Acadians -- History -- Juvenile fiction; Nova Scotia -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction; Vacations -- Juvenile fiction
"Shall you object if we call this Evangeline's well?" asked Martine,
with a touch of scorn in her voice.
"Ah, call it what you please, Miss Stratford. It is certainly an old
French well. Evangeline may have drunk from it."
"Is it quite safe to drink from an old well?"
"Oh, mamma, you are not usually so anxious."
"I can assure you, Mrs. Redmond, that this is pure water. The wall was
built a few years ago, and you will find the water deliciously cold.
This well, by the way, is probably near the site of the priest's house;"
and involuntarily he glanced toward Martine.
"Oh," she rejoined, as if in answer to his glance, "I thought that there
was no priest--except in the poem."
"Ah, surely there had been a priest, though not Father Felician; and
indeed at the time of the deportation the priest was away from Grand
Pré, a prisoner at Halifax, and so he could not exhort the people. But
these are mere matters of detail. Undoubtedly we are now standing very
near the site of the church."
"I wonder if the bells are hidden in the earth like those we heard of at
Annapolis," and Amy turned to Martine with a smile, hoping to divert her
from quizzing Mr. Knight.
"Ah, the bells!" exclaimed the offending young man. "There is a
story--if you should care for it."
"By all means," replied Mrs. Redmond; and under the embarrassing gaze of
four pairs of eyes Mr. Knight told his tale.
"It isn't a remarkable story in any way, only they say that when the
Acadians saw that they were prisoners, some of them managed to take down
the bell and wall it up in one of the vaults under the church, while the
church treasure was put in the other. Years afterwards, in the days of
the English settlers, a strange vessel was seen in the Basin one night.
People who passed this way thought they heard queer noises during the
night, and in the morning the ground near the site of the old church was
disturbed. Some people said that in the night they had heard a bell
ringing. That night there came a terrible storm, and soon bits of
wreckage drifted in that must have come from the strange vessel. In this
way every one believed that the theft had been avenged--if the strangers
stole the bell and the treasure. It is only fair to say," continued Mr.
Knight, "that some believe that the bell was taken by returning Acadians
who wished to set it up in an Acadian chapel on the Gaspé coast. At any
rate, there are people still living who have heard their parents say
that at certain times they can hear the distant ringing of this Grand
Pré bell."
"How weird!" cried Martine. "Are there any more stories like that? I
love them."
"Oh, there are some others connected with buried treasures, but an evil
fate was usually supposed to attend those who grew suddenly rich by
unearthing Acadian treasure; and there are tales of ghostly fires on St.
John's eve; and other stories used to trouble me very much when I was
small and had to pass lonely places in the night."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account