Next mornin’ Mr James sent for the doctor. But when he come, Owd Master said, “Yeou can do nothin’ for me; I oon’t take none o’ yar stuff.” No more he would. Then Mr James säa, “Would yeou like to see the parson?” He din’t säa nŏthin’ for some time, then he said, “Yeou may send for him.” When the parson come—and he was a nice quite [63] owd gentleman, we were werry fond of him—he went up and stäa’d some time; but he nivver said nŏthin’ when he come down. Howsomdiver, Owd Master läa more quiter arter that, and when they axed him to take his med’cin he took it. Then he slep’ for some hours, and when he woke up he called out quite clear, “James.” And when Mr James come, he säa to him, “James,” sez he, “I ha’ left ivrything to yeou; do yeou see that Mary hev her share.” You notiz, he din’t säa, “Mary’s child,” but “Mary hev her share.” Arter a little while he said, “James, I should like to see the little chap.” He warn’t far off, and my mother made him tidy, and brushed his hair and parted it. Then she
took him up, and put him close to the bed. Owd Master bod ’em put the curtain back, and he läa and looked at Master Charley. And then he said, quite slow and tendersome, “Yeou’re a’most as pritty as your mother was, my dear.”
Them was the last words he ivver spŏok.
Mr James nivver married, and when he died he left ivrything to Master Charley.
EDWARD FITZGERALD: AN AFTERMATH.
My earliest recollections of FitzGerald go back to thirty-six years. He and my father were old friends and neighbours—in East Suffolk, where neighbours are few, and fourteen miles counts for nothing. They never were great correspondents, for what they had to say to one another they said mostly by word of mouth. So there were notes, but no letters; and the notes have nearly all perished. In the summer of 1859 we were staying at Aldeburgh, a favourite place with my father, as the home of his forefathers. They were sea-folk; and Robinson Groome, my great-grandfather, was owner of the Unity lugger, on which the poet Crabbe went up to London. When his son, my grandfather, was about to take orders, he expressed a timid hope that the bishop
would deem him a proper candidate. “And who the devil in hell,” cried Robinson Groome, “should he ordain if he doesn’t ordain you, my dear?” [68] This I have heard my father tell FitzGerald, as also of his “Aunt Peggy and Aunt D.” (i.e., Deborah), who, if ever Crabbe was mentioned in their hearing, always smoothed their black mittens and remarked—“We never thought much of Mr Crabbe.”
Our house was Clare Cottage, where FitzGerald himself lodged long afterwards. “Two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil woman pleased to have me in them.” It fronts the sea, and is (or was) a small two-storeyed house, with a patch of grass before it, a summer-house, and a big white figurehead, belike of the shipwrecked Clare. So over the garden-gate FitzGerald leant one June morning, and asked me, a boy of eight, was my father at home. I remember him dimly then as a tall sea-browned man, who took us boys out for several sails, on the first of which I and a brother were both of us woefully sea-sick. Afterwards I remember picnics down the Deben river, and visits to him at Woodbridge, first in his
lodgings on the Market Hill over Berry the gunsmith’s, and then at his own house, Little Grange. The last was in May 1883. My father and I had been spending a few days with Captain Brooke of Ufford, the possessor of one of the finest private libraries in England. [69] From Ufford we drove on to Woodbridge, and passed some pleasant hours with FitzGerald. We walked down to the riverside, and sat on a bench at the foot of the lime-tree walk. There was a small boy, I remember, wading among the ooze; and FitzGerald, calling him to him, said—“Little boy, did you never hear tell of the fate of the Master of Ravenswood?” And then he told him the story. At dinner there was much talk, as always, of many things, old and new, but chiefly old; and at nine we started on our homeward drive. Within a month I heard that FitzGerald was dead.