During that moment Nancy recognized her preserver and clung to him, shivering and crying a little, but with an assurance of safety in his strong arms which she did her best to express by burying her face in his breast and half drowning him with her clinging arms about his neck.
A wonderfully tender spirit fell over the rough hunter as he felt the confiding hugs of this little English girl, and he realized that she must be saved at all hazards. But it was exceedingly difficult to swim with her in his arms, as those who have tried it will know, especially as his course was impeded by floating ice of sufficient strength and thickness to offer an awkward obstacle to a burdened swimmer. Boris was aware that little Nancy had picked up but little Russian as yet; nevertheless he succeeded in conveying to her that she must not clasp his neck so tightly, or both would presently go to the bottom; also that he intended to help her to climb back upon the ice, but that he would be near if it should break again and let her through. Then, finding a sound edge which looked strong enough for his purpose, with an effort he raised the child sufficiently high to slide her out upon unbroken ice, where Nancy quickly regained her feet and ran lightly to the shore. As for Boris, relieved of his burden, he easily swam to shore, where he found his little friend awaiting him.
To the immense amusement of the onlookers, of whom there was a considerable gathering, Nancy, having first with her little hand helped him out of the water, sprang up into the arms of her big preserver and covered his wet face with kisses. Then the tall hunter and his little English friend walked off together, amid the admiring comments of the crowd, who were unanimous in their opinion that the officer was a molodyets, or, as a British schoolboy would call it, "a rare good chap;" and that the little Anglichanka was very sweet to look upon, and wore very nice clothes.
From this day commenced a firm friendship between these two persons, which strengthened and ripened from week to week and from month to month. They were in some respects an oddly-assorted couple; and yet there was much in common between them, as for instance the intense love which both bore towards the open air and all that appertains to life in the country. Nancy had lived, while still in her English home, far away from the town; her sympathies were all for the fields, the woods, birds, and rabbits, and wild fowl, and the sights and sounds of the country.
Neither Drury nor his wife had the slightest objection to the great friendship existing between their little daughter and this fine young officer of the Tsar; as indeed why should they? On the contrary, they were glad enough to intrust her to one who could be so thoroughly trusted to take good care of her under any and every circumstance and emergency which could arise, whether in the forest or in the streets of the city. Consequently the two were often together; and Boris loved nothing better than to set his little friend in a kibitka, or covered sledge drawn by two horses, and drive out with her into the country, far away beyond the smoke and din of Moscow.
There he would spend a few happy hours in teaching the child the art of tracking and trapping hares, foxes, and larger game, an art in which Nancy proved an apt pupil; while his skill in calling birds and beasts to him proved a source of unfailing delight and amusement to her. Concealed in a tiny conical hut made of fir boughs, and built to represent as far as possible a snow-laden pine tree, the pair would sit for an hour or two and watch the effects of Boris's skilful imitation of the various voices of the forest. Many a time did Nancy enjoy the excitement of hearing and even occasionally of seeing a wolf, as he came inquisitively peering and listening close up to the hut, wondering where in the world his talkative friend had hidden himself, and evidently half beginning to fear that he had been the victim of a hoax. On such occasions a loud report from Boris's old-fashioned matchlock quickly assured the poor wolf that he had indeed been deluded to his destruction, and that this hoax was the very last he should live to be the victim of.
Rare, indeed, was the day when the hunter and his little English friend returned to Moscow without something to show as the result of their drive out into the forest. Whether it was a hare, or a brace of tree-partridges, or the pretty red overcoat of a fox, or the gray hide of a wolf—something was sure to accompany little Nancy when she returned to her father's apartments; for Boris was a hunter whose skill never failed.
Thus the winter passed and the summer came, and another winter, and the Tsar was ever busy with his recruiting, and his drilling, and his revellings, and his designing of ships and fleets. And Boris was busy also with his duty and his pleasure—his duty with his regiment and with his Tsar, and his chief pleasure in the company of the little English girl who had found for herself a place so close to his heart. And Boris was happy both in his pleasure and in his duties, as should be the case with every right-minded person, and is, I trust, with every reader of these lines.