Edward FitzGerald and Posh | Page 2

his "governor."
Not a jolly boatman of middle age in the harbour but knew of both. "D'ye mean Joe Fletcher, master?" said one of them. "What--old Posh? Why yes! Alive an' kickin', and go a shrimpin' when the weather serve. He live up in Chapel Street. Number tew. He lodge theer."
So up I went to Chapel Street, one of those streets in the old North Town of Lowestoft which have seen better days. A wizened, bent, white-haired old lady answered my knock, after a preliminary inspection from a third- floor window of my appearance. This, I learnt afterwards, was old Mrs. Capps, with whom Posh had lodged since the death of his wife, fourteen years previously.
"You'll find him down at the new basin," said the old lady. "He's mostly there this time o' day."
But there was no Posh at the new basin. Half a dozen weather-beaten shrimpers (in their brown jumpers, and with the fringe of hair running beneath the chin from ear to ear--that hirsute ornament so dear to East Anglian fishermen) were lounging about the wharf, or mending the small- meshed trawl-nets wherein they draw what spoil they may from the depleted roads.
All were grizzled, most were over seventy if wrinkled skin and white hair may be taken as signs of age. And all knew Posh, and (oh! shame to the "educated classes!") all remembered Edward FitzGerald. The poet, the lovable, cultured gentleman they knew nothing of. Had they known of his incomparable paraphrase of the Persian poet, of his scholarship, his intimacy with Thackeray, Tennyson, Carlyle, the famous Thompson, Master of Trinity, they would have recked nothing at all. But they remembered FitzGerald, who has been called by their superiors an eccentric, miserly hermit. They remembered him, I say, as a man whose heart was in the right place, as a man who never turned a deaf ear to a tale of trouble.
"Ah!" said one of them. "He was a good gennleman, was old Fitz." (They all spoke of him as "old Fitz." They thought of him as a "mate"--as one who knew the sea and her moods, and would put up with her vagaries even as they must do. His shade in their memories was the shade of a friend, and a friend whom they respected and loved.) "That was a good day for Posh when he come acrost him. Posh! I reckon you'll find him at Bill Harrison's if he bain't on the market."
"Posh" was no fancy name of the poet's for Joseph Fletcher, but the actual proper cognomen by which the man has been known on the coast since he was a lad. Most east coast fishermen have a nickname which supersedes their registered name, and "Posh" (or now "old Posh") was Joseph Fletcher's.
Bill Harrison's is a cosy little beerhouse in the lower North Town. It is called Bill Harrison's because Bill Harrison was once its landlord. Poor Bill has left house and life for years. But the house is still "Bill Harrison's."
Here I found Posh. At that time, little more than a year ago, I wrote of him as "a hale, stoutly-built man of over the middle height, his round, ruddy, clean-shaven face encircled by the fringe of iron-grey whiskers running round from ear to ear beneath the chin. His broad shoulders were held square, his back straight, his head poised firm and alert on a splendid column of neck."
Alas! The description would fit Posh but poorly now.
"Yes," said he. "I was Mr. FitzGerald's partner. But I can't stop to mardle along o' ye now. I'll meet ye when an' where ye like."
I made an appointment with him, which he failed to keep. Then another. Then another, and another. I lay wait for him in likely places. I stalked him. I caught stray glimpses of him in various haunts. But he always evaded me.
I think old Mrs. Capps got tired of leaning her head out of the third- floor window of No. 2 Chapel Street, and seeing me waiting patiently on the doorstep expectant of Posh.
At length I cornered him (from information received) fairly and squarely at the Magdala House, a beerhouse in Duke's Head Street, two minutes' walk from his lodgings.
I got him on his legs and took him down Rant Score to Bill Harrison's.
"Now look here," said I. "What's the matter? You've made appointment after appointment, and kept none of them. Why don't you wish to see me?"
Posh shuffled his feet on, the sanded bricks. He drank from the measure of "mild beer" (twopenny), for which he will call in preference to any other liquid.
"Tha'ss like this here, master," said he. "I ha' had enow o' folks a comin' here an' pickin' my brains and runnin' off wi' my letters and never givin' me so much as a sixpence."
"Oho!" I thought. "That's