Part 7 (1/2)

”Well, you've the pigeon-colored eyes of men who shoot straight. But you're too fat for a Cossack, and too old.”

”You're fifty if you're a day,” said Ian.

”Wrong for you. I'm only forty-five. But I've had a hard life, which I'm used to. You, my gentleman, have always had a soft bed to sleep on and rich food to feed on. That's why your stomach is too big for your years.”

Ian suddenly felt very much ashamed of his spare flesh. Over and over again he had promised himself he would go to Marienbad and get rid of it. But that was out of the question now. So he said eagerly:

”I'll get thin soon enough campaigning. Look here, Colonel, you and I bear no love to one another. We've a good many old scores to pay off.”

”You're right about that,” admitted the other with a grin. ”And the fault's not always been on the Cossack side, either.”

”But just now we've got to beat the Prussians,” argued Ian. ”And you'll want all the men you can get to do it. I've been in their country and know it.”

The Cossack gave a hoa.r.s.e guffaw.

”Russia has enough sons to beat the world,” he cried. ”We'll be in Berlin before the New Year and I'll promise you my men won't leave much of their fine shops and their light beer. And on my way I'll call in on your house and give you some loot to prove it. Meanwhile, do you go home and look after your lady mother and your peasants.”

This, delivered in the various accents of the Holy Russian Empire, and in varying tones, according to the state of culture of the particular officer who gave it, was the answer which greeted Ian everywhere he went. He was too old and too heavy. Bitter thought, when he felt young, strong, enthusiastic and capable as any Cossack of holding his own with horse and gun. There were, he was told, plenty of younger, fitter men than he. The Prussians would be utterly destroyed without his help.

His grain, his horses and his peasants were worth more than his blood.

This was the result of two days' begging, waiting in ante-rooms, listening to more or less personal remarks, rubbing shoulders with men who were his enemies of centuries and who were, he thought, childishly optimistic about the war. As he told the Cossack of the Don, he knew Prussia. And he dreaded to think of how many towns would be captured, how many women and children butchered, before Berlin loot found its way to Ruvno....

There was nothing to be done but go home and follow the old colonel's advice. No need to add that everybody in Ruvno, and the women especially, welcomed him with fervor and relief. He made preparations for the war, laying in a large stock of grain, potatoes and other provisions which would keep. He feared a food shortage before long.

Ruvno had good cellars, vaulted and s.p.a.cious. They had been built in a time when people quarreled with their neighbors even more violently than they do nowadays, and laid siege to one another's houses. They were swept and aired under Zosia's and Martin's supervision. Then Ian had most of his stores bricked up in them, as his forbears did with their good wines, entering the list in their cellar-book and only opening the best vintage for weddings, christenings, funerals or the celebration of some great victory, according to the period of history. The Ruvno cellar-book went back to 1539, and he was very proud of it.

He worked hard during these days of preparation, seeking to relieve the smart of refusal. Too old and too fat; what a thing to have on his mind! He confided his feelings to n.o.body, not even to the Countess, who was busy housing refugees and improvising a hospital. Minnie he had forgotten; Vanda he avoided. Between them rose the figure of Joseph, in his Prussian helmet and gray service coat. _He_ was with their enemies.

Both felt the moment must come when they would open their pa.s.sionate thoughts to each other about him; and both tacitly postponed it.

Meanwhile, Vanda helped her aunt and Minnie to prepare wards and nurseries for the wounded and homeless.

He kept several people busy for the next few days, getting in his supplies from his various farms and entering them, not in the old cellar-book, but on a piece of strong paper, showing exactly how the household could reach various stores bricked up in different parts of the cellars, which covered as much ground as the big rambling house itself.

This done, he had to decide where to hide the list, so that, supposing Muscovites or Prussians made search for food, they would not find it.

For he had little confidence in Russian troops either. A hungry warrior has no scruples as to whom he robs. Experience had taught him that, of the two kinds of oppression against his race, the Prussian was worse than the Russian; it had more method, persistency and callousness, beating anything the Russian could do, because the Russian is not orderly, nor has he a long memory. Ian knew, too, what rumors were afloat; that petty Russian bureaucrats were saying that the Poles would side with the invaders and Polish recruits refuse to fight. Such talk, though a tissue of lies, might put Russian troops against Polish houses.

So he made up his mind to hide the food list and ... his family jewels.

He wanted to send the latter to Moscow with the plate and pictures; but his mother refused to let them go.

”We may want them,” she argued. ”I hope we sha'n't; but you never know.

They will enable us to live and to help others live for the rest of our lives if we have to bolt.”

Ian had never thought of the possibility of leaving Ruvno. Privately, he meant to stop there even if the Germans came. Only thus would he be able to save his property. He had already heard enough tales of the neighborhood to know that an empty house is soon a smoking ruin and an abandoned farm appropriated by somebody else. He would send his mother and Vanda away and see things through alone. Minnie he would get rid of beforehand. But there was no reason why he should not humor his mother in this matter of the jewels. Time enough to tell the truth when real danger came. So he said nothing. Father Constantine suggested putting them in the chapel, under a stone which they would take out of the floor and replace so that n.o.body would be any the wiser.

”Prussians don't respect churches,” said the Countess.

”And suppose the chapel should get burnt,” remarked Vanda.

Father Constantine shuddered at the thought. He loved the little chapel better than any part of Poland, and this is saying a great deal.