hedger, is to make them comfortable. How do you do that? By finding them a nice bed, and tucking them in.
“That's what the herringbone pattern's all about. We call it ‘Jack-and-Jill,’ or ‘Darby-and-Joan,’ or—no offense, Becky—‘John-upon-Joan.’ Whatever the name, the idea is that each stone in one row is slanted to the left at an angle of fifty to seventy degrees, and to the right in the row above, and so on. And each stone has to lock into the one below and above.”
“So where's the plywood come in?” Newsome asked.
Jamie smiled. “What's the biggest contribution the Romans ever made to the world?”
“Wine?” said Newsome.
“Paved roads,” said Case, with authority.
Burt shrugged.
“Hot baths!” said Becky, and everyone laughed.
Finally, Andrew mumbled, “The arch.”
“Thank you, Mr. Arch-itect!” Jamie crowed. “The arch indeed! A curve of stones suspended in the air, something that ought to collapse but doesn't, because gravity itself holds the pieces in place, forces them tighter together, continuously.”
He held the curved piece of plywood over his head and made an arch. Then he put it back down on its bottom corner, the curve facing in toward the center of the still-imaginary hedge.
“The batter of a Cornish hedge is an inward curve that nearly straightens out at the top; it's like a Roman arch set on its side, and it has the same purpose: It confers strength. Oh, and one other thing …”
“Sheep,” Burt grunted.
“Right,” Jamie said. “It keeps the bloody sheep from scaling the hedge. As we say around here, ‘a good hedge will put a sheep on its back.’”
“I'll be damned,” Newsome said.
Jamie laughed. “Might be you will,” he said, “but not till this here job's done. Till then, you're just in Purgatory. Back to work, you lot.”
“I think you're round the twist,” Nicola said.
Anne Trelissick looked up from her drawing board, where she'd been putting the final touches on a pen-and-ink illustration of a rather endearing-looking rat dressed in corduroy breeches and a plaid waistcoat. It was part of a series she was doing for a new edition of Kenneth Grahame's children's classic, The Wind in the Willows. Nicola had been looking over her shoulder as Anne worked. She had taken drawing classes in Boston, of course, but she still marveled at Anne's anatomical precision and her ability to give character to animals.
“No, you don't,” Anne said, taking a sip from a mug of tea. “You know I'm telling you the truth, and it scares you.”
“Bullshit.”
“I am immune to your coarse Americanisms.”
“Oh, bugger!”
“That's better. Now, about this American chap—”
“Look,” Nicola exploded. “Don't be daft; his wife left him!”
“And you left your husband.”
“He was a violent asshole!”
“Excuse you?”
“Okay, ‘cad.’ That better? You've been spending too much time in the world of Victorian English … and animals. But how do I know Andrew isn't violent, too?”
“You said yourself you didn't think he could be. May I remind you that this is a guy who tried to save a bloody sheep? Okay, that makes him really stupid, but nothing more. Besides, Lee really likes him, and one thing I've learned about my daughter, bless her quirky heart, is that she's a good judge of character. The evidence stands before me: You're her best friend.”
“We all have our blind spots.”
“Oh, stop.”
“Okay, okay. I'll give you this: There's something … I don't know … tender about him.”
Anne laughed. “You'd probably be tender, too—though perhaps tenderized is a better word—if your wife walked out on you a year ago for another, richer fellow. But I'll tell you something: I think that man's got strength.”
“Oh, and now you're a witch, too?”
Anne tilted her head to one side and regarded her friend with a long-suffering look. “Want to know how I know that, or do you want to just keep up this verbal tennis match?”
Nicola let out a resigned sigh.
“I know it because of the way he comports himself with everyone he's met here. He's a listener. His interest is real. He doesn't need to be the center of attention. How many men do you know like that?”
“Besides your Roger?”
“Yes, besides my Roger. And I see it in the way he treats Lilly. Most people need a lot of patience with that girl. Not him. He doesn't need patience because he respects her. He attends to her. He's exactly like you in that regard.
“And then there's the matter of the hedge building. At first, I didn't get it. Why he'd come all this way just to build a wall? And then it came to me: It's not