your homes, when all your
neighbours have fled; and therefore are these messages sent to you by
me. These promises of covering and of shelter are truly meant for
you. Make them your own and you shall not be afraid for the terror by
night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day.'

Here the boys and girls on the low benches under the gallery looked at
one another. Now they knew what had brought the stranger! He had come
because he had heard of the danger that threatened the little clearing
of settlers in the woods. For though New Easton and East Hoosack lay
thirty miles apart they were both links in the long chain of Quaker
Settlements that had been formed to separate the territory belonging
to the Dutch Traders (who dwelt near the Hudson River) from the
English Settlements along the valley of the Connecticut. In former
days disputes between the Dutch and English Colonists had been both
frequent and fierce, until at length the Government had conceived the
brilliant idea of establishing a belt of neutral ground between the
disputants, and peopling it with unwarlike Quakers. The plan worked
well. The Friends, in their settlements strung out over a long, narrow
strip of territory, were on friendly terms with their Dutch and
English neighbours on either side. Raids went out of fashion. Peace
reigned, and for a time the authorities were well content.

A fiercer contest was now brewing, no longer between two handfuls of
Colonists but between the inhabitants of two great Continents. For it
was just before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War of 1775. The
part of the country in which Easton Township was situated was already
distressed by visits of scouting parties from both British and
American armies, and the American Government, unable to protect the
inhabitants, had issued a proclamation directing them to leave the
country. This was the reason that all the scattered houses in the
neighbourhood were deserted, save only the few tenanted by the handful
of Friends.

'You did well, Friends,' the speaker continued, 'well to ask to be
permitted to exercise your own judgment without blame to the
authorities, well to say to them in all courtesy and charity, "You are
clear of us in that you have warned us"--and to stay on in your
dwellings and to carry out your accustomed work. The report of this
your courage and faith hath reached us in our abiding place at East
Hoosack, and the Lord hath charged me to come on foot through the
wild