MIRACLES IN FRENCH CANADA. 239 



to A Legend of Montrose, Sir Walter Scott speaks of the por- 

 tents which announced the Highland clearings the notes of 

 the night wind howling down the pass of Balachra modeled to 

 the tune of We Return no More, the song with which High- 

 landers usually bade farewell to their native land ; " the uncouth 

 cries of the Southland shepherds and the barking of their dogs in 

 the midst of the hills long before their actual arrival." I have 

 been told at St. Pierre-Miquelon that the Acadians who fled to 

 those French islands from the country of Evangeline were quite 

 sure they had been forewarned of what was in store by the ap- 

 pearance of British armies in the sky, by dirgelike sounds from 

 the ocean, and the wailing of souls in purgatory heard during 

 Mass for a year before the calamity. In 1811-'12 Bishop Plessis 

 visited Prince Edward Island, and in the account of his journey, 

 published long afterward,* we are told that mysterious voices 

 were heard in the Acadian churches, but not in the churches fre- 

 quented by the Roman Catholics of Highland Scotch extraction. 

 There was a groaning or sighing voice like that of a person in dis- 

 tress, and a singing voice like that of a woman or a child. On the 

 mainland of New Brunswick these voices followed the Acadians 

 to the lumber shanties, and were heard on Sundays when they 

 gathered for prayer. In the churches the voices were loudest 

 during the recitation of the litany of the Holy Name of Jesus. 

 The good bishop asks : " What are these voices ? Whence come 

 they, and for what reason do they make themselves heard ? " He 

 comes to the philosophical conclusion that " as they have done no 

 one any harm it matters little whether they cease or keep on." 

 At the grand derangement, as they call their deportation, the 

 Acadians received at least one mark of favor from the Virgin 

 Mary. Abbe* Ferland tells the story in his La Gaspesie. Two 

 hundred and fifty of them on board a vessel bound from Port 

 Royal to the Carolinas overpowered the crew during a storm, 

 fastened a scapular to the rudder, and invited the Virgin to take 

 charge ; she did so, and in a few hours they made land at Riviere 

 Saint- Jean. The Virgin helped the French at the battle of Ticon- 

 deroga, appearing in white on the breastworks as the enemy came 

 up for each fresh attack. She did not appear on the Plains of 

 Abraham, nor during Montgomery's invasion ; in the latter cam- 

 paign, indeed, the mass of the French Canadians would probably 

 have been glad if she had helped the Bostonnais. 



There were legends among the French Canadians of revela- 

 tions from heaven having been vouchsafed to the Indians. Mgr. 

 de S. Valier traveled through the Gulf region in 1685-'87 in the 

 capacity of grand-vicaire to Laval, and published a report at 



* Le Foyer Canadien, 1865. 



