At once cures were effected, the first being that of a little girl in the last stages of consumption, who was carried into the house and restored to perfect health. The elders of the town gathered about the statues and offered loud prayers, giving their thanks to God that the town had been saved from the rage of the Black-and-Tans on the previous Monday night, and that none of the innocent citizens had been destroyed.
The local clergy, as a whole, were chary of expressing their opinions; but in spite of their silence a great pilgrimage began from all parts of Ireland, travelling to Templemore on horse, on foot, on bicycle, in gig, in dray, in dogcart, in jaunting car, bringing the sick in body and the sick in soul. There was an amazing scene in the yard at the back of the house, where the statues were placed upon a table covered with a white cloth. Townspeople and countrypeople, grandmothers, and their grandchildren, husbands, wives, knelt in a crowd about the table, murmuring their prayers, and touching the statues with beads and prayer-books.
This miraculous bleeding, which caused Ireland momentarily to hold her breath, as if supernatural intervention was coming, became a nine days’ wonder, and then was no more. This week it was: next week it was not. Perhaps it could not survive the arrival of the Daily Sketch reporter with his gimlet eye, his notebook, and his camera.
Once or twice I passed 47 in the street, but he took no notice of me, and I let him go in case he had business on hand. He would not come to see us, as the acquaintance might be unhealthy, and we did not like to look him up without an invitation.
Finally, I dropped him a line telling him to meet me in the Botanical Gardens if he were free. I wandered down to the water in the hollow, and there he was coming across the little bridge. A yard or two off he waved a hand in salute; we joined up and strolled down a sheltered walk. He took a cigarette from me, and started to smoke without saying a word.
“How do you like life?” I said.
“It’s interesting,” he admitted. Looking up, he added grimly, “Are you finding your way about?”
I agreed Dublin was interesting.
“What have you seen?” he said.
“Plenty of your chaps about. At least everybody says they’re in your line. Every man serving the Government seems to be called a Black-and-Tan, but now and then some more exact person than the rest hisses into your ear, ‘Those men are secret service.’”