come any Day you please. I see the Wind is got West,
after the squalls of Hail."

{Geldeston Hall, the Norfolk seat of the Kerrich Family: p173.jpg}

Ablett Pasefield (or Percival), the fisherman and yacht hand, has been
mentioned before, and will be mentioned again. He was one of
FitzGerald's favourites. Mr. Kerrich was FitzGerald's brother-in-law,
the husband of the poet's favourite sister, who had predeceased him in
1863. On August 5th in that year FitzGerald wrote to Professor Cowell
(_Letters_, II, 46, Eversley Edition): ". . . I have lost my sister
Kerrich, the only one of my family I much cared for, or who much cared
for me."

* * * * *

Mr. Kerrich lived at Geldeston Hall, near Beccles, which is still in
possession of the same family.

Mr. Berry (as we know) was FitzGerald's landlord at Markethill,
Woodbridge.

At this time Posh was a man of means, and drove his smart gig and mare,
and it was with some idea of buying a new horse that he was to go to
Woodbridge Horse Fair. In the seventies the horse fairs of Norwich and
other East Anglian towns were important functions. The Rommany
gryengroes had not then all gone to America, and those who know their
George Borrow will remember with delight his description of the scene at
the horse fair on Norwich Castle Hill, when Jasper Petulengro first
brought himself to the recollection of Lavengro (or the "sap-engro") as
his "pal"--that memorable day when George Borrow saw the famous entire
Norfolk cob Marshland Shales led amongst bared heads, blind and grey with
age, but triumphant in his unequalled fame (_Lavengro_, p. 74, Minerva
Edition).

But Posh bought no new horse. And his recollection does not permit of
any trustworthy account of his visit.

Perhaps it was during this trip to Woodbridge (and the carping reader
will be justified in saying "and perhaps it wasn't") that Posh witnessed
the curious and characteristic meeting between FitzGerald and his wife.

If this meeting were characteristic, still more so was the history of the
marriage.

FitzGerald had been a great friend of Bernard Barton, the Woodbridge
quaker poet, and on the death of his friend he wished to save Miss Barton
from being thrown on the world almost destitute and almost friendless.
The only way of doing it without creating scandal (and he changed the
name of his yacht from the _Shamrock_ to the _Scandal_ because he said
that scandal was the principal commodity of Woodbridge) was