The Christmas Peace | Page 4

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."
The father paused with his sentence unfinished, for his son stood before
him suddenly revealed in a strength for which the Judge had never
given him credit, and he recognized in his level eyes, tense features,
and the sudden set of the square jaw, the Hampden firmness at its best
or worst.
"I have nothing to say against her," said the Judge, with a sudden rush
of recollection of Lucy Fielding. "I have no doubt she is in one way all
you think her; but she is Wilmer Drayton 's daughter. You will never
win her."
"I will win her," said the young man.
That night Judge Hampden thought deeply over the matter, and before
daylight he had despatched a note to Major Drayton making an apology
for the words he had used.
Both Judge Hampden and his son went into the army immediately on
the outbreak of hostilities. Major Drayton, who to the last opposed
Secession bitterly, did not volunteer until after the State had seceded;
but then he, also, went in, and later was desperately wounded.
A few nights before they went off to the war, Judge Hampden and his
son rode over together to Major Drayton's to offer the olive-branch of
peace in shape of young Oliver and all that he possessed.
Judge Hampden did not go all the way, for he had sworn never to put
foot again in Major Drayton's house so long as he lived, and, moreover,
he felt that his son would be the better ambassador alone. Accordingly,
he waited in the darkness at the front