II.


We were in Lourdes again next morning a little after six o'clock; and
already it might have been high noon, for the streets were one moving
mass of pilgrims. From every corner came gusts of singing; and here and
there through the crowd already moved the _brancardiers_--men of every
nation with shoulder-straps and cross--bearing the litters with their
piteous burdens.

I was to say Mass in the crypt; and when I arrived there at last, the
church was full from end to end. The interior was not so disappointing
as I had feared. It had a certain solid catacombic gloom beneath its low
curved roof, which, if it had not been for the colours and some of the
details, might very nearly have come from the hand of a good architect.
The arrangements for the pilgrims were as bad as possible; there was no
order, no marshalling; they moved crowd against crowd like herds of
bewildered sheep. Some were for Communion, some for Mass only, some for
confession; and they pushed patiently this way and that in every
direction. It was a struggle before I got my vestments; I produced a
letter from the Bishop of Rodez, with whom I had lunched a few days
before; I argued, I deprecated, I persuaded, I quoted. Everything once
more was against my peace of mind; yet I have seldom said Mass with more
consolations than in that tiny sanctuary of the high Altar.... An
ecclesiastic served, and an old priest knelt devoutly at a prie-Dieu.

When the time for Communion came, I turned about and saw but one sea of
faces stretching from the altar rail into as much of the darkness as I