Friendly faces of three nationalities . again a won-derful story of a shark. How I wish that the sharkhad eaten him up ! was the humorists regret. The handsome, rollicking, dare-devil captainin the thus castigated was one of myeleven uncles and aunts, most of them in staturerecalling the words— there were giants in thosedays. This much-married sailor must have possessedother fascinations besides the comeliness ofAbsalom. Maugre his wandering, hazardous,topsy-turvy career, he wooed and won in turnthree attractive and amply dowered ladies. Thescapegrace, it must be confessed, was a bi
Friendly faces of three nationalities . again a won-derful story of a shark. How I wish that the sharkhad eaten him up ! was the humorists regret. The handsome, rollicking, dare-devil captainin the thus castigated was one of myeleven uncles and aunts, most of them in staturerecalling the words— there were giants in thosedays. This much-married sailor must have possessedother fascinations besides the comeliness ofAbsalom. Maugre his wandering, hazardous,topsy-turvy career, he wooed and won in turnthree attractive and amply dowered ladies. Thescapegrace, it must be confessed, was a bit of afortune-hunter—in the Betham pedigree, twelvecenturies of record, no other delinquency stainsthe family annals; violent deaths many of themmet, but it was by the axe on Tower Hill asvictims, not by the rope at Tyburn. One nobledeed covers Captain Johns many lapses. Amagnificent silver trophy was presented to himby a shipping company for having alone unaided self. The document will now be doubly valuable to hisdescendants. 18. Matilda Betham saved one of their shipwrecked crews from drown-ing. Gifted with a knack of verse, he wrote andpublished an imitation of Hudibras called PaddyHew. Another brother, Charles by name, migratedto what was then called Crim Tartary—whatcould those six or seven six-footers of a poorclergyman do at home ? When examining ArthurYoungs voluminous correspondence some yearsago I came upon some interesting letters from thisBetham, dealing with agricultural projects. Whatbecame of his schemes I do not know, but earlierI was enabled to refute the charges of parasitismand dependence made against him in LandorsLetters. The offensive passages were afterwardsdeleted. Two younger brothers, both sailors and inthe flower of their youth, perished together atsea. The pillar of the house, the prop of his family,was Sir William Betham, a veritable Iddo, theseer, concerning genealogies. I never saw him,or remember seeing any of my uncles, who wereall middle
Size: 916px × 2728px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidfriendlyface, bookyear1911
