Behind them was the clean river and the green meadows, all delicious in
the early sunlight.

During that morning I must have seen many hundreds of the sick carried
into the baths; for there were almost two thousand sick in Lourdes on
that day. I could even watch their faces, white and drawn with pain, or
horribly scarred, as they lay directly beneath me, "waiting for some man
to put them into the water." I saw men and women of all nations and all
ranks attending upon them, carrying them tenderly, fanning their faces,
wiping their lips, giving them to drink of the Grotto water. A murmur of
thousands of footsteps came up from beneath (this National Pilgrimage of
France numbered between eighty and an hundred thousand persons); and
loud above the footsteps came the cries of the priests, as they stood in
a long row facing the people, with arms extended in the form of a cross.
Now and again came a far-off roar of singing from the Grotto to my left,
where Masses were said continuously by bishops and favoured priests; or
from my right, from the great oval space beneath the steps; and then, on
a sudden a great chorus of sound from beneath, as the _Gloria Patri_
burst out when the end of some decade was reached. All about us was the
wheeling earth, the Pyrenees behind, the meadows in front; and over us
heaven, with Mary looking down.

Once from beneath during that long morning I heard terrible shrieks, as
of a demoniac, that died into moans and ceased. And once I saw a little
procession go past from the Grotto, with the Blessed Sacrament in the
midst. There was no sensation, no singing. The Lord of all went simply
by on some errand of mercy, and men fell on their knees and crossed
themselves as He went.

After _déjeûner_ at the Hotel Moderne, where now it was decided that we