‘Yes, Father,’ said Ambrose, ‘if you will listen to me, I will tell you everything. My name is not really Ambrose, but I bear the same name as our orthodox Czar, whose father conferred on this monastery its charter. My name is really, like his, Theodore Ivanovitsch, and I come of an old Russian boyar family. A pious mother taught me in my early youth to read the lives of the saints and martyrs, and to go to church. But as I am of noble birth, and at some period would have to serve the Czar, I also learned to ride and fence and hunt and shoot. I have been an officer. You see this scar which I have on my forehead? I received it in battle. There has, as you know, been variance for many years between the monastery of Solowetski and the Swedish Finns in heretical Finland. This variance still continues, and none the less now that there is war between the Czar and John III. of Sweden. The monastery of Solowetski was, as you know, founded in 1429, and obtained at length even greater privileges than our own monastery has done. But it was also bound to protect Karelstrand and the towns in that neighbourhood against attacks from Finnish pirates. For the protection of the monastery the Czar has now, as you also know, built a stone wall which is to have eight towers, and is to surround the churches and all the buildings. Meanwhile the Swedish Finns, out of their old hatred of the Russians, had been making piratical incursions into Karelen, attacking our orthodox people, and the Solowetski people did not hesitate to retaliate. In this way, about twelve years ago, I was sent as a young officer to Karelen with a troop of Cossacks to protect the inhabitants against these Swedish Finns. I must admit that the Cossacks whom I had to command were wild and cruel men. Young, and unused to the horrors of war, I often tried to restrain them from needlessly killing men and women, while they were plundering their dwellings. At times I was, fortunately, able to save the innocent; but on one occasion, when we had chased a crowd of Swedish Finns back out of Karelen, into which they had made a piratical incursion, and had pursued them right into the district of Kajana, it so happened that some of my men, who were in the van, had reached the farmstead of Kuolaniemi in Sotkamo before I came up. They had attacked [[52]]the farm people, and, as usual, had killed and plundered them. After this they had fired the houses. I saw the fire, and pressed on with my men. The farm was beautifully situated on a projecting promontory by the side of a large lake. The houses and tall spruce firs down by the lake were so clearly reflected in it, that it looked as if the smooth depths of the lake below, as well as the clouds in the sky above, were ablaze. As, in a state of indignation, I rode inside the burning farmstead, determined more strongly than before to remonstrate with the more bloodthirsty of my men, I caught sight of a woman, struggling desperately with a Cossack at the doorway and on the steps of the burning house. The master of the house they had already killed, but the mother was clinging, though mortally wounded, to the leg of a Cossack to save a child—a little girl—whom he was trying to drag away with him. Before I could reach him, I saw him lift a spear and plunge it into the mother’s breast, so that she swooned away and let go her hold of his leg, while at the same moment the child tore herself away and ran off towards the courtyard. Enraged, the monster threw his blood-stained spear after the child, and sprang aside to catch her. Fortunately, he only touched her flowing hair, and at that moment I and my men reached him.
‘ “Monster!” I shouted. “Would you kill an innocent child?” and I placed my spear on the man’s breast so that he stopped.
‘The child clung to my leg, and cried to me in mortal fear and with tears in its little eyes, “Save me! save me!” I took her in my arms and lifted her on to my horse. Poor child! she clung in her terror close to me, and hid herself under my large riding-coat.
‘The farm continued to burn. No one seemed to think of putting out the fire, and the people belonging to the farm who had not been able to escape at once were lying dead in all directions in the burning house. I gave orders for a retreat within the boundary of Karelen; but what was I to do with the child whom I had beside me on my horse, a little girl some six or seven years old? She looked terrified at my men if any of them came near me, and with her little arms took tight hold of me.
‘ “Hold me fast!” she cried; “don’t let go of me, dear, dear man! don’t let them kill me!”’ [[53]]
‘ “No, my child, no one shall touch you,” I said, to pacify her.
‘The district was a lonely one, and the people all about had taken to flight. I could not, therefore, leave the child at the farm which had been burnt down. She would have perished of cold and hunger, as most likely people would not venture there again for some time. I took the child with me, therefore, to the camp. She was a pretty little girl. When we dismounted from our horses at the camp, she would not on any account let go my hand, which she grasped with both her own.
‘ “What is your name?” I asked her, when we had entered my tent and her terror had somewhat subsided.
‘ “Nita,” she replied, crying.
‘ “Your parents are dead, my poor child,” I said. “Have you brothers and sisters?”