Turnill, we toiled together all the day, And lived like hermits from the boys at play; We read and walked together round the fields, Not for the beauty that the journey yields-- But muddied fish, and bragged oer what we caught, And talked about the few old books we bought. Though low in price you knew their value well, And I thought nothing could their worth excel; And then we talked of what we wished to buy, And knowledge always kept our pockets dry. We went the nearest ways, and hummed a song, And snatched the pea pods as we went along, And often stooped for hunger on the way To eat the sour grass in the meadow hay. One of these "few old books" was Thomson's "Seasons", which gave a direction to the poetic instincts of Clare, already manifesting themselves in scribbled verses in his exercise-books. Read, mark, learn as Clare might, no opportunity came for him to enter a profession. "After I had done with going to school it was proposed that I should be bound apprentice to a shoemaker, but I rather disliked this bondage. I whimpered and turned a sullen eye on every persuasion, till they gave me my will. A neighbour then offered to learn me his trade--to be a stone mason,--but I disliked this too.... I was then sent for to drive the plough at Woodcroft Castle of Oliver Cromwell memory; though Mrs. Bellairs the mistress was a kind-hearted 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,