The festivities began by coffee and cake at three o’clock, for tea is unknown in that district. The cake was a kind of bread with currants stuck in it at long intervals, and the coffee, which we will hope was not as strong as it looked, was imbibed by infants of the tenderest age, babes in arms sipping it eagerly from their mothers’ cups apparently without any evil effects.
The Empress and the Princes and Princess waited on the small sunburnt guests, and saw that they were well supplied, and after tea was finished games were played.
“The very stupidest games I ever saw,” said the Princess, who preferred something more exciting than “Here we go round the Mulberry-Bush,” or its German equivalent. So she immediately organized sack-races among the boys, helping to tuck the small urchins into their sacks, and instructing them how to hop along, cheering on the blacksmith’s son, whom she obviously desired to see the winner.
All the mothers, most of whom appeared to be employed at the Schloss as housemaids, clustered round in their clean print dresses, watching the sports with the deepest interest; while the green-clad foresters, the Inspektor and his family, the fishermen from the Haff, also stood in a respectful semicircle, gravely and seriously absorbed in the sack-races.
At half-past six the Fest was finished, and everybody dispersed homewards; but at the Schloss the children often continued the Fest on their own account. On one occasion, after supper, Prince Joachim, having by some mysterious means discovered that one of the footmen as well as a cook were performers on the harmonica, a sort of improved accordion, proposed that they should be sent for and an impromptu dance held on the lawn.
The cook arrived first in his white cap and apron, looking rather embarrassed at being called upon to perform before royalty. He made a deep bow to Her Majesty, and was then conducted by the young Princes to the garden seat and requested to begin at once, so he flung himself with the ardour of a true musician into a waltz, and they all skipped merrily round upon the grass. Presently a rather fat red-faced footman arrived with a second harmonica, bowed, and took his place beside the cook, and the two went hard at it, the cook playing the air while the footman made the accompanying harmonies. Occasional discords arose, whereupon they regarded each other sternly, each tacitly accusing the other; but it never disturbed the rhythm, and the dancers hopped energetically round in spite of the heat and their hard day’s work.
The cook, possessing an artistic soul, always waved his head in time to the music, gazing upwards to the stars; but the fat footman, being a man of another temperament, sat stolidly, moving nothing but his fingers.
Bed-time for the children was long passed when the musicians were reluctantly dismissed with the warm thanks of the Empress, and cook and footman retired in a series of graceful bows to their respective spheres.
The last day of Cadinen comes. The luggage has been packed and carried downstairs and loaded into carts by a quarter-section of soldiers sent over from Elbing for the purpose. The brown-faced youths penetrate every room, grinning amiably, and shoulder everything they can find, while harassed footmen rush about with lists in their hands, which they consult hurriedly.
The train is waiting, the Land-Rat is waiting, the Inspektor, the Zigelei-Direktor, In the dusk, as we drive down to the station, beyond which glimmers the long line of the Haff, we pass rows of workpeople, who timidly wave hats and aprons as Her Majesty goes by.