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 gate while his son presented himself and laid at Lucy Drayton's feet what the Judge truly believed was more than had ever been offered to any other woman. He, however, sent the most conciliatory messages to Major Drayton.