His local information, imparted
to her, overflowed upon us; and when he found that we had read
"Evangeline," his delight in making us acquainted with the scene of
that poem was pleasant to see. The village of Grand Pre is a mile
from the station; and perhaps the reader would like to know exactly
what the traveler, hastening on to Baddeck, can see of the famous
locality.
We looked over a well-grassed meadow, seamed here and there by beds
of streams left bare by the receding tide, to a gentle swell in the
ground upon which is a not heavy forest growth. The trees partly
conceal the street of Grand Pre, which is only a road bordered by
common houses. Beyond is the Basin of Minas, with its sedgy shore,
its dreary flats; and beyond that projects a bold headland, standing
perpendicular against the sky. This is the Cape Blomidon, and it
gives a certain dignity to the picture.
The old Normandy picturesqueness has departed from the village of
Grand Pre. Yankee settlers, we were told, possess it now, and there
are no descendants of the French Acadians in this valley. I believe
that Mr. Cozzens found some of them in humble circumstances in a
village on the other coast, not far from Halifax, and it is there,
probably, that the
"Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun,
And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story,
While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest."
At any rate, there is nothing here now except a faint tradition of
the French Acadians; and the sentimental traveler who laments that
they were driven out, and not left behind their dikes to rear their
flocks, and cultivate the rural virtues, and live in the simplicity
of ignorance, will temper his sadness by the reflection that it is to
the expulsion he owes "Evangeline" and the luxury of his romantic
grief.
