Barham

“ His friend recognized no longer the man who for years had found so little in life to prize, to admire, or to love.
On their return home they found Saul Barham. Mrs. Courtly had said nothing of his coming for the night; she had kept it as a little surprise for Grace, who would be pleased, she knew, to see him. And she was right. Miss Ballinger greeted the young professor with a warmth which made Quintin Ferrars jealous. He had never liked Barham. More than once on board the Teutonic their opinions, or something that lay deeper than opinions, had clashed. ”

“ His family is of great antiquity, having given its name to the well-known "Barham Downs," between Dover and Canterbury. He was educated at St. Paul's School in Canterbury, where he made the acquaintance of Richard Bentley, who afterward became his publisher. From this school, he wont to Oxford, entering Brazennose College, as a gentleman commoner, where he met Theodore Hook, and formed a friendship with that prince of wits which terminated only with Hook's life. At the University, Barham led a wild, dissipated life—as the bad custom then was—and was noted as a wit and good fellow. ”

“ He may, indeed, be said to have prescribed the norm in our language for humorous narrative in irregular verse, which can now hardly be composed without seeming to imitate him.
As a man Barham was exemplary, a pattern Englishman of the most distinctively national type. The associate of men of wit and gaiety, making himself no pretension to any extraordinary strictness of conduct, he passed through life with perfect credit as a clergyman and universal respect as a member of society. ”

“ He (Barham) used to trace his descent from a knight who came over to England with William the Conqueror, and whose son, Reginald Fitzurse, was one of the assassins of Thomas à Becket. After the deed Fitzurse fled to Ireland, and there changed his name to MacMahon, which has the same meaning. His brother Robert, who succeeded to the English estates, changed his patronymic to de Berham, converted in process of time into Barham.
Richard Barham was only between five and six years old when his father died, leaving him heir to a small estate in Kent. ”

“ Barham as much as Mr. Ferrars, though he is to me much more interesting. But he is shy, and proud, and not very forthcoming, and you like turbulent youth. You might call him 'a prig,' which would distress me; but when you saw his mother, who is a Philadelphian, and I am certain must be a direct descendant of William Penn—so sweet, and drab-colored, and gentle, with the youngest and yet saddest face you ever looked upon, to be the mother of this handsome young man—I say, when you looked upon her you would better understand why he is as he is: you would see that repression was born in him. ”

“ Certainly never on earth did a more disconsolate object present itself to the eyes of man, than that which was offered to Lieberg's sight by the unfortunate William Barham. He was seated on a chair by the fire--which had just been relighted and had not well burnt up--without a coat or waistcoat; his long, silky, light hair drenched with water, and hanging upon his cheeks and neck; his countenance, previously pallid with licentiousness and habits of vice, now ten times paler than ever, and purplish at the extremes, with the cold and terror he had undergone ”

“ He knew he had a rival to supplant, and it would have been but half a triumph to have had her accept him readily. More decided opposition would have been not unwelcome. But he knew her to be light and volatile; her sailor-lover’s feelings were of a firmer texture, and so were his sister’s also, and these were the hearts he sought to wound.
So the farce of that engagement was played out. He made love, and she listened and assented; and when Mr. Barham rejoined them they had exchanged promises of love and faith, while the heart of each, in secret, entirely belied these spoken words. ”

“ Being called to account, on one occasion, by his tutor for his continued absence from morning prayer, Barham replied,
"The fact is, sir, you are too LATE for me."
"Too late?" exclaimed the astonished tutor.
"Yes, sir," rejoined the student, "I can not sit up till seven o'clock in the morning. I am a man of regular habits, and unless I get to bed by four or five, I am fit for nothing the next day."
The tutor took this jovial reply seriously, and Barham perceiving that he was really wounded, offered a sincere apology, and afterward attended prayers more regularly. ”

“ Half past two—it struck John as a particularly unaccountable hour. Yet if there were anything wrong, why should they want him? She had said that they needed him—not herself only, but Barham. To be wanted by Lord Barham was an event in the life of any business man.
The Raymond Saunderses had always lived in a tiny apartment—really an old-fashioned flat—overlooking somebody else's garden in a district so far up-town as to have been almost suburban, although now fashion was creeping up to it. The sitting-room was full of pretty things, for Beatrice had taste, and poverty develops selectiveness. ”

“ Barham, perhaps, is the least a typical product of our country."
"Why so?" asked Miss Ballinger.
"Because I see he has great belief in our institutions, our future, our indomitable force. As to me, I gave up any such belief when I was twenty. You said yesterday you doubted if I was a good American. If to believe that our crooked paths are straight, our rough ways smooth, and to proclaim on the housetops that we are the greatest nation on earth—if this is to be a good American, then I am not one."
"I never heard that to love one's country was to be blind to her faults," said Barham, quickly. ”

“ Nelson, suppose you tell Mr. Barham your plan.”
“Why, Drew, I’ve been thinking that I might go down to the Locke place and rake over everything. I know the detectives have done it, but I think I might find some clue they overlooked.”
Barham gave a slight smile. “I remember hearing a man of your stamp say, not long ago, that he had no detective instinct.”
“That’s just it,” cried Nelson, triumphantly, “I believe a man with common sense and a good pair of eyes in his head might find out more than one of these transcendent sleuths.” ”

“ And, with all his merriment, Barham did not for a moment neglect his clerical duty; indeed, there are indications that he was a remarkably good specimen of the parson of the parish. If we found any fault with this biography, which is, for the most part, well executed, it is that Barham's life as a clergyman is too slightly indicated. His friend, Mr. Hughes, father of the member for Frome, wrote of him thus in the New Monthly:—
'It is not always an easy task to do as you would be done by ”

“ In the following February Barham was engaged in prosecuting a less illustrious offender, the duke's secretary, Robert Higford, at the Queen's Bench, on the charge of adhering to and comforting the queen's enemies. Higford was found guilty and, like his master, condemned to death. After this we see no more of Barham until 1577, when we find him present at the Oxford assizes during the prosecution of a malcontent bookbinder, Rowland Jencks by name, a Roman catholic, and vehemently opposed to the existing order of things. ”

“ Grace, clad in her ulster and stalking-cap, did not fear the wind, but, as it rendered talking difficult, she proposed that they should seek the shelter of the fir-wood. There, the turbulence of the wind was only heard in the upper branches; a great quiet reigned over the soft, tawny soil, carpeted with pine-needles, upon which their footsteps fell.
His beginning was not happy.
"Why are you going away? Why do you go and stay with those Barhams, a country minister and his wife, with whom I am sure you can have nothing in common?"
"I like Mrs. Barham and her son very much—that is why I go." ”

“ Barham, had influence with her: that she who had been unmoved by the temptation of wealth and station for herself, had yet been open to covetous desires for her brother’s advancement in life; and that regret and mortification for the loss of the heiress, would help to embitter the grief which a lover’s affection must occasion.
His plans determined on, his mind made up, and his spirits calmed by resolution and despair, he returned to Eaton-place to dine with the Barhams ”

“ In this manner the Barhams became once more owners of a portion of their ancient heritage, and from this John Barham was descended that witty Minor Canon of St. Paul’s, Richard Harris Barham, author of the Ingoldsby Legends. To one who knows his Ingoldsby well, and is possessed, moreover, of some antiquarian fervour, the neighbourhood of Denton and Barham must needs be of the greatest interest. Fact and fiction are so inextricably mixed up in those delightful tales of mirth and marvels that it would require all the knowledge of an expert in local and family history to disentangle them. ”

“ Charles Fotherby, Archdeacon of Canterbury. Thus were the Barhams torn from their native soil and rendered landless, for already they had sold their adjacent manor of Tappington Everard situated at Denton. Some improvident Barham had done this deed in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and the property passed through a number of hands until it was bought from Colonel Thomas Marsh by a wealthy hop-factor of Canterbury, Thomas Harris. The hop-factor died in 1726, leaving as sole heir his daughter, married to a Mr. John Barham. ”

“ Nelson hung up the receiver, and turned to Barham with a troubled face. He repeated his whole conversation with Hutchins, and said:
“I begin to think, Drew, that it was something to do with all that, that brought about Maddy’s fate.”
“But how, how, Nick, could any of our crowd be mixed up with that painter? You don’t think he was a gambler, do you?”
“Oh, Lord, no. Jarvis says he doesn’t think Locke knows one card from another. Those people never play cards.” ”

“ Barham Downs, stretching for three miles, windswept and bare, above the valley of the Lesser Stour, form a tract of country that must needs appeal strongly to the imaginative man. Only the bunkers and other recent impudent interferences of some local golf club have ever disturbed the ancient lines of Roman entrenchments. ”

“ Barham’s comfort, since he had done Captain Hepburn the honor of recollecting him, that he should be proved worthy of so great a compliment, by possessing the lineage of a gentleman. Hilary replied briefly, that she believed so.
To her very great astonishment, Charles Huyton spoke.
“Whether Captain Hepburn can prove his descent from honorable ancestors or not by genealogical records, he certainly does by his chivalrous conduct and noble bearing, if honor and courage are the attributes of high birth. He is as brave and gallant a man as I have ever seen.” ”

“ It was in the fertile county of Kent that Barham was born, in the midst of a district that has ever been the cradle of Barhams. Eight miles to the south of the old Cathedral of Canterbury, and near by the Folkestone Road, there lies, secluded in a deep valley, an old-fashioned farmhouse, unpretending enough to the outward glance, but quaint and curious within. This is the old manor house of Tappington Everard, mentioned so often and so familiarly in the Ingoldsby Legend, and for many centuries the home of Richard Harris Barham's ancestors. ”

“ The old ladies quarrelled sadly, and Barham was in the habit of devoting one extra morning a week to a pastoral visitation of these poor isolated old women, for charity and decency's sake, and acted as arbiter and referee in their ridiculous feuds, with as much gravity as it was in his nature to assume on such an occasion." There was surely no small degree of self-denial in a man of such talent devoting his valuable time to such an office. ”

“ As Madeleine had said, Drew was always wondering.
And he sat now, in deep thought, his mind racing from Marcia Selden to Thomas Locke: from Madeleine to—well, to himself, Andrew Barham—who, after all, was the biggest factor in his wonderings.
Finally, he picked up the telephone and called Nick Nelson, who got around to him in the shortest possible time.
“Well,” Barham said, after they had discussed matters of lesser moment, “now, out with it, Nick, all about Maddy. Tell me the worst. As you know, very frequently other people know more about a man’s wife than he knows himself.” ”

“ Like all weak persons, William Barham was ever ready to attach himself to any one who would flatter his hopes or his wishes, hating unpalatable truth of all kinds, almost as much when it regarded his own situation, as when it affected his own conduct. ”

“ She sought no explanation from Mordaunt; she respected his reticence, understood his rather forced hilarity at moments, and then his long lapses into silence. It was better so; she did not much believe in confidences.
Mr. Barham met his English visitor at the Fellbridge Station, and while her maid waited to accompany the porter who was to wheel her box on a truck down the street, the minister conducted Grace to the rectory. ”

“ I hold that she wore this costume in order to gain admittance to the masquerade at the studio of Thomas Locke, and that Mrs. Barham had already told her of his masquerade, and that she, Mrs. Barham, expected to be there.
“I don’t believe that Mrs. Sayre went to the studio party with any intention of killing Mrs. Barham, but I believe she went there expecting an expose of Mr. Barham’s double life. I believe Mrs. Barham had suspicions of this, and had told Mrs. Sayre of them. Now, Mr. Barham, is she the one you have had in mind in connection with this matter?”
“Yes,” said Barham, “she is.” ”