II.
The Old French Orchard.—The French Acadians.—The ruined Houses.—Captain Corbet in the Cellar.—Mysterious Movements.—The Mineral Bod—Where is the Pot of Cold?—Excitement.—Plans, Projects, and Proposals.
THE hill on which Grand Pré Academy was built sloped upwards behind it, in a gentle ascent, for about a mile, when it descended abruptly into the valley of the Gaspereaux. For about a quarter of a mile back of the Academy there were smooth, cultivated meadows, which were finally bounded by a deep gully. At the bottom of this there ran a brawling brook, and on the other side was that dense forest in which the boys built their camps. Here, on the cleared lands just by the gully, was the favorite play-ground of the school. Happy were the boys who had such a play-ground. High up on the slope of that hill, it commanded a magnificent prospect. Behind, and on either side, were dense, dark woods; but in front there stood revealed a boundless scene. Beneath was the Academy. Far down to the right spread away the dike lands of Grand Pré, bounded by two long, low islands, which acted as a natural barrier against the turbulent waters; and farther away rose the dark outline of Horton Bluff, a wild, precipitous cliff, at the mouth of the Gaspereaux River, marking the place where the hills advanced into the sea, and the marsh lands ended. Beyond this, again, there spread away the wide expanse of Minas Bay, full now with the flood tide—a vast sheet of blue water, dotted with the white sails of passing vessels, and terminated in the dim and hazy distance by those opposite shores, which had been the scene of their late adventures—Parrsboro’, Pratt’s Cove, and the Five Islands. Far away towards the left appeared fields arrayed in the living green of opening spring; the wide plains of Cornwallis, with its long reaches of dike lands, separated by ridges of wood land, and bounded by the dark form of the North Mountain. Through all this, from afar, flowed the Cornwallis River, with many a winding, rolling now with a full, strong flood before them and beyond them, till, with a majestic sweep, it poured its waters into that sea from which it had received them. Finally, full before them, dark, gloomy, frowning, with its crest covered with rolling fog-clouds, and the white sea-foam gleaming at its base, rose the central object of this magnificent scene,—the towering cliff—Blomidon.
Such was the scene which burst upon the eyes of the boys as they crossed the brook, and ascended the other side of the gully. Familiar that scene was, and yet, in spite of its familiarity, it had never lost its attractions to them; and for a moment they paused involuntarily, and looked out before them. For there is this peculiarity about the scenery of Grand Pré, that it is not possible for it to become familiar, in the common sense of the word. That scene is forever varying, and the variations are so great, that every day has some new prospect to offer. Land, sea, and sky, all undergo incessant changes. There is the Basin of Minas, which is ever changing from red to blue, from a broad sea to a contracted strait, hemmed in by mud flats. There is the sky, with its changes from deepest azure to dreamy haze, or impenetrable mist. There are rivers which change from fulness to emptiness, majestic at the flow of tide, indistinguishable at the ebb. There is Blomidon, which every day is arrayed in some new robe; sometimes pale-green, at other times deep purple; now light-gray, again dark-blue; and thus it goes through innumerable changes, from the pale neutral tints which it catches from the overhanging fogs, down through all possible gradations, to a darkness and a gloom, and a savage grandeur, which throw around it something almost of terror. Then come the seasons, which change the wide plains from brown to green, and from green to yellow, till winter appears, and robes all in white, and piles up for many a mile over the shallow shores, and in the deep channels of the rivers, the ever accumulating masses of heaped-up ice.
Yet all the time, through all the seasons, while field and flood, river and mountain, sea and forest, are thus changing their aspect, there hangs over all an atmosphere which brings changes more wonderful than these. The fog is forever struggling for an entrance here. The air in an instant may bring forth its hidden watery vapors. High over Blomidon the mist banks are piled, and roll and writhe at the blast of the winds from the sea. Here the mirage comes, and the eye sees the solid land uplifted into the air; here is the haze, soft and mysterious as that of Southern Italy, which diffuses through all the scene an unutterable sweetness and tenderness. Here, in an instant, a change of wind may whirl all the accumulated mists down from the crest of Blomidon into the vale of Cornwallis, and force vast masses of fog-banks far up into the Basin of Minas, till mountain and valley, and river and plain, and sea and sky, are all alike snatched from view, and lost in the indistinguishable gray of one general fog.
The boys then had not grown wearied of the scene. Every day they were prepared for some fresh surprise, and they found in this incessant display of the glory of nature, with its never-ending variety and its boundless scope, something which so filled their souls and enlarged their minds, that the perpetual contemplation of this was of itself an education. And so strong was this feeling in all of them, that for a moment all else was forgotten, and it was with an effort that they recollected the captain and his mineral rod.
Upon this they turned to carry out their purpose.
In this, place, and close by where they were standing, were several hollows in the ground, which were well known to be the cellars of houses once occupied by French Acadians. At a little distance were a number of apple trees, still growing, and now putting forth leaf, yet so old that their trunks and branches were all covered with moss, and the fruit itself, on ripening, was worthless. These trees also belonged to the former owners of the houses—the fallen—the vanished race.
And at the bottom of one of these holes Captain Corbet was standing, solemnly balancing the mineral rod on one finger, and calling to the boys to come and watch how it “pinted” to the buried pot of gold.