He would have neither horse nor carriage. He destroyed his official uniform. He walked by himself on the hills. No one knew who he was; but his tall square hat, apparently a survival of the ancient head-piece of the Han dynasty, earned for him the sobriquet of Old Square-Cap.
When I was banished I lived in the neighbourhood, and one day came suddenly upon him. “Good gracious!” I cried, “my old friend Ch‘ên! What are you doing here?” Old Square-Cap replied by asking me what I did there; and when I told him, he bent his head in silence and then quickly looked up and smiled. He took me to sleep at his home, a quiet little place with a mud wall round it, where, nevertheless, his wife and servants all seemed very contented and happy. I was astonished at what I saw. For I remembered how, in his wine-bibbing, swash-bucklering youth, he had flung away money like dirt. Nineteen years before, I had seen him out shooting on the hills with a couple of attendants. A jay rose in front of them, and he bade one of the attendants shoot, but the man missed; at which he urged his horse forward, drew an arrow, and shot the bird dead. Then, as he sat there on horseback, he held forth on military matters, and discussed the victories and defeats of ancient and modern times, calling himself the warrior of his age.
And now, after all these years, the old determined look is still to be seen in his face. How then is he what we mean by a hermit of the hills? Yet he was of an illustrious house. He would have had grand opportunities. He would have made himself famous ere this. His home was at the capital, a home of luxury and splendour, like the palace of a prince. He held an estate which gave him yearly a thousand pieces of silk; so that the pleasures of wealth were in his grasp. All these things he put aside, and retired to penury and solitude on the hills. He did not turn his back upon the world because he had failed to secure the material blessings of life.
I have heard that there are many weird beings on those hills, though I never caught a glimpse of one. Doubtless Old Square-Cap, himself of that clique, has made their acquaintance long ago.
