“A few lies adorn one’s speech. The chief point is gained. To-morrow, Katherine, you can sleep quietly in the nursery with the heirs to the throne.”
“Can any misfortune happen to him?”
“No! he never has misfortune.”
The Czar ran down to the seashore; he never walked, but always ran. “Life goes fast,” he was wont to say, “and there is much to do.”
When he reached the gravel bank he found a boat landing, with five men and the Dutch prisoner. The latter sat stolidly by the rudder, and smoked his pipe. But when he saw the Czar, he took off his cap, threw it in the air, and cried, “Hurrah!”
Czar Peter shaded his eyes, and, when he recognised his old teacher and friend, Jaen Scheerborck from Amsterdam, he jumped into the boat over the rowers’ shoulders and knees, rushed into Jaen’s arms and kissed him, so that his pipe broke and the seaman’s great grey beard was full of smoke and nearly took fire. Then the Czar lifted the old man up, and carried him in his arms like a child to the shore.
“At last, you old rascal! I have you here with me! Now you shall see my city and my fleet, which I have built myself, for you have taught me. Bring the cabriolet here, boy! and a grapnel from the boat; we will go, and tack about. Quickly!”
“Dear heart alive!” said the old man, picking the tobacco-ashes out of his beard, “to think that I have seen the Carpenter-Czar before I die; that is....”
“Into the cabriolet, old fellow! Boy, hang the grapnel behind. Where are you to sit? On my knees, of course!”