"The captain told them to say their prayers, but the little girl said they did not know how to pray aloud, though they could sing a hymn. And the children began to sing a hymn they all knew, and the soldiers turned away, and rode off on their battle-horses, telling the captain they were ready to fight with men but not with children, and before the hymn was finished they were all out of sight." "Ah!" sighed the children, drawing a long breath. "That was about two hundred years ago," Michael went on, "in Scotland; and in the very house I lived in there was a little secret closet in the chimney corner, as if it was close to one of our stoves. One night the father was warming himself at the fire, when they heard the soldiers coming, and he slipped into the secret closet, and the mother ran and got into bed, and only a girl like Marfa was left clearing up the house. There was a good fire on the hearth, so the soldiers felt sure somebody was there, and they searched up and down, and then they asked the girl where her father was, but of course she would not tell. So they said they would flog her, and she ran out of doors as quickly as she could run. They followed her, thinking she was running to her father. "But I will tell you why she ran out into the fold-yard. She said to herself, 'Father will hear if they flog me in the house, and he will come out and be killed.' "And they did flog her, but she stuffed her apron in her mouth, lest she should scream out. And at last, the soldiers were ashamed. One of them said she was a brave lassie! She was my grandfather's grandmother, and they talk about her to this day, so brave she was. "But it does not always end as well as that. There is poor Paraska; you know how both her children have been taken away from her. Well that may happen to us—not to big boys and girls like Serge and Marfa and me, they will treat us like grown-up people—but you little ones! Oh, if any of you are taken away from your own fathers and mothers, you must never forget them, and what they taught you. You must be true to God and them. If we die for it, we must be true. We cannot bow down to icons, or pray to anyone but God. Never! Never! Death is not dreadful if we love God. It only takes a few minutes to die. Then we are safe for ever with our Lord Jesus Christ. You will remember?" "Yes, yes!" they all cried. "It helps me to think often that our Lord was once just like me," continued Michael; "a boy as old as me, working with His father, and living at home; just my age—" Clava's little brown hand was lifted up to interrupt him; she had an important question to ask. "Was He ever just as little as me?" she said.