there were any other books than these and the few he had seen at Glinton
school in existence; he had never heard of Shakespeare and Milton,
Thompson and Cowper, Spenser and Dryden; and, therefore, with the natural
eagerness of the young mind just awoke to its day dreams, eagerly plunged
into the new realm of fancy. The effect soon made itself felt upon the
ardent reader, fresh from his undigested algebraic studies. He saw ghosts
and hobgoblins wherever he went, and after a time began to look upon
himself as a sort of enchanted prince in a world of magic. He had no
doubt whatever about the literal truth of the stories he read; the
thought of their being mere pictures of the imagination not entering his
mind for a moment. It was natural, therefore, that he should come to the
conclusion that, as the earth had been, so it was still peopled with
fairies, dwarfs, and giants, with whom it would be his fate to come into
contact some time or other. So he buckled his armour tight, ready to do
battle with the visible and invisible world.

Opportunity came before long. Among his regular duties at the 'Blue Bell'
was that of fetching once a week flour from Maxey, a village some three
miles north of Helpston, near the Welland river. The road to Maxey was a
very lonely one, part of it a narrow footpath along the mere, and the
superstition of the neighbourhood connected strange tales of horror and
weird fancy with the locality. In the long days of summer, John Clare,
who had to start on his errand to the mill late in the afternoon, managed
to get home before dark, thus avoiding unpleasant meetings; but when the
autumn came, the sun set before he left Maxey, and then the ghosts were
upon him. They always attacked him half way between the two villages, in
a low swampy spot, overhung by the heavy mist of the fens. Poor John
battled hard, but the spirits nearly always got the upper hand. They
pulled his hair, pinched his legs, twisted his nose, and played other
tricks with him, until he sank to the ground in sheer exhaustion.