Then he led him to his stable and presented him with his best saddle-horse, and urged immediate departure for a wider field and pastures new.
A few days later the handsome Van Dyck—with a goodly purse of gold, passports complete, and saddlebags well filled with various letters of introduction to Rubens' Italian friends—followed by a cart filled with his belongings, started gaily away, bound for the land where art had its birth.
"With Italy—with Italy I can win all!" he kept repeating to himself as he turned his horse's head to the South.
The first day's ride took the artistic traveler to the little village of Saventhem, five miles from Brussels. Here he turned aside long enough to say good-by to a fair young lady, Anna Van Ophem by name, whom he had met a few months before at Antwerp.
He rode across the broad pasture, entered the long lane lined with poplars, and followed on to the spacious old stone mansion in the grove of trees.
Anna herself saw him coming and came out to meet him. They had not been so very well acquainted, but the warmth of a greeting all depends upon where it takes place. It was lonely for the beautiful girl there in the country: she welcomed the handsome young painter-man as though he were a long-lost brother, and proudly introduced him to her parents.
Instead of a mere call he was urged to put up his horse and remain overnight; and a servant was sent out to find the man who drove the cart with the painter's belongings, and make him comfortable.
The painter decided that he would remain overnight and make an early start on the morrow.
And it was so agreed.