my station is evident. I was in that mixed multitude called the
battalion, which they nicknamed 'bum-tools' for what reason I cannot
tell; the light company was called 'light-bobs,' and the grenadiers
'bacon-bolters' ... who felt as great an enmity against each other as
ever they all felt against the French."

In 1813 he read among other things the "Eikon Basilike," and turned
his hand to odd jobs as they presented themselves. His life appears to
have been comfortable and a little dull for a year or two; flirtation,
verse-making, ambitions and his violin took their turns amiably
enough! At length he went to work in a lime-kiln several miles from
Helpston, and wrote only less poems than he read: one day in the
autumn of 1817, he was dreaming yet new verses when he first saw
"Patty," his wife-to-be. She was then eighteen years old, and modestly
beautiful; for a moment Clare forgot Mary Joyce, and though "the
courtship ultimately took a more prosaic turn," there is no denying
the fact that he was in love with "Patty" Turner, the daughter of the
small farmer who held Walkherd Lodge. In the case of Clare, poetry was
more than ever as time went on autobiography; and it is noteworthy
that among the many love lyrics addressed to Mary Joyce there are not
wanting affectionate tributes to his faithful wife Patty.

Maid of Walkherd, meet again,
By the wilding in the glen....

And I would go to Patty's cot
And Patty came to me;
Each knew the other's very thought
Under the hawthorn tree....
And I'll be true for Patty's sake