Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/162

154, and their wisdom cost them dear. On the 21st of May the pro-slavery forces swooped on Lawrence, and burned and sacked it, while its citizens stood trembling by and raised no hand in its defense. John Brown knew nothing of this until it was too late to help. Notwithstanding, he hurried to the scene, and sat down by the smoldering ashes in grim anger. He was "indignant that there had been no resistance; that Lawrence was not defended; and denounced the members of the committee and leading free state men as cowards, or worse." It seemed to Brown nothing less than a crime for men thus to lie down and be kicked by ruffians. "Caution, caution, sir!" he burst out at a discreet old gentleman, "I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution—it is nothing but the word of cowardice." Yet there seemed nothing to do then, and he was about to break camp when a boy came up riding swiftly. The ruffians at Dutch Henry's crossing, he said, had been warning the defenseless women in the Brown settlement that the free state families must leave by Saturday or Sunday, else they would be driven out. The Brown women, hastily gathering up their children and valuables, had fled by ox-cart to the house of a kinsman farther away. Two houses and a store in the German settlement had been burned.

John Brown arose. "I will attend to those fellows," he said grimly. "Something must be done to