“Are you going to paint that scroll red too?”
“No: purple,” was the reply, and Swythe took up another little packet, which he opened slowly.
“Why, that’s blue,” cried Alfred.
“Wait a moment!” said Swythe, taking up another clean mussel-shell, into which he put a tiny patch of the bright blue dust. “Now you shall see it turn purple.”
Taking up the brush, whose hairs were thickly covered with red paint, he poured a few drops of gum water into the shell amongst the blue powder, mixed all together with the red brush, and to the boy’s great delight a beautiful purple was the result.
Then the leaves that had been sketched in had to be done, and while the boy wondered another shell was taken, the brush carefully washed, and a little of the blue dust was mixed with some yellow, when there was a brilliant green, which the monk made brighter or darker by adding more yellow or more blue.
The big ornamental letter was now becoming very bright and gay, Alfred looking upon it as finished; but Swythe went on.
“It’s very wonderful!” said the boy. “You seem as if you can make any colours out of red, yellow, and blue.”
“So will you soon!” said Swythe, smiling, and still painting away, till at the end of a couple of hours, which seemed to have passed away like magic, the monk began to carefully clean his brush with water.
“That’s done now!” cried Alfred, with a sigh of as much sorrow as pleasure, for he felt it to be a pity that the task was finished. “But do you know, Father Swythe,” he continued, as he held his head on one side and looked critically at the staring white letter with its beautiful ornamentation, “I think if I could paint and painted that letter I shouldn’t have left it all white like that.”