"I can live to myself," says the unneighbourly one. "Well, live to yourself, then," cheerfully responds the world, and it goes about its more or less amusing affairs and lets the unneighbourly one cut himself off.
So our small community had let Old Toombs go his way with all his money, his acres, his hedge, and his reputation for being a just man.
Not meeting him, therefore, in the familiar and friendly life of the neighbourhood, I took to walking out toward his farm, looking freshly at the wonderful hedge and musing upon that most fascinating of all subjects--how men come to be what they are.
And at last I was rewarded.
One day I had scarcely reached the end of the hedge when I saw Old Toombs himself, moving toward me down the country road.
Though I had never seen him before, I was at no loss to identify him. The first and vital impression he gave me, if I can compress it into a single word, was, I think,force--force. He came stubbing down the country road with a brown hickory stick in his hand which at every step he set vigorously into the soft earth.
Though not tall, he gave the impression of being enormously strong. He was thick, solid, firm--thick through the body, thick through the thighs; and his shoulders--what shoulders they were!--round like a maple log; and his great head with its thatching of coarse iron-gray hair, though thrust slightly forward, seemed set immovably upon them, He presented such a forbidding appearance that I was of two minds about addressing him. Dour he was indeed! Nor shall I ever forget how he looked when I spoke to him. He stopped short there in the road. On his big square nose he wore a pair of curious spring-bowed glasses with black rims. For a moment he looked at me through these glasses, raising his chin a little, and then, deliberately wrinkling his nose, they fell off and dangled at the length of the faded cord by which they were hung. There was something almost uncanny about this peculiar habit of his and of the way in which, afterward, he looked at me from under his bushy gray brows. This was in truth the very man of the neighbourhood portrait.
"I am a new settler here," I said, "and I've been interested in looking at your wonderful hedge."
The old man's eyes rested upon me a moment with a mingled look of suspicion and hostility.
"So you've heard o' me," he said in a high-pitched voice, "and you've heard o' my hedge."
Again he paused and looked me over. "Well," he said, with an indescribably harsh, cackling laugh, "I warrant you've heard nothing good o' me down there. I'm a skinflint, ain't I ? I'm a hard citizen, ain't I? I grind the faces o' the poor, don't I?"
At first his words were marked by a sort of bitter humour, but as he continued to speak his voice rose higher and higher until it was positively menacing.
There were just two things I could do--haul down the flag and retreat ingloriously, or face the music. With a sudden sense of rising spirits--for such things do not often happen to a man in a quiet country road--I paused a moment, looking him square in the eye.
"Yes," I said, with great deliberation, "you've given me just about the neighborhood picture of yourself as I have had it. They do say you are a skinflint, yes, and a hard man. They say that you are rich and friendless; they say that while you are a just man, you do not know mercy. These are terrible things to say of any man if they are true."
I paused. The old man looked for a moment as though he were going to strike me with his stick, but he neither stirred nor spoke. It was evidently a wholly new experience for him.
"Yes," I said, "you are not popular in this community, but what do you suppose I care about that? I'm interested in your hedge.
What I'm curious to know--and I might as well tell you frankly--is how such a man as you are reputed to be could grow such an extraordinary hedge. You must have been at it a very long time."
I was surprised at the effect of my words. The old man turned partly aside and looked for a moment along the proud and flaunting embattlements of the green marvel before us. Then he said in a moderate voice:
"It's a putty good hedge, a putty good hedge."
"I've got him," I thought exultantly, "I've got him!"
"How long ago did you start it?" I pursued my advantage eagerly.
"Thirty-two years come spring," said he.
"Thirty-two years!" I repeated; "you've been at it a long time."
With that I plied him with questions in the liveliest manner, and in five minutes I had the gruff old fellow stumping along at my side and pointing out the various notable-features of his wonderful creation. His suppressed excitement was quite wonderful to see. He would point his hickory stick with a poking motion, and, when he looked up, instead of throwing back his big, rough head, he bent at the hips, thus imparting an impression of astonishing solidity.
"It took me all o' ten years to get that bell right," he said, and, "Take a look at that arch: now what is your opinion o' that?"
Once, in the midst of our conversation, he checked himself abruptly and looked around at me with a sudden dark expression of suspicion. I saw exactly what lay in his mind, but I continued my questioning as though I perceived no change in him. It was only momentary, however, and he was soon as much interested as before.
He talked as though he had not had such an opportunity before in years--and I doubt whether he had. It was plain to see that if any one ever loved anything in this world, Old Toombs loved that hedge of his. Think of it, indeed! He had lived with it, nurtured it, clipped it, groomed it--for thirty-two years.
So we walked down the sloping field within the hedge, and it seemed as though one of the deep mysteries of human nature was opening there before me. What strange things men set their hearts upon!
Thus, presently, we came nearly to the farther end of the hedge.
Here the old man stopped and turned around, facing me.
"Do you see that valley?" he asked. "Do you see that slopin' valley up through the meadow?"
His voice rose suddenly to a sort of high-pitched violence.
