Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates

25

Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.

West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields

Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward

Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains

Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty

Atlantic

30

Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended.

There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian

village.

Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock,

Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.

These colonists came from Rochelle, Saintonge, and Poitou, so that they were drawn from a very limited area on the west coast of France, covered by the modern departments of Vendée and Charente Inférieure. This circumstance had some influence on their mode of settling the lands of Acadia, for they came from a country of marshes, where the sea was kept out by artificial dikes, and they found in Acadia similar marshes, which they dealt with in the same way that they had been accustomed to practise in France. Hannay's History of Acadia, pp. 282, 283. An excellent account of dikes and the flooding of lowlands, as practised in Holland, may be found in A Farmer's Vacation, by George E. Waring, Jr.

29. Blomidon is a mountainous headland of red sandstone, surmounted by a perpendicular wall of basaltic trap, the whole about four hundred feet in height, at the entrance of the Basin of Minas.

Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting

35

Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.

There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset

Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,

Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in

kirtles

Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the

golden

40

Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors

Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.

Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children

Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.

Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,

45

Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate

welcome.

Then came the laborers home from tne field, and serenely the sun sank

36. The characteristics of a Normandy village may be further learned by reference to a pleasant little sketch-book, published a few years since, called Normandy Picturesque, by Henry Blackburn, and to Through Normandy, by Katharine S. Macquoid.

39. The term kirtle was sometimes applied to the jacket only, sometimes to the train or upper petticoat attached to it. A full kirtle was always both; a half kirtle was a term applied to either. A man's jacket was sometimes called a kirtle; here the reference is apparently to the full kirtle worn by women.

Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry

Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the

village

Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense

ascending,

50

Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and

contentment.

Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian

farmers,

Dwelt in the love of God and of man.

they free from

Alike were

Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice

of republics.

Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their

windows;

55

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;

There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,

Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pré,

60

Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his household, Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the village.

49. Angelus Domini is the full name given to the bell which, at morning, noon, and night, called the people to prayer, in commemoration of the visit of the angel of the Lord to the Virgin Mary. It was introduced into France in its modern form in the sixteenth century.

Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy

winters;

Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes;

White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves.

Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen sum

mers;

65

Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside,

Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses!

Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.

When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at

noontide

Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the

maiden.

70

Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret

Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop

Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon

them,

Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal,

Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings

75

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as

an heirloom,

Handed down from mother to child, through long generations.

But a celestial brightness—a more ethereal beautyShone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession,

Homeward serenely she walked with God's benedic

tion upon her.

80

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer

Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea; and a shady

Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it.

Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a footpath

85

Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the

meadow.

Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a penthouse,

Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the roadside,

Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of

Mary.

Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its moss-grown

90

Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the horses.

Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the barns and the farm-yard;

There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique ploughs and the harrows;

There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his feathered seraglio,

93. The accent is on the first syllable of antique, where it re mains in the form antic, which once had the same general mean< ing.