These dogs were called at Court “Sir Tom Anderson, and his consort” (by second marriage) “Mimi, Lady Anderson.” They were such tiny, shaggy little things, with sharp, intelligent noses, and comical wiry tails, just like brooms. These dogs had nice little soft mattresses and wadded silk counterpanes, stitched by the hands of the Empress herself. Ekaterina wrote to Grimme, how fond she and Sir Tom were of sitting at the open window, and how Tom, with his fore-paws on the window-sill, notwithstanding his contemplation of nature, would bark and snarl at the horses towing the barges up the river. “The views around are lovely, though a trifle monotonous, and Sir Tom is delighted with the woods, the hills, and with the lovely quiet gardens and manors, half buried in bright green, beyond which, in the far-off blue, you can just distinguish the tops of the golden Muscovite churches. This village wilderness and solitude just suit the hearts of Sir Anderson and his consort. Forgetting the noise of the city and its gaiety, they admire the beauties around them, and it is only at a late hour that they allow themselves to be persuaded to seek their warm wadded coverlets. The mistress of the house also likes these solitary Russian hamlets, forests and plains. I love these unploughed new places,” wrote Ekaterina to Grimme, “and I must say that I feel from my heart that I only fit in where all is untouched and unspoilt.” CHAPTER XVIII. _THE PRINCESS AT ST. PETERSBURG._ The fresh and clear atmosphere of the Muscovite environs began to be foggy. Clouds were gathering, lightning darting, thunder rolling. The Court also had its storms. Ekaterina had no easy task in investigating the insurrection of Pougachoff. He astonished every one by preserving to the very last minute the firm conviction that he would be pardoned, that they would never execute him. “The wretch has not much sense--he still hopes!” wrote the empress, after reading the interrogation of the Pretender. “Human nature is unfathomable.” Pougachoff was executed in January.[35] About the middle of May Ekaterina received information that the squadron under the command of Greig had anchored at Cronstadt. The empress sent her whole correspondence with Orloff about the Pretender to the governor-general of Petersburg, Prince Galitzin, and gave him the following order:--“Have the _voyageurs_ transferred secretly from the ship, and submit them to the severest interrogation.” Prince Alexandre Michaelovitch Galitzin, defeated by Frederick the Great, and afterwards for his victories over the Turks elected to the post of field-marshal, seemed a very imposing personage; but in reality he was the best-hearted and most modest and just of men, and an entire stranger to all Court intrigues. He was loved and respected by all.