The Ballad of John Clare (26 page)

“If we was to set ourselves up here, between the lane and the spring, then we would be heard by all, and every soul must walk past us as they trudge homewards.”

“It’s as good a plan as any!”

They took out their instruments and settled down on the grass.

“Oooh, it’s a little damp …”

Jonathan took off his coat and laid it on the ground for Betsy to sit on.

“I’m obliged to you Jonathan.”

“What shall we play?”

“I say the Red Petticoat Hornpipe.”

“That’ll loosen their limbs!”

They played the tune several times over, then followed it with ‘The Beef Steak Hornpipe’, ‘The Shooters Hornpipe’, ‘The Stony Step Hornpipe’, ‘The American Hornpipe’.

They put down their instruments to catch their breath.

“Go on John, pass the hat around.”

“I ain’t got a hat.”

“Take this then.”

Betsy passed him her oboe box.

It was as he was carrying it down towards the crowd that Parson Mossop came striding past him, his cassock billowing in the breeze, to bless the water. He raised his hand over Eastwell Spring and the people fell silent:

“And John came into the country about the river Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins: ‘Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ And the multitude came forth to be baptized.”

“Amen.”

The Parson turned on his heel to hurry back to his horse that was tied to the lych-gate, for he is uneasy with these village ways that seem to him to smack of witchery. But he had barely taken three paces when there came the sound of a voice across the hollow.

“This is the last time!”

The crowd turned their heads and saw Ralph Wormstall walking towards them, his thin face, under wig and tri-corn hat, a mask of righteous indignation. Under his arm he was holding a sheaf of printed papers.

“This is the last time.”

His thin voice echoed across the spring,

“This is the very last time. There shall be no more cavorting on my land. No more taking of my water. D’ye understand? Or I shall bring down all the weight of the law upon ye. I’ll give ye until five of the clock, and any as ain’t gone shall be arraigned for trespass.”

He began to hand out the papers, but most being unable to read were none the wiser.

Parson Mossop seized one, pulled his spectacles from his pocket and scanned it. He walked across and took Ralph Wormstall by the arm:

“This is ancient usage Ralph. The village has always taken water from Eastwell Spring. You have no right to stop them, enclosure or no enclosure.”

Ralph Wormstall turned to him.

“I damned well have Mr Mossop. This is modern usage sir, the rights are mine and I have the title deeds to prove it.”

He jabbed the paper with his finger.

“I have spelled it out for you, along with the map that settles it. Do ye not have eyes to read sir!”

He turned to the crowd again:

“Away with ye!”

It was with an empty box that John returned to the band. Already the crowd was gathering its possessions and hurrying to leave. There was a scrummage at the edge of the water as people pushed forward to fill their bottles for the last time.

Betsy flicked the pages of her tune book.

“This is a sorry turn. Let’s play some more to see them home.”

They struck up ‘England’s Glory’ and ‘Bobbing Joan’ and ‘The White Cockade’. The crowd trudged and hobbled past, but they were in no mood to fling farthings into the open box.

“One more!”

Betsy played the first bar of ‘Smash the Windows’ and the rest fell in with her, and then it was ‘Mary no More’. By the time they’d played each tune through a few times they were alone, the crowd had dispersed.

Jonathan shrugged:

“Oh well, we’ve Mr Wormstall to thank for thin pickings …”

“Ay,” said Sam Billings. “And not for the first time.”

He adjusted his drum straps.

“By the way,” he looked round at the others as they were packing their instruments away, “Did anyone clap eyes on Kitty or Otter?”

“No.”

“They weren’t here …they’d have surely come and passed the time of day.”

“That’s most odd,” said Sam. “They always come to Eastwell …without fail.”

“I saw Otter last week,” said Jonathan, “he came to my shop for wood-shavings, as he often does when I’ve been planing a coffin. He was fit as a fiddle then.”

Sam Billings frowned.

“There’s something makes me uneasy. If I didn’t have to drive my baker’s dozen home to Deeping, I’d ride out to Snow Common now and make sure of ‘em.”

He pushed his drum sticks into his belt.

“Tomorrow’s a holiday though, I’ll go over in the morning.”

“And I’ll come with ye,” said Dick Turnill.

“And so will I,” said John Clare, glad of any way to fill a holiday that would keep his thoughts from Mary.

“Alright then, I’ll pick you both up at Woodgate. At nine of the morning.”

John, Dick and Sam Billings were walking ahead now. Jonathan and Betsy had fallen behind. The Eastwell Gate was pushed shut behind them as they stepped into the lane. The church clock was striking five. They could hear the clank of a chain and the clicking of a padlock as Ralph Wormstall’s cowman locked it.

Jonathan was summoning all his mettle. He swung the weight of his instrument from one shoulder to the other.

“Betsy.”

She turned to him and smiled most demur.

“Ay.”

“I know you and I ain’t in the first flush of youth, and courtin’ might seem a foolish thing as we’d put behind us long ago.”

She seemed to him to blush.

“But would you consider walking out with me tomorrow afternoon. We could take a turn in Royce’s Wood, or take the coach to Stamford or …”

“Thank you Jonathan Burbridge. I should like that very much …”

She smiled at him more fully, and any sense that she was rallying against the buffetings of her misfortune were most artfully concealed behind that smile.

“ …Very much indeed.”

*******

Easter Monday broke clear and fine, for the weather seldom gives away the secrets of the day. And it was a bright spring morning when Sam Billings reined Billy to a halt outside the Clare’s cottage. John and Dick Turnill had been sitting on the step awhile waiting for him.

Dick had put his arm around John’s shoulder:

“You seem a little down at heart these days John.”

John had shrugged and said nothing.

“It’s Mary … ain’t it? It’s weeks since I’ve seen you walk to Glinton.”

“Ay.”

He kicked a stone.

“Did something happen between ye?”

“Yes and no.”

“That don’t explain much.”

John sighed:

“I wish I could unfathom it, Dick. She’ll have nothing of me and I don’t know why.”

“But that ain’t like Mary …she’s such an open-hearted … such a spirited girl.”

John buried his face in his hands.

“Maybe it’s a judgement Dick …”

“Now you’re sounding like my father!”

“There are things I cannot understand, and things I cannot tell …”

It was at that moment that Sam Billings had interrupted them:

“Whoaaa …Good boy.”

He looked down from the seat of the cart:

“Climb up lads!”

They climbed up and sat to either side of him. He shook the reins and they rattled along Woodgate, Sam sandwiched between John and Dick like a toby-jug between two pewter mugs on a mantleshelf. The sun warmed them. The rooks in Royce’s Wood were noisy in their ragged settlements, and behind the white veils of blackthorn blossom the hedgerow birds were busy with moss, twig, wool and hair, each fashioning its own nest according to ancient custom.

John’s eyes darted from left to right, for although his spirits are low he relishes the busy industry of the hedges and all the scurrying insects that follow their courses and seem to know nothing of the seasons of the heart.

As they moved away from the village the old ragged bushes gave way to fences and hedges of quick-set, and the road straightened as though a dropped ribbon had been pulled taut.

“’Tis kinder weather than when you and I last drove the cart this way, John.” Said Sam.

“Ay.”

John nodded, though last December’s chill had held more of kindness for him than this April sunshine could ever hold.

Then Dick put his hand on Sam Billings’ shoulder and stood. He sheltered his eyes from the sun and peered across the newly divided fields.

“There he is!”

“Who?” Said Sam.

“My father.”

“What, today of all days, when he could be taking his ease?”

“It ain’t a sabbath,” said Dick, “so he’s been out since first light with his seed-lip at his waist.”

Sam stopped the horse and Dick stood on tip-toe:

“Here he comes look, and there’s poor mother at the field’s edge with a sack of corn to reload him.”

All three of them stood up in the cart and peered over the hedges. Two fields away they could see Bob Turnill marching across the ploughed field towards them, his eyes were fixed ahead as though he was a soldier on parade. His step was to a steady measure. His hand dipped into the seed-lip, and then his arm swung out and scattered the grain first to the left and then to the right, then left and right again. When one hand was empty he lifted it to eye-height and dropped it into the lip just as the other hand swung out and scattered its seed.

“He’d make a steady drummer Sam.”

“He would Dick …but why don’t he get one of the proper sowers to do the job for him …Richard Royce or Jim Crowson or Jack Ward?”

Dick sighed:

“He has no wage to pay them.”

They all sat down, Sam shook the reins and they trundled on again. For a while nothing was said. Then Sam turned to Dick:

“I hear rumours that Mr Bull has been knocking at your father’s door and offering money for his entitlement.”

“Ay,” Dick pressed his hands to his forehead, “he was urging what he calls his ‘sound proposition’ upon him again yesterday after church …But you know father, he would not speak of mammon on the Sabbath …least of all on Easter Sunday …”

Dick stopped suddenly, as though he had already spoken more than he should. Sam Billings put his fat arm around Dick’s shoulder:

“Don’t worry Dick, old mother tittle-tattle shall bite her tongue. I’ll not speak a word of it.”

Dick smiled, part in gratitude and part in sorrow. They turned into Torpel Way. He looked down at his knees. There was more he could have told, but he chose to keep his council.

When they came to the edge of Snow Common Sam whistled between his teeth.

“Someone has been at work here.”

The slats had been hammered to the posts. There was a new fence running along the edge of the road for the full length of the common. Inside it Mrs Elizabeth Wright’s cattle were grazing on the tussocky grass.

“By God, she might have lost a husband and then a brother, but she ain’t called a halt to the enclosing of the common.”

They clambered down from the cart. Sam tied Billy to the fence. John ran his hand along the wood. It was new-splintered and smelling of resin.

“Look,” said Dick, “there’s a sign. Over there. On that post.”

He pointed to the left. They strolled along the lane to take a closer look.

Sam Billings sucked the breath in between his teeth.

Each stood and read the words silently to himself. Then Dick spoke them aloud:

“Private Property. Trespassers will be Prosecuted.”

“That’s the sum of it,” said Sam Billings, “that’s the long and the short of it.”

He put a hand to the sign and used it to pull himself up onto the fence. He swung one of his legs over the top. It creaked with his weight.

“Come on lads, if Mrs Wright won’t forgive us our bloody trespasses there’s others as will.”

He trudged away over the common. Dick and John climbed over and hurried after him. The cattle followed them at a distance, skipping and sniffing, kicking the mole-hills, delighting to be outside in the fresh air after their long winter’s confinement in the barns.

As they threaded between blackthorn bushes and clumps of hazel trees the clean April air began to mingle with another, darker smell. It was the smell of burning, the smell of charred wood and scorched grass. They quickened their pace. Where the rounded form of the Otters squat should have risen above the bushes there was a pall of thin, acrid smoke. They broke into a run and soon found themselves standing at the edge of a blackened circle, a round smouldering heap of black ashes. Where the mottled hill of wood and canvas, leather and turf had stood there was the last smoking remnant of a great bonfire.

“Look at this. We don’t need no Boneparte to wreak his devastation, we can do it to ourselves.”

Sam Billings waded boot-deep into the warm ash. He kicked it into the air. There was nothing left, just a few pieces of charred timber that smoked a little fiercer with the sudden rush of air. All the Otter’s possessions, their kettles, buckets, pans, knives, baskets, sickles and the rest were gone. There was neither sight nor sign of Kitty’s geese.

Sam reached down and picked up a piece of white clay pipe stem. He put it to his lips and blew through it. He dropped it into his pocket.

“Bob Turnill ain’t the only one’s been at work this Easter when all eyes are turned elsewhere …”

He kicked a piece of black canvas into the air. It glowed red at its margin.

“Though I reckon this was Sabbath work.”

He spat into the ash.

“It’s the best part of a day since this lot went up in flames.”

Sam followed the well-trodden track from the Otter’s door-way down to the stream that winds across the common. All along the edge of it the pollarded willows lay on their sides, felled and stretched out to show that their wounds of red paint had been mortal ones. The hollow dotterel lay shattered also, the hopeful new-budding leaves on its branches unfolding still, not having yet been told the news of their own death.

Sam washed the ash from his boots with fistfuls of wet grass.