only added nothing but made encroachment on his small stipend. In
despair he flung himself into field labour again, and was carried home
nearly dead with fever. Friends there were not wanting to send food
and medicine; Parson Mossop, having long ago been converted to Clare,
did much for him. Even so the landlord distrained for rent, and Clare
applied to his old friend Henderson the botanist at Milton Park. Lord
Milton came by and Clare was encouraged to tell him his trouble;
his intense phrases and bearing were such that the nobleman at once
promised him a new cottage and a plot of ground. At the same time, he
expressed his hope that there would soon be another volume of poems
by John Clare. This hope was the spark which fired a dangerous train,
perhaps; for Clare once again fell into his exhausting habit of poetry
all the day and every day. He decided to publish a new volume by
subscription.

The new cottage was in the well-orcharded village of Northborough,
three miles from Helpston. It was indeed luxurious in comparison with
the old stooping house where Clare had spent nearly forty years, but
there was more in that old house than mere stone and timber. Clare
began to look on the coming change with terror; delayed the move day
after day, to the distress of poor Patty; and when at last news came
from Milton Park that the Earl was not content with such strange
hesitation, and when Patty had her household on the line of march, he
"followed in the rear, walking mechanically, with eyes half shut, as
if in a dream." There was no delay in his self-expression.

I've left mine own old home of homes,
Green fields and every pleasant place;
The summer like a stranger comes;
I pause and hardly know her face.