When, on this particular day, we appeared in their house, hot and breathless and looking as if we had been picked out of the hay-stack, we found Uncle Pista bemoaning his horses and saying that if this sort of thing would continue he would have no nerves left. Aunt Sharolta was turning out all her drawers for things to manufacture into comforts for the soldiers, and having unearthed a piece of grey material embroidered with rose-buds she was making it into a chest-protector.
"Our boys," she explained, "will die of cold in Russia, if we don't make warm clothes for them."
"What's more to the point, my horses will die of cold in Russia," grumbled Uncle Pista.
"You don't think, then, that the Russians may break into Galicia?" I suggested.
"What an idea! Our army won't let them. Russia will take six weeks to mobilise—she can't do it in less—and by that time we shall have finished off Serbia and we can join the Germans in Russia. It's a pity though that the German Kaiser didn't keep quiet; of course he knows best, but there's no question but the Tsar was very impertinent to him lately, and William is hot-tempered. I've no doubt it's for the best, and it's one of God's mercies that we have the Kaiser behind us to help us against Russia. Our boys will be in St. Petersburg long before Christmas."
VIII—THE PRINCE CALLED THEM ALL FOOLS
Partridge shooting opened on August 1st, and the Prince and Billy—for the keepers were all away at their Kaders—collected some beaters—among whom the naughty and clever Joszo, resplendent in carpet slippers, a pair of old gaiters, and an old cartridge belt—and set out to a melancholy half-hearted shoot, from which Billy returned in a dismal humour. They had shot little and had thought all the time of the men—German, Austrian, Russian, and French—who had shot with them last year and who were now engaged in shooting one another; the Prince had spoken all the time, too, of his friend the Grand Duke Nicholai Nicholaievich, who had hitherto been such a charming and clever man, but who, now that he was to lead the Russians, was nothing but a mahogany-coloured giant; and it was a disgusting world, and how could anybody ever be happy again....
The days that followed were very anxious. France, the newspapers said, declared war on Germany; and Austria felt cross and shocked. How could France declare war on any country when she was herself, as the whole world knew, so little prepared? But there would be a revolution in France, and Poincaré would be guillotined for rushing his country into war like that. Oh, yes, all were agreed, nothing was surer than that Poincaré would meet the traitor's death he deserved.... My return to England had been planned for September, and I began to think that I ought to try to leave at once, but this was laughed down.
"How do you propose to go, Jerry—by private balloon? For everything on wheels is in the hands of the army at present. No, whatever happens you must just stay with us—even if England should join in, you will easily be home for Christmas—the war will be finished long before then. But England won't fight, so why should we break our heads about it?"