A Jacobite Exile<br />Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelf by G. A. Henty (christmas read aloud txt) 📗

at Moscow at the time, and did not happen to notice the name of the officer taken. Were you well treated at Bercov?"

"The governor there was most kind, and all the arrangements of the prison seem excellent. I had no reason whatever to complain. The governor was good enough to come frequently himself to talk to me. He is a fine soldierly man, and though he did not say much, I think he is eating his heart out at being laid on the shelf there, instead of aiding to fight the battles of his country."

The Russian took out a pocketbook and made a note, then he rose.

"It is time for bed," he said. "I am up at daybreak."

"I hope I shall see you often in the prison," Charlie said. "I suppose I shall go in there tomorrow morning. I am indebted to you, indeed, for the very great kindness you have shown me."

"No, you will not go in early. I have got leave for you for another day, and I am going to take you for a drive in the morning. You will be called an hour before sunrise. Take your breakfast as soon as you are dressed. Do not wait for me. I have work to do before I start, and shall breakfast elsewhere."

As soon as Charlie had breakfasted the next morning, a Cossack told him that the carriage was below, and he followed him to the door where he had entered on the previous evening. The carriage was a simple one, but the three horses harnessed abreast to it were magnificent animals. Charlie stood admiring them for some little time.

"I should think," he said to himself, "the doctor must be a man of large property, and most likely of noble family, who has taken up his profession from pure love of it. He is evidently full of energy, and has an intense desire to see Russia greater and higher in the rank of nations. I suppose that, like Kelly, he is one of the principal medical officers in the army. Certainly he must be a man of considerable influence to obtain my transfer here so easily, and to see that I travelled so comfortably. I wonder where he is going to take me this morning."

Four or five minutes later Charlie's friend appeared at the door. He was evidently out of temper. He sprung hastily into the vehicle, as if he had altogether forgotten that he had asked Charlie to accompany him.

Then, as his eye fell on him, he nodded and said briefly, "Jump in."

A little surprised at the unceremonious address, Charlie sprang into the seat beside him without hesitation, seeing that his companion was evidently so much out of temper that he was not thinking of what he was doing at the moment. The coachman cracked his whip, and the spirited horses went off, at a rate of speed that threatened danger to persons traversing the narrow streets of the town. The cracking of the coachman's whip, and an occasional loud shout and the jangling of the bells, gave, however, sufficient warning of their approach.

Charlie smiled at the alacrity with which every one sprang out of the way, and either leapt into doorways or squeezed themselves against the wall. He was surprised, however, to see that not only did the townspeople show no resentment, at the reckless pace at which the carriage was driven, but that the soldiers, officers as well as men, cleared out as quickly, and without any expression of indignation or anger.

Indeed, most of them, as soon as they gained a place of safety, saluted his companion.

"These Russians have evidently a higher respect for their doctors than have the Swedes," he said to himself. "I am sure that not even the chief surgeon of the army would be treated with anything like the same respect, and, indeed, no one would recognize him at all, if he were not in uniform."

The doctor seemed to pay no attention to what was passing round him, but was muttering angrily to himself. It was not until they dashed out into the open country that he seemed to remember Charlie's presence at his side.

"These people are enough to vex one of the saints, by their stupidity," he said. "Unless they have some one standing behind them with a whip, they cannot be trusted to do what they are told. It is not that they are not willing, but that they are stupid. No one would believe that people could be so stupid. They drive me well nigh to madness sometimes, and it is the more irritating because, against stupidity, one is powerless. Beating a man or knocking him down may do him good if he is obstinate, or if he is careless, but when he is simply stupid it only makes him more stupid than before. You might as well batter a stone wall.

"You slept well and breakfasted well, Captain Carstairs?"

"Excellently well, thank you. What superb horses you have, doctor."

"Yes. I like travelling fast. Life is too short to throw away time in travelling. A busy man should always keep good horses."

"If he can afford to do so," Charlie said with a laugh. "I should say that every one, busy or not, would like to sit behind such horses as these, and, as you say, it would save a good deal of time to one who travelled much. But three such horses as these would only be in the reach of one with a very long purse."

"They were bred here. Their sire was one of three given by the king of England to the czar. The dams were from the imperial stables at Vienna. So they ought to be good."

Charlie guessed that the team must have been a present from the czar, and, remembering what Doctor Kelly had said of the czar's personal communications with him, he thought that the ruler of Russia must have a particular liking for doctors, and that the medical profession must be a more honoured and profitable one in Russia than elsewhere.

After driving with great rapidity for upwards of an hour along the banks of the Neva, Charlie saw a great number of people at work on an island in the middle of the river, some distance ahead, and soon afterwards, to his surprise, observed a multitude on the flat, low ground ahead.

"This is what I have brought you to see," his companion said. "Do you know what they are doing?"

"It seems to me that they are building a fortress on that island."

"You are right. We have got a footing on the sea, and we are going to keep it. While Charles of Sweden is fooling away his time in Poland, in order to gratify his spite against Augustus, we are strengthening ourselves here, and never again will Sweden wrest Ingria from our hands."

"It is marvellous how much has been done already," Charlie said, as he looked at the crowd of workmen.

"Everything was prepared," his companion said. "While the army was invading Livonia, and driving the remnant of the Swedes into Revel, thousands of carts laden with piles of wood, stone, and cement were moving towards Ingria. Tens of thousands of workmen and peasants were in motion from every part of Russia towards this point, and, the day after Notteburg surrendered, they began their work here. It was the opportunity in the lifetime of a nation, and we have seized it. The engineers who had, in disguise, examined it months ago, had reported that the island was covered at high tides, and was unfit to bear the foundations of even the slightest buildings. Piles are being driven in, as close as they will stand, over every foot of ground in it. Over this a coating of concrete many feet thick will be laid, and on this the fortress, which is to be the centre and heart of Russia, will rise. In the fort will stand a pile, which will be the tomb of the future czars of Russia, and there in front of us, where you see fifty thousand peasants at work, shall be the future capital of the empire."

"But it is a swamp," Charlie said in astonishment, alike at the vastness of the scheme, and the energy with which it was being prosecuted.

"Nature has made it a swamp," his companion said calmly, "but man is stronger than nature. The river will be embanked, the morass drained, and piles driven everywhere, as has been done in the island, and the capital will rise here. The fort has already been named the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The capital will be named alike after the patron saint and its founder--Petersburg."

They had now reached the spot. The carriage stopped and they alighted. Charlie saw, with astonishment, that a wide deep cut had been driven, between the road and the river, in a straight line. Looking down into it, he saw that it was paved with the heads of piles, and that carts were already emptying loads of concrete down upon it.

"Every bag of cement, every stone that you see, has been brought from a great distance," his companion said. "There is not a stone to be had within fifty miles of this spot. The work would seem well-nigh impossible, but it is the work of a nation. In another month, there will be a hundred and fifty thousand peasants at work here, and well nigh as many carts, bringing materials for the work and provisions for the workers."

"It is stupendous! But it will take years to complete, and it will surely be terribly unhealthy here?"

"I calculate the work will occupy ten years, and will cost a hundred thousand, maybe two hundred thousand lives," the other said calmly; "but what is that to the making of a nation? Before, Russia was stifled, she could not grow. Now we have a communication with the world. The island that lies at the mouth of the Neva will be fortified, and become a great naval arsenal and fort. Along the walls which will rise here will be unloaded the merchandise of Europe, and in exchange the ships will carry away our products. Some day we shall have another port on the south, but for the present this must suffice. You will say that this is dangerously near our frontier, but that will soon be remedied. As we have pushed the Swedes out of Ingria, so in time shall we drive them from Livonia on the west, and from Finland on the north.

"But I must to work."

And he motioned to a group of five or six officers, who had been standing a short distance away, to approach him.

Charlie was struck with the air of humility with which they saluted his companion, who at once asked a number of questions as to the supplies that had arrived, the progress that had been made, at a point where they had met with a deep slough into which the piles had penetrated without meeting with any firm ground, the number of huts that had been erected during the past three days for the reception of labourers, the state of stocks of meat and flour, and other particulars. To each he gave short, sharp orders. When they had left, he turned to Charlie.

"You guess who I am, I suppose?"

"I guess now, your majesty," Charlie said respectfully, "but until now the idea that my kind friend was the czar himself never entered my mind. I understood, from Doctor Kelly, that you were a surgeon."

"I don't think he said so," the czar replied. "He simply said that I could perform an amputation as well as he could, which was not quite true. But I studied surgery for a time in Holland, and performed several operations under the eyes of the surgeons there.

"I saw that you did not recognize my name. It is known to every Russian, but doubtless you never heard of me save as Peter the Czar. Directly you mentioned it to the commandant at Bercov, and described my appearance, he knew who it was you were speaking of, and despatched a messenger at once to me. He will be here in the course of a week or so. Upon your report of the state of the prison, I at once despatched an order for him to hand over his command to the officer next in rank, and to proceed hither at once. He is evidently a good administrator, and heaven knows I have need of such men here.

"I was pleased with you, when I saw you with my friend Doctor Kelly. It was pleasant not to be known, and hear a frank opinion such as you gave me, and as you know, I sent you back on the following morning. I certainly told Kelly, at the time, not to mention who I was, but I did not intend that he should keep you in ignorance of it after I had left, and it was not until I heard, from