“Posh shall be at the Train for his Hare. When I went to look for him last Night, he was in his Shod, by the light of a Candle examining a Petman Pig [Suffolk for ‘the smallest pig in a litter’], about the size of Newson’s Watch, and swell’d out ‘as taut as a Drum,’ Posh said. A Friend had given him this Production of Nature: it hadn’t grown a bit (except swelling up) for 3 weeks, in spite of Posh’s Medicines last Sunday: so as he is ‘a’most minded to make away with it, poor little thing.’ He almost let it drop when I suddenly appeared, in a theatrical Style, at the Door.
“You seem to think there is no hurry about a Gardener
[at Little Grange] just yet. Mr Berry still thinks that Miss ---’s man would do well: as it is, he goes out for work, as Miss --- has not full Employment for him. He and his Wife are very respectable too, I hear. So in spite of my Fear of Unprotected Females, &c., he might do. Perhaps you might see him one day as you pass the Unprotected one’s Grounds, and hear. I have hardly work enough for one Whole Man, as is the case with my Neighbour, who yet is a Female. . . .”
“‘Becky’s,’ Saturday, May 18, ’67. [Ib.]
“. . . Posh is very busy with his Lugger [the ‘Meum and Tuum’], which will be decked by the middle of next Week. I have just left him: having caught him with a Pot of white paint (some of which was on his Face), and having made him dine on cold Beef in the Suffolk Hotel Bowling-green, washing all down with two Tankards of Bullard’s Ale. He was not displeased to dine abroad; as this is Saturday, when he says there are apt to be ‘Squalls’ at home, because of washing, &c. His little Boy is on the mending hand: safe, indeed, I hope, and believe, unless they let him into Draughts of Air: which I have warned them against.
“Yesterday we went to Yarmouth, and bought a Boat for the Lugger, and paraded the Town, and dined at the
Star Tavern (Beefsteak for one), and looked into the Great Church: where when Posh pulled off his Cap, and stood erect but not irreverent, I thought he looked as good an Image of the Mould that Man was originally cast in, as you may chance to see in the Temple of The Maker in these Days.
“The Artillery were blazing away on the Denes; and the little Band-master, who played with his Troop here last summer, joined us as we were walking, and told Posh not to lag behind, for he was not at all ashamed to be seen walking with him. The little well-meaning Ass! . . .”
“Lowestoft, Longest Day, ’67.
[‘Letters,’ p. 309.]
“. . . As to talking over Posh, etc., with me, there is plenty of time for that; indeed, as yet we cannot come to a final estimate of the Property, since all is not yet bought: sails, cables, warps, Ballast, &c. As to his services hitherto, I yesterday gave him £20, telling him that I couldn’t compute how much he had done for me: nor could he, he said, and would be contented with anything.