The promised statement of account was furnished in August or September 1829, but Clare disputed its accuracy and some of his corrections were accepted. Years elapsed before he could feel quite satisfied that he had been fairly treated, and in the meantime a rupture with his old friend and trustee, Mr. Taylor, was only averted by that gentleman's kindness and forbearance. Clare gave the pedlar project a fair trial, but it brought him little beyond fatigue, mortification, and disappointment. About this time his fifth child was born.
VISIT TO BOSTON
Not long after Clare's return from London, the Mayor of Boston invited him to visit that town. He accepted the invitation and was hospitably entertained. A number of young men of the town proposed a public supper in his honour, and gave him notice that he would have to reply to the toast of his own health. Clare shrank from this terrible ordeal and quitted Boston with scant ceremony. This he regretted on discovering that his warm-hearted friends and admirers had, unknown to him, put ten pounds into his travelling bag. His visit to Boston was followed by an attack of fever which assailed in turn every member of his family, and rendered necessary the frequent visits of a medical man for several months. For a long time Clare was quite unable to do any work in the fields, or sell any of his poems, and hence arose fresh embarrassments.
In the autumn of 1829 Clare once more made a farming venture on a small scale, and for about eighteen months he was fairly successful. This raised his spirits to an unwonted pitch, and his health greatly improved; but the gleam of sunshine passed away and poverty and sickness were again his portion. In 1831 his household consisted of ten persons, a sixth child having been born to him in the previous year. To support so large a family it was not sufficient that he frequently denied himself the commonest necessaries of life: this for years past he had been accustomed to do, but still he could not "keep the wolf from the door." In his distress he consulted his confidential friends, Artis and Henderson. While talking with Henderson one day at Milton Park, Clare had the good fortune to meet the noble owner, to whom he told all his troubles. His lordship listened attentively to the story, and when Clare had finished promised that a cottage and a small piece of land should be found for him. The promise was kept, for we find Mr. Emmerson writing on the 9th of November, 1831:—
"Why have you not, with your own good pen, informed me of the circumstance of your shortly becoming Farmer John? Yes, thanks to the generous Lord Milton, I am told in a letter from your kind friend, the Rev. Mr. Mossop (dated October 27th) that you have the offer of a most comfortable cottage, which will be fitted up for your reception about January the 1st 1832, that it will have an acre of orchard and garden, inclusive of a common for two cows, with a meadow sufficient to produce fodder for the winter."
REMOVAL TO NORTHBOROUGH
The cottage which Lord Milton set apart for Clare was situated at Northborough, a village three miles from Helpstone, and thus described by the author of "Rambles Roundabout":—
"Northborough is a large village, not in the sense of its number of houses or its population, but of the space of ground which it covers. The houses are mostly cottages, half-hidden in orchards and luxuriant gardens, having a prodigality of ground. There is not an eminence loftier than a molehill throughout, yet the spacious roads and the wealth of trees and flowers make it a very picturesque and happy-looking locality. Clare's cottage stands in the midst of ample grounds."
It has been generally supposed that the cottage was provided for Clare rent-free, but that this was not the case is shown by the fact that in one of his letters to Mrs. Emmerson he told her that he had had to sub-let the piece of common for less than he was himself paying for it. The rent was either L13 or L15 a year, but whether the regular payment of that amount was insisted upon is very doubtful. To the astonishment and even annoyance of many of Clare's friends, when he was informed that the cottage was ready for its new tenants, he showed the utmost reluctance to leave Helpstone. Mr. Martin gives the following account of what took place:—
"Patty, radiant with joy to get away from the miserable little hut into a beautiful roomy cottage, a palace in comparison with the old dwelling, had all things ready for moving at the beginning of June, yet could not persuade her husband to give his consent to the final start. Day after day he postponed it, offering no excuse save that he could not bear to part from his old home. Day after day he kept walking through fields and woods among his old haunts, with wild, haggard look, muttering incoherent language. The people of the village began to whisper that he was going mad. At Milton Park they heard of it, and Artis and Henderson hurried to Helpstone to look after their friend. They found him sitting on a moss-grown stone, at the end of the village nearest the heath. Gently they took him by the arm, and, leading him back to the hut, told Mrs. Clare that it would be best to start at once to Northborough, the Earl being dissatisfied that the removal had not taken place. Patty's little caravan was soon ready, and the poet, guided by his friends, followed in the rear, walking mechanically, with eyes half shut, as if in a dream. His look brightened for a moment when entering his new dwelling place, a truly beautiful cottage, with thatched roof, casemented windows, wild roses over the porch, and flowery hedges all round. Yet before many hours were over he fell back into deep melancholy, from which he was relieved only by a new burst of song. His feelings found vent in the touching verses beginning 'I've left my own old home of homes.'"