“Where did you get the color for this?” he queried.
“I made it,” said Padraig.
“Can you make it again?”
Padraig hesitated. “Is there a forest near by?”
“Forest—no; but why? For the hunting of dragons?”
“N-no, b-but—” Padraig was apt to stammer when excited— “if I had balsam like ours I could make the green. We had none, and so we hunted until we found the right resin—Brother Basil and I.”
“Basil Ossorin, an Irish monk from England?” asked Matteo quickly. “I met him ten years since when he was on his way to Byzantium. If he was your master you have had good teaching.”
Padraig nodded. Brother Basil was the man whom he best loved.
“There is no trouble about the balsam if you know it when you see it,” the artist went on. “I will take you to a place where anything may be bought—cobalt, lapis lazuli, cinnabar, orpiment, sandarac—and it is honestly sold.”
Padraig numbered the matters off on his fingers. “Copper,—and Venice turpentine,—and saffron, to make him yellow underneath like water-snakes in an old pond. His wings must be smooth—and green—bright, and mottled with rusty brown—the sun comes from behind, and he must look as if it were shining through the halo round the maiden’s head.”