Monkshaven

“ For John Foster and Son has been a shop i' Monkshaven this eighty years and more; and I dunnot think there's a man living—or dead, for that matter—as can say Fosters wronged him of a penny, or gave short measure to a child or a Cousin Betty.'
They all four shook hands round with the same heartiness as if it had been a legal ceremony necessary to the completion of the partnership. The old men's faces were bright with smiles; the eyes of the young ones sparkled with hope.
'But, after all,' said Jeremiah, 'we've not told you particulars. Yo're thanking us for a pig in a poke ”

“ The monks' sea was a poetic appellation enough for the channel between Marken and the mainland; but in modern times it has been rechristened as the "Sea of Gold," which strikes us as a singularly graceful way of paying a tribute of gratitude to the richness of the bottom over which it rolls. The neighbouring dairy-farmers dredge up the sandy mud and spread it as manure over their water-meadows, which are renowned for magnificent pasturage. The next town to Monnikendam is no other than Edam, which has long been advertising its cheeses over great part of Europe. ”

“ The ocean billows still beat unceasingly against Rockhaven's granite cliffs and toss the rockweed and kelpie aloft. The tide still ebbs and flows beneath the old mill, and the fishermen still mend their nets and sail away. Parson Bush is getting old and feeble, and his hair white as snow. He still utters fervent thanks, however, for the many blessings that have come to this far-off island, including the new church Jess and Winn were instrumental in building. The same old bell still hangs in its tower, and Sunday evenings always answers the one in Northaven. ”

“ He is president of the new Rockhaven Granite Company now, and prosperous. A beautiful residence of granite stands back of the old tower on Norse Hill, and there Winn and Mona abide in summer, though the city claims them winters. Mona often entertains her friends with her violin, but no money would tempt her again to play in public. Jess still fiddles when he is "lunsum," which is not often, for a little girl with eyes like Mona's thinks "Gampa" the most wonderful man who ever lived. A boy, two years older, would cut that fiddle open to find what made the noise, if he got the chance. ”

“ The demeanour of the inhabitants is marked by a majestic calm. Young and old, men and women, all seem half asleep, as though they were economizing life by taking it slowly. Looking upon this quietude, so nearly death, it is difficult to believe that Monnikendam was one of the twenty-nine cities of Holland when the Hague was only a burgh, and that it enjoyed in that capacity privileges which were denied to the seat of the government. ”

“ Each of the two villages is blessed with a diminutive church, Baptist in denomination, the one at Rockhaven the oldest and known as Hard-Shell; that at Northaven as Free-Will. Each calls together most of the womenkind and grown-up children, as well as a few of the men, every Sunday, while the rest of the men, if in summer, lounge around the wharves smoking and swapping yarns. There is no great interest in religion among either sex, and church attendance seems more a social pleasure than a duty.
Occasionally a few of the young people will get together, as young folks always do, to play games ”

“ A few accompanied their families to the little church, but more spent the day lounging about the wharves, smoking and swapping yarns, and if a boat needed caulking, a net mending, or a new sail bending, they did not hesitate to do it. While all had sufficient reverence for the Lord's Day not to actually start out fishing, most were willing to get ready. And perhaps for good reason, for a livelihood on Rockhaven was not easy to obtain and with them, as with most hard-working people, the necessities of life displaced spiritual influences.
"It is a hard field to labor in," asserted the Rev. ”

“ Early in the morning we made out Monhegan, as I have no doubt it was descried from the mast-head of the Archangel, Weymouth's ship, two hundred and seventy years ago. The sea was shrouded in vapor, so that we saw the island long before the main-land was visible. Sea-faring people call it high land for this part of the world.
Near the westward shore of the southern half of this remarkable island is a little islet, called Mananas, which forms the only harbor it can boast. Captain Smith says, "Between Monahiggon and Monanis is a small harbour, where we rid." ”

“ To this end he quoted freely from Scripture, and Winn was beginning to lose interest and look around the bare and smoky walls and out of one window that commanded a view of the rippled harbor, when suddenly his attention was arrested by a direct reference to himself, or rather, his errand to Rockhaven. "We have," asserted the minister, in slow and solemn voice, "a certain and sure proof that the Lord watches over and cares for us, and that we on this lonely island, striving to live righteously, are not forgotten by Him. Our acres fit to till are few and lack fertility ”

“ The monasteries never grew sufficiently to require great enlargements, and thus they would have been to-day very nearly as the Anglo-Saxon monks saw them. Monkwearmouth Church was built in the Romanesque style by Benedict Biscop, who sent to France for workmen to put in the glass for the church windows. Besides the church, no trace remains of any monastic building at Monkwearmouth. The chancel and tower of the abbey church at Jarrow bear a great resemblance to those of Monkwearmouth, both being the work of Benedict Biscop. ”

“ The singular height of the church at Monkwearmouth would lead us to the same conclusion. They were thus churches of quite a peculiar type, a type destined to undergo many modifications in later times. In Monkwearmouth and Jarrow you are face to face with the earliest form of English ecclesiastical architecture.
We have no need to ask about the builders, or to wrangle over the date of their foundation. There are darker and lighter periods in any history; Monkwearmouth and Jarrow have, indeed, known much of both. But the light shines clearly enough upon their early days. ”

“ MONNIKENDAM, a fishing village of Holland, in the province of North Holland, on an inlet of the Zuider Zee known as the Gouw Zee, 12 m. N.N.E. of Amsterdam, with which it is connected by steam tramway. It was once a flourishing town, but its quietness now is only disturbed by the advent of the numerous tourists who visit it in the summer, crossing hence to the island of Marken. Among the notable buildings are the weigh-house (17th century) , the bell-tower (1591) , formerly attached to the town-hall before this was destroyed in the 18th century, and the church of St. ”

“ The beautiful valley, with its picturesque scenery, expands somewhat as the Wye approaches its junction with the river Monnow and flows through a succession of green meadows. Here, between the two rivers on a low spur, a prolongation of their bordering hills, stands Monmouth, its ancient suburbs spreading across the Monnow. From the market-place, the chief street of the town leads down to these suburbs, crossing over an old-time bridge. ”

“ We hain't forgot nothin' from the day ye first come back to be one on us, up till last summer when ye saved us our money on that stock bizness. We don't blame the young feller neither, and if ever he cums back, we'll all jine in givin' him a welcome as well. But now we absolutely insist we be 'lowed to start ye fair, and in style, in the new step ye two air takin'."
And "start them fair" they did; for although the snow lay thick on the granite ledges of Rockhaven, when the day came, and cheerless winter reigned, there was no lack of cheer in all that was said and done. ”

“ In its halcyon days its money chests contained enough bullion to provide for the outfitting of a fleet which it sent [130] under spreading canvas up the coast to Hoorn, to demonstrate to the skeptics that a Spanish admiral could be captured in battle, if only the scheme were handled in the proper manner. Long since has Monnikendam been relegated to the so-called “dead city” class. It is almost too sleepy to keep awake in the daytime, arousing but once a year from its perennial slumber: when Amsterdam comes on skates to hold an ice carnival. ”

“ With only a limited education, such as the island schools afforded, a scant knowledge of books, since but few ever reached Rockhaven, a love of music that amounted to a passion, no knowledge of the world except that gleaned from Uncle Jess, a deep religious feeling, partially shaped by the "Hardshell" Baptist teachings of the Rev. Jason Bush, and more by the ocean billows that forever thundered against the island shores, she was at twenty a girl to be pitied by those capable of understanding her nature or realizing how incompatible to it was her environment. ”

“ Men and women kept their strength to beat each other down, and those who fell went under with little more than a stifled gasp. And still Monkhouse kept on, freeing himself with merciless deliberation from the hands that held him, his eyes straining for the first glimpse of light and—by an irony of chance, it was at the moment when he felt the wind blow against his face that he was brought to a sudden standstill. ”

“ Among the rest, there was in the city of Bangor a most noble church, in which it is reported there was so great a number of monks, that when the monastery was divided into seven parts, having each their priors over them, not one of them had less than three hundred monks, who all lived by the labour of their own hands. ”

“ The occasional visitor seeking health among its whispering pines, or relaxation in the sultry summer days along its shore, where the roll of the breakers and the boundless sweep of the ocean combine to form one of the most sublime marine views on all the Atlantic seaboard, may admire the fertile farmlands and prosperous villages as much as the man to the manor born, but he never speaks of "Old" Monmouth. ”

“ According to the rules of the monastery, the monks had both ‘to till the ground and to follow all such profitable employment as was practicable.’ There were people among them who had a very fair knowledge of secular affairs, and who, moreover, did not always despise the good things of the world. Accordingly, the monks summoned competent artisans and work-people from Russia, and with their help they devised boat and ship building on the river Pasvig, and also further out in the Munkfjord at the Warehouse Inlet, where the water was clear of ice even in the winter. ”

“ This spear-wound—bah! it is nothing. But I do want food.”
His words, few as they were, rang with earnest entreaty, and then it flashed through Monk's brain who the man was. He was Kellerman, the notorious escapee from New Caledonia, for whom the North Queensland police had been seeking for the past six months, after his breaking out of Cooktown gaol. For the moment Monk said nothing; but, with sudden sympathy, he lit his pipe and handed it to his companion. “Take a smoke, old man, and we'll see presently what is best to be done.” ”

“ A pleasant walk is traced to its summit, from which a wonderful range of prospect extends to a circumference of near three hundred miles. It would be tedious to enumerate the multifarious objects that present themselves in this great prospect: if any one be eminently beautiful, it is the diversified undulating vale of Monmouth, enlivened by its picturesque town and spire, and watered by the Wye, p. 285the Monnow, and the Trothy, limpidly meandering through fertile hollows, and at length uniting, in the course of the former river, at the foot of the hill. ”

“ Years have fled on in their silent and undeviating course. I am now an old, grey-headed man.
Sir Alexander Moncton has long been gathered to his fathers, and the old Hall is filled by a race of healthy, noble-looking young people, the children of Sir George Moncton and Catherine Lee. I, too, have a Geoffrey and a Margaret, the children of my adoption; for a large family Sir George willingly spared me these.
For years I have resided at the Lodge, formerly the residence of Dinah North, which I have converted into a pretty dwelling, surrounded by shrubberies and flower-gardens. ”

“ On the inner and right-hand shore of the secure harbor, a small fishing village fringes both sides of a long street, and at the head of the harbor, one mile away, stands another hamlet. The first and larger village is called Rockhaven, the other Northaven. Each has its little church and schoolhouse, also used for town meetings, its one or two general stores, and a post-office. Those in Rockhaven, where fishing is the sole industry, are permeated with that salty odor of cured fish, combined with tar, coffee, and kerosene; and scattered over the interior are a score of modest farmhouses. ”

“ With Rockhavens at nothing bid, she will be in a suitable mood for prayers. You might ring the changes on 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away' with her, but you won't bear any resemblance to the Lord in her estimation. Take your business and your schemes and hide yourself somewhere. I would suggest you go to Rockhaven and ask your 'old fossil fiddler' to play the 'Rogues' March' for you. ”

“ But in connexion with the preceding collateral evidence is another remarkable circumstance, which is this: the extensive knowledge which Maria Monk has obtained of the Canadian Jesuits. Those with whom she has been acquainted, she affirms that she could instantly identify. For that object, she has given a catalogue of those Priests whose names and persons are in some degree familiarly known to her. As the Priests are often changing their abodes, and many of them residents in Montreal until a vacancy occurs for them in the country parishes, in those particulars there may be a trifling mistake ”