Needham

“ When one remembers the attitude at that time, and much later, of Englishmen towards [Pg 155] Catholics it is clear that Needham's claims to distinction must have been more than ordinarily great. His clear, firm signature is still to be seen in the charter-book of the society, and it is interesting to note that he signs his name "Turberville Needham." Needham did not confine his attention to science, for he was an ardent antiquary, and in 1761 was elected a Fellow of that other ancient and exclusive body, the Society of Antiquaries of London. ”

“ Needham was in command of the gig that carried a portion of the landing-party, Nat was in charge of the other gig, and Low was in charge of the pinnace, Mr. Hill going in the launch. Nat had first been told off to the gig now commanded by Needham, but the captain said to the first lieutenant, "You had better take Glover with you, Mr. Hill, and let Needham go with Mr. Playford. Scrambling along on the shore in the dark, one might very well get a heavy fall, and it is as well that Glover should not risk breaking his arm again." ”

“ I have the Harmer estates, my own savings in India, and the accumulation of my brothers, who never lived up to their income for very many years. In all about seven thousand a year. As I have said, Sophy Needham is my only connection in the world—you my only friend. To Sophy I have left half my fortune, the other half I have bequeathed to your children. Do not start, my dear Ashleigh, or offer any fruitless objection, my decision is fixed and immovable. For the last thirteen years my existence has been brightened by your friendly intercourse, in you I have found a scientific guide and friend ”

“ Needham smiled too, and, glancing from one to the other, Meldrum felt his flesh creep slightly.
"Let us go," he said hastily. "We have seen enough of these brutes."
Needham acquiesced, and they made their way to the exit.
v.
"beastly clever things, though," said Needham, as they passed out into the clear night air. "And strong as the very devil. I think myself there is something in the old idea of the African natives that apes pretend not to understand speech for fear they should be made to work." He laughed his unpleasant laugh, and again Meldrum felt squeamish. ”

“ Yet all Needham had done was to make a peculiar kind of clucking noise in his throat and smile his sinister smile. I'll bet the brutes recognized him as one of their kind. Some of them looked as if they expected him to open the cage doors . . ."
"What is he doing here in Burlington now?" asked Meldrum.
"Something in connection with lumber, I believe," said Norton, as they entered North Avenue and turned in the direction of the park. "He has rented a small house out here on his street and lives there alone. He seems to prefer being alone always." ”

“ Tilley's colleague from St. John city was William H. Needham, who afterwards represented the county of York in the legislature. Mr. Needham had some remarkable gifts as a speaker and a public man, and he might have risen to a much higher position than he ever attained had it not been that his principles were somewhat uncertain. In truth, Needham never succeeded in getting sufficiently clear of the world to be quite independent, and this misfortune hampered him greatly in his political career. ”

“ Edward John hitched at his uncomfortable collar and modestly fingered his necktie, while Mr. Needham proceeded to sound the praises of Henry.
"But I confess," the vicar went on to say, "I am at times troubled in my mind as to how his faith has withstood the shocks it must receive in the buffetings of City life. I trust the good seed which I strove to plant in his heart as a boy has grown up unchoked by the thistles which the distractions of the world so often sow there." ”

“ The great question which every one had to ask was, "Should they go over to Harmer Place to call upon Sophy Needham?" It would hardly have been supposed necessary to have asked a question upon which they had, three months before, decided unanimously in the negative; but then it is so easy to say you will not do a thing before you have been asked—so very difficult to refuse when you are. Indeed, many of the Canterbury ladies were now sorry that they had spoken so very decidedly, and were ready to admit that there was really a good deal to be said in favour of calling upon the poor girl. ”

“ I knew then that although papa objected to the extreme opinions which the Miss Harmers held, and which had been caused by the exceptional life which they had led, still the antecedents, to which mamma alluded, could be no question of religion. And yet the only other female at Harmer Place was Sophy Needham, the pretty girl we so often met there. She was an orphan village child, to whom Mr. Harmer had taken such a fancy that he had sent her, at his own expense, to a London school, and had her constantly staying at the house with him. ”

“ He was gravelled for a Latin snatch to cap the vicar's, and the Rev. Godfrey Needham stood supreme.
"Eh, but tempus do fugit, passon," Edward John broke in at this juncture. "It's only loike [Pg 34] yesterday that 'Enry was a-startin' school, and 'ere 'e's a-goin' out into the great world to carve out a name for hisself—'oo knows 'e ain't?"
"With youth all things are possible." returned Mr. Needham. "We shall be proud of Henry yet. He certainly has my best wishes for his success. Sursum corda, my friend, as the Latin hath it. And to you, Henry, Deus vobiscum. ”

“ Thus wronged, Mr Needham farther wronged himself by his indiscretion, threatening, in presence of a nayre who attended us, and who revealed his threats, that he would go to the king of Cochin, making shew of violent revenge to put the governor in fear. He behaved outrageously likewise to a scrivano, [181] who is the same as a justice with us, taking him by the throat, and making as if he would have cut him down with his sword, for detaining some of our money which he had received. Our broker also told Mr Needham, that it was not becoming to go up and down the streets with a sword and buckler ”

“ Needham laughed; "there is certainly a good deal in what you say. However, I shall in future look upon my dirk as being of more use than I have hitherto thought; I have always considered it the most absurd weapon that was ever put into anyone's hand to use in action. Not, of course, that one does use it, for one always gets hold of a cutlass when there is fighting to be done. How anyone can ever have had the idea of making a midshipman carry about a thing little better than a pocket-knife, and how they have kept on doing so for years and years, is most astonishing! ”

“ Needham married Margaret, youngest daughter of Randal Manwaring of Over-Peover, Cheshire, and widow of William, son of Sir John Bromley of Baddington (Visitations of Shropshire, Harl. Soc. ii. 371) . He left no issue, and settled his lands in Holme, called Hallum-lands, Cheshire, which he had purchased in 1471 from Thomas Chickford, with all his estate, on his next brother, Robert Needham of Atherley (Ormerod, i. 544) . He also had a seat at Shavington, Shropshire, which subsequently descended to the Earls of Kilmorey. ”

“ Old Ben Needham was more than reluctant. He was a hard-bitten fur-trader of the older school. A man of force and wide experience. A man bred to the work, acute, rough, and not too scrupulous. He had been born in the Arctic, schooled in the Arctic, and only when the needs of his trade demanded had he ever passed out of that magic circle. He was a man approaching sixty, full of an aggressive fighting spirit which usually modifies in men of advancing years. ”

“ In 1676 Needham was defeated in an action by the College of Physicians before Twysden's brother, Sir Thomas Twysden, in the court of king's bench (Goodall, Col. of Physicians, p. 273) . He continued his mathematical studies, and published in 1685 ‘The Use of the Great Planisphere called the Analemma.’ He died unmarried on 13 Sept. ”

“ Harmer is dead! Sophy Needham is missing!"
Such was the news a groom, riding into Canterbury for a doctor, brought; such was the telegram which a friend at once sent down to us at Ramsgate.
Mr. Harmer dead! Sophy Needham missing! It flashed like wildfire through Canterbury, and the quiet old town was again shaken out of its lethargy by the intelligence. Mr. Harmer, during his lifetime, had been a standing topic of conversation ”

“ Nat had had time, when the long day's work was over, to row off every evening to see Needham, whose arm had been amputated an hour after the fight was ended. He was, the doctor said, going on well, and was in very good spirits.
"This is sure to give me my step," he said to Glover. "I shall have served my time in six months, and Marston's rank will of course be confirmed, now that poor Playford's death has made the vacancy permanent. You have another year to serve, have you not, Glover?" ”

“ Jack Needham told me a month ago that you had knocked him out of time, and I went into Gibbons' yesterday morning with a man who wanted to buy a dog, and he told me that he considered that it was a great misfortune that you were an amateur, for that you only required another six months' practice, and he would then be ready to back you for a hundred pounds against any man in the ring. But about this affair, Mark. Are you really in earnest? ”

“ So saying, the Misses Harmer took their leave of Dr. Ashleigh, and retired to their own rooms, while he took the well-known way to his old friend's bed-room.
As he went up-stairs he met Mary—the girl who had been Sophy Needham's maid—coming down. Her eyes were red with crying. She curtsied to the Doctor as he passed—for they all loved him, and he had ever a kind word for all he met. "This is a sad affair, Mary!" he said.
"Dreadful, Sir," the girl answered. "Will you please to tell me what has become of Miss Sophy? We are all so anxious to know the real truth." ”

“ She is depicted as a middle-aged woman, simpering beneath her patches, and well dressed in silk. The male figure leaning on his stick, and leering at the maid from the inn door, is supposed to represent Charteris himself, while behind him stands his factotum, Jack Gourlay. In spite of pertinacious efforts made to screen her, Mother Needham was committed to the Gate House on 24 March 1731, convicted of keeping a disorderly house on 29 April, and ordered to stand in the pillory over against Park Place on 30 April 1731. ”

“ In another way also there came to the children in Wrentham the growing perception of a larger world than that in which we lived, and moved, and had our being. One of the historic sites of East Anglia is Framlingham, a small market town, lying a little off the highroad to London, a few miles from what always seemed to me the very uninteresting village of Needham Market, though at one time Godwin, the author of ‘Caleb Williams,’ preached in the chapel there. There is now a public school for Suffolk boys at Framlingham, and it may yet make a noise in the world. ”

“ In 1792 he was licensed to the perpetual cure of Needham, Norfolk, in his own patronage, and in 1801 he was presented by a college friend to the rectory of Edgworth, Gloucestershire. Dr. Huntingford, bishop of Gloucester, appointed him rural dean of the deanery of Stonehouse. ”

“ Could it be—good God! could it be possible that he might yet turn out a good man after all? "Yes, there was hope for him yet." And as Robert Gregory turned away, there was a tear in his eye, which was even now growing heavy and red from long excesses and hard drinking, and a sigh, and a half prayer from the heart, from which for long years such things had ceased to rise.
The next morning at ten o'clock, as Sophy had not come down to breakfast, Mr. Harmer, as he went into the library, desired the servant to take his compliments to Miss Needham, and inquire how she felt. ”

“ They were indeed kindred spirits, and their society became a source of the greatest mutual pleasure and gratification. Whenever Dr. Ashleigh could find time from his professional pursuits, he would drive over to pass a few hours of scientific research and experiment with his friend; and if anything should occur to prevent the visit being paid for a few days, Mr. Harmer would, in turn, come over for an evening to the doctor's, at Canterbury.
In the mean time little Sophy Needham was growing up. She was not a pretty child, but had an intelligent face, with large thoughtful grey eyes. ”

“ Captain Needham said, as he looked in on them a little later, when they were in the midst of it. “Best we could do in a hurry. We don’t often have people drop in on us out of a balloon for supper,” and he laughed.
“Say, captain,” began Ned. “Is that boy—”
“I’ll be back in a little while,” called the captain, as he closed the door, leaving the chums alone.
“I was going to ask him about Sandy,” added Ned.
[182]
“It’ll keep,” remarked Bart.
The boys finished their meal and felt better.
“I’d like to get into my clothes,” remarked Fenn. “I want to see about sending a message home. ”

“ Not in themselves, for they allowed the effect to be very pretty; but as offering inducements and pretexts for isolated couples to stroll away, and get entirely beyond maternal supervision. Two of the ladies waited upon Mr. Harmer as a sort of deputation from the others, and it happened that one of them was the chief of the party who had opposed Sophy Needham's introduction into society, but who had at last come to the conclusion that, as others were going, it would be showing a want of Christian feeling to refuse to do as others did. ”