He was not, however, without friends, who treated him as a man ought to be treated. Such an one was Mr Holland, the Independent Minister at Market Deeping. Meeting with Clare's prospectus, one of the poems so pleased him that he made a pilgrimage to Bridge Casterton to see the writer. He found him in a lime-kiln, scribbling on the top of his hat. The acquaintance soon ripened into friendship; and nothing was so grateful or encouraging to Clare as the genuine commendation which he received from Mr Holland, when from time to time he put a new poem into his hands to read. Thus he was helped to a truer faith in himself, and his courage sustained. Mr Taylor had taken his work in hand; but months had elapsed, and no news came of its fate. Clare was beginning to despair, when one wet day who should appear at his cottage door but Mr Holland, his face beaming with pleasure.
"Am I not a good prophet?" said he, coming up to John and shaking him by both hands.
Clare was mystified; but soon to his great delight he heard that his book was out, and that it was the talk of the town—in fact, a great success.
His spirits rose at once to the seventh heaven. The longings, the hopes, the ambitions of his life were realised. Once more he saw the beautiful unknown world gleaming on the horizon. Heaven had lifted the dark clouds; the load of life fell from his back; he could walk, run, scale any height; he would soon reach that elysium of poetic fame he had dreamt of; and then "the crown of bays," for which he had hoped and waited so long, would descend on his brow.
But the troubles he had hitherto known, the discords his soul had as yet experienced, were light compared with those which were to follow. A fierce temptation was already lying in wait for him. Clare had fallen into the snare, so common among the rural poor—the delusion that courtship is the same as matrimony. It came, as temptation often does, in a form seemingly beautiful, and totally unexpected. When the London Reviews came down that January, the great people in the neighbourhood were astonished to find that a poet had arisen amongst them,—perhaps a Burns, some one who would shed fame on all who had to do with him.
