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On his arrival he found a summons in a suit which had been instituted that day by Wilmer Drayton for damages to his land by reason of his turning the water of the creek upon him.

Mr. Hampden did not forbid old Lydia to take his boy down there again, but he went to the meadow no more himself, and when he and Wilmer Drayton met next, which was not for some time, they barely spoke.

III

Young Oliver Hampden grew up clear eyed, strong, and good to look at, and became shy where girls were concerned, and most of all appeared to be shy with Lucy Drayton. He went to college and as he got his broad shoulders and manly stride he got over his shyness with most girls, but not with Lucy Drayton. With her, he appeared to have become yet more reserved. She had inherited her mother’s eyes and beauty, with the fairness of a lily; a slim, willowy figure; a straight back and a small head set on her shoulders in a way that showed both blood and pride. Moreover, she had character enough, as her friends knew: those gray eyes that smiled could grow haughty with disdain or flash with indignation, and she had taught many an uppish young man to feel her keen irony.

“She gets only her intellect from the Dray-tons; her beauty and her sweetness come from her mother,” said a lady of the neighborhood to Judge Hampden, thinking to please him.

“She gets both her brains and beauty from her mother and only her name from her father,” snapped the Judge, who had often seen her at church, and never without recalling Lucy Fielding as he knew her.

That she and young Oliver Hampden fought goes without saying. But no one knew why she was cruelly bitter to a young man who once spoke slightingly of Oliver, or why Oliver, who rarely saw her except at church, took up a quarrel of hers so furiously.

*****

The outbreak of the war, or rather the conditions preceding that outbreak, finally fixed forever the gulf between the two families. Judge Hampden was an ardent follower of Calhoun and “stumped” the State in behalf of Secession, whereas Major Drayton, as the cloud that had been gathering so long rolled nearer, emerged from his seclusion and became one of the sternest opponents of a step which he declared was not merely revolution, but actual rebellion. So earnest was he, that believing that slavery was the ultimate bone of contention, he emancipated his slaves on a system which he thought would secure their welfare. Nothing could have more deeply stirred Judge Hampden’s wrath. He declared that such a measure at such a crisis was a blow at every Southern man. He denounced Major Drayton as “worse than Garrison, Phillips, and Greeley all put together.”

They at last met in debate at the Court House. Major Drayton exasperated the Judge by his coolness, until the latter lost his temper and the crowd laughed.

“I do not get as hot as you do,” said the Major, blandly. He looked as cool as a cucumber, but his voice betrayed him.

“Oh, yes, you do,” snorted the Judge. “A mule gets as hot as a horse, but he does not sweat.”

This saved him.

There came near being a duel. Everyone expected it. Only the interposition of friends prevented their meeting on the field. Only this and one other thing.

Though no one in the neighborhood knew it until long afterward–and then only in a conjectural way by piecing together fragments of rumors that floated about–young Oliver Hampden really prevented the duel. He told his father that he loved Lucy Drayton. There was a fierce outbreak on the Judge’s part.

“Marry that girl!–the daughter of Wilmer Drayton! I will disinherit you if you but so much as—-“

“Stop!” The younger man faced him and held up his hand with an imperious gesture. “Stop! Do not say a word against her or I may never forget it.”