me 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 delight-
ful 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 t-