During the night from Sunday to Monday, John Clare could not shut his
eyes for sheer anxiety. The questions whether the bookseller would have
any copies left of the wonderful poem; whether it could really be bought
for eighteen-pence; and whether the big farmer's boy did not mean the
whole story as a hoax, occupied his mind all night long. It seemed so
improbable to him, on reflection, that a book containing the most
exquisite verses could be bought for little more than the common fairy
tales of the hawkers, and it seemed still more improbable that, being
sold so cheap, there would be any books left for sale, that he at last
inwardly despaired of getting the book. Thereupon he had a good long cry
in the silence of the night, when all the village was asleep; and the
crying closed his eyelids, too, for sheer weariness. And when he roused
himself again there was a faint glow in the sky; so he rushed down to the
stables, took out his horses, and led them to the pasture, awaiting the
arrival of his confederate. The latter came at length, and, having given
over his horses, John set off in a sharp trot, skipping over the seven or
eight miles to Stamford in little more than an hour. The bookseller's
shop, alas, was still closed; but the people in the streets told the
eager inquirer that the shutters would be taken down in about an hour and
a half. John, therefore, sat down in quiet resignation on the door-step,
counting the quarters of the chiming clock. At last there was a noise
inside the house, a rattling of keys and drawing of bolts. The bookseller
slowly opened his door, and was immensely astonished to see a little
country lad, thin and haggard, with wild gleaming eyes, rush at him with
a demand for Thomson's 'Seasons.' Was there ever such a customer seen at
Stamford? The good bookseller was not accustomed to excitement, for the
old ladies who dealt at his shop bought their hymn-books and manuals of
devotion without any manifestations of impatience, and even the young
ones, though they asked for Aphra Behn's novels in a whisper, came in