Posh does not remember the last occasion on which he spoke to his old “guv’nor,” but he says that whenever he did see him he, FitzGerald, would take him by the blue woollen jersey and pinch him, and say, “Oh dear, oh dear, Posh! To think it should ha’ come to this.” Well, this may possibly have been the case. There is no doubt that FitzGerald resumed friendly relations with the fisherman, for on August 29th, 1875, he wrote from Woodbridge to his former partner:—
The “little Sapphire” I cannot identify. One gentleman has been kind enough to try to help me, and thinks that she was the Scandal. But this cannot be so, for the Scandal was built for FitzGerald at Wyvenhoe in 1863, was first called the Shamrock and then the Scandal. Personally, I remember the names of a good many of the yachts of the Norfolk and Suffolk coast of the period, but I can’t identify the Sapphire. The Red Rover was a river craft, a cutter, with the one big jib of our river craft The Red Rover was not only successful on the rivers and Broads, but in the Yarmouth Roads. I was on her when she was beating the famous Thames twenty-tonner Vanessa, when the Red Rover carried away her bowsprit (a new stick) as she was beating on the sands to dodge the tide, and I remember how we were hooted all the way up Gorleston Harbour when Mr. William Hall’s steam launch towed us in. Although I have described her as a river yacht, she was purely a racing machine, and used to be accompanied (in the home waters at all events) by a wherry, with all spare spars and sails, on which everything unnecessary for sailing was stowed before the starting gun was fired. Once a year she carried a picnic party over Breydon Water, on which occasion, I believe, Mrs. Nightingale was invariably seasick going over to Breydon. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Nightingale ever used her for Well, well! There are no Red Rovers now, and no Fred Baldrys coming on. But there are plenty of stinking black tugs and filthy coal barges embellishing the lovely Norfolk waters. I do not wonder that Colonel Leathes, mentioned in the last quoted letter, has taken his yacht off the public waters and confined her to the beautiful wooded reaches of Fritton Mere. The Otter was a rival of the Red Rover in the early days of the latter yacht, and was a clumsy, rather ugly, ketch-rigged craft belonging to Sir Arthur Preston. Major Leathes’ (now Colonel Leathes) boat was a yawl named the Waveney Queen, and the Colonel tells me that he carried away his mast twice, each time because he would “carry on” too long. I can’t ascertain who was the “new owner” of Ablett Percival and Jack—and if I could I suppose it wouldn’t do to name “Mushell” was the nickname of Joe Butcher, the former skipper of the Henrietta, under Posh, as owner. I must admit that this letter is hard to fit in with the year 1875, when the Meum and Tuum and the Henrietta had been sold, and the separation between Posh and his “guv’nor” final, so far as herring fishing was concerned. The last paragraph, in which FitzGerald writes that so long as Posh goes on he will stand by him, seems in flat contradiction to what happened in 1874. But Colonel Leathes puts the date as 1875, and Dr. Aldis Wright has been kind enough to look up old almanacs in his possession and corroborates this view. It speaks with extraordinary eloquence of FitzGerald’s affection for Posh, of his “Mr. and Mrs. Howe” were, as I have stated before, the caretakers at Little Grange. “Cowell” was, no doubt, Professor Cowell, though it seems strange that FitzGerald should have mentioned him to Posh without any prefix to his name. That is the last letter in which I can find any reference to Posh, and the last letter in Posh’s possession which was written to him. I dare say there were later letters, but if so they have been destroyed. FitzGerald had tried a new experiment, and it was ended.
He had found a new love, a new interest, and believed that he had found a new trustworthiness. Posh was, no doubt, rude, harsh, overbearing with the old gentleman, but his eyes grow moist now when he speaks of him. I think he would surrender a good deal of his boasted independence if only he could have FitzGerald for his friend again. The last time he was with me I read him
“Well tha’ss a rum un!” said Posh. THE END william brendon and son, ltd. |