The war closed, and about the only thing that appeared to remain
unchanged was the relation between General Hampden and Colonel Drayton.
Everything else underwent a change, for war eats up a land.
General Hampden, soured and embittered by his domestic troubles, but
stern in his resolve and vigorous in his intellect, was driven by
his loneliness to adapt himself to the new conditions. He applied his
unabated energies to building up a new fortune. His decision, his force,
and his ability soon placed him at the head of one of the earliest new
enterprises in the State--a broken-down railway--which he re-organized
and brought to a full measure of success.
Colonel Drayton, on the other hand, broken in body and in fortunes,
found it impossible to adapt himself to the new conditions. He possessed
none of the practical qualities of General Hampden. With a mind richly
stored with the wisdom of others, he had the temperament of a dreamer
and poet and was unable to apply it to any practical end. As shy and
reserved as his neighbor was bold and aggressive, he lived in his books
and had never been what is known as a successful man. Even before the
war he had not been able to hold his own. The exactions of hospitality
and of what he deemed his obligations to others had consumed a
considerable part of the handsome estate he had inherited, and his
plantation was mortgaged. What had been thus begun, the war had
completed.
When his plantation was sold, his old neighbor and enemy bought it, and
the Colonel had the mortification of knowing that Drayton Hall was at
last in the hands of a Hampden. What he did not know was that General
Hampden, true to his vow, never put his foot on the plantation except
to ride down the road and see that all his orders for its proper
cultivation were carried out.
Colonel Drayton tried teaching school, but it appeared that everyone
else was teaching at that time, and after attempting it for a year
or two, he gave it up and confined himself to writing philosophical
treatises for the press, which were as much out of date as the Latin and
Greek names which he signed to them. As these contributions were usually
returned, he finally devoted himself to writing agricultural essays for
an agricultural paper, in which he met with more success than he had
done when he was applying his principles himself.
“If farms were made of paper he 'd beat Cincinnatus,” said the General.
Lucy Hampden, thrown on her own resources, in the town in the South in
which her husband had died, had for some time been supporting herself
and her child by teaching. She had long urged her father to come to
them, but he had always declined, maintaining that a man was himself
only in the country, and in town was merely a unit. When, however, the
plantation was sold and his daughter wrote for him, he went to her, and
the first time that the little boy was put in his arms, both he and
she knew that he would never go away again. That evening as they sat
together in the fading light on the veranda of the little house which
Lucy had taken, amid the clambering roses and jasmine, the old fellow
said, “I used to think that I ought to have been killed in battle at the
head of my men when I was shot, but perhaps, I may have been saved to
bring up this young man.”
His daughter's smile, as she leant over and kissed him, showed very
clearly what she thought of it, and before a week was out, the Colonel
felt that he was not only still of use, but was, perhaps, the most
necessary, and, with one exception, the most important member of the
family.
Nevertheless, there were hard times before them. The Colonel was too
old-fashioned; too slow for the new movement of life, and just enough
behind the times to be always expecting to succeed and always failing.
But where the father failed the daughter succeeded. She soon came to be
known as one of the efficient women of the community, as her father, who
was now spoken of as “the old Colonel,” came to be recognized as one
of the picturesque figures of that period. He was always thought of in
connection with the boy. The two were hardly ever apart, and they were
soon known throughout the town--the tall, thin old gentleman who looked
out on the world with his mild blue eyes and kindly face, and the
chubby, red-cheeked, black-eyed boy, whose tongue was always prattling,
and who looked out with his bright eyes on all the curious things which,
common-place to the world, are so wonderful to a boy.
The friendship between an old man and a little child is always touching;
they grow nearer together day by day, and the old Colonel and little
Oliver soon appeared to understand each other, and to be as dependent on
each other as if they had both been of the same age. The child, somewhat
reserved with others, was bold enough with his grandfather. They held
long discussions together over things that interested the boy; went
sight-seeing in company to where the water ran over an old mill-wheel,
or where a hen and her chickens lived in a neighbor's yard, or a litter
of puppies gamboled under an outhouse, or a bird had her nest and little
ones in a jasmine in an old garden, and Colonel Drayton told the boy
wonderful stories of the world which was as unknown to him as the
present world was to the Colonel.
So matters went, until the Christmas when the boy was seven years old.
V
Meantime, General Hampden was facing a new foe. His health had suddenly
given way, and he was in danger of becoming blind. His doctor had given
him his orders--orders which possibly he might not have taken had not
the spectre of a lonely old man in total darkness begun to haunt him. He
had been “working too hard,” the doctor told him.
“Working hard! Of course, I have been working hard!” snapped the
General, fiercely, with his black eyes glowering. “What else have I to
do but work? I shall always work hard.”
The doctor knew something of the General 's trouble. He had been a
surgeon in the hospital where young Oliver Hampden had been when Lucy
Drayton found him.
“You must stop,” he said, quietly. “You will not last long unless you
do.”
“How long!” demanded the General, quite calmly.
“Oh! I cannot say that. Perhaps, a year--perhaps, less. You have burned
your candle too fast.” He glanced at the other's unmoved face. “You need
change. You ought to go South this winter.”
“I should only change my skies and not my thoughts,” said the General,
his memory swinging back to the past.
The doctor gazed at him curiously. “What is the use of putting out your
eyes and working yourself to death when you have everything that money
can give?”
“I have nothing! I work to forget that,” snarled the General, fiercely.
The doctor remained silent.
The General thought over the doctor's advice and finally followed it,
though not for the reason the physician supposed.
Something led him to select the place where his son had gone and where
his body lay amid the magnolias. If he was going to die, he would carry
out a plan which he had formed in the lonely hours when he lay awake
between the strokes of the clock. He would go and see that his son's
grave was cared for, and if he could, would bring him back home at last.
Doubtless, “that woman's” consent could be bought. She had possibly
married again. He hoped she had.