Boris the Bear-Hunter
CHAPTER XXIX.MAZEPPA.
And now the Tsar of Russia, well satisfied with the success of hisarms, was for making peace with the King of Sweden. He had made himselfmaster of Ingria and Livonia, but was ready, if necessary, to restorethe latter province if he might be allowed to retain the Neva with itstwo forts of Schluesselburg and Slotburg.
But Charles XII. would not hear of peace. He would have the Neva forts,he declared, if it should cost him his last soldier to regain them.Then Peter sent ambassadors to the court of St. James in London, topetition for the mediation of Queen Anne. But the ambassadors foundthe British statesmen, as they declared, too diplomatic and tricky forthem, and could get no decided answer. Then the Duke of Marlboroughwas approached, and handsome bids were made for his good offices, ifonly he would consent to be peacemaker. The Tsar offered to the dukethe title of Prince of Siberia, or of Kief or Vladimir, a large sum ofmoney in gold, and "the finest ruby in Europe." Marlborough did not atonce refuse to act as mediator, but, though he seriously considered theproposition, nothing came of Peter's offer, and the matter dropped.
Then the Tsar regretfully realized that there was to be no peace, butthat he must make himself ready for war.
The year 1705 began with a victory for Sweden at Gemanerthof, nearMitau; but Peter, hastening up to the front with fresh troops, stormedMitau and made the honours equal. Neither was there much advantage toeither side in 1706, though the Russians were lucky in retiring fromthe fortress of Grodno, hard pressed by the Swedes, without seriousmisfortune. Charles himself had awaited the moment when the Russiantroops must retire in order to follow them and cut them to pieces,which he probably would have succeeded in doing, but he was delayedfor a week by the breaking up of the ice on the River Niemen, and thisdelay saved the Russians from destruction.
The following year was without military movement on either side, butwas spent chiefly in diplomacy--Peter striving for peace, Charlesinsisting upon war; and when the year went out, it left the latteryoung monarch occupied in making preparations for the invasion ofRussia, and the Tsar equally busy in putting his forces into order forthe defence of the fatherland.
Meanwhile Boris, after his terrible experiences in Narva, had been butlittle engaged in the few military movements of the following yearor two, and had spent most of his time at home in Moscow, or ratherat Karapselka, with Nancy and the children. His little wolf-maidenwas now seven years old, and there was very little of the wolf abouther seemingly; for she was as pretty a child as could be found in allRussia. Nevertheless she was strangely and passionately devoted to thewoods, and was never so happy as when allowed to accompany her fatherand mother upon their drives into the forest. In the summer time shewould spend the entire day there, wandering about among the pines, orlying couched in a heathery bed at their roots. She was never in theleast afraid of wild animals, and loved nothing better than to hearrepeated the oft-told tale of her own sojourn among the wolves as ahelpless baby. If the truth had been known, she longed in her heart tosee a big wolf, and she would undoubtedly have offered to play with itthen and there had one appeared, without an atom of fear.
Her little brother Boris, aged six, was a fitting companion to thisforest-loving maiden. The boy was the bear-hunter in miniature, strongand hearty, and a stranger to all cravenness.
Nancy and her husband were proud of their children, and were rightglad, moreover, to have spent this quiet year with them at Karapselka;for the little ones had not seen much of their father during thosetroublous war-years. Next year there would be more fighting--anyone with his eye on the signs of the times could see that; indeed,half Europe was convinced that 1708 would close with the Swedishking dictating terms of peace from the Kremlin. Why this should havebeen the opinion of Europe it is difficult to say, for the balanceof success up to this point had undoubtedly rested with the Russianarms; but Charles was making great preparations, and was very much inearnest, and his reputation as a successful soldier was very great,and, since he would conduct the new campaign in person, those who knewbest made no secret of their conviction that he would carry all beforehim. As for Charles XII., he himself was perfectly sure that therecould be but one end to the struggle. He gave out far and wide thatRussia was to be subdued, and that he intended to do it. She was to beforced to disband her new regular armies, and Peter was to be made torestore to the country the Streltsi whom he had abolished, and the oldorder of things generally. The Neva was to remain, of course, a Swedishriver; and as for Dorpat and Narva, and the rest of the places whichhis fools of generals had allowed Peter to become temporarily possessedof--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 tosend him, he said, on a mission to the hetman of the Cossacks of theUkraine, to inquire what force the latter could put into the field forthe approaching campaign of defence. The hetman bore a name familiarto my readers. He was no other than that Mazeppa whom Voltaire andByron have made so familiar to readers of poetry as the hero of one ofthe most romantic episodes ever sung by bard or told as sober truth byhistorian.
I regret to say that the real Mazeppa was very far from being theromantic hero he is generally supposed to have been. His ride, strappedto the back of a wild horse and pursued by numbers of wolves, is littlebetter 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 aspage to King John Casimir of Poland about the year 1660, twelve yearsbefore the birth of Boris; but by reason of his quarrelsome dispositionhe soon got himself into trouble at court, and retired to his father'sestate in Volhynia. Here again Mazeppa fell into disgrace, this timewith a neighbouring Polish gentleman. This is where Mazeppa's ridecomes in. The Polish neighbour, infuriated at the young Cossack,caused his attendants to strip Mazeppa of his clothes, and to fastenhim with thongs to the back of his own horse. In this undignified anduncomfortable position Mazeppa was conveyed to his home, which lay buta mile away, the horse galloping straight to its own stable with itsnaked master tightly secured to it. After so disgraceful an exposure,Mazeppa disappeared, and he is next heard of as a man of light andleading among the Cossacks of the Ukraine.
The Ukraine[3] was a sort of no-man's-land, lying between Pole,Russian, Turk, and Tartar. To this happy retreat fled, in former years,every kind of freebooter, robber, and bad character who had made hisown home, whether in Russia or Poland or elsewhere, too hot to holdhim. These were the first Cossacks of the Ukraine. As time went on andthe Cossacks became numerous, large portions of the fertile soil ofthe country were reclaimed, and a great proportion of the inhabitantsgradually settled down as peaceful agriculturists, tilling their ownland. Those Cossacks nearest to Poland became independent vassals ofthe kings of Poland, and were called "registered Cossacks," becausetheir names were entered in a book as "subjects" of the Polish monarch,though they insisted throughout on their absolute independence, andtheir hetman or chief considered himself the equal of the king, andbrooked no condescension or patronage from him. Towards the middleof the seventeenth century, however, the Cossacks threw off thePolish connection and espoused the cause of Russia; the tribe havingdecided by their votes whether they should enrol themselves underthe protectorate of Russia, Poland, or Turkey. Thus the Ukrainebecame Russian territory, and the Cossacks, though "preserving theirprivileges," acknowledged the Tsar as their head.
This was the position of affairs when Mazeppa appeared among theCossacks of the Ukraine.
At this particular juncture there were two hetmans, one being at thehead of that larger half of the population which had embraced theprotectorate of Russia; the other, chief of a portion of the Cossackswho still coquetted with Pole and Turk and Russian, faithful to none ofthe three, but always on the look-out for betterment. Mazeppa becamesecretary to this latter chief. In this capacity he was, a year ortwo later, despatched to Constantinople with letters to the Sultancontaining p
roposals for the transfer of the allegiance of his waveringmaster from Russian to Turk.
But Mazeppa never reached Constantinople. He was arrested, papers andall, by agents of the Tsar, and carried off to Moscow. Here, by hisdiplomatic gifts, Mazeppa not only succeeded in exculpating himself,but contrived so deeply to impress the reigning Tsar, Alexey, Peter'sfather, with a belief in his merits, that both Alexey and afterwardsPeter himself remained his truest friends and benefactors, in spiteof every attempt of his enemies--and there were many--to dethrone theidol.
Mazeppa now realized that the Russian was the real "strong man," andthat he had espoused the wrong cause. His late employer was arrestedand exiled; but a place was found for Mazeppa with the rival hetman,Russia's faithful vassal, Samoilovitch, in whose service he so greatlystrengthened his position that in 1687, when Galitsin returned from anunsuccessful campaign in the Crimea, and in order to shield himselfthrew the blame upon Samoilovitch and his Cossacks, who had beenemployed to assist him, Mazeppa found means to overthrow his late chiefand to get himself elected in his place as hetman of the Cossacks ofthe Ukraine.
One of Mazeppa's first acts was to hasten to Moscow in order to assurethe young Tsar Peter of his loyalty, and, if possible, to make apersonal friend of the monarch. In this he proved so successful that,once having accepted and pinned his faith to the Cossack chief, Peternever could be persuaded to doubt his honesty, in spite of everyeffort to convince him of Mazeppa's perfidy. For many years there wasa constant stream of correspondence reaching the Tsar from varioussources, warning him of the treacherous disposition of his trustedhetman. All these letters Peter invariably forwarded to Mazeppa,with assurances to the effect that his faith in the latter was quiteunshaken. Frequently the Tsar added that the Cossack might considerhimself free to deal with his traducers as he pleased. Mazeppa wasnever backward in taking the hint, and many of his enemies were thusremoved out of his way, some with great barbarity.
As for the rights and wrongs of these matters, it is impossible tojudge whether Mazeppa was or was not so bad as he was painted. Hisname is execrated to this day in the national songs and ballads of theUkraine, where his memory appears to be cordially hated, while thenames of his enemies are crowned with all the tribute of honour andlove that song can offer. An intimate personal acquaintance of Mazeppahas placed on record his conviction that the famous hetman was alwaysat heart a Pole and detested Russia, and that all his life he was onthe look-out for a good opportunity of casting off his allegiance, andtransferring it to Pole or Turk or Swede, as soon as any one of theseshould have proved himself the stronger man. At the same time, injustice to Mazeppa, it must be mentioned that he undoubtedly receivedmore than one invitation from the King of Poland to break with theTsar, and that he invariably forwarded such proposals to Moscow forPeter's perusal. Probably Mazeppa was a time-server, and was faithfulto Russia only so long as Russia appeared to be the rock upon whichhis house was built. As will presently appear, he eventually, in hisold age, made the one great mistake of his life, when his politicalsagacity, which had befriended him and guided him aright for many along year, at last failed him and brought about the ruin which histreachery undoubtedly deserved.
Mazeppa received Boris with every mark of honour and respect as theTsar's emissary. His court at Batourin was that of a king, far moreluxurious and refined than that of Peter himself; and Boris wassurprised to see the gorgeousness and magnificence of this man, whomhe had been accustomed to think of more as a wild Cossack chief thanas a monarch surrounded by every luxury and refinement of westerncivilization.
Mazeppa spoke with tears in his eyes of his love and devotion forPeter, and quite charmed the simple-minded Boris by his eloquentdeclaration that he would rather be the bear-hunter himself (of whomhe said he had heard), and be ever about the person of that mostmarvellous man, his master, than hetman of the Cossacks of theUkraine, honourable and dignified though the position might be.
To Boris's questions as to the forces at his disposal and their loyaltyto the cause of Russia, Mazeppa replied,--
"My dear man, I have fifty thousand lances; and I would rather each onewas buried in my own flesh than turned against the throne of my brotherPeter. Why has he sent you? Does he not know that we are brothers, andmore than brothers, and that all that I have is his?"
Boris was perfectly satisfied. He could not doubt this man, whose voiceshook with feeling as he spoke, and whose eyes were filled with tearswhen he told of his devotion to the great Tsar, their beloved master.
Then Mazeppa entertained Boris with much talking, of which he was amaster, and with a review of those fifty thousand lances of which hehad made mention, or as many of them as he could collect at Batourin.Boris was delighted with their wonderful feats of horsemanship. Wholesquadrons would dash forward at the charge, the wiry little poniesholding up their heads till their ears touched the Cossacks' bendingfigures; then, suddenly, every man would dip down sideways till hishand swept the ground, and again with one accord the entire body wouldrecover their original position. Then a company would gallop past,every man kneeling in his saddle; followed by a second, of which eachCossack stood upright. Then a body of men would dash by, spring fromtheir saddles while at the gallop, and spring back again. Then theentire corps would burst into wild, stirring song, and charge, singing,at an imaginary foe. It was a fine sight, and gave Boris much sincerepleasure; and he returned to give his report to the Tsar, convincedthat in Mazeppa and his lances Peter possessed a friendly contingentwhich would prove of immense service during the coming Swedish attack.How Mazeppa acted, and what is the exact value to be attached tomoist-eyed protestations of love and faith from a Cossack of theUkraine, will be seen in the following pages.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] _Russian_, "At the borderland."