“Oil” and “cutch” are preservatives for the herring nets. The oil is linseed, and the nets are soaked in it before they are tanned by the cutch. Cutch is a dark resinous stuff, which is thrown into a copper full of water and boiled till it is dissolved. Then the liquid is thrown over the nets and permitted to soak in. After the nets are soaked in linseed oil, and before they are tanned, they are hung up to dry in the open air. The process has to be repeated several times during each fishing, and those who are familiar with Lowestoft and Yarmouth must also be familiar with the sight and smell of the nets, hanging out on railings, either on public open spaces or in private net yards. Where rails are not obtainable the nets are often spread on the ground, and an ingenious idea for the quaint shape of Yarmouth (unique with its narrow “rows”) is that the rows represent the narrow footpaths between the spaces on which the nets used to be laid to dry.
“Pasifull” is sometimes called “Percival,” sometimes “Pasifall,” and sometimes as in this letter. His Christian name was Ablett, and he was both a fisherman and a yacht hand.
Mr. Durrant was a market gardener and fruiterer in Lowestoft, and his sons carry on the same business in three shops in Lowestoft now. One of them remembers FitzGerald as a visitor and “a queer old chap,” and that’s all he knows about him.
I do not think Posh troubled himself much about the accounts. But there was another subject already broached which was to cause some unpleasantness between the partners.
Some of FitzGerald’s friends, both at Lowestoft and elsewhere, had become uneasy at the hold which Posh had obtained over him. They feared lest he should become a baron of beef at which Posh could cut and come again. More than one advised him that he should have some better
security than a mere partnership understanding, that he should, in fact, insist on having a bill of sale, or mortgage of the Meum and Tuum and her gear to secure the money he had found. Possibly he was swayed by Posh’s backwardness in the matter of account. Certainly he came to the conclusion that his friends were right, and that he should have a charge on the boat and her gear. Now I believe that Posh tells the truth when he says that in the first instance there was no mention of any such charge. And he was not a business man enough to see the reasonableness of FitzGerald’s demand. He was, moreover, urged by the secretiveness of his race, the love of keeping private affairs from outsiders, and he bitterly resented the proposition. Indeed, during the early months of 1868, there were constant semi-quarrels, which were as constantly patched up. FitzGerald loved the man too well to quarrel with him definitely. Besides, Posh
had not been well. In January FitzGerald wrote to Professor Cowell (Letters, II, 103, Eversley Edition): “I have spent lots of money on my Herring-lugger, which has made but a poor season. So now we are going (like wise men) to lay out a lot more for Mackerel; and my Captain (a dear Fellow) is got ill, which is the worst of all.”
But in this first instance Posh gave way. On April 14th FitzGerald wrote Mr. Spalding: “I believe that he and I shall now sign the Mortgage Papers that make him owner of Half Meum and Tuum. I only get out of him that he can’t say he sees much amiss in the Deed.” But Posh is still bitter about that deed, and still blames his old “guv’nor” for having listened to the “interfarin’ parties.” He does not know what was the matter with him that spring. “I was quare, sir,” he says. “I don’t know what ta was. But I was quare.”
He got well in time to go off after the spring mackerel, which used to be a regular
fishing season off Lowestoft, though now mackerel are getting as scarce as salmon off the Norfolk and Suffolk coast. But the Meum and Tuum’s bad luck still followed her with the longer and bigger meshed nets. On June 16th, 1868, FitzGerald wrote to Mr. Spalding (Two Suffolk Friends, p. 113):—