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The Christmas Peace
by
It is not meant that there was no intercourse between the two families. Major Drayton and Judge Hampden regularly paid each other a visit every year–and oftener when there was serious illness in one house or the other–but even on such occasions their differences were liable to crop out. One of them held an opinion that when one gentleman was spending the night in another gentleman’s house, it was the part of the host to indicate when bedtime had arrived; whilst the other maintained with equal firmness the doctrine that no gentleman could inform his guest that he was fatigued: that this duty devolved upon the guest himself. This difference of opinion worked comfortably enough on both sides until an occasion when Judge Hampden, who held the former view, was spending the night at Colonel Drayton’s. When bedtime arrived, the rest of the household retired quietly, leaving the two gentlemen conversing, and when the servants appeared in the morning to open the blinds and light the fires, the two gentlemen were still found seated opposite each other conversing together quite as if it were the ordinary thing to sit up and talk all night long.
On another occasion, it is said that Major Drayton, hearing of his neighbor’s serious illness, rode over to make inquiry about him, and owing to a slip of the tongue, asked in a voice of deepest sympathy, “Any hopes of the old gentleman dying!”
II
Yet, they had once been friends.
Before Wilmer Drayton and Oliver Hampden were old enough to understand that by all the laws of heredity and custom they should be enemies, they had learned to like each other. When they were only a few years old, the little creek winding between the two plantations afforded in its strip of meadow a delightful neutral territory where the two boys could enjoy themselves together, safe from the interference of their grave seniors; wading, sailing mimic fleets upon its uncertain currents, fishing together, or bathing in the deepest pools it offered in its winding course.
It looked, indeed, for a time as if in the fellowship of these two lads the long-standing feud of the Hampdens and Draytons might be ended, at last. They went to school together at the academy, where their only contests were a generous rivalry. At college they were known as Damon and Pythias, and though a natural rivalry, which might in any event have existed between them, developed over the highest prize of the institution–the debater’s medal–the generosity of youth saved them. It was even said that young Drayton, who for some time had apparently been certain of winning, had generously retired in order to defeat a third candidate and throw the prize to Oliver Hampden.
They came home and both went to the Bar, but with different results. Young Drayton was learned and unpractical. Oliver Hampden was clever, able, and successful, and soon had a thriving practice; while his neighbor’s learning was hardly known outside the circle of the Bar.
Disappointed in his ambition, Drayton shortly retired from the Bar and lived the life of a country gentleman, while his former friend rapidly rose to be the head of the Bar.
The old friendship might have disappeared in any event, but a new cause arose which was certain to end it.
Lucy Fielding was, perhaps, the prettiest girl in all that region. Oliver Hampden had always been in love with her. However, Fortune, ever capricious, favored Wilmer Drayton, who entered the lists when it looked as if Miss Lucy were almost certain to marry her old lover. It appeared that Mr. Drayton’s indifference had counted for more than the other’s devotion. He carried off the prize with a dash.
If Oliver Hampden, however, was severely stricken by his disappointment, he masked it well; for he married not long afterward, and though some said it was from pique, there was no more happily married pair in all the county.