ere relieved by troops from Boston just in the
nick of time.

The Connecticut Valley was next the theatre of war. Springfield,
Hatfield, Deerfield, and Northfield were attacked the last two having to
be abandoned. At Hadley the onset occurred on a fast-day. The men rushed
from their worship with their muskets, which were ready to hand in
church, and hastily formed for battle. Bewildered by the unexpected
assault, they were on the point of yielding, when, according to
tradition, an aged hero with long beard and queer clothing appeared,
placed himself at their head and directed their movements. His evident
acquaintance with fighting restored order and courage. The savages were
driven pell-mell out of town, but the pursuers looked in vain for their
deliverer. If the account is correct, it was the regicide, General
Goffe, who had been a secret guest in the house of the Rev. Mr. Russell.
He could not in such danger refrain from engaging once again, as he had
so often done during the Civil War in England, in the defence of God's
people.

From Hadley a party went to Deerfield to bring in the wheat that had
been left when the town was deserted. Ninety picked men, the "flower of
Essex," led by Captain Lothrop, attended the wagons as convoy. On their
return, about seven o'clock in the morning, by a little stream in the
present village of South Deerfield, since called Bloody Brook in memory
of the event, the soldiers dispersed somewhat in quest of grapes, then
ripe, when a sudden and fatal volley from an ambush was delivered upon
them. The men had left their muskets in the wagons and could not regain
them. Lothrop was shot dead, and but seven or eight of his company
escaped alive. A monument marks the spot where this tragic affair
occurred.

[Illustration: The Monument at Bloody Brook.]

So early as July, 1675, Massachusetts and Connecticut, acting for the
New England Confederation, had effected a treaty with the strong tribe
of the Narragansets in southern Rhode Island, engaging them to remain
neutral and to surrender any of Philip's men coming within their
jurisdiction. This agreement they did not keep. After the attacks on
Springfield and Hatfield in October, great numbers of the Pokanoket
braves came to them, evidently welcomed. To prevent their becoming a
centre of mischief, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Plymouth despatched
a thousand men to punish the Narragansets. They met the foe at the old
Palisade, in the midst of