many drops of blood. You will be sure to want it, Gerard.
The house is never built for less than the builder counted on."

Sure enough, when the time came, Gerard longed to go to Rotterdam and
see the Duke, and above all to see the work of his competitors, and
so get a lesson from defeat. And the crown came out of the housewife's
pocket with a very good grace. Gerard would soon be a priest. It seemed
hard if he might not enjoy the world a little before separating himself
from it for life.

The night before he went, Margaret Van Eyck asked him to take a letter
for her, and when he came to look at it, to his surprise he found it was
addressed to the Princess Marie, at the Stadthouse in Rotterdam.

The day before the prizes were to be distributed, Gerard started for
Rotterdam in his holiday suit, to wit, a doublet of silver-grey cloth,
with sleeves, and a jerkin of the same over it, but without sleeves.
From his waist to his heels he was clad in a pair of tight-fitting
buckskin hose fastened by laces (called points) to his doublet. His
shoes were pointed, in moderation, and secured by a strap that passed
under the hollow of the foot. On his head and the back of his neck he
wore his flowing hair, and pinned to his back between his shoulders was
his hat: it was further secured by a purple silk ribbon little Kate had
passed round him from the sides of the hat, and knotted neatly on
his breast; below his hat, attached to the upper rim of his broad
waist-belt, was his leathern wallet. When he got within a league of
Rotterdam he was pretty tired, but he soon fell in with a pair that were
more so. He found an old man sitting by the roadside quite worn out, and
a comely young woman holding his hand, with a face brimful of concern.
The country people trudged by, and noticed nothing amiss; but Gerard, as
he passed, drew conclusions. Even dress tells a tale to those who study
it so closely as he did, being an illuminator. The old man wore a gown,
and a fur tippet, and a velvet cap, sure signs of dignity; but the
triangular purse at his girdle was lean, the gown rusty, the fur worn,
sure signs of poverty. The young woman was dressed in plain russet
cloth: yet snow-white lawn covered that part of her neck the gown left
visible, and ended half way up her white throat in a little band of gold
embroidery; and her head-dress was new to Gerard: instead of hiding her
hair in a pile of linen or lawn, she wore an open network of silver cord