-grey rise of his hay stacks. And behind them the steep point of Glinton church spire rose up against the sky, its pale barnack stone yellow in the afternoon sunlight. To Farmer Joyce rick, stack and steeple seemed all of apiece.

  He was uneasy. He knew there was a chance that the Boswell youth would be hanged. He’d seen the gifts that are bestowed upon visiting judges by the gentry: the sides of venison, the beef and carp and pheasant that fill their coaches on their return to London. He did not cling to any great hope for clemency. He was uneasy, too, that he had incurred the Earl’s displeasure. Out loud he addressed his men:

  “We’ve done our best lads, and the best can do no more … We’ll call it a day now.”

  As the men went their ways he put his hand to Will Farrell’s shoulder.

  “Will, could you spare me a few more minutes?”

  Will shrugged:

  “Aye.”

  “Would ye do me the kindness of reaching into one of the ricks and breaking off an ear of wheat.”

  Will Farrell thrust an arm shoulder-deep into a rick. He felt for an ear and twisted it. He pulled it out and held it on his palm as though he had guddled a little golden fish from a deep stream.

  “Bring it to the kitchen Will.”

  The two men made their way to the farm-house kitchen. The fire was smouldering as always, despite the heat of the day. Farmer Joyce crouched down and with the iron fire-shovel he scooped up the smouldering embers and threw them to the back of the fireplace. He swept the front of the hot red-brick hearth clean with a brush. Then he straightened himself, went to one of the shelves against the wall and took a piece of paper and a goose-feather quill. He did not notice Mary’s note that had lain unread all day upon the kitchen table.

  “Now Will, I’ll show ye a secret that my father showed me, and his father showed him before. Break the ear apart and blow the chaff away.”

  Will rubbed the ear between his hands just as Ben Price had done the day before. He blew away the chaff so that there was a little cluster of grains against his leathery palm.

  “Say no word of this to the Parson Will, for it has a savour of witchery to it …but my old Grand-Sire swore by it. Now, take one of the grains and throw her onto the hearth. She’s for September see.”

  Will threw the grain onto the hot brick, it lay for a moment then leapt back towards them. Farmer Joyce dipped his quill into an ink-pot and scratched some words onto the paper.

  “That means the price of grain will rise in September. Now, throw October down.”

  The grain lay still and did not move.

  “October prices will stay steady.”

  Another grain was dropped.

  “As will November.”

  December’s grain jumped towards the fire.

  “They’ll drop in December by God!”

  Another.

  “And rise in January!”

  Grain after grain was thrown onto the hot bricks and each prediction noted down.

  Will had just dropped June’s grain onto the hearth when the door was thrown open and Mary came running into the kitchen. She spoke no word but ran to her father. She pressed her face into the familiar, smoky, sweaty, stiff linen of his shirt. He could feel the wet warmth of her breath and tears through the cloth and against his skin and he held her firm.

  “There, there child.”

  His forehead was folded into a frown, his voice was but a whisper. A sign his workers knew well and marked with caution:

  “The last of the grains must wait Will.”

  Will Farrell tipped the last of the yellow grains carefully into a saucer and set it on the mantleshelf. He tip-toed out of the room.

  Farmer Joyce pressed his lips to the top of Mary’s head. She whispered:

  “I went father, I went to the assize …”

  “I feared as much …what was the verdict Mary?”

  It was a while before she pulled her face away from his shirt and found the words:

  “He is to be transported …for ever …for life …we shall never see him again.”

  For a moment Farmer Joyce was of one accord with Will Bloodworth, a sweet relief flooded over him. Then a sense of the cruel gravity of the sentence dawned on him, the terrible journey to the ends of the earth, the endless years of hard labour that sooner or later would break body and spirit.

  “It is a harsh sentence Mary, a harsh sentence.”

  Outside in the yard Mary’s mare, Dobbie, untied and dusty from the road, stooped her head to the water trough. Will Farrell took her reins and led her to the stable.

  *******

  Today has been the last of the harvest. The day broke with but one small stand of wheat still waiting on Lolham Bridge Field. But though it should have been a day of ease and joy with the promise of largesse and horkey writ large in every heart, it was a sombre village that woke to the harvest horn.

  Sorrows rarely come singly, and as the news of Wisdom Boswell’s sentence was reaching the village yesterday afternoon and casting its solemn shadow, the Turnills suffered a setback that has cost them dear.

  Dick and Bob Turnill had been leading a loaded cart back to their yard from Lolham Bridge Field when the bank beside Green Dyke gave way and the piled load lurched out of true. The cart tipped its grain into the dyke and one of the horses fell with his full weight upon his collar. He was struggling so fierce that none could get close enough to cut him free. Soon he was strangled, his tongue lolling between his teeth. Many had rallied to rake the soaked straw from the dyke and lay it to dry again, but a broken cart, a dead gelding and half a wagon-load of corn are a higher toll than Bob Turnill can afford to pay, as all the parish knows. It is a harsh God that he prays to so avid.

  And there is a third sorrow too in the fence-posts and quick-thorn seedlings that wait on the moment when the harvest largesse is finished and autumn comes riding across the fields in her russets and ochres, red as the leaves of the dock and brown as its steeples of seed.

  John and Parke
r Clare walked silently out to the field this morning. The other men were muted too, avoiding John’s eye. For although most believed that the gypsy had reaped his just deserts, the transportation of a known man puts a quiet on the busiest tongue. There was not the usual babble of talk among the women either, rather a whispered, subdued gossiping. The children, though, ran and whooped as oblivious to care as the barking village dogs.

  When they reached the stand of wheat the old rhythms of harvest that have governed these months of high summer were a balm to John’s heart, for they demanded no more than the song of whet-stone to blade and the mindless drudgery of hard labour. Yesterday’s sharp sorrow was numbed by an aching shoulder and a sweating back. Slowly and steadily as the morning progressed the wheat diminished in front of him and the stooks gathered behind.

  It was mid-morning, when the wheat was all but taken, that a hare leapt out from between the stalks and dodged between the legs of the men. It was one of this year’s leverets, full grown but gangly still, sleek and brown, its black-tipped ears tilted back against its shoulders. The reapers’ dogs, lying under the stooks, jumped to their feet and set to barking.

  Richard Royce dropped his scythe and dived across the stubble. He caught the creature by a hind leg. He scrambled to his feet laughing. The hare, its eyes bulging, crying most pitiful, kicked and struggled beneath his red fist.

  “Here’s supper lads!”

  John has seen this a thousand times. Coneys, hares, maybe a fox or a marten, bolting from the stands of wheat or barley, have been fair sport for reapers since harvest first began. But this morning the sight of the hare twisting and whimpering in Richard’s grasp was more than he could bear. He dropped his scythe and stepped forwards to him.

  “Let it be, Richard.”

  Richard Royce looked at him and laughed.

  “Let it be jugged, John Clare!”

  John’s voice was trembling, on the edge of tears.

  “I’m asking you to let it be, set it free Richard.”

  Richard Royce cocked his head to one side:

  “Just because your gypsy pal should’ve pissed when he couldn’t whistle, it don’t follow that the rest of us go hungry.”

  John clenched his fists.

  “Set …it …free.”

  Richard Royce looked down at John. There was no laughter playing on his features now.

  “I’ll break its fucking neck, then I’ll break yours.”

  John’s voice was a whisper.

  “Set it free Richard.”

  Parker came across and put his hand to John’s arm, but John shook his father away.

  “Set it free.”

  “Alright John Clare. I’ll set the fucker free.”

  He put his other hand to the leg he was holding and with a sharp crack he broke the hare’s leg. He flung the shrieking creature to his lurcher, who had its neck between his teeth and was joyfully shaking its life away in moments.

  “How d’ye like that?”

  “This much!”

  John’s first punch caught Richard Royce so hard and sudden on the chin that he bit through his lip. A second smashed against his neck and sent him reeling. All John knew was white blazing rage. He jumped forward and began to pummel Richard’s chest with his fists. Richard had caught his balance now. He seized John’s hair with one hand jerked his head back and with the other fist smashed him on the cheek below the eye. Then he grabbed John’s throat and hurled him so hard backwards that he staggered across the stubble and crashed into a stook of corn. As John tried to scramble to his feet Richard ran forwards and kicked him with a boot to his temple. John fell back and the stook collapsed on top of him. Richard Royce lifted his fingers to his mouth and whistled. His dog ran forwards with the limp hare swinging from his mouth. He took it in his hand and held it high.

  “Nothing comes twixt me an’ my supper.”

  He turned to the women and grinned, blood spilling from his lip and dripping from his chin. They stood and looked at him, and there was not one of them that returned his smile.

  “My missus will vouch for that.”

  Sally Royce shook her head ruefully.

  “There’s none as’ll argue with that Richard.”

  Richard returned to the stand of wheat and picked up his scythe.

  “Back to work lads. The harvest’s damn near done. We could have the Old Sow down before dinner.”

  The men, without a word, sharpened their scythes and set to work. Not one of them, not even Parker Clare, looked over his shoulder to where John lay under the sheaves, curled up like a child, his hands covering his face. Each of them knew well enough that the world often takes the form of a hard fist, and there’s no words can soften that understanding.

  The women also worked around the fallen stook as though John wasn’t there. Their seeming indifference was, in truth, a sort of kindliness, for no dabbing of handkerchieves could mend this hurt.

  Only Dick Turnill came to John. He crouched beside him with a leather bottle of water in his hand.

  “John.”

  John peered out of the wheat straw. Already two purple bruises were spreading across his temple and his cheek.

  “Have a sup John.”

  John crawled out and shook the straw from his hair and shoulders. He took the bottle and drank, then he tipped some water over his throbbing face. Dick whispered.

  “I heard about Wisdom.”

  There was a silence between them. They sat for some minutes and watched the men swinging their scythes.

  “’Tis a harsh injustice.”

  John drank some more.

  “And I heard about your gelding, Dick.”

  Dick Turnill lowered his head and sighed.

  “Ay. Father was on his knees all night. Like Job.”

  “There’s injustice and there’s bad luck and I ain’t sure where one bleeds into the other.”

  The two friends got to their feet and set the stook upright. The women watched them without reproval. And Betsy Jackson, her arms wrapped around a sheaf, looked upon John with a new tenderness, for she had heard of his sorrow, and she had seen that he did not lack courage, and she had seen that he was hurt, and now she saw him brush his hurt aside. And all conspired in her breast to a soft affection that ached to rock him in her arms.

  And then the shout went up:

  “Old Sow! Old Sow! Old Sow!”

  The last stalks of wheat were standing naked in the field.

  John Close, catching wind that the work was nearly done, had ridden across the field to the men. He pulled a tangle of bright ribbons from his pocket, climbed down from the saddle and bound the stalks together. Then Richard Royce, the Lord of the Harvest, his shirt stained with dry blood, swung his scythe and brought the last stand toppling down. The men and women gathered in a circle around him and cheered. He lifted the ribboned sheaf high above his head:

  “I have it! I have it!”

  The final sheaf of the long months of harvest was cut at last.

  *******

  And now it is the Horkey in John Close’s barn. The parish settles itself down to eat and drink as food and ale are set beneath the nose of every man and woman.

  At the end table closest to the door, John Clare sits with Parker, Ann and Sophie. Old Otter and Kitty have joined them, and she has put a compress to the side of John’s face that is so swollen now that he is lop-sided as a three-quarter moon. Dick Turnill sits with them too. Old Otter looks across at John from time to time and shakes his head most sorrowful, his voice booming out above the other talk like a bittern upon the marsh:

  “We done what we could Johnny, we done what we could.”

  The other villagers fight shy of the Clares.

  When all have eaten the paupers are called in to take their fill. From the high table there comes the call for a dance. I see Old Otter look across at John and raise an eyebrow. John shakes his head:

  “Not tonight.”

  Betsy Jackson, Jonathan Burbridge and Sam Billings take their
places on the tumbrel at the end of the barn. Then Old Otter climbs up beside them and pulls his fiddle from beneath his jerkin.

  John turns to Dick:

  “Don’t mind me Dick, you play if you’ve a mind to.”

  So Dick Turnill, a little uneasy, climbs up and takes his place beside them, not liking to think of himself playing reels while his parents pray and his friend nurses his bitter hurt, but not liking either to miss the chance of a tune.

  When the parish poor have crammed the left-overs into their mouths, the boards and trestles are pushed back against the walls and the dancers begin to mill about on the floor and wait for the band to strike up the first tune. Old Otter raises his hand to the crowd:

  “Cast your mind back a year friends. We had a fiddler with us then as could lift a tune for dancin’ like no other … you’ll all know who I’m speakin’ of, and would that he was here with us tonight.”

  All evening Richard Royce, on his throne at the high table, with the ribboned Old Sow swinging above his head, has been downing mug after mug of harvest ale. Now he stands unsteady and bellows back:

  “Ay, and if there was any justice he’d be dancing the Tyburn Frisk come Wednesday!”

  An uneasy silence falls on the barn. There are nods from many, while on the tumbrel Sam Billings and Old Otter tighten their fists. There is a moment when it seems the harvest accord might fall apart and a fight begin. But then Sally Royce pushes through the crowd to the high table, she stands before her husband and, with every eye of the village upon her, she lifts her hand and slaps him hard across the face.

  “There. We’ve all heard enough of your prattle for one day.”

  He looks at her in astonishment then slumps back onto his throne and from the tumbrel at the far end of the barn the band strikes up ‘Drowsy Maggie’.

  John Clare sits as the band plays and the dancers step their measure. His head is leaning against the stone of the barn wall, one eye watches but the other is half sealed with the swelling of cheek and brow. Not even the harvest ale can ease his hurt. Parker moves along the bench and puts his arm around John’s shoulder.