Chapter 15

A DROP O' BARE

In September, 1870 (which would be just before the home voyage began and after the Northern voyage was over), Posh seems to have "celebrated" more than his whilome partner and then mortgagee thought proper. On the 8th of the month FitzGerald wrote to Mr. Spalding (_Two Suffolk Friends_, p. 119):--

". . . 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. As Posh could _walk_, I suppose he only acknowledges a _little_ Drink; but, judging by what followed on that little Drink, I wish he had simply acknowledged his Fault. He begs me to write: if I do so I must speak very plainly to him: that, with all his noble Qualities, I doubt I can never again have Confidence in his Promise to break this one bad Habit, seeing that He has broken it so soon, when there was no occasion or excuse: unless it were the thought of leaving his Wife so ill at home. The Man is so beyond others, as I think, that I have come to feel that I must not condemn him by general rule; nevertheless, if he ask me, I can refer him to no other. I must send him back his own written Promise of Sobriety, signed only a month before he broke it so needlessly: and I must even tell him that I know not yet if he can be left with the Mortgage as we settled it in May. . . .

"P.S.--I enclose Posh's letter, and the answer I propose to give to it. I am sure it makes me sad and ashamed to be setting up for Judge on a much nobler Creature than myself. . . . I had thought of returning him his written Promise as worthless: desiring back my direction to my Heirs that he should keep on the Lugger in case of my Death. . . . I think Posh ought to be made to feel this severely: and, as his Wife is better I do not mind making him feel it if I can. On the other hand, I do not wish to drive Him, by Despair, into the very fault which I have so tried to cure him of. . . ."

His mother did not try to excuse him at all: his father would not even see him go off. She merely told me parenthetically, "I tell him he seem to do it when the Governor is here."

If FitzGerald had not set poor Posh (for in a way I am sorry for the old fellow) on a pedestal, he would have understood that to a longshoreman or herring fisher who drinks it (there are many teetotallers now), "bare" can never be regarded as an enemy. Posh did not think any excuse was necessary for having had, perhaps, more than he could conveniently carry. It was his last day ashore (though I can't quite understand what fishing he was going on unless the herring came down earlier than they do now), and he was "injyin' of hisself." In the old days they took a cask or so aboard. This is never done now, and the chief drink aboard is cocoa (pronounced, as FitzGerald writes, "cuckoo"). Posh no doubt thought himself hard done by that such a fuss should have been made about a "drarp o' bare." He doubtless wished that FitzGerald should forgive him. For, despite his conduct, he did, I truly believe, love his "guv'nor." As for the father and mother, well, they smoothed down the "gennleman" and sympathised with their son according to their kind and to mother nature. The Direction to FitzGerald's Heirs, which he refers to, is still in existence, and reads as follows:--

"LOWESTOFT, _January_ 20_th_, 1870.

"I hereby desire my Heirs executors and Assigns not to call in the Principal of any Mortgage by which Joseph Fletcher the younger of Lowestoft stands indebted to me; provided he duly pays the Interest thereon; does his best to pay off the Principal; and does his best also to keep up the value of the Property so mortgaged until he pays it off.

"This I hereby desire and enjoin on my heirs executors or assigns solemnly as any provision made by Word or Deed while . . . [word missing] any other legal document.

"EDWARD FITZGERALD."

This solemn injunction was written on a sheet of note-paper, and in the fold, over a sixpenny stamp, FitzGerald wrote: "This paper I now endorse again on legal stamp, so as to give it the authority I can. Edward FitzGerald, July 31, 1870."

Surely never man had so kind and considerate a friend as Posh had in FitzGerald!