akin to pity, offers it to Georg. Georg refuses on the grounds that he does not drink wine with an enemy.

Ulrich really offered the wine flask to Georg out of pity. Georg is offended. He refuses to drink with an enemy. At this point in the story, Georg is very much annoyed with his enemy. He is expecting his group of men to find him and rescue him. He plans to leave Ulrich there, promising to roll the tree on top of him.

All of a sudden, Ulrich decides to make a truce with Georg. He offers his friendship. Ulrich mentions that the feud has gone on long enough. Georg thinks about Ulrich's proposal for a long while:

During a few moments of silence, an idea comes to Ulrich. He proposes to Georg that they bury their quarrel. He believes that they have been fools and asks Georg for his friendship. After a long silence, Georg answers, accepting Ulrich's proposal.

After thinking about Ulrich's idea for a peace treaty, Georg has a change of heart. He decides to accept Ulrich's peace offering. He realizes the feud has been foolish. Georg opens his heart and accepts Ulrich's offer to resolve their differences. The two men decide to become friends after years of heated feuding. Although Ulrich is the first to make amends, Georg finally agrees the feud has gone on long enough. Georg accepts Ulrich's offer for friendship.

What is interesting about this story is the way in which the two central characters, Ulrich and Georg, are presented as being almost identical, but actually, in my opinion, can also be viewed as being rather different. One way in which Saki presents this difference is through the two offers that Ulrich makes to his arch-enemy. Note in the story that it is Ulrich who offers Georg his wine flask, and then it is Ulrich again who says that if his men come first, then Georg will be helped first as if he were Ulrich's guest. Note what Ulrich says in this second offer:

If my men are the first to come, you shall be the first to be helped, as though you were my guest. We have quarreled like devils all our lives over this stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying here tonight, thinking, I've come to think we've been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the old quarrel, I--I will ask you to be my friend.

In any quarrel, it always takes one individual to be big enough and strong enough to lay aside his emnity and hatred in order to make peace, and we can see in this story that what separates Ulrich from George is that Ulrich is the first to do this. The peace that is forged in this precarious situation is initiated by Ulrich at every turn, and Georg is only the man who agrees to it once it has been proposed. To my mind, this shows us that Ulrich is the bigger and better person out of the two of them, as it is he who has the courage to lay aside his hatred first, and it is he who sees the feud for what it really is: a way of wasting their lives.

Becoming an interloper in Saki's short story, "The Interlopers," Nature sends the branches of a large beech tree to pinion the two enemies after their brief moment in which they have glared at one another with "the full play to the passions of a lifetime." After their initial hostilities, Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym undergo changes of heart as they realize the dilemma that they share.

As they lie trapped, hoping their men will rescue them, Ulrich von Gradwitz offers Georg Znaeym wine from his flask; in addition, he  has a change of heart and offers to Georg Znaeym that even if his men arrive on the scene first, Georg will be the first to be helped. Then, he asks Znaeym to end their quarrel in amity,

"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first.  It was a fair compact.  But as for me, I've changed my mind.  If my men are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you were my guest....Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the old quarrel I--I will ask you to be my friend."

Of course, their contract cannot be completed as both are victims of another natural interloper--wolves.