CHAPTER XXV.
BORIS HAS A NARROW ESCAPE.
The formation of the twenty-nine new regiments which were to take part in the war had been an arduous undertaking. While Boris was in exile at Karapselka the Tsar had lost two capable assistants, as well as dear friends, in Lefort and Gordon, both of whom had died during that interval of time. Had these men lived to assist him at this emergency, there is no doubt that the raw peasantry now sent up for training at Preobrajensk would have emerged from their months of drill in a higher state of efficiency than that in which they actually marched out of Moscow in August. Nevertheless much had been done, and the Tsar had worked as few but he could labour to make soldiers of them. In this matter Boris was of inestimable service to him; and many a time did Peter declare that he would not for half his empire that those wolves had not run him down in the Karapselka forest and in doing so brought him back his bear-eater, for what could he have done without Boris at this time?
Nancy was sensible enough to see that, happy as she had been with her husband for three long years of country life at Karapselka, she must accept the inevitable, and allow him to do now as his duty and his manhood dictated. So Boris bade farewell to his young wife, and the little wolf-maiden and her tiny brother, and marched away from Moscow with a feeling that life was recommencing for him—stern, workaday, adventurous life—and that the idle paradise of Karapselka had been nothing but a dream.
The possession of Livonia and Esthonia, of Ingria and Karelia was the darling object of Peter's ambition. He longed for the mastery of the Gulf of Finland and a grip of the Baltic coast as a hungry man longs for the food he sees in a shop window. Without some outlet to the sea in this direction, he well knew that Russia could never develop her trade and take her proper position in Europe as a European power.
But Sweden at this time was strong and courageous, and there sat upon her throne a young prince who had been devoted from his earliest infancy to the study of war and its practice in the playground—Charles XII.; who at this very moment was proving to the allies of Russia—Poland and Denmark—that in picking a quarrel with him they had attacked a hornet's nest. Charles had not as yet attained to his full reputation as a soldier; but he was formidable already, and his name was feared and respected by all who had had dealings with him in the field. For this reason, Peter knew well that he must proceed with caution.
No sooner was war declared than he marched away towards Narva, the nearest Esthonian fortress occupied by the Swedes; for, could he but possess himself of this stronghold, he foresaw that the Neva and the opposite coasts of the Gulf of Finland would be practically at his mercy, for both Livonia and Esthonia would be cut off from direct communication with those parts.
Thus Narva became the first objective for the armies of Peter. But the journey from Moscow to that fortress, undertaken at this late season of the year, proved long and tedious. The transport service was crude and inefficient, and the want of stores delayed the march; the roads were frightfully bad, as any one who knows Russian roads, even at this day, may well believe; hence it was not until the first days of November that the first detachment of troops with a portion of the artillery arrived before the walls of Narva.
The Tsar himself superintended the placing of the guns in position, and fired the first shot. It was soon found that the gun-carriages had been so knocked about that they would not stand more than two or three discharges, and then broke in pieces. By the 14th November all the powder and shot had been used, and the troops were obliged to sit and wait for new supplies with the best grace they could muster.
During this tiresome period of waiting the garrison of Narva made several gallant sorties. During one of these, Peter's own regiment, the Preobrajensk, was engaged, Boris and the Tsar both fighting at their posts. One of the foreign officers, a certain Major Hummert, at one period of the engagement, finding himself pressed by the Swedes, became alarmed, and gave the word to retire; thereupon the whole regiment turned and fled in sudden panic, in spite of all the efforts of the officers to keep them in their places. The Tsar was furious, and sent for Hummert in the evening, when the day's fighting was over, in order to treat him to one of those ebullitions of passion in which he indulged on provocation. But poor Hummert could not face the ordeal, and escaping from the lines under cover of the darkness, deserted to the enemy. Peter hung him in effigy; but the Swedes themselves improved upon this by hanging the deserter in the flesh. Shortly after this episode, the Tsar left the Russian troops at Narva and departed to attend to other duties, and while he was absent a great and unexpected misfortune befell the Russians.