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.
“Now for our house,” cried Desiré as they drove onto the main road again. “Please go very slowly, Jack, so that we won’t miss it.”
They all peered eagerly out of the wagon; and when they saw, up a little lane, a dilapidated-looking building, they all exclaimed together—“That must be it!”
Jack drove as close as the underbrush would allow, and they proceeded on foot until they were standing before a small log cabin, windowless, doorless, a huge flat stone for a doorstep, and a chimney built of irregular stones.
1 Six Owls.
FINDING THE LOST TREASURE, by Helen M. Persons [Part 2]
CHAPTER XV
THE OLD GODET HOUSE
“No floors,” observed Priscilla, peeking in.
“It’s a mere shell,” said Jack; “everything rotted away but the walls and the chimney.”
“But how stout they are!” exclaimed Desiré, triumphantly.
“We’ll look at it again when we come back this way, if you like,” promised Jack presently; “but now I want to get on to Windsor.”
“There’s the remains of a garden back of the cabin,” commented Priscilla, as they drove away. “I can see three or four flowers.”
“The first seeds of which were doubtless planted by our—how many times great-grandmother, Jack?” asked Desiré.
“Don’t know. The ‘greats’ always did puzzle me.”
“Oh!” cried René, “I always thought you knowed everything.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, my boy,” laughed Jack; “but I don’t.”
“And now,” said Priscilla, “I want to see the place where you went to school, Jack. Wasn’t it here?”
“Yes. I’ll show it to you when we come back.”
“How strange,” commented Desiré to Jack, “that you never heard of or saw the place when you were here.”
The boy smiled. “I was far too busy going to classes, preparing assignments, and coaching some of the other fellows, to hunt up old ruins.”
Desiré was very quiet for the rest of the day, but the next day, when they were camped near the river Avon just beyond the town of Wolfville, she said rather timidly to Jack:
“Do you suppose we could find out anywhere who owns the Godet house now?”
“Possibly; but why?”
“I’d just like to know.”
Her brother looked at her keenly before he said—“We can walk into town and see what information we can get, if you like.”
“Do you suppose the children would be safe if we left them?” looking up at him doubtfully.
“I think so. Priscilla must begin to take a little responsibility now. We’ll have plenty of time to get back before dinner time.”
While Desiré got ready, Jack issued instructions to the two children, closing with—“René, you’re to mind Priscilla; and Prissy, don’t go away from the wagon, or let René out of your sight.”
They had gone only a short distance when Desiré, who had looked back several times, said—“Jack, would you mind very much if I let you go on alone, and I went back?”
“No, of course not; don’t you feel well?” he inquired anxiously.
“Perfectly; but—Prissy is pretty young to be left with the wagon and the baby; and it isn’t as if you really needed me along.”
“I think they’re perfectly safe, but if you’d feel better about it, go back by all means,” said her brother kindly.
So Desiré returned to the children, and waited in a fever of suspense for Jack to come back. With one eye on the long road, and the other on her household, or rather wagonhold, duties, she was ready to drop everything and go to meet him as soon as his tall form appeared in the distance.
At full speed she dashed along the highway, raising quite a cloud of fine white dust, and fell into Jack’s arms outspread to stop her.
“Good work, Dissy! All our riding hasn’t made you forget how to run. Remember the races you and I used to have when we were little, on that smooth path running along the edge of the woods?”
“And the day you fell over a stone and had such a terrible nosebleed? How frightened I was!”
“We had lots of good times together when we were kids, didn’t we?” asked Jack, laying his arm affectionately across her shoulders.
“We surely did; but why say ‘when we were kids?’ We do now, too, only they are a different kind of times.”
“And a different kind of race,” added Jack, thoughtfully.
“Well, what did you do in town?” asked the girl, unable to restrain her curiosity any longer.
“I rambled about a bit first, asking a question here and there, and finally ended up at the house of Judge Herbine. He’s a fine old man, Desiré; you’d like him. As he is quite a story-teller, and very much interested in our affairs, it took some time to get the information I was after; but at last I succeeded in finding out that the house apparently belongs to no one. Some years ago a man from the States wanted to buy the site for a summer home, but when he investigated and found that there wasn’t a clear title to the