But the Prince's favourite recreation of all was going a-shooting. In the near neighbourhood of Bonn there is no very ambitious sport. The more venturesome spirits go as far as the Eifel Mountains, there to kill wild-boar and red-deer. For this the Prince grudged the time. So he had to be content with hares and birds, an occasional roebuck—and, I dare say, in those, early days he now and then brought down a fox, which in Germany is reckoned rather good sport. When, in 1858, the Crown Prince, Emperor Frederick, came back from his wedding, and found the officers of the Deutz Cuirassiers drawn up in line at the Cologne station to salute him, he singled out Count F——, of M—dorf, to present more especially to his bride. "I must present Count F—— to you," he said; "it was on his estate that I shot my first fox." Either Count F——'s conscience stung him, or else he realised better than the Crown Prince in what light vulpicide is regarded in the Princess's country: "It was not really a fox, Sir," he explained with some embarrassment; "it was a wild cat."
There were water-fowl near Brühl; there used to be a heronry there. But I do not think the Prince went in that direction. His ordinary shooting-ground was near Bergheim, on the other side of the Rhine and, beyond the Venusberg, in the Kottenforst, a long stretch of forest, not everywhere well-timbered, in which Peter Stamm had a "Jagd," to which of course the Prince was welcome. Wherever the forest was a little ragged there were, of course, black game. And then, in spring, to the Prince's great delight, there was woodcock shooting. The "Schnepfenstrich" was his pet sport, and never was he to be seen more regularly driving his plain little trap out to Röttgen—where Stamm had his shooting—the faithful Peter always by his side—than in the four weeks which precede Palm Sunday, the season of all others sacred in Germany to woodcock shooting, for
Oculi, da kommen sie;
Laetare, das ist das wahre;
Judica, sind sie auch noch da;
Palmarum, Trallarum.
The Latin words are the Lutheran calendar names for the four Sundays next before Easter.
Often Stamm-hannes would be of the party—often also Everard Sator, another local Nimrod and horse-fancier, of Stamm's peculiar set, and acceptable to the Prince. And some of the Prince's more aristocratic companions would likewise occasionally join. But the Prince and Peter were in this matter inseparables, roughing it out on the wooded heights from sheer love of sport; and after that they would meet in the "Weinwirthschaft" and talk over their common experiences, being attentively overheard by a small company who reckoned it a privilege, however little they might know about shooting, to listen to these sportmen's tales, and bottle them up to retail to others after the Prince was gone.
There was another very faithful friend, of humbler station still, whose heart the Prince managed to capture by his genial affability and the kind interest which it was his wont to manifest in others. Nobody could have stayed any time in Bonn at that particular period without becoming acquainted with "Appeltring"—or, as she was more ceremoniously called to her face, "Frau Gevatterin." She was, without question, the most popular "character" in Bonn, and there was no man who had not a kind word for her, and was not ready to test her well-known power of repartee by a little joke. "Appeltring," of course, means "Apple-kate"—"Tring" standing for Katherine by one of those extraordinary transformations of names which, probably, not even Grimm could explain, and which in the Rhenish dialect convert "Heinrich" into "Drickes," and "Reinhard" into "Nieres." She was an apple-woman, as her name implies, or, rather, a seller of fruit generally, and had her stall or tent just outside the Neuthor, close to the Prince's quarters, and on a spot which he must pass several times almost every day—a coign of vantage, moreover, from which all the fashionable and unfashionable world taking the air in the Poppelsdorfer Allee, might be surveyed, as can all the fine folk passing in and out of Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner. She was on that spot still when I was at Bonn twenty-three years later, and she was there for some time after—a weather-bronzed, wrinkled old woman then, but still full of chat and lively talk, humour and repartee, and endowed with a truly encyclopædic knowledge of everyone who had been anyone at Bonn, and of his life, and failings, and little adventures. Even in the Prince's day she was decidedly past her first youth, and devoid of personal attractions; but she had still something of the halo about her then of a not very distant serio-comic little love affair, about which she was made to hear no end of chaff—with a trumpeter (named Bengler, if I recollect right) who lost his life in that Russian war in which the great Moltke won his first spurs. During all the time that she offered her wares outside the Neuthor her stall was a favourite resort with folk who had a spare quarter of an hour on their hands, some of them of the best blood. The Emperor Frederick has sat on that spot many a time, watching the passers-by, and exchanging chat with "Tring," while eating cherries from one of the shallow flat-bottomed baskets in which "Frau Gevatterin," or her younger assistant, served them from the tent; and so have the Coburg Princes, more particularly Prince Albert, who had a peculiar liking for "Appeltring" and her quaint ways, her good temper, and her ready answers. Barring the Princes, "Tring's" customers were not always prompt paymasters. This necessitated the keeping of accounts, which, as "Tring" was nothing of a penwoman, resulted in a description of bookkeeping so curious as to induce a learned archæological society of Bonn afterwards to publish her records in facsimile. There were no names, but rude imitations of a beard, or a tassel, or big top-boots, or else a peculiar nose, or a pair of spectacles, or some other distinguishing feature about the particular debtor.
The habit of almost daily chat begot a peculiar familiarity and interest in one another's affairs between these two people at opposite poles of society, and inspired "Tring" with a devotion to the Prince which has just a touch of romance about it. To her simple but honest mind the Prince was the noblest creature that walked the earth. Whenever he failed to pass to bid her good-day, she seemed to feel as if deprived of a substantial pleasure. For years and decades after he had gone she would relate with striking animation little stories of his life in Bonn, and tell of his kindness to her. She was indefatigable in inquiries about him, and would draw in every word of information received with eager curiosity. Nor did she ever hear of anyone going to England without commissioning him—"Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt." It sounded very ridiculous to some, no doubt. But I venture to surmise, that to the Prince himself that broadly Rhenish "Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt" would have been a not unwelcome greeting.
Most of the good people here spoken of, with whom the Prince exchanged jokes and more serious intercourse, whom he charmed with his happy temper or edified with graver talk, are now dead and gone. Bonn has grown a town of 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants, well-to-do, bright and attractive, adding to its population year by year. The University has throughout its history maintained its old high rank. As a new generation rises up old reminiscences are dying out. Stories which thirty years ago passed current from mouth to mouth are gradually being forgotten. There is so much more that used to be told of the Prince, when memories were fresh; indeed, there is much that might be told still, only the incidents seem trivial in themselves, and memorable only as demonstrating what singular power their hero possessed of riveting men's affections, and as concurring in impressing a stamp of noble principle, unselfish consideration for others, of a genial and happy disposition, and laborious devotion to study upon his student life of sixteen months. There was, there is reason to believe, very much good done in private, of which the outside world never heard. To Bonn the Prince's stay was a turning-point in its history; and, since elsewhere scarcely anything has been said about that particular epoch in the Prince's life, it may not be unmeet to gather together the fragments of traditions and reminiscences surviving, before they pass finally out of men's minds, and thus to fill a gap hitherto left in the memorials of a life which has in its later periods amply realized the promise given in the early days of youth here spoken of.