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To prepare for the dreaded interview John at last set himself to compose an elaborate speech, on the model of one which he had seen in the 'Royal Magazine' at Mr. Merrishaw's school. The speech, however, was not quite ready when the boat stopped at Wisbeach, landing John Clare, together with the other passengers. One more source of trouble had to be overcome here.
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.
Yes, the lad knew; he had plunged into grammar at Mr. Merrishaw's, instead of into algebra and the pure sciences. But he could not tell how to learn grammar, except through one very difficult work, bound in leather, and called 'The Critical Spelling-book. To get this wonderful book now became the all-absorbing thought of John Clare.
Thomas Porter by what means he could get to know grammar, he had not the courage: the ground was burning under his feet in the little cottage at Ashton Green. John Clare, therefore, took his farewell without seeking further information, and hurried off to the house of a lad with whom he had been at Mr. Merrishaw's school. Did he know where or what grammar was?
John himself thought otherwise; but was immediately overruled in his opinion by father, mother, and uncle. A boy who had been to Mr. Merrishaw's for ever so many evenings; who could read a chapter from the Bible as well as the parson, and who was drawing figures upon paper night after night: why, he was fit enough to be not only a lawyer's clerk, but, if need be, a minister of the church.
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