woman, and though the place was a very good one for living, my mind
was set against it from the first;... one of the disagreeable things
was getting up so early in the morning ... and another was getting
wetshod ... every morning and night--for in wet weather the moat used
to overflow the cause-way that led to the porch, and as there was but
one way to the house we were obliged to wade up to the knees to get
in and out.... I staid here one month, and then on coming home to my
parents they could not persuade me to return. They now gave up all
hopes of doing any good with me and fancied that I should make nothing
but a soldier; but luckily in this dilemma a next-door neighbour at
the Blue Bell, Francis Gregory, wanted me to drive plough, and as I
suited him, he made proposals to hire me for a year--which as it had
my consent my parents readily agreed to." There he spent a year in
light work with plenty of leisure for his books and his long reveries
in lonely favourite places. His imagination grew intensely, and in his
weekly errand to a flour-mill at Maxey ghosts rose out of a swamp and
harried him till he dropped. This stage was hardly ended when one
day on his road he saw a young girl named Mary Joyce, with whom he
instantly fell in love. This crisis occurred when Clare was almost
sixteen: the fate of John Clare hung in the balance for six months.
Then Mary's father, disturbed principally by the chance that his
daughter might be seen talking to this erratic youngster, put an end
to their meetings. From this time, with intervals of tranquillity,
Clare was to suffer the slow torture of remorse, until at length
deliberately yielding himself up to his amazing imagination he held
conversation with Mary, John Clare's Mary, his first wife Mary--as
though she had not lived unwed, and had not been in her grave for
years.

But this was not yet; and we must return to the boy Clare, now