Somewhere between three and four the Emperor in his hunting cart would start off again to shoot, the Empress and suite waiting for his departure and shouting “Waidmann’s Heil” as he drove away. Then Her Majesty, with the Princess and the rest of us, would also climb into other yellow-varnished hunting-carts and drive in another direction, to try and get a glimpse of the stags browsing. Our conversation had to be rather suppressed, for fear of alarming the deer in their “sylvan solitudes,” and we usually descended from the carts to walk to one of the numerous “pulpits” as they were called—small raised platforms screened by a frame of pine twigs, from which the Emperor sometimes shot—although, as a rule, they were used for purposes of observation only, and the shooting was done from behind another screen down below.
It was always a little tantalizing going to see the deer feed, because very often they didn’t appear. The stairs up to the pulpits creaked and groaned as any one rather weighty went up them, and the rest regarded the guilty one with annoyed looks and said “S’sh”; but the more silent and stealthy we were the less the stags showed themselves. When they did, stepping out proudly from the dark shadows of the trees, it was a very fine sight. The deer on the Rominter Heide are remarkable for their splendid antlers, and there are few things more gracefully beautiful than the manner in which a stag carries his splendid wide-spreading ornaments, especially when running with the speed of the wind among the forest trees.
Baron Speck von Sternburg lived in a large house in a corner of the forest where it opened out into a meadow near a village called Sittkehmen. He had three or four children, and his charming wife, herself the daughter of an officer of the Forest Department, was quite as keen, and possessed nearly as much knowledge of woodcraft as her husband.
Once when the Empress had been with the Princess into the village visiting some of the cottages, as we came back to the Schloss, hurrying a little for fear of being late for our one-o’clock dinner, we were met in the drive by an excited footman, who said that an Elch—which I took to mean a moose or elk—had been seen by the Baroness in the forest, that the Kaiser had ordered out all the automobiles and carriages, and that every available person was to serve as beater, Her Majesty and the Princess and the ladies being specially invited in that capacity.
Everybody flew in and out of the Schloss fetching walking-sticks and cloaks, and in a few seconds the first automobile, containing the Emperor and Empress, the Princess and the two ladies, the Emperor’s loader with the heavy sporting rifles being outside with the chauffeur, started off in pursuit of this animal, which, not having a proper sense of political boundaries, had wandered over from Russia in the night. We only hoped it had not wandered back again, but I had a sneaking sort of feeling down in my heart that I should be almost glad if it had done so.
The car flew along, the Emperor talking volubly about the Elch and its habits and his hopes of slaying the confiding creature; and at last we were deposited about eight miles from home on a rather squelchy, marshy piece of ground, where we were met by Baron von Sternburg and commanded to follow him in perfect silence, the Emperor meantime going on in the car in a different direction. After a long damp walk we were all posted at intervals of about a hundred yards along a thick alley of pines, with whispered instructions to stay where we were and prevent the quarry from breaking through, although we all had grave doubts as to our ability to prevent any animal as large as a moose from doing anything it felt inclined. I went up to the gentleman on my left and whisperingly asked what methods I must employ supposing the mighty beast suddenly appeared in front of me, and he indicated a feeble waggling of the hands as being likely to turn it back in the direction of the Emperor’s rifle.
I cannot say if we should have been able to intimidate the moose by means of this manœuvre if it had really appeared; at any rate we were not put to the test, for after having waited for an hour or two, growing minute by minute more ravenously hungry, while the water penetrated into our boot-soles, it became evident that the sagacious animal must have returned to his native wilds, and we returned sadly to our long-delayed, somewhat over-cooked dinner, where we found the unfortunate tutor of the Princess, who had been waiting for his food without any of the alleviating excitement of the chase from one o’clock until three, which was the hour when we at last sat down to our long-delayed meal.
Once on our way from Rominten back to Berlin we had a rather disagreeable adventure in Königsberg, where the Emperor stayed for a few hours for the purpose of dining at the officers’ mess of one of the Grenadier regiments stationed there.
We had started from Rominten very early in the morning, and the Princess, rather unluckily as it turned out, was still wearing her green hunting uniform, although the rest of the party had reverted to the usual less conspicuous costume of ordinary wear. The Emperor and his suite were to stop at Königsberg, while the Empress and her daughter, with the ladies, Prince Eulenburg and the gentleman-in-waiting, Count Carmer, after a short wait of half an hour to let the express pass before us to Berlin, would proceed onwards to Cadinen, there to await the arrival of His Majesty towards evening.
We had all descended on to the red-carpeted platform to witness the reception of the Emperor, and had seen him drive away amidst the cheers of an immense crowd waiting outside the station, when, to our surprise, the Princess begged her mother to fill up the intervening twenty minutes left to us by “a short walk,” as she was very tired of being in the train. Her Majesty too appeared to think that it would make an agreeable diversion, and though somebody suggested the difficulty of moving about in such a crowd as would probably be gathered together, yet, the Princess being very urgent, the expedition was undertaken.