Edward FitzGerald and Posh | Page 2

It was plain that the educated classes of Lowestoft could help me in my
search but little. So I went down to the harbour basins and the fish
wharves, and asked of "Posh" and his "governor."
Not a jolly boatman of middle age in the harbour but knew of both.
"D'ye mean Joe Fletcher, master?" said one of them. "What--old Posh?
Why yes! Alive an' kickin', and go a shrimpin' when the weather serve.
He live up in Chapel Street. Number tew. He lodge theer."
So up I went to Chapel Street, one of those streets in the old North
Town of Lowestoft which have seen better days. A wizened, bent,
white-haired old lady answered my knock, after a preliminary
inspection from a third- floor window of my appearance. This, I learnt
afterwards, was old Mrs. Capps, with whom Posh had lodged since the
death of his wife, fourteen years previously.
"You'll find him down at the new basin," said the old lady. "He's

mostly there this time o' day."
But there was no Posh at the new basin. Half a dozen weather-beaten
shrimpers (in their brown jumpers, and with the fringe of hair running
beneath the chin from ear to ear--that hirsute ornament so dear to East
Anglian fishermen) were lounging about the wharf, or mending the
small- meshed trawl-nets wherein they draw what spoil they may from
the depleted roads.
All were grizzled, most were over seventy if wrinkled skin and white
hair may be taken as signs of age. And all knew Posh, and (oh! shame
to the "educated classes!") all remembered Edward FitzGerald. The
poet, the lovable, cultured gentleman they knew nothing of. Had they
known of his incomparable paraphrase of the Persian poet, of his
scholarship, his intimacy with Thackeray, Tennyson, Carlyle, the
famous Thompson, Master of Trinity, they would have recked nothing
at all. But they remembered FitzGerald, who has been called by their
superiors an eccentric, miserly hermit. They remembered him, I say, as
a man whose heart was in the right place, as a man who never turned a
deaf ear to a tale of trouble.
"Ah!" said one of them. "He was a good gennleman, was old Fitz."
(They all spoke of him as "old Fitz." They thought of him as a
"mate"--as one who knew the sea and her moods, and would put up
with her vagaries even as they must do. His shade in their memories
was the shade of a friend, and a friend whom they respected and loved.)
"That was a good day for Posh when he come acrost him. Posh! 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. Most east coast fishermen have a nickname which
supersedes their registered name, and "Posh" (or now "old Posh") was
Joseph Fletcher's.
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. Poor
Bill has left house and life for years. But the house is still "Bill

Harrison's."
Here I found Posh. At that time, little more than a year ago, I wrote of
him as "a hale, stoutly-built man of over the middle height, his round,
ruddy, clean-shaven face encircled by the fringe of iron-grey whiskers
running round from ear to ear beneath the chin. His broad shoulders
were held square, his back straight, his head poised firm and alert on a
splendid column of neck."
Alas! The description would fit Posh but poorly now.
"Yes," said he. "I was Mr. FitzGerald's partner. But I can't stop to
mardle along o' ye now. I'll meet ye when an' where ye like."
I made an appointment with him, which he failed to keep. Then another.
Then another, and another. I lay wait for him in likely places. I stalked
him. I caught stray glimpses of him in various haunts. But he always
evaded me.
I think old Mrs. Capps got tired of leaning her head out of the third-
floor window of No. 2 Chapel Street, and seeing me waiting patiently
on the doorstep expectant of Posh.
At length I cornered him (from information received) fairly and
squarely at the Magdala House, a beerhouse in Duke's Head Street, two
minutes' walk from his lodgings.
I got him on his legs and took him down Rant Score to Bill Harrison's.
"Now look here," said I. "What's the matter? You've made appointment
after appointment, and kept none of them. Why don't you wish to see
me?"
Posh shuffled his feet on, the sanded bricks. He drank from the measure
of "mild beer"