As the Hebe was to sail at once for India, the governor took the opportunity to send two or three supernumeraries out in the vessel along with us to the Cape of Good Hope, amongst whom was the Yankee botanist; and though, being in the frigate, I didn't see him, I made as sure as if I had it was my old shipmate Daniel.
Well, the morning came, when we weighed anchor from St James's Bay for sea, in company with the prize: it wasn't more than ten or eleven days since we had arrived in the Podargus, but I was as weary with the sight of St Helena as if I'd lived there a year. The frigate's lovely hull, and her taunt spars, spreading the square stretch of her white canvass sideways to the Trade, put new life into me: slowly as we dropped the peaks of the island on our lee-quarter, 'twas something to feel yourself travelling the same road as the Indiaman once more, with the odds of a mail coach, too, to a French diligence. What chance might turn up to bring us together, I certainly didn't see; but that night, when we and the schooner were the only things in the horizon, both fast plunging, close-hauled, on a fresh breeze, at the distance of a mile, I set my mind, for the first time, more at ease. "Luck and the anchors stowed!" thought I, "and hang all forethoughts!" I walked the weather quarterdeck in my watch as pleasantly as might be, with now and then a glance forward at Snelling, as he yarned at the fife-rail beside a groggy old mate, and at times a glimmer of the schooner's hull on our lee-beam, rising wet out of the dusk, under charge of our third lieutenant.
It was about a week afterwards, and we began to have rough touches of Cape weather, pitching away on cross seas, and handing our 'gallant-sails oftener of a night, that Lord Frederick said to me one evening, before going down to his cabin, "Mr Collins, I really hope we shall not find your Indiaman at Cape Town, after all!" "Indeed, Lord Frederick!" said I, respectfully enough; but it was the very thing I hoped myself. "Yes, sir," continued he; "as I received strict injunctions by Admiral Plampin to arrest Lieutenant Westwood if we fell in with her there, and otherwise, to send the schooner in her track, even if it were to Bombay." "The deuce!" I thought, "are we never to be done with this infernal affair?" "'Tis excessively disagreeable," continued the Captain, swinging his gold eye-glass round his finger by the chain, as was his custom when bothered, and looking with one eye all the while at the schooner. "A beautiful craft, by the way, Mr Collins!" said he, "even within sight of the Hebe." "She is so, my lord," said I; "if she had only had a sensible boatswain, even, to put the sticks aloft in her." "I say, Mr Collins," went on his lordship, musingly, "I think I have it, though—the way to get rid of this scrape!"
I waited and waited, however, for Lord Frederick to mention this; and to no purpose, apparently, as he went below without saying a word more about it.
[PALACE THEATRICALS.]
A DAY-DREAM.
I never heard, nor is it important, why my father, Major Von Degen, an old officer of the King's German Legion, resolved to have me educated in his native country, unvisited by him since boyhood, and supplanted in his affections, to all outward appearance, by the land he long had served and dwelt in, of whose daughters he had taken a wife, and in which he proposed to end his days. Be that as it may, at an early age I was sent from England to a town in the north of Germany, where I passed four years in the house of a worthy and kind-hearted professor, and which I quitted at the age of eighteen to proceed to the university of Heidelberg. For me, as for most young men, the gay, careless, light-hearted student-life, with its imaginary independence and fantastical privileges, its carouses of Rhenish wine and Bavarian beer, its harmless duels and mock-heroic festivals, at first had strong attractions. And when, after a certain number of joyously-kept terms and pleasant vacation rambles, university diversions began to pall, and I became a less constant attendant in the fencing hall and at the evening potations, I still was detained at Heidelberg—not by love of study, for to study, being destined to no profession, I little applied, but by the force of habit, by the charm of a delightful country, and, more particularly, by the agreeable society I found in a number of families resident in and around the town. Although but moderately attentive to the branches of learning usually pursued at a university, I was not altogether unmindful of my improvement. I busied myself with modern languages, exercised my pencil by sketching the surrounding scenery, and, above all, assiduously cultivated a tolerable talent for music. In this I was particularly successful. Enthusiastically fond of the art, gifted by nature with a good tenor voice, and having chanced upon an excellent instructor, I made rapid progress; and during the latter part of my residence at Heidelberg, no musical party or amateur concert for miles around was deemed complete without me.
I left the university in my five-and-twentieth year, and, after passing another twelvemonth in a tour through southern Europe, I was upon my way to England, when I paused for a day in the village of Mauseloch, capital of the Duchy of Klein-Fleckenberg—an independent and sovereign state of which geographers make little mention, and historians still less, but which is known, at least by name, to most persons who have travelled through those pleasant districts of central Germany watered by the Rhine and its tributaries. Those ignorant of its existence, and curious of its whereabout, will do well to consult the larger and more accurate maps of that country; upon which, greatly to the credit of the topographers, they will find it noted down, although its entire superficies is scarcely more extensive than that of the private park of more than one European monarch. Its population is perhaps equal to that of the Jews' quarter in Frankfort on the Maine, and its revenue would enable a private gentleman to live in tolerably good style in London or Paris. Its standing army, which, when seen upon parade, bears a strong resemblance to a sergeant's guard, greatly distinguished itself in the wars against Napoleon, sustained dreadful losses, and by its valour, as several patriotic Klein-Fleckenbergers have informed me, decided the fate of more than one hard-fought field. In most respects Klein-Fleckenberg differs so little from many other German principalities, duchies, landgraviates, &c. &c., that description is almost superfluous. In spring it is white with the blossoms of plum and pear, fruits which constitute no unimportant article of its consumption and commerce; it is celebrated for sour kraut; its pigs yield the best of sausages; it has half a dozen corn-fields and a hop-ground, and also a mineral-spring, whose waters, although not sufficiently renowned to attract strangers, annually work miraculous cures upon sickly natives. At the time I speak of, the reigning duke was Augustus IX., an amiable and easy-going prince, whose illustrious brows were more frequently bound with a velvet smoking-cap than with a golden diadem, and whose hand, in lieu of sceptre, usually carried a riding-whip, sometimes a fowling-piece. His mild sway was lightly borne by his loyal subjects, who failed not, each successive Sabbath, to pray for his welfare and preservation, and who, if they sometimes grumbled when called upon for the contributions destined to support his princely state, imputed blame only to the tax-gatherer, and never dreamed of attaching it to their benevolent and well-beloved sovereign.