"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."