hat same evening, as Mushell knew you would be
anxious to know that he had come in safe through the wind and Sea of
Thursday night. He was to have started away again on Sunday: but one
of his men who had gone home had not returned by one o'clock, when I
came away. _This_, I always say, is one of the Dangers of coming
home, but, as Things were, _Mushell_ could scarce help it, though he
had better have gone to Yarmouth to sell his Fish. He seems a good
Fellow.

"All these mishaps--I wonder any man can carry on the trade! I think
I would rather be in my own little Punt again. But, while you will go
on, you know I will stand by you. Your mare is well, and the sore on
her Shoulder nearly gone. Mr. and Mrs. Howe send their Regards.
Cowell is gone off to Devonshire instead of coming to meet me at
Lowestoft: but I dare say I shall run over there again before long.

"Yours always,
"E. FG."

{Boulge church: p201.jpg}

The "little _Sapphire_" I cannot identify. One gentleman has been kind
enough to try to help me, and thinks that she was the _Scandal_. But
this cannot be so, for the _Scandal_ was built for FitzGerald at Wyvenhoe
in 1863, was first called the _Shamrock_ and then the _Scandal_.
Personally, I remember the names of a good many of the yachts of the
Norfolk and Suffolk coast of the period, but I can't identify the
_Sapphire_. The _Red Rover_ was a river craft, a cutter, with the one
big jib of our river craft instead of jib and foresail, belonging to the
late Mr. Sam Nightingale, of Lacon's Brewery. She was originally about
twelve tons, but by improvements and additions, when Mr. Nightingale died
in the eighties, was eighteen tons. For many years she was the fastest
yacht in the Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club, and though she was
occasionally beaten on fluky days she never lost possession of the
challenge cup for long. Fred Baldry, who steered her with extraordinary
skill, is, I believe, still alive, and lives on Cobholm Island, Yarmouth.

The _Red Rover_ was not only successful on the rivers and Broads, but in
the Yarmouth Roads. I was on her when she was beating the famous Thames
twenty-tonner _Vanessa_, when the _Red Rover_ carried away her bowsprit
(a new stick) as she was beating on the sands to dodge the tide, and I
remember how we were hooted all the way up Gorleston Harbour when Mr.
William Hall's steam launch towed us in.

I believe that when the