On the walls, close to the buttress which supports the sharply slanting roof, several nests were plastered.
“And is this the very same church mentioned in Evangeline?” inquired Priscilla, nearly breaking her neck to look up at the belfry, surmounted by a tall four-sided spire.
“No; but it is built on the site of that one, and the row of willows you see down there to the right grew on the main street of Grand Pré. The first settlers brought the shoots from Normandy. The well we passed on our way up is the same one from which the inhabitants of the olden village obtained their water supply. Just north of here is the Basin of Minas, where the people embarked on the ship which carried them away at the time of the Expulsion. This meadowland all around us was protected from the high tides by dykes like you saw a few weeks ago in Bear River. At one side of the Basin lies Cape Blomidon, where the amethysts are found; and—”
“Where Glooscap lived,” interrupted René, always glad to contribute to the narratives.
“Yes,” assented Jack, “where Glooscap lived. After the hay was cut from the meadows,” he continued, “cattle were turned in to graze until winter came.”
“How queer it makes one feel to be here,” observed Desiré dreamily.
They missed Priscilla at that moment, and looking around, saw her standing in front of the large bronze statue of Evangeline, which is in the centre of the park.
“She doesn’t look at all like I thought she would,” commented the little girl in disappointed tones, as the others joined her. They all gazed in silence for a moment at the sorrowful figure, looking backward at the land she was so reluctant to leave.
“You probably like to think of her, as I do, in a happier mood,” said Desiré; “but she must have been pretty sad when she went away.”
“We had better go on now,” decided Jack. So they followed the little stream which twists its way across the meadow; a mere thread in some places, in others wide enough to be bridged with single planks. Once it spread out into a fair-sized pond, covered with water lilies and guarded by a family of ducks who regarded the visitors scornfully.