Also, it was added more privately, that such vicious
tendencies needed home restraint. The big bully, his corrupter,
bore witness against him, but did not escape scot free, for one of
the captains spoke to him in scathing tones of censure.
Whenever my mother was in trouble, she always re-arranged the
furniture, and a family crisis was always heralded by a revolution
of chairs, tables, and sofas. She could not sit still under
suspense, and, during these terrible days the entire house underwent
a setting to rights. Emily attended upon her, and I sat and dusted
books. No doubt it was much better for us than sitting still. My
father's letter came by the morning mail, telling us of the
sentence, and that he and our poor culprit, as he said, would come
home by the Portsmouth coach in the evening.
One room was already in order when Sir John Griffith kindly came to
see whether he could bring any comfort to a spirit which would
infinitely have preferred death to dishonour, and was, above all,
shocked at the lack of physical courage. Never had I liked our old
Admiral so well as when I heard how his chief anger was directed
against the general mismanagement, and the cruelty of blighting a
poor lad's life when not yet seventeen. His father might have been
warned to remove him without the public scandal of a court-martial
and dismissal.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41