The Spectator., 1915-10-19

the front of her often bereaved house: There is no place like home" The sequel tells that a cynical traveller passing that way reflected on the an nals of that dwelling and added in postscript: "Leastways not this side of he'll"
 The story of the Hatfield Mccoy feud is in many ways that of other wars" which have made of the roof tree of the eastern divide a land be- leaguered and unique.
 In the war between the Haveys and the McBriars there was more than the forgotten episode of stray razorback which was not surrendered to it's law full owners. They had for decades hated and killed each other with fidelity of bitterness that made all their truces and intermarriages fail of permanent peace.
 Between the territories where they had originally settled stretched bar rier of hills broken by only one gap. The McBriars had made their first habitations east of that ridge and gap where the waters ran toward the sea. The Haveys had set up their power to the west, where the creeks and springs fed the rivers that went down to the Blue-Grass and to Tennessee. Had the two clans been content to re- main respectively on the sunrise and sunset slopes of the backbone, they might never have clashed, but there were bright-eyed women to the west and east. Feminine Havey eyes lured McBriar suitors, and McBriar girls seemed to the Havey men worth any dare that fate might set. So it has been since young Montagues and | Capulets ignored deadlines-and long before. Smoke went up from cabins women of both clans. Hatred scat tered and set up new points of infec- tion all along Tribulation and beyond it's headwaters.
 In Civil war and subsequent politics line of fierce cleavage had yawned between them-and each faction had been power.
 It was to the leadership of such a clan that Bad Anse had succeeded when hardly twenty-one by the death of father whose end had not come upon bed of illness.
 It was to the herding of such flock that he had ridden away from the cabin of Fletch McNash on the night when the girls scornful taunt fol- lowed him.
 It was an unfortunate thing that Cal Douglas should. on February afternoon, have shot to death his brother-in-law. Noah Watt. even if. as Cal earnestly assured the jury. he was jest obleeged an beholden ter do it." All the circumstances of the af- fair were inopportune for his kinsman and the kinsmen of the man who died with a bullet through his vitals.
 Cal bore a name for surly character, and even in land where grudge-bear- ing is a religion he was deemed ultra, fanatical in flaming the flame of ha. tired. Noah Watt himself was little loved by either the Haveys, into whose family he had married. or the McBri- ars. from whom he sprang Neigh. bors told of frequent and violent bick. erings between the man and his shrewish wife. who was the twin sis ter of Cal Douglas.
 Gal Douglas an Noey Watts wom- an air es much alike es two peas in a pod" went neighborhood pronounce ment They air both soured on misery"
 Had the fight on that winter eve ming ended in the death of both par ' ticipants. McBriars and Haveys would alike have called it a gentle riddancs and dropped the matter where 1t stood. But since a Havey had slain a Mo Briar and the Havey still lived it could not. in honor. be so dropped. It | left an uneven score.
 Since the mountaineer has little to do in the winter and spring save gos- I sip, the affair grew in importance with rehearsing. and to each telling was added new features It was sig nifcantly pointed out east of the ridge that Noah had incurred the displeas- ure of Bad Anse Havey by the suspi- cion of tale-bearing to old Milt Mo Briar It was argued that the particu- lar wife-beating which led to the trag- edy might have passed as uneventfully as several similar episodes heretofore, had not the heads of the Haveys made | 1t pretext for eliminating a McBriar [ who dwelt in their midst and carried news across the ridge to his own people.
 For several years the feud had slept. not the complete sleep Of death. but the fitful, simmering sleep of eau. tious animosity But neither clan felt so overwhelmingly strong ss to court an issue just yet and. realizing the ! desperate quality of any outbreak. both Milt McBriar over yon" and Anse Havey over here had guarded the more belligerent kinsmen with