A more excited time than that which now followed, Clare had never seen in his life. He was in love over head and ears, and had to pay frequent visits to his mistress at Walkherd Lodge; he had to think of saving money for his long-desired olive-green coat--more than ever desired now for presentation at the Lodge; and, last not least, he had to work overtime to get the one pound sterling required for the printing of the three hundred prospectuses. In short, he had to labour harder than ever, in order to gain more money; and, yet, at the same time, required more leisure than ever, both for writing verses and love-making. To reconcile these opposite wants, he took to night-work, in addition to daily labour, risking his health and almost his life to gain a few shillings and to have an occasional glimpse at his sweet mistress. His love prospects did not appear to be very promising, at first. As for Martha Turner herself, she rather encouraged than otherwise the attentions of the young lime-burner; her parents, however, were strongly and energetically opposed to the courtship. Dignified cottage-farmers, renting their half-a-dozen acres of land, with a cow on the common, and a pig or two, they thought their pretty daughter might look higher in the world than to a mere lime-burner with nine shillings a week. Besides, there was another lover in the wind, of decidedly better prospects, who had already gained the ear of the parents, and was backed by all their influence. It was a young shoemaker from Stamford, with a shop of his own; a townsman dressed in spotless broadcloth on all his visits to Walkherd Lodge, and of manners considered aristocratic. Martha herself wavered slightly between the shoemaker and the lime-burner; the former was not only well-dressed but good-looking, to neither of which externals John Clare could lay any pretensions. The only advantage possessed by him over his rival was that he pleaded his cause with all the zeal and ardour of a man deeply enamoured, and this, as always, so here, carried the day finally. There was some languid indifference in the addresses of the loving shoemaker, to punish which Martha Turner threw herself into the arms of John Clare. So far, things were looking prosperous at the Pickworth lime-kiln, during the first months of 1818.