Barton had a good mount but the meal was heavy. He finally got the bag loose and threw it off, and then at full speed he "broke through the woods and got safe to a neighbor's house." Colonel George Mason II, who was probably at the head of the Stafford militia, was notified of the outrage. When he and a "small parcel of men" arrived at the Barton place they found plenty of work to do. They "pulled out of the people and a mare, sixty-nine arrows." They also found five "ugly wooden tomahawks." Mason and the men buried the "poor people." Arrows had made holes in the roof of the house as "big as swan shot." From the tracks about the house Mason judged that there had been at least forty Indians in the party. He was of the opinion that most of them had gone back to Maryland. After Mason returned to his home he wrote a long letter to the governor in which he described the murders as the "horriblest that ever was in Stafford." These two plantations would be deserted for the year, he wrote, and he was afraid that all the people would leave their plantations. "I am afraid," wrote Colonel Mason, "that we shall have a bad summer, but ... if I can keep them upon their plantations, it will be some discouragement to the enemy ... but God knows what I shall do now, for this has almost frighted our people out of their lives." In another letter written in July, Colonel Mason seemed to have gotten the situation well in hand: "The Rangers continue their duties ... they range ... four days a week, which is as hard duty as can be performed.... The inhabitants still continue from their homes, but the abundance are better satisfied since part of the Rangers are constantly ranging among them." The Rangers had been re-enforced by the sons of the planters and other young men. _FREE SCHOOLS_ In 1652 the court of Northumberland County granted the petition of Richard Lee of Cobbs Hall "concerning a free school to be set up." Francis Pritchard, 1675, Lancaster County, left a large estate for the establishment of a free school. In 1700 William Horton endowed a free school in Westmoreland County. In 1702 John Farneffold made provision in his will for a free school in Northumberland as early as August, 1672. In 1680 he was minister of St. Stephen's Parish, and remained such until his death in 1702. He was the son of Sir Thomas Farneffold of Sussex, England. The provisions in John Farneffold's will concerning the free school were as follows: