United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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. 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.
Posh, my dear boy, pure posh." And Spot would give a cruel imitation of the wretched Smith's mincing English. The punishment was the more bitter, because all the world knew that Spot could speak the King's English as well as anybody if only he chose. To the poshy alone was Spot unkind.
As all students of FitzGerald's letters know, the association between FitzGerald and Posh ended in a separation that was very nearly a quarrel, if a man like FitzGerald can be said to quarrel with a man like Posh. But Posh never says a word against his old guv'nor's generosity and kindness of heart.
Posh asserts that he has seen his "guv'nor" lying in the lee scuppers while the Scandal was heeling over in a stiff breeze, and permitting the wash of the sea to run over him till he was drenched to the skin. Indeed, although his long lean body looked frail, he was reckless in the way in which he treated it. Posh tells one story which I give in his words.
Now that the Meum and Tuum was ready for work FitzGerald's anxiety for the lives of her crew made him insist upon their taking life-belts aboard with them, although the mate had stated that no one would wear them. On April 24th a letter was written to Posh from Woodbridge. "I hear from Mr. Birt this morning that the Life Belts were sent off to you yesterday directed to your house.
It did not, and both parties recognised that the wisest thing to do was to separate without any unnecessary fuss. They did so. And no doubt their action proved to be for the happiness of each of them. Posh was walking with FitzGerald on one occasion down Quay Lane, Woodbridge, when Mrs. FitzGerald removed the glove he was wearing on his right hand. Mrs.
". . . I had a letter from Posh yesterday, telling me he was sorry we had not 'parted Friends. That he had been indeed 'a little the worse for Drink' which means being at a Public-house half the Day, and having to sleep it off the remainder: having been duly warned by his Father at Noon that all had been ready for sailing 2 hours before, and all the other Luggers gone.
But he had set up his Posh on such a pinnacle of pre-eminence over all his fellow-men that it is possible that his bitterness in discovering that after all his protege was merely a well-built, handsome, ordinary longshoreman caused a greater revulsion than would have occurred had his first estimate of Posh's character been less exalted.
But Posh "worn't a goin' ta hev his faa'er put oover him, nor he worn't a goin' ta take no pledge. Did ye iver hear o' sich a thing?" So in due course, on the 17th February, 1874, Mr. So Mr. Balls writes me. But he has no letters from FitzGerald, and was kind enough to look up the valuation and sale transactions in his books at my request.
FitzGerald must have been tolerably conversant with the Harwich and Felixstowe mariners with the "salwagers" of the "Ship-wash" and the characters of the pilots and fishermen of the east coast. But Posh seems to have come to him as something new. How it happened it is impossible to guess. Posh has no idea. He has a more or less contemptuous appreciation of FitzGerald's great affection for him.
Word Of The Day