Presently there was nothing to be seen around them but leagues upon leagues of apparently level land, with an unbroken horizon lying low, like the sky-line at sea. Wherever the ground could be cultivated, a brilliant yet delicate green carpeted the rich brown soil, showing the young corn, which would soon be waving under the summer sun. In the untilled portions of the plain, innumerable flowers were in blossom, and butterflies and bees fluttered in clouds above them. The cry of the curlew that loves lonely places followed them mile after mile. Not a barn or a dwelling was visible in all the vast expanse. The father and son drove on in almost unbroken silence, only speaking a word or two now and then. There was so much to say that they knew not where to begin. At length a soft, gentle breeze just touched Michael's cheek, which seemed to him as if his mother had kissed it. "Father," he said, looking up into the sad yet serene face beside him, "my mother told me to tell you death is beautiful! And her face said it too; it was full of gladness. Yes, until we laid her in the coffin." "Thank God!" said Alexis Ivanoff, lifting up his eyes to the cloudless sky above them. "I praise Thee, O Lord, that Thou halt taken her away from the troubles to come. She was too tender to bear them. We men, Michael, can bear hardness as soldiers of our Lord Christ, but when we think of our women and children—it is that which breaks our hearts." The boy's whole frame thrilled with delight as his father uttered the words, "We men." Then he was no longer to be considered a child; this was a summons to enter the ranks of manhood. He was ready to obey the call, and eager to endure hardships. Yet, as if he were already a man, the moment of delight was quickly followed by a sharp sense of dread piercing him, as he recollected Velia, his little sister, who must share whatever sorrows and perils befell them. How was it he had never experienced this vague terror before? Was it because he was almost a man? "But could not God save us?" he asked after a while. "What do you mean by being saved?" inquired his father. Michael did not answer immediately. He meant that God should give them the freedom of conscience, and liberty to worship as they believed best, for which the Scotch Covenanters had fought so long and so stubbornly. But he knew the tenets of the Stundists forbade all resistance by force, and taught simple submission to authority in everything, except coercion in religious matters. Moreover, he had seen too much of life in Scotland to be able to convince himself that the Scotch, as a people, were saved. Had he not seen drunkenness there as bad as in Russia? Were there not lying and dishonesty and quarrelling, and all the long list of sins which he ran through in his mind? "I cannot tell what I mean," he said at last.