For so much there is ample warrant, and within the limits of such guarded conclusions the critic incurs little danger from the many pitfalls that beset the by-paths of deductive reasoning. But seeing that the most of our knowledge of Hubert's life-work is arrived at by this method of inquiry, it is essential that every inference should at least stand the test of probability. To argue, for example, from the presentation of a particular palm-tree a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is to offend the laws of proportion; to discern in the picture of the walled city of Jerusalem in "The Three Marys at the Sepulchre" work evidently "from a sketch made on the spot" would appear more justifiable, until one is reminded of the fact that the defences of the Holy City, pulled down in 1239, were not rebuilt until 1542; but surely it is speculation run riot, in the attempt to vindicate a preconceived theory, when the simple, unobtrusive artist is made, "after the adventurous manner of his time," to join a crusade and journey to Palestine, seeing that the last of these gallant enterprises had taken place full seventy years before he ever saw the light of day. Without, however, incurring the reproach of outraging probability, we may apportion the usual four years of Hubert's term of journeymanship between the countries already indicated, his wanderings likely enough terminating with the visit to England before his return to the Low Countries to settle down to his life's work as a master painter, his range of knowledge tremendously enlarged, his technique broadened and perfected in the various schools and workshops through which he had passed, his imagination fertilised, his creative powers strengthened, his faculty of utterance and expression developed--in short, fully equipped at all points to startle the world with the first-fruits of his as yet unrealised genius. III THE GREAT POLYPTYCH