bought a small house near Tergou. In course of time she heard of Gerard,
and saw some of his handiwork: it pleased her so well that she sent her
female servant, Reicht Heynes, to ask him to come to her. This led to an
acquaintance: it could hardly be otherwise, for little Tergou had never
held so many as two zealots of this sort before. At first the old lady
damped Gerard's courage terribly. At each visit she fished out of holes
and corners drawings and paintings, some of them by her own hand, that
seemed to him unapproachable; but if the artist overpowered him, the
woman kept his heart up. She and Reicht soon turned him inside out like
a glove: among other things, they drew from him what the good monks had
failed to hit upon, the reason why he did not illuminate, viz., that
he could not afford the gold, the blue, and the red, but only the cheap
earths; and that he was afraid to ask his mother to buy the choice
colours, and was sure he should ask her in vain. Then Margaret Van Eyck
gave him a little brush--gold, and some vermilion and ultramarine, and
a piece of good vellum to lay them on. He almost adored her. As he left
the house Reicht ran after him with a candle and two quarters: he
quite kissed her. But better even than the gold and lapis-lazuli to the
illuminator was the sympathy to the isolated enthusiast. That sympathy
was always ready, and, as he returned it, an affection sprung up between
the old painter and the young caligrapher that was doubly characteristic
of the time. For this was a century in which the fine arts and the
higher mechanical arts were not separated by any distinct boundary, nor
were those who practised them; and it was an age in which artists sought
out and loved one another. Should this last statement stagger a painter
or writer of our day, let me remind him that even Christians loved one
another at first starting.

Backed by an acquaintance so venerable, and strengthened by female
sympathy, Gerard advanced in learning and skill. His spirits, too, rose
visibly: he still looked behind him when dragged to dinner in the
middle of an initial G; but once seated, showed great social qualities;
likewise a gay humour, that had hitherto but peeped in him, shone out,
and often he set the table in a roar, and kept it there, sometimes with
his own wit, sometimes with jests which were glossy new to his family,
being drawn from antiquity.

As a return for all he owed his friends the monks, he made them