scraps of paper his unpolished rhymes. "When he was fourteen or
fifteen," to use his mother's own words, "he would show me a piece of
paper, printed sometimes on one side and scrawled all over on the
other, and he would say, 'Mother, this is worth silver and gold,' and
I used to say to him, 'Ay, boy, it looks as if it wur,' but I thought
he was only wasting his time." John deposited a bundle of these
fragments in a chink in the cottage wall, whence "they were duly and
daily subtracted by his mother to boil the morning's kettle," but we
do not find that he was greatly disturbed by the loss, for being
sympathetically asked on one occasion whether he had not kept copies
of his earliest poems he replied that he had not, and that they were
very likely good for nothing.

While he was yet in his early youth an important and, in some
respects, a favourable change took place in the nature of his daily
occupation. Among the few well-to-do inhabitants of Helpstone was a
person named Francis Gregory, who owned a small public-house, under
the sign of the Blue Bell, and rented besides a few acres of land.
Francis Gregory, a most kind and amiable man, was unmarried, and kept
house with his old mother, a female servant, and a lad, the latter
half groom and half gardener. This situation, a yearly hiring, being
vacant, it was offered to John, and eagerly accepted, on the
understanding that he should have sufficient time of his own to
continue his studies. It was a promise abundantly kept, for John
Clare had never more leisure, and perhaps was never happier in his
life than during the year that he stayed at the Blue Bell. Mr.
Francis Gregory, suffering under constant illness, treated the pale
little boy, who was always hanging over his books, more like a son
than a servant, and this feeling was fully shared by Mr. Gregory's
mother. John's chief labours were to attend to a horse and a couple