against the dark woodwork. When he bent his eyes resolutely on his book
he found his mind still intent on his more secular business; he mentally
corrected this awkward curve of the initial, substituted an oak spray
with acorns for that stiff monstrosity, and set my Lord Prior's face
grinning among griffins at the foot of the page where humour was more
readily admitted.

It was an immense joy when he closed his carrel-door, after his hour's
siesta in the dormitory, and sat down to his work. He was still warm
with sleep, and the piercing cold of the unwarmed cloister did not
affect him, but he set his feet on the sloping wooden footstool that
rested on the straw for fear they should get cold, and turned smiling to
his side-table.

There were all the precious things laid out; the crow's quills sharpened
to an almost invisible point for the finer lines, the two sets of
pencils, one of silver-point that left a faint grey line, and the other
of haematite for the burnishing of the gold, the badger and minever
brushes, the sponge and pumice-stone for erasures; the horns for black
and red ink lay with the scissors and rulers on the little upper shelf
of his desk. There were the pigments also there, which he had learnt to
grind and prepare, the crushed lapis lazuli first calcined by heat
according to the modern degenerate practice, with the cheap German blue
beside it, and the indigo beyond; the prasinum; the vermilion and red
lead ready mixed, and the rubrica beside it; the yellow orpiment, and,
most important of all, the white pigments, powdered chalk and egg
shells, lying by the biacca. In a separate compartment covered carefully
from chance draughts or dust lay the precious gold leaf, and a little
vessel of the inferior fluid gold used for narrow lines.