But it was not only plunder which excited these fearful attacks; party and family feuds were prosecuted in the same savage spirit, even by the light of day. I have heard my wife’s mother relate the following incident, which occurred in her own neighbourhood. About sixty-five years ago there lived at Llanelwth Hall, midway between Llandilo and Llandovery, a gentleman of considerable fortune of the name of Powell. He had separated from his wife, by whom he had two daughters,--and her brother, Captain Bowen, inflamed by the animosity which naturally arises out of such family divisions, and supposed to be instigated by a paramour of the lady’s of the name of Williams, engaged, in concert with this Williams, a band of men to accompany him on a pretended smuggling expedition; and having plied them well with promises of ample payment and plenty of liquor--a bottle of brandy and a pair of new shoes for the day--marched up to Powell’s house at twelve o’clock at noon, and at the time of Llandilo fair, when the conspirators knew that Powell’s servants would be absent. The only persons actually left in the house with him, were an old woman, and a daughter of this very Bowen’s. The conspirators advanced to the front door, and entered the hall, where the old woman met them. Her they seized, and bound to the leg of an old massy oak table. Powell, attracted to the hall by the noise, was immediately seized and literally hewn to pieces in the most horrible manner in the presence of the old woman, and of the murderer’s own daughter, who alarmed at the entrance of so grim a band, had concealed herself under this table. The girl from that hour lost her senses, and wandered about the country, a confirmed maniac. My informant often saw this girl at her mother’s, who was kind to her, and where she often therefore came, having a particular seat by the fire always left for her. In a lucid interval, they once ventured to ask her what she recollected of this shocking event. She said that she believed she had fainted, and on coming to herself, saw her father stand with a hatchet over her uncle in the act to give him another blow, and that she actually saw her uncle’s face hanging over his shoulder. At this point of the recital, the recollection of the horrors of it came upon her so strongly, that she fell into one of her most violent fits of madness, and they never dared to mention the subject afterwards in her presence.