several months.

When Vandyck was passing through Haarlem he went to the studio of Franz
Hals, who was at a tavern just then. A message was sent him saying that a
stranger desired to have his portrait made, and had but two hours to spare
for it. Hals hastened home and dashed off the portrait within the time
stated. Vandyck then said, "Portrait-painting seems to be a simple thing;
take my place, and give me the brush for awhile." Hals complied with the
request and Vandyck made his portrait with great celerity. Seeing this,
Hals cried out, "You are Vandyck; he alone can do such work."

The young artist was suddenly called to the death-bed of his father, who
commanded him to paint a picture for the Dominican Sisters who had cared
for his father in his illness. Seven years later Vandyck presented the
Sisters with a Crucifixion. At the foot of the cross was a rock upon which
was inscribed, in Latin, "Lest the earth should be heavy upon the remains
of his father, Anthony Vandyck moved this rock to the foot of the cross,
and gave it to this place." When the monasteries were broken up, this
picture was purchased for two thousand seven hundred dollars for the
Antwerp Academy, where it now is.

At length Vandyck prepared to set out for Italy. When he paid his farewell
visit to Rubens he presented the master with three of his pictures, and in
return Rubens gave him one of his finest horses. As Vandyck was on his way
from Antwerp to Brussels he halted at the village of Saventhem, where he
fell in love with Anna van Ophem, and so stayed on in the lovely valley of
Flanders, week after week, as if he had forgotten that Italy existed. Anna
persuaded him to paint a picture for the village church, and he executed
a Holy Family in which the Virgin was a portrait of Anna, and St. Joachim
and St. Anna were drawn from her father and mother. This picture pleased
the church authorities so much that they gave the young painter an order
for another, which represented St. Martin dividing his cloak with beggars.
In this work the saint was a portrait of Vandyck, and the horse on which
he rode was like that which Rubens had given him.

This picture has quite a history. In 1758 the priest agreed to sell it to
a collector from the Hague for one thousand eight hundred dollars; but
when the villagers knew of it they surrounded the church with clubs and
pitchforks, and drove the purchaser away. In 1806, when the French
invaders tried to carry it away,