Page:Colonization and Christianity.djvu/379

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AND CHRISTIANITY.
363

they lived in peace in the midst of this desolation. They heard at night the shrieks of the victims of the red men's wrath, and they saw in the morning where slaughter had reached neighbouring hearths, and where the bloody scalp had been torn away; but their houses remained untouched. Every evening the Indians came from their hidden lairs in the woods, and lifted the latches of their doors, to see if they remained in full reliance on their faith, and then they passed on. Where a house was secured with lock or bolt, they knew that suspicion had entered, and they grew suspicious too. But, through all that bloody and disgraceful war, only two Friends were killed by the Indians; and it was under these circumstances:—A young man, a tanner, had gone from the village where he lived to his tan-yard, at some distance, through all this period of outrage. He went and came daily, without any arms, with his usual air of confidence, and therefore in full security. The Indians from the thickets beheld him, but they never molested him. Unfortunately, one day he went as usual to his business, but carried a gun on his arm. He had not proceeded far into the country when a shot from the bush laid him dead. When the Indians afterwards learned that he was merely carrying the gun to kill birds that were injuring his corn, "Foolish young man," they said; "we saw him carrying arms, and we inferred that he had changed his principles."

The other case was that of a woman. She had lived in a village which had been laid waste, and most of the inhabitants killed, by the Indians. The soldiers, from a fort not far off, came, and repeatedly entreated her to go into the fort, before she experienced the