Captain Monk

“ Weary of breaking the hearts of fops and poets, she was seeking new excitement in political intrigue and new pleasures in charming tried leaders of men such as Pym and Strafford. At this moment a blunt manly soldier like Captain Monk was just the man to find favour in her capricious eyes. Monk was always soft-hearted with a woman, and his admiration of such a beauty must have been frank and undisguised. Whatever was the cause, he found her willing to support Lord Leicester's request for his advancement. ”

“ Not five minutes had elapsed when a commotion was heard in the dining-room. Then the bell rang violently, and the Captain opened the door—overturning a chair in his passage to it—and shouted out for a light. More than one servant flew to obey the order: in his hasty moods their master brooked not delay: and three separate candles were carried in.
"Good lack, master!" exclaimed the butler, John Rimmer, who was a native of Church Dykely, "what's amiss with the Parson?"
"Lift him up, and loosen his neck-cloth," said Captain Monk, his tone less imperious than usual. ”

“ Two or three voices were feebly lifted in opposition; Mr. West alone had courage to speak out; but the Captain put him down with his strong hand. It may be asked why Captain Monk did not provide the funds himself for this whim. But he would never touch his own pocket for the benefit of the parish if he could help it: and it was thought that his antagonism to the parson was the deterring motive. ”

“ Perhaps we can each give way a little? I have promised to be the wife of Philip Hamlyn, and that promise I will fulfil. You wish me to live near you: well, he can take a place in this neighbourhood and settle down in it; and on my part, I will promise you not to leave this country. He may have to go from time to time to the West Indies; I will remain at home."
Captain Monk looked steadily at her before he answered. He marked the stern, uncompromising expression, the strong will in the dark eyes and in every feature, which no power, not even his, might unbend. ”

“ Captain Monk, in a terrible access of passion, vowed by all the laws of the Medes and Persians, which alter not, that never, in life or after death, should those two rebellious ones be man and wife, and he invoked unheard-of penalties on their heads should they dare to contemplate disobedience to his decree. ”

“ In temper also. The young one would stand sturdily in his little blue shoes and defy his grandpapa already, and assert his own will, to the amused admiration of Captain Monk.
Eliza, utterly wrapt in her child, saw her father's growing love for him with secret delight; and one day when he had the boy on his knee, she ventured to speak out a thought that was often in her heart.
"Papa," she said, with impassioned fervour, "he ought to be the heir, your own grandson; not Harry Carradyne."
Captain Monk simply stared in answer.
"He lies in the direct succession; he has your own blood in his veins. ”

“ Those that lay near together could smell each other's sweat.
With Captain Monk the rest moved out of their hearing farther downward, crossed the stage road quickly, climbed up and back among the rocks and mounds for a while, dispersed and lay low, hidden from those opposite and from themselves. Their grip was on their guns; they were to wait for one word from their Captain. He kept his Lieutenant with him in a bare space which they had often marked for their own. Cactus grew thick around this little clear spot of ground and small stones and thin weeds covered it. ”

“ I have sometimes met men whose feelings for their wife's mother were—er——”
“Yes,” said James Monk succinctly.
“But,” the Colonel hurried on, “about her journey across the San Simon and up into these hills. I don't like that. Let me know in time and I'll send the ambulance with an escort to meet her in Lordsburg—that is unless you've got the Indians discouraged by then. Now, Captain Monk, I count on you. You understand the fix we're in just as well as I do. Some mean skunk who calls himself a hardy settler and a great-souled pioneer plays the Indian some stinking trick. ”

“ I do not like to refuse the invitation; it would only increase Captain Monk's animosity and widen still further the breach between us. As patron he holds so much in his power. Besides that, my presence at the table does act, I believe, as a mild restraint on some of them, keeping the drinking and the language somewhat within bounds. Yes, I suppose my duty lies in going. But I shall not stay late, Mary," added the parson, bending to look at the suffering child ”

“ The sailors made short work of the crimps, and fairly wiped the deck with them.
Captain Monk then ordered the hapless three to be locked up in separate cabins and fed on bread and water for a few days.
“It will give them time to repent,” he said to the mate. “It won’t do to put them with the crew yet awhile—there would be murder done. In a few days they can go forward, and the crew will save us dirtying our hands with the scoundrels. Our chaps will lead them a dance, and they will wish to Heaven they had never laid their hands on my crew.” ”

“ Damned if ever I marry!”
In this hot youthful unjust state he entered the private room of Captain Monk wondering what could be the matter that the Captain's striker had brought him so early a message. The sound of people at breakfast came through the door; and while Jack stood waiting he scowled gloomily at the rack for pipes, so orderly, so interesting, so deserted. Absorbed in his mood, he did not hear the quiet entrance of his superior officer, gave a slight start at being spoken to and turned quickly away from the rack. The Captain appeared not to be aware of the rack. ”

“ Church Leet, watching its neighbours' doings sharply, began to whisper that the new clergyman, Mr. Grame, was likely to cause unpleasantness to the Monk family, just as some of his predecessors had caused it. For no man having eyes in his head (still less any woman) could fail to see that the Captain's imperious daughter had fallen desperately in love with him. Would there be a second elopement, as in the days of Tom Dancox? Would Eliza Monk set her father at defiance, as Katherine did? ”

“ And Captain Godfrey Monk made himself happier in these peaceful days than he had ever been in his stormy ones.
And that’s the history. If I had to begin it again, I don’t think I should write it; for I have had to take its details from other people—chiefly from the Squire and old [398] Mr. Sterling, of the Court. There’s nothing of mine in it, so to say, and it has been only a bother.
And those unfortunate chimes have nearly passed out of memory with the lapse of years. The “Silent Chimes” they are always called when, by chance, allusion is made to them, and will be so called for ever. ”

“ The earl was shot dead in the second month of the siege while bringing up reinforcements to the support of the advanced picket in the trenches. On August 21st Maastricht capitulated, and the campaign was brought to a glorious conclusion. Lord Vere returned to England, having assigned the command of his regiment to George Goring, the eldest son of Lord Norwich and the future notorious cavalry officer of the Civil Wars.
It was about this time that Monk was promoted to the rank of captain, and found himself in a position which laid the foundations of his fortunes. ”

“ Captain Quid
How an Indian Fighter Laid Down the Law for Apaches and for Wives
AFTER the Nez Percés war, it began to be said of James Monk, bachelor aged twenty-three, red-headed second lieutenant of cavalry, and particular about his collars and his boots, that he was the makings of a star Indian fighter; but this was scarcely enough yet to win him a name in our army of the old frontier. His brother officers at Walla Walla regretted that he didn't drink and doubted if he would ever tie himself to wedlock; but if he did become a husband they were sure that his wife would thoroughly realize it. ”

“ The stranger rode up to Captain Monk; judging him to be regarded—by the way he was welcomed and the respect paid him—as the chief personage at the meet, representing in a manner the Master. Lifting his hat, he begged grace for having, being a [Pg 208] stranger, come out, uninvited, to join the field; adding that his name was Hamlyn and he was staying with Mr. ”

“ Alsup called another man to the chair and replied to what I had said, saying: "By the living, I am surprised at Captain Monks, a man who has been treated by the rebels as he has, who now gets up here and says he will defend the rebels; by the living, I want Capt. Monks to understand right here, now, that if any loyal man kills a rebel and has to leave the country, and has no horse to ride, I will furnish him a good horse to ride off on ”

“ After her escape, Maria Monk narrates that she went on board a steamboat for Quebec, intending thereby to avoid being seized and again transferred to the Nunnery, that she was recognised by the Captain, was kept under close watch during the whole period of the stay of that boat at Quebec, and merely by accident escaped the hands of the Priests, by watching for an unexpected opportunity to gain the shore during the absence of the Captain, and the momentary negligence of the female attendant in the cabin. ”

“ Jack sat up ruefully. “Cactus.” And then respect and restraint struggled faintly again. His Captain had them all fooled—Verbena, everybody. To think of Verbena filled the boy with savage delight. While James Monk was carefully picking the porcupine lances of the cactus out of his back, respect dissolved in confiding affection.
“Captain, you've stunned me.”
“I guess I've about got 'em all out of your shirt,” said Monk. “Take it off and let's have a look at your back.”
Whetstone removed the garment.
“Here are some more,” Monk said. “Mustn't give 'em a chance to work under the skin. Bad. ”

“ Every unwedded officer had his turn for a long ride or a walk.
“I'm Tuesday,” said a captain to a first lieutenant. “Which are you?”
“I used to be Thursday,” said the other pensively.
“Cheer up, old man. Never say die.”
So the blue-eyed Verbena remained everybody's sister.
Then James Monk returned from a scout on the John Day river. In one week he was engaged to Verbena Frankish, in four he went East on leave, married her in Caesar Borgia, Kansas, where the family lived, and brought her back to Walla Walla. ”

“ The capital was occupied by Monk's own regiment and Talbot's "Black Colours." Talbot's was far from sound, and in the general's own there was hardly an officer who was not a rank Anabaptist. Fortunately, in the absence of the superior officers, Talbot's was being commanded by its major, Hubblethorne, and Monk's by its senior captain, Ethelbert Morgan. At133 Leith was "Wilkes's," also in charge of its major, Hughes; while in widely scattered quarters in the country round lay the general's own regiment of horse under Johnson, its senior captain. ”

“ Sliding slowly out of the cactus into e warming sun, ten feet away, a rattlesnake was headed toward the Captain's face, Captain didn't see it. What would it do if it got to him? It must be turned. Turned now, at once, or killed. But the Indians would hear you. You mustn't move, you mustn't speak. That would spring the trap too soon. That would ruin all, and the Captain must win. Jack seized a little stone. No. Not that. Desperately, he touched James Monk who turned a fierce, heavy frown upon him, but seeing his glare, looked. ”

“ Slowly, slowly, its legs labored through the thin sand. At last it stopped some six inches from Monk's face.
It appeared immense, like a lumbering, scaly giant from the planet's billion-year-ago past.
It rubbed its claws together, threateningly. Its black mouth opened, closed, opened, closed. Its needle tongue twisted like a silver snake.
I am hungry, came the thought. So very hungry. But I should call the others.
Combined fear and hope hung over Monk like an omnipresent shower of fire and ice. Sweat dripped into his hot eyes, obscuring his vision. ”

“ Like the rest of the great characters of the English Revolution, Monk has till recently been only visible through the literature of the Restoration. The navy was then the fashion, and Monk was only known to the historians of the time as an admiral. That aspect of him obscured every other. Society patronised the navy; it even divided itself into two cliques on the subject, the partisans of the general and the partisans of Lord Sandwich. ”

“ CLOISTERS OF MONTSERRAT.
All this may still be seen and heard now and then, but with the number of monks sadly curtailed. It is said that they now never exceed twenty. When their day of persecution came they escaped to their mountain fastness, climbing higher and ever higher like hunted deer, hiding in the cracks and crevices of the rocks; fear giving them strength to reach parts never yet trodden by the foot of man, whilst many a less active monk slipped and fell into the bottomless abyss, his last resting place, like that of Moses, remaining for ever unknown. ”

“ And so by a happy combination of the patient industry of the ploughman and the daring activity of the mosstrooper Monk made the war support itself, a thing as strange as it was palatable to the authorities at home; and while he thus delighted his masters he no less attached his troops to him by his judicious distribution of loot, as well as by keeping an open house to which every officer had at all times a hearty welcome. His maxim was to "mingle love with the severity of his discipline," believing that "they that cannot be induced to serve for love will never be forced to serve for fear." ”