The following year was without military movement on either side, but was spent chiefly in diplomacy—Peter striving for peace, Charles insisting upon war; and when the year went out, it left the latter young monarch occupied in making preparations for the invasion of Russia, and the Tsar equally busy in putting his forces into order for the defence of the fatherland.
Meanwhile Boris, after his terrible experiences in Narva, had been but little engaged in the few military movements of the following year or two, and had spent most of his time at home in Moscow, or rather at Karapselka, with Nancy and the children. His little wolf-maiden was now seven years old, and there was very little of the wolf about her seemingly; for she was as pretty a child as could be found in all Russia. Nevertheless she was strangely and passionately devoted to the woods, and was never so happy as when allowed to accompany her father and mother upon their drives into the forest. In the summer time she would spend the entire day there, wandering about among the pines, or lying couched in a heathery bed at their roots. She was never in the least afraid of wild animals, and loved nothing better than to hear repeated the oft-told tale of her own sojourn among the wolves as a helpless baby. If the truth had been known, she longed in her heart to see a big wolf, and she would undoubtedly have offered to play with it then and there had one appeared, without an atom of fear.
Her little brother Boris, aged six, was a fitting companion to this forest-loving maiden. The boy was the bear-hunter in miniature, strong and hearty, and a stranger to all cravenness.
Nancy and her husband were proud of their children, and were right glad, moreover, to have spent this quiet year with them at Karapselka; for the little ones had not seen much of their father during those troublous war-years. Next year there would be more fighting—any one with his eye on the signs of the times could see that; indeed, half Europe was convinced that 1708 would close with the Swedish king dictating terms of peace from the Kremlin. Why this should have been the opinion of Europe it is difficult to say, for the balance of success up to this point had undoubtedly rested with the Russian arms; but Charles was making great preparations, and was very much in earnest, and his reputation as a successful soldier was very great, and, since he would conduct the new campaign in person, those who knew best made no secret of their conviction that he would carry all before him. As for Charles XII., he himself was perfectly sure that there could be but one end to the struggle. He gave out far and wide that Russia was to be subdued, and that he intended to do it. She was to be forced to disband her new regular armies, and Peter was to be made to restore to the country the Streltsi whom he had abolished, and the old order of things generally. The Neva was to remain, of course, a Swedish river; and as for Dorpat and Narva, and the rest of the places which his fools of generals had allowed Peter to become temporarily possessed of—why, Charles would soon make him disgorge them.
Meanwhile Boris was summoned to the Tsar, who was busy at St. Petersburg building that city under difficulties. Peter wished to send him, he said, on a mission to the hetman of the Cossacks of the Ukraine, to inquire what force the latter could put into the field for the approaching campaign of defence. The hetman bore a name familiar to my readers. He was no other than that Mazeppa whom Voltaire and Byron have made so familiar to readers of poetry as the hero of one of the most romantic episodes ever sung by bard or told as sober truth by historian.
I regret to say that the real Mazeppa was very far from being the romantic hero he is generally supposed to have been. His ride, strapped to the back of a wild horse and pursued by numbers of wolves, is little better than a myth, though founded upon a slight substratum of truth, as will presently be shown.
Born of Cossack parentage, young Mazeppa appears to have served as page to King John Casimir of Poland about the year 1660, twelve years before the birth of Boris; but by reason of his quarrelsome disposition he soon got himself into trouble at court, and retired to his father's estate in Volhynia. Here again Mazeppa fell into disgrace, this time with a neighbouring Polish gentleman. This is where Mazeppa's ride comes in. The Polish neighbour, infuriated at the young Cossack, caused his attendants to strip Mazeppa of his clothes, and to fasten him with thongs to the back of his own horse. In this undignified and uncomfortable position Mazeppa was conveyed to his home, which lay but a mile away, the horse galloping straight to its own stable with its naked master tightly secured to it. After so disgraceful an exposure, Mazeppa disappeared, and he is next heard of as a man of light and leading among the Cossacks of the Ukraine.