It was at this time I first became intimate with a certain young lion cub destined before many years were passed—though few guessed it as yet—to become a very great and uncouth beast, and to startle the world with very loud roarings. Let me draw a picture of the said beast, whose name was Peter Alexeyevitch, the younger son of the Tsar Alexis.

‘You shall come and show my fellows how to ride,’ he had said to me, and to Preobrajensky I went, little dreaming how curious and suggestive a state of affairs I should find there. At Preobrajensky, but a few miles from Moscow, the younger Tsar lived with his mother, the Tsaritsa Nathalia, whose authority, since the Streltsi insurrection, had declined to zero, having given place to that of the Regent Sophia and her lover, Vassili Galitsin.

In this retreat mother and son lived almost undisturbed by the duties of young Peter’s high position, for it was the policy of Sophia to keep the Tsar in the background, causing him to visit Moscow only on those rare occasions of ceremony when the presence of the nominal heads of the realm was absolutely necessary. Peter was allowed to live as he would—his vices to have free run, his follies to remain unchecked, in the hope that his subjects might thus behold him develop into an unworthy prince, on whose behalf it would be foolish to overturn a better if less legitimate order of things.

And, indeed, there were few at this time who watched the growth of this prince with any particular interest, as of one destined to great things. Whether he himself guessed his own greatness or no I cannot tell, though it is certain that it was possible to gather from an occasional remark from his lips that he was at least awake, and that the present position of politics and its possible development in his favour had not altogether escaped him.

I found him among grooms and cook boys, a motley company of his chosen companions, the base lump being leavened by the presence of a few sons of well-known Boyars. These were one and all members of the ‘Pleasure Regiment’ which it was Peter’s delight at this time to keep and to train: an odd assortment indeed of young moujiks, servants upon the estate, young Boyars and dvoryanins, and every lad with a taste for soldiering or for wild living who had happened to hear of and be attracted by the half-serious, all-boyish activity of the young Tsar at Preobrajensky.

I found him drinking beer among the stable lads and moujiks who formed his chosen circle of friends and officers, and though assuredly Peter Alexeyevitch gave at that time scarcely a hint of the greatness that was in him, being as yet but in his sixteenth or seventeenth year, and with apparently little seriousness of thought about him, yet I felt marvellously attracted by the youth, believing that I saw in him more than I had been taught at Moscow to credit him withal, where it was the fashion to cry him down as a prince of little promise, given to excess of every kind, but possessing no solidity of character, no ambition, no sense of the responsibility of his position and of its duties. ‘He is a fool!’ Galitsin had said in my hearing, ‘a fool with many vices; one who, without the wisdom of the Regent to restrain him, might be a danger to the State.’

As to his personal appearance, this was most striking. Tall beyond belief, lanky, somewhat round in the shoulder, long-armed, dark-haired, large-eyed, round-faced, pleasant in expression until the moment when some word or action of his companion’s or even some thought of his own aroused a feeling of anger, when at once his eyes became harsh and cruel like a savage beast’s, and his brow would knit and his mouth scowl. At such a moment too, his head would turn with a spasmodic jerk over his shoulder as though he would look at his heel, and sometimes he would grasp the nearest object with his hands—whether a man or a piece of furniture—as if to steady himself.

During these paroxysms Peter Alexeyevitch was a dangerous neighbour, having little control over himself. I have heard it said at the Russian Court that he is not to be blamed for such attacks, which were the simple result of those scenes of horror and carnage to which he was condemned at the age of ten by the excesses of the Streltsi, when his young feet were dragged by them through the blood of his uncles, his mother’s brothers, the Naryshkins, and when he was a personal witness of the murders of Dolgorouki, Matveyeff, and other victims.

For myself I have rarely seen him in a fit of passion, for it happened that he was pleased to take a fancy for me from our first acquaintance, and was ever kind and gracious towards me.

‘Sit, Chelminsky, and drink with us,’ he now cried, as I entered the large and dirty barrack room in which the company were assembled. ‘You are welcome; brothers, this is the prince of Cossacks, Chelminsky, who shall teach us all to ride presently. Meanwhile, give him the biggest tankard, and stand, all, while he drinks. There is beer and mead, Chelminsky; choose your stuff and drink till you’re drunk—it is our rule.’

‘Then I must ride before I drink,’ I laughed, ‘or I shall only teach your fellows how to fall off.’

I was allowed to postpone my drinking upon this plea, for which I must thank the youth of the Tsar, for assuredly but a year or two later, and ever afterwards, he would have listened to no excuse from any whom it pleased him to bid drink with him. To drink with the Tsar meant certain intoxication—for the guest, at least, if not for the Tsar also; but, being liberally gifted by nature in this as in most other respects, Peter was sometimes able to withstand when all around had succumbed. Yet, so robust was he that, however late he may have lingered over his wine cups by night, he was invariably able and ready to begin a long day’s work so soon as morning arrived, and to go through with it as no other man in the realm could have done.

I rode for an hour before this motley crew, showing them many Cossack tricks, to the great delight of the Tsar himself and of his companions—such as picking up a sword from the ground while passing at full gallop; vaulting into the saddle as the horse flew round in a circle; standing, kneeling, lying when in full career, and so forth.

Both the Tsar himself and many of his half-drunken companions must needs emulate my performances, one of the fellows breaking an arm and another his head, and the Tsar himself twisting his ankle in a fashion that caused him to walk lamely for several days afterwards. Meanwhile Peter expressed to me his satisfaction after his own manner. He smote me violently upon the shoulder:

‘By the saints, Chelminsky, a troop of horsemen like yourself should make themselves felt in a battle; one day, maybe, we shall fight together. Why should I not add fifty Cossacks to this regiment of mine? I will speak with you again of the matter, when I am sober.’

But since the Tsar was far from sober at this time, and for the rest of the day, I had no opportunity to discuss the matter.

But I met young Boutourlin in Moscow a day or two later, and spoke with him. The young Tsar was delighted with me, he said: ‘And that may prove a wonderful thing for you, Chelminsky; for, believe me, this lion cub that yawns to-day and plays with bones shall hunt for himself to-morrow; and those who are his playmates now will presently become his princes and ministers.’

‘What! these grooms and moujiks?’ I laughed.

But Boutourlin wagged his head solemnly. ‘Both they and we,’ he said. ‘As, for instance, why should you not become Hetman of the Cossacks?’

‘Peter has first to become somebody before I can become anybody,’ I said; ‘the Regent and Galitsin have taken a good grip, and are not likely to let go.’

‘The deadliest grip can be loosened if you press tightly enough upon the gripper’s throat,’ said Boutourlin, laughing. ‘Our man is scarcely yet sixteen. Let him grow and think quietly, and big things may yet come of his thinking and growing. You, too, go home and think, but do not talk. Remember that we shall want the Cossacks, and when the Government changes in Moscow a new Hetman will have to be found at Batourin. Remember also that we others are wide awake, even though the lion cub should yawn. All this drilling is not for nothing.’

These words caused me to reflect, as they were meant to do, and I decided that, since Mazeppa was already the Regent’s man, I would be Peter’s; for I could lose nothing and might gain much by entering into an understanding with the young Tsar. If he should come to the front I should certainly profit; in any case, I should be no worse off.

I therefore rode daily to Preobrajensky, and became each day more familiar with the young lion who, as Boutourlin expressed it, lay and yawned there, waiting upon time and opportunity.

Certainly the Tsar could not be said to hold himself timidly towards the Regent, his sister, as some declare that he was too much wont to do; for during the short while that I was in Moscow at this time I saw him twice defy her authority, taking the law into his own hands after a fashion that a timid youth could not have imitated.

The first time that this happened was in consequence of a freak which originated upon the parade ground when I was myself present.

The ‘Pleasure Regiment’ marched past in silence, and someone remarked that there should be a band of drums and whistles (or fifes) to play the men into good step. This would make the parade more lively.

‘The PoutyÁtine regiment of Streltsi has them,’ laughed one of those who stood by.

‘Oh, oh!’ cried Peter, ‘we will raid them. Come, volunteers! who will help carry off these fifes and drums?’

There were many offers of assistance, and that evening the entire set of drums and fifes used by the PoutyÁtine regiment of Streltsi found their way in some mysterious fashion to the barracks of the ‘Pleasure Regiment’ at Preobrajensky.