And Posh did not give way to his “guv’nor” as he might have done. That fine old East Anglian spirit of independence (which is so generally admirable) was in this particular instance sheer brutal ingratitude when shown by Posh to FitzGerald. No one has a greater admiration than I for this magnificent claim of a Man to be Man’s equal. It kept the race of Norfolk and Suffolk longshoremen worthy of their traditions until the cockney visitors, with their tips and their hunger for longshore lies, ruined the nature of many of our beach folk. But with FitzGerald, that kind, solicitous gentleman who never asserted the claims of his station in life before an inferior, the obtrusive display of this spirit of independence was as unnecessary as it was cruel. And I think Posh understands this now. He certainly never meant to hurt the feelings of his old governor. But he chafed at the care which his friend took of him. He said to me the other day that he wished his
old master were alive now to take such care. “Ah!” he said, “he’d take hold o’ me like this here” (and here, as I have described on a previous page, Posh pinched up his blue knitted jersey), “and say, ‘Oh, my dear Poshy! Oh dear! Oh dear! To think you should be like this! Oh dear! Oh dear!’”
And Posh’s old eyes will water. Indeed, I have noticed a likeness between the thoughts of Posh in reference to FitzGerald and the remorse of the son of a loving father who had tried his sire hard in lifetime and understood that he had done so after his father’s death. Even now, this old man of sixty-nine leans, metaphorically, on the recollection of the man who loved him so. Even now he says, “Ah! that would ha’ upset him if he’d known I should ha’ come to this!”
But in 1869 Posh thought that he was a very fine fellow indeed, and was not going to be “put upon” by any “guv’nor,” no matter
how kind the “guv’nor” had been to him. He was half owner of a fine drifter and skipper as well, to say nothing of having designed the boat. He would assert himself.
He did.
CHAPTER XI
POSH SHOWS TEMPER
Posh says that there “were lots o’ breezes” between him and his “guv’nor,” and when the reader of this study (who should have got to know something of FitzGerald’s attitude by now) realises this he will be able to appreciate the long-suffering generosity of this cultured scholar whom fools have painted as a mere eccentric hermit. Posh, now that he was well started by the aid of his governor, began to yearn for independence. Possibly he had some reason to complain that his sleeping partner interfered in matters of which he was ignorant. On September 21st, 1869, FitzGerald wrote to Mr. Spalding (Two Suffolk Friends, p. 118):—
“Posh came up with his Lugger last Friday, with a lot of torn nets, and went off again on Sunday. I thought he was wrong to come up, and not to transmit his nets by Rail, as is often done at 6d. a net. But I did not say so to him—it is no unamiable point in him to love home: but I think he won’t make a fortune by it. However, I may be very wrong in thinking he had better not have come. He has made about the average fishing, I believe: about £250. Some boats have £600, I hear; and some few not enough to pay their way.
“He came up with a very bad cold and hoarseness; and so went off, poor fellow: he never will be long well, I do think.”
Probably Posh knew all about the best way of making a profit out of herring drifters, and FitzGerald may have been wrong in fearing that he did not. FitzGerald, with his superb culture, may not (I do not say he did not) have understood that Posh, on his native North Sea, may