THE STORY OF "A GREAT FAMILY VENDETTA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2045, 4 May 1893, Page 28

THE STORY OF "A GREAT FAMILY VENDETTA.

Mr Walter Besant in " The Voice of the Flying Day," in the Queen, tells the story of a Great Family Vendetta. He says:— "The. prologue is in King's Bench Prison. The time is 1790 or thereabouts.- It is a summer evening. In one of the cheapest rooms a man of about 40 lies dying. The foul air, privation, disappointment, and imprisonment have killed him. By his bedside sits his wife weeping. There also stand two boys, aged 15 and 13, awed and silent. *Take them away, Lucy,' says the dying man ; ' I shall be gone before the morning. Take them out of this accurml eoui.liy. Take them to America. Teach them to hate England. Teach them to remember the man who sent me here and kept me here to die like a rat. Teach them to take revenge upon his children and his grandchildren.' In this fine Christian spirit the imprisoned debtor departed this world, and now lies buried in the churchyard of St. George's Southwark, under the windows of the Marshalsea, and close to the body of Bishop Bonner. ••A hundred years later, his great grandson, the first of the line who has ever got on, for bad luck was in tbe blood, has made some money, and nas come over to see the old country. His grandfather, the boy of 15, never forgot the deathbed scece and his father's last words. He would fain have crossed the water himself to execute that l'evenge. But circumstances were too strong for him. He invented revenges which he could not carry out. He imagined himself hunting down his enemy ; pursuing his enemy's children. But he could never muster up money enough to leave the li* tie town where he workrd. And so lie died unr< veig -A. His son inherited the vendetta, together with the papers connected with the case. But with him the desire for revenge had become a feeble.

passion. Perhaps he would have done a bad turn to his grandfather's enemies if it had involved no trouble. But, like his father, he could never afford to leave his native town. So he in his turn died. And still that great injury remained unavenged. " Then the great grandson inherited the papers and the duty of revenge. But by this time the dr&ire for vengeance had dwindled down to a very mild emotion indeed. This great-grandson, however, broke the family record of ill-luck. He became a lawyer and an orator, and made enough money, while still a young man, to make a visit to the old country. Of course he was an American through and through, and he regarded Great Britain wifch mixed . feelings of contempt and envy. The latter he did not acknowledge, but.it was there. The contempt he avowed. We have a House of Lords, you see — all profligates ; and a church, rolling in riches. It was at this time that 1 made his acquaintance. He told me about the Cherished and Hereditary Vendetta. I asked him what he proposed to do when he found out the descendants of his forefather's enemy. He laughed. He said that he didn't know what he could do, but he should like to find them out if he could. He spoke vaguely of a coming fight. " I saw him no more for six months, when I met him walking along Piccadilly. He was not alone. There was with him a young lady, and there was a something in ■ his manner. . . . He greeted me with friendliness. And then he laughed. * I told you all about the vendetta, didn't I?' he said. • Terrible thing having a family vendetba, isn't it ? Creepy thing, because the other side- might look in first. Well, I've settled our old vendetta. Oh, it's wonderful ! I Bid exactly what I had been taught to do. I hunted them down. I followed them up. I found them out. And this is one of the enemies. Let me introduce to Miss Florence— l call herFlorry. And I've taken the most awful, the most terrible, the most earthquaking, epoch-making, shuddering, ghastly revenge you ever heard of. For I've made the enemy's only great-granddaughter promise to marry me !' "