The Christmas Peace

The Christmas Peace, by Thomas
Nelson Page

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Title: The Christmas Peace 1908
Author: Thomas Nelson Page
Release Date: November 16, 2007 [EBook #23511]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHRISTMAS PEACE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE CHRISTMAS PEACE
By Thomas Nelson Page
Charles Scribner's Sons New York, 1908

Copyright, 1891, 1904, 1906

I
They had lived within a mile of each other for fifty-odd years, old
Judge Hampden and old Colonel Drayton; that is, all their lives, for
they had been born on adjoining plantations within a month of each
other. But though they had thus lived and were accounted generally
good men and good neighbors, to each other they had never been
neighbors any more than the Lévite was neighbor to him who went
down to Jericho.
Kindly to everyone else and ready to do their part by all other men, the
Draytons and the Hampdens, whenever they met each other, always
passed by on the other side.
It was an old story--the feud between the families--and, perhaps, no one
now knew just how the trouble started. They had certainly been on
opposite sides ever since they established themselves in early Colonial
days on opposite hills in the old county from which the two mansions
looked at each other across the stream like hostile forts. The earliest
records of the county were those of a dispute between one Colonel
Drayton and one Captain Hampden, growing out of some claim to land;
but in which the chief bitterness appeared to have been injected by
Captain Hampden's having claimed precedence over Colonel Drayton
on the ground that his title of "Captain" was superior to Colonel
Drayton's title, because he had held a real commission and had fought
for it, whereas the Colonel's title was simply honorary and "Ye sayd
Collonel had never smelled enough powder to kill a tom-cat."
However this might be and there was nothing in the records to show
how this contention was adjudicated--in the time of Major Wil-mer
Drayton and Judge Oliver Hampden, the breach between the two
families had been transmitted from father to son for several generations
and showed no signs of abatement. Other neighborhood families
intermarried, but not the Drayton-Hall and the Hampden-Hill families,

and in time it came to be an accepted tradition that a Drayton and a
Hampden would not mingle any more than would fire and water.
The Hampdens were dark and stout, hot-blooded, fierce, and impetuous.
They were apparently vigorous; but many of them died young. The
Draytons, on the other hand, were slender and fair, and usually lived to
a round old age; a fact of which they were wont to boast in contrast
with the briefer span of the Hampdens.
"Their tempers burn them out," the Major used to say of the Hampdens.
Moreover, the Draytons were generally cool-headed, deliberate, and
self-contained. Thus, the Draytons had mainly prospered throughout
the years.
Even the winding creek which ran down through the strip of meadow
was a fruitful cause of dissension and litigation between the families.
"It is as ungovernable as a Hampden's temper, sir," once said Major
Drayton, On the mere pretext of a thunder-storm, it would burst forth
from its banks, tear the fences to pieces and even change its course,
cutting a new channel, now to one side and now to the other through
the soft and loamy soil. A lawsuit arose over the matter, in which the
costs alone amounted to far more than the value of the whole land
involved; but no one doubted that old Major Drayton spoke the truth
when he declared that his father would rather have lost his entire estate
with all its rolling hills and extensive forests than the acre or two which
was finally awarded to Judge Hampden.
As neither owner would join the other even in keeping up a partition
fence, there were two fences run within three feet of each other along
the entire boundary line between the two places. With these double
fences, there could hardly be peace between the two families; for
neither owner ever saw the two lines running side by side without at
once being reminded of his neighbor's obstinacy and--of his own.
Thus, in my time the quarrel between the Drayton-Hall people and the
Hampden-Hill folks was a factor in every neighborhood problem or
proposition from a "church dressing" or a "sewing society meeting" to