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There still stands engraven on the porch of Glinton churchyard or stood till within a recent time a circular inscription, consisting of the letters, 'J. C. 1808, cut in bold hand, and underneath, in fainter outline, the name 'Mary. Just before quitting the 'Blue Bell, at the end of his twelve months' service, another important event took place in the life of John Clare.
For two winters and part of a wet summer, John Clare went to Mr. Merrishaw's school at Glinton, during short intervals of hard labour in the fields. At the end of this period a curious accident seemed to give a sudden turn to his prospects in life.
This wonderfully graphic narrative extraordinary compound of facts and dreams, illuminated by the lurid flame of a marvellous imagination Clare accompanied by a letter to his visionary spouse. The letter, addressed, 'To Mary Clare, Glinton, and dated 'Northborough, July 27, 1841, ran as follows:
James Merrishaw showed great kindness, allowing them, among other things, the run of his library, somewhat larger than that of ordinary village schoolmasters. John Clare had not been many times to Glinton, before he was enrolled among these favourites of Mr. Merrishaw.
But I am not so lonely as I was in Essex; for here I can see Glinton Church, and feeling that my Mary is safe, if not happy, I am gratified. Though my home is no home to me, my hopes are not entirely hopeless while even the memory of Mary lives so near me. God bless you, my dear Mary!
And when the winter came round, and there was little work in the fields, he made arrangements with the schoolmaster at Glinton, a man famed far and wide, to become his pupil for five evenings in the week, and for as many more days as he might be out of employment.
The trial of education was carried on to John Clare's highest satisfaction, as well as that of his parents, who proclaimed aloud that their son was going to be a scholar. Glinton, a small village of about three hundred inhabitants, stands some four or five miles east of Helpston, bordering on the Peterborough Great Fen.
In the latter favourite labour he was much assisted by a young friend, whose acquaintance he had made at Glinton school, named John Turnill, the son of a small farmer.
Being able already to read, through his own exertions, based on the fundamental principles instilled by Dame Bullimore, little John dived with delight into the treasures opened at the Glinton school, never tired to go through the somewhat miscellaneous book stores of Mr. Merrishaw. In a short while, the young student was seized with a real hunger for knowledge.
To him; she was nothing less than an angel, with no other name than that of Mary; though vulgar mortals called her Mary Joyce, holding her to be the daughter of a well-to-do farmer at Glinton. John Clare made her acquaintance if so it can be called what was the merest dream-life intercourse on one of his periodical journeyings to and from the Maxey mills.
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