The Feudal Debt

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Budd Harvey and Anse Tisdelle quarrel. In the duel which follows, Harvey is killed. The tragedy is witnessed by Harvey's ten-year-old son. Tisdelle sends his son to a brother in the North. The Widow Harvey, in the meantime, rears her son and his sister to the feud. Eighteen years have passed. The feudist has made several attempts upon the life of Tisdelle, but foiled always by the wily old mountaineer. The Tisdelle boy, who has become a practicing physician in the north, decides to pay a visit to his parents in the old Kentucky home, it being the first since the feud was sworn. Whilst there hunting in the woods, he meets the Harvey girl. It is love at first sight. The brother discovers them and upbraids his sister for daring to meet the man whose father had slain their own father. The girl is horrified at the discovery and turns from the sworn enemy. The feudist draws to kill young Tisdelle, and there is a struggle in which young Harvey is disarmed. Tisdelle withdraws. Later, Harvey embarks upon a hunting trip to the woods. During his absence, the mother is stricken and in danger of death. The daughter hastens for the doctor, but he, the only doctor in the village, is off in other parts. The distracted girl tells the postmaster of her mother's plight, and, in despair, returns to the bedside of the dying one. Young Tisdelle overhears her plea and takes the patient in hand. Young Harvey returns, and, seeing the object of his hate beneath their very roof, raises his rifle to shoot; the girl, now awake to the almost hopeless struggle for her mother's life, intercepts, and, with the strength of despair, wrenches from her brother the rifle, and holds him at bay until the young doctor has brought back the mother to life. The fanatical feudist is melted and subjugated in spirit. They clasp hands; the debt is paid with "a life for a life," the mother's heart softens, and, in a spirit of grateful desire, she ends the feud and gives the young ones her maternal blessing.