the shock that fell on us when my father returned from Somerset
House with such a countenance that we thought our sailor had fallen;
but my mother could brook the fact far less than if her son had died
a gallant death. The Clotho was on her way home, and Midshipman
William Clarence Winslow was to be tried by court-martial for
insubordination, disobedience, and drunkenness. My mother was like
one turned to stone. She would hardly go out of doors; she could
scarcely bring herself to go to church; she would have had my father
give up his situation if there had been any other means of
livelihood. She could not talk; only when my father sighed, 'We
should never have put him into the Navy,' she hotly replied,

'How was I to suppose that a son of mine would be like that?'

Emily cried all day and all night. Some others would have felt it a
relief to have cried too. In more furious language than parents in
those days tolerated, Griff wrote to me his utter disbelief, and how
he had punched the heads of fellows who presumed to doubt that it
was not all a rascally, villainous plot.

When the time came my father went down by the night mail to
Portsmouth. He could scarcely bear to face the matter; but, as he
said, he could not have it on his conscience if the boy did anything
desperate for want of some one to look after him. Besides, there
might be some explanation.

'Explanation,' said my mother bitterly. 'That there always is!'

The 'explanation' was this--I have put together what came out in
evidence, what my father and the Admiral heard from commiserating