As soon as I was ready, I went out and sat down for a while among the recently bathed, and began to remind myself why I had bathed. Certainly I was not suffering from anything except a negligible ailment or two. Neither did I do it out of curiosity, because I could have seen without difficulty all the details without descending into that appalling trough. I suppose it was just an act of devotion. Here was water with a history behind it; water that was as undoubtedly used by Almighty God for giving benefits to man as was the clay laid upon blind eyes long ago near Siloe, or the water of Bethesda itself. And it is a natural instinct to come as close as possible to things used by the heavenly powers. I was extraordinarily glad I had bathed, and I have been equally glad ever since. I am afraid it is of no use as evidence to say that until I came to Lourdes I was tired out, body and mind; and that since my return I have been unusually robust. Yet that is a fact, and I leave it there.
As I sat there a procession went past to the Grotto, and I walked to the railings to look at it. I do not know at all what it was all about, but it was as impressive as all things are in Lourdes. The miraculés came first with their banners—file after file of them—then a number of prelates, then brancardiers with their shoulder-harness, then nuns, then more brancardiers. I think perhaps they may have been taking a recent miraculé to give thanks; for when I arrived presently at the Bureau again, I heard that, after all, several appeared to have been cured at the procession on the previous day.
I was sitting in the hall of the hotel a few minutes later when I heard the roar of the Magnificat from the street, and ran out to see what was forward. As I came to the door, the heart of the procession went by. A group of brancardiers formed an irregular square, holding cords to keep back the crowd; and in the middle walked a group of three, followed by an empty litter. The three were a white-haired man on this side, a stalwart brancardier on the other, and between them a girl with a radiant face, singing with all her heart. She had been carried down from her lodging that morning to the piscines; she was returning on her own feet, by the power of Him who said to the lame man, "Take up thy bed and go into thy house." I followed them a little way, then I went back to the hotel.
VII.
In the afternoon we went down to meet a priest who had promised a place to one of our party in the window of which I have spoken before. But the crowd was so great that we could not find him, so presently we dispersed as best we could. Two other priests and myself went completely round the outside of the churches, in order, if possible, to join in the procession, since to cross the square was a simple impossibility. In the terrible crush near the Bureau, I became separated from the others, and fought my way back, and into the Bureau, as the best place open to me now for seeing the Blessing of the Sick.
It was now at last that I had my supreme wish. Within a minute or two of my coming to look through the window, the Blessed Sacrament entered the reserved space among the countless litters. The crowd between me and the open space was simply one pack of heads; but I could observe the movements of what was going forward by the white top of the ombrellino as it passed slowly down the farther side of the square.
The crowd was very still, answering as before the passionate voice in the midst; but watching, watching, as I watched. Beside me sat Dr. Cox, and our Rosaries were in our hands. The white spot moved on and on, and all else was motionless. I knew that beyond it lay the sick. "Lord, if it be possible—if it be possible! Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done." It had reached now the end of the first line.