There the controversy rests, I think; at any rate, so far as I heard it debated; and I must own that the scientific explanation does not seem to me to hold water. To take one instance, would the absorption of diseased tissue drive a piece of cloth out of a soldier’s leg or body? Perhaps yes, for what I know; but would the excitement of a mother cure the disease of her child? These two classes of cures (of which there are a great number) struck me, perhaps, more than any of the rest. But I must not take up more of your space, and can only advise all your readers who are really interested in this problem to take the first opportunity they can of going to Lourdes, and, if possible, as we did, at a time when the great bodies of pilgrims are not there, and they can quietly examine the facts there, for--_pace_ the doctors and men of science--these tablets, swords, crutches, etc., are facts which they are bound to acknowledge and investigate. I shall be surprised if they do not come away, as I did, with a feeling that they have seen a deeply interesting sight for which it is well worth while to come from England, and that there are two sides to this question of the Lourdes miracles (so-called), either of which any reverent student of the world in which he is living may conscientiously hold. Fontarabia, 22nd April 1893. Every year the truth of Burns’s “the best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley,” comes more home to me. From the time I was ten the Pass of Roncesvalles has had a fascination for me. Then the habit of ballad-singing was popular, and a relative of mine had a well-deserved repute in that line. Amongst her old-world favourites were “Boland the Brave” and “Durandarté.” The first told how Boland left his castle on the Rhine, where he used to listen to the chanting in the opposite convent, in which his lady-love had taken the veil on the false report of his death, and “think she blessed him in her prayer when the hallelujah rose”; and followed Charlemagne in his Spanish raid, till “he fell and wished to fall” at Boncesvalles. The second, how Durandarté, dying in the fatal pass, sent his last message to his mistress by his cousin Montesinos. In those days I never could hear the last lines without feeling gulpy in the throat:-- Kind in manners, fair in favour, Mild in temper, fierce in fight,-- Warrior purer, gentler, braver, Never shall behold the light. They may not be good poetry, but Monk Lewis, the author, never wrote any others as good. Then Lockhart’s _Spanish Ballads_ were given me, and in one of the best of those stirring rhymes, Bernardo del Carpio’s bearding of his King, I read-- The life of King Alphonso I saved at Roncesval, Your word, Lord King, was recompense abundant for it all; Your horse was down, your hope was flown; I saw the falchion shine