A Jacobite Exile Part 34

He enjoyed a good wash, then returned to the other room, and sat down in a comfortable chair to wait for his host. He was on the point of dozing off, when the door opened, and Peter Michaeloff entered. Charlie sprang to his feet.

"Well, Captain Carstairs," the Russian said, holding out his hand, "so it seems you had bad luck again. You must have quite an affection for our prisons."

"I shall have, at least, a pleasant remembrance of the kindness shown to me as a prisoner," Charlie said; "and I am sure it is you that I have to thank for my transfer here, and for the pleasant journey I have had. I could not have travelled more comfortably, if I had been a Russian grandee."

"Well, I am glad to meet you again," the doctor said heartily. "Let me see, it is some twenty months since we supped together last at Kelly's quarters. Poor fellow! I shall miss him greatly. You have heard of his death?"

"The governor of Bercov told me of it, a fortnight ago. I was indeed sorry to hear it. I shall never forget his kindness to me."

"Yes, he was a good man, skilful in his profession, and full of zeal and energy. The blood runs faster somehow, in the veins of you islanders, than of us sluggish Muscovites. If we could but at one sweep banish every Russian official, from the highest to the lowest, and fill their places with men from your islands, what progress we should make, what work could we get done, what reforms could be carried out!

"However, at present," he went on, changing the subject abruptly, "the point is supper. I am as hungry as a bear, for I have been at work since daylight, and have eaten nothing since I broke my fast."

He rang a handbell placed on the table. Two Cossacks entered bearing dishes, and the doctor and his guest at once fell to on the supper, which was excellent.

"Hard work deserves good food," the Russian said, in reply to a remark of Charlie's as to the excellence both of the food and wine.

"Your Charles does not think so, I hear, and lives on the roughest of food. What will be the consequence? He will wear himself out.

His restless activity will exhaust his powers, and weaken his judgment. I can eat rough food if I can get no better, but I take the best, when opportunity offers.

"What have you been doing ever since you left Plescow? I inquired after you the other day, when our troops broke up Schlippenbach's force on the Embach. I found you were not among the prisoners, and I wondered if you were among the killed."

"I was not in Livonia at the time. I was with the king's army at Warsaw. Three regiments were sent off, the day after the battle of Clissow, by boats down the Vistula, and then by s.h.i.+p to Revel. Mine was one of them, but we arrived a fortnight too late."

"Then you were present at Charles' third victory? How that young fellow handles his troops, and what wonderful troops they are! Now we will get into our easy chairs again, and you shall tell me something about what you have been doing, since we last met."

Charlie gave a sketch of his adventures.

"So you fought at the Dwina, too? You have had luck in going through three battles without a wound."

When Charlie stated that he had gone to Warsaw on a private mission, whose nature was immaterial to the story, the doctor broke in:

"You need not tell me what it was, it was of course something to do with Augustus. The way Charles is hunting down that unfortunate king is shocking, it is downright malignity. Why, he has wasted fifteen months over it already, and it has cost him Ingria. He could have made any terms with Poland he liked, after his victory on the Dwina, and would then have been free to use all his forces against us. As it is, he has wasted two summers, and is likely to waste another, and that not for any material advantage, but simply to gratify his hatred against Augustus; and he has left us to take Ingria almost without a blow, and to gain what Russia has wanted for the last hundred years, a foothold on the Baltic. He may be a great general, but he is no politician. No real statesman would throw away solid advantages in order to gratify personal pique."

"He considers Augustus the author of this league against him,"

Charlie said. "He and the czar had no grounds at all of quarrel against him."

"We talked over that, the last time we met," the doctor said with a laugh, "and I told you then that a foothold on the Baltic was so necessary to Russia, that she would have accepted the alliance of the Prince of Darkness himself to get it. As to Augustus, I don't defend him. He was ambitious, as I suppose most of us are. He thought he saw an opportunity of gaining territory. He has found that he has made a mistake, and will of course lose a province. But Charles' persecution of him goes beyond all bounds. Never before did a sovereign insist upon a nation consenting to dethrone its king at his dictation.

"But go on with your story."

He listened without remark, until Charlie concluded.

"I wish you had been in our service," he said, "instead of that of Sweden. You would have mounted fast. You have all the requisites for success, above all, prompt.i.tude of decision and quickness of invention. You did well in getting away from that Jewish scoundrel in the hut, and in killing his master, but it was your adventure with the wolves that showed your quality. That idea of setting fire to the tree in which you were sitting, in order at once to warm yourself and to frighten away the wolves, would never have occurred to a Russian, and the quickness with which you formed, with three logs, a redoubt against the wolves, showed a quick military eye, and the ability to think and act in a moment of danger.

"Now tell me how it was that you were the only officer captured the other day."

Charlie briefly related how he, with the pikemen of his company, had stayed behind to check the pursuit of the Russian horse, and to gain time for the main body to lose themselves in the darkness. The Russian struck his fist on the arm of his chair.

"It was well done," he said. "There is the difference. A Russian captain would have done it, if he had been ordered, and he and his men would, without a question, have sacrificed themselves to cover the retreat of the rest, but he would never have done it on his own initiative. The idea would never have struck him. He would have plodded along until the enemy's cavalry came up and annihilated them all. By the way, why did you not ask for me at once?"

"I had asked for Doctor Kelly the day after I was taken prisoner, and was told that he had gone to the Volga. I thought that he would be back before long, and it was only when I heard of his death that it occurred to me to endeavour to find one who had kindly promised, after a few hours' acquaintance only, to befriend me should I ever find myself in a similar sc.r.a.pe."

"It would have saved you the journey down to Moscow. I heard, of course, that a Swedish captain had been made prisoner that night, but I was myself 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 n.o.ble 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sing 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.