ROMINTEN, the Emperor’s favourite shooting domain, lies far away in East Prussia, on the very frontier of the Russian Empire. For the first few years of my life in Germany it existed merely as a name.

Every autumn towards the end of November came to the New Palace great loads of antlers labelled “Rominter Heide,” magnificent outspreading trophies of His Majesty’s gun.

Then one day the Princess announced, to the consternation of her governesses, aghast at the possibility of further interruptions to her education, that “Papa” was building a new wing to the Jagdhaus, so that “Mamma” and she herself might join him there.

“Won’t it be lovely?” she said with sparkling eyes, and danced about the room in a manner expressive of the deepest delight.

“When you are grown up and done with lessons, Princess,” suggested the Ober-Gouvernante.

“Not a bit when I am grown up, but now this very autumn. Papa says so; the house is getting on splendidly. It will all be ready by September.”

If “Papa” said a thing would happen, it naturally did, let who might disapprove; so that a few weeks later the Princess in her brand-new hunting-dress, accompanied by a blackboard, a desk, a large chest of school-books, a tutor and myself, went off in the highest spirits to join Their Majesties’ special train at Berlin.

The Emperor and Empress were already in the train when their daughter arrived, and there was a very large suite with them, including Prince Philip Eulenburg, who a year or two later fell into disgrace, and from being the most trusted, most sought-after of all the Emperor’s friends, was banished entirely from Court and seen no more.

The Empress was attended by one only of her ladies—the youngest of the four resident Hof-Damen, who would be on duty the whole time; but as in Rominten there are no ceremonious occasions and no constant changes of costume—one of the chief burdens of Court life—the duties of the lady-and gentleman-in-waiting are comparatively light.

We had a very merry supper in the train, the Emperor being in an extremely happy, not to say hilarious mood, his face constantly crinkled with laughter. He told one small anecdote after another, some of them almost childish, but irresistibly comic when accompanied by his infectious laugh. One was of a child at a Volks-Schule who wrote an essay on the Lion as follows: “The Lion is a fearful beast with four legs and a tail. He has a still more terrible wife called the Tiger.”

The royal hunt uniform, which is only worn by those in the royal service or by persons to whom the Emperor grants permission, is extremely picturesque, being of a soft olive-green, with high tanned-leather boots and a belt round the waist from which is suspended the HirschfÄnger or short hunting-knife. In the soft green hat, turned up at both sides, is generally fastened either the tail-feathers of the capercailzie, or the beard of a gemsbock, which sticks up like a shaving-brush at the back.

At supper everybody was wearing ordinary costume, but they all assembled at breakfast next morning after their night in the train in complete hunting-dress, even to the footmen who waited at table. Although I possessed no uniform, unwilling to be a jarring note in the hunting-harmony, I had provided myself with a suitable green Sports-KostÜm, while the Princess had a regulation green Letevka (Norfolk jacket) and hunting-knife all complete.

The train passed through the station of Cadinen, but it was a further journey of eight hours to reach Gross-Rominten, distant some seven or eight miles from the hunting-lodge itself.

The usual rows of flower-crowned school-children lined the path and threw flowers into the carriages and automobiles. All the population of the country-side had, of course, turned out to see Their Majesties, and through a flutter of handkerchiefs and waving of hats the procession of carriages passed, presently entering the great 90,000-acre forest.

Formerly the village where the Emperor has built himself a house was called Teer-bude, which might be translated Tarbooth. It was a poor place, inhabited by people who made a spare living by distilling tar from the pine-trees; and although the forest belonged to the Crown it had not been properly developed and was in a somewhat neglected condition.

A little stream called the Rominte ran through the district, so the Emperor changed the name of the place to Rominten, and with characteristic energy and determination set himself to build and improve.

His frequent visits to Norway had given him a love for the houses there, built of pine logs; and having all the necessary material at hand, he determined to build in the Norwegian style of architecture.

The road to this Jagd-Schloss lay through long vistas of pines, which grow here to an enormous height—though a few years ago the devastations of a caterpillar called die Nonne (the Nun) had destroyed a great many of the trees and made fearful havoc. The road wound past places where whole plantations had perished and all the young trees were “in mourning"—that is to say, they each had bands of tar-smeared paper round their trunks to prevent the inroads of the insidious enemy. The Emperor tried to persuade one lady that these black bands had been put on the trees because an Ober-FÖrster was dead; but being of a sceptical turn of mind, and knowing a little about forestry, she accepted the Imperial explanation with some reserve.

At the entrance to the village of Rominten itself, young pine trees cut from the woods had been set at intervals along the road and triumphal garlands of pine-branches stretched across it. Before the entrance to the Schloss were ranged lines of sturdy woodmen and foresters in their smart uniforms of soft olive-green, holding torches in their hands, for the night falls early in this region and the immense trees growing so close to the house intercept a good deal of light. In the inner gravelled space between the two parts into which the Schloss is divided were waiting the head-foresters, gentlemen of education and culture, who are trained for some years in the excellent schools of forestry which are to be found in Germany.

Baron Speck von Sternburg, whose brother was at that time German Ambassador in Washington, was also there to meet Their Majesties. He is the Head Administrator of the whole forest, lives and moves among it from year to year, and knows every stag almost that roams its immense solitudes. He is responsible for the Emperor’s sport, makes all preliminary arrangements, knows by heart the habits, almost the thoughts of the deer, and can tell at what particular moment they will come out to browse on the open meadows that are to be found dotted about like small green islands in the vast ocean of trees.

All the head foresters’ houses are in telephonic communication with the Schloss itself, so that they can send word at once of any animal paying an unexpected visit, as sometimes wolves and elk have been known to wander over the Russian frontier close by.

The Emperor, almost before he has well descended from his carriage, plunges at once into hunting-talk with Herr von Sternburg, while the Empress and the Princess, after greetings and introductions, enter the house to explore their new habitation. The Schloss is really two houses, built entirely of pine logs, connected by an overhead gallery supported on massive pine stems as thick as the masts of a ship. In every room the walls consist of the bare logs, which have been trimmed into a slightly oval form and then laid one on the top of the other, the whole being smoothly varnished. Tables and chairs are made of the same wood, and the green carpets of a moss-like pattern carry on the woodland suggestion.

The roof is deep and low, and the upper story has a gallery running its length, which overshadows the windows of the lower rooms, making them rather dark. The fireplaces and chimneys are made of unglazed red brick, and the fire of logs is built on a wide flat hearth, raised a little above the floor level. They too are, of course, also Norwegian in character, running up in a Gothic pinnacled form. All is very simple and solidly, almost ruggedly, built. The log walls have one drawback. Smells and sounds penetrate their crevices very easily. If the footman in the basement indulges in a cigar, the Empress in her sitting-room upstairs is instantly aware of it.

The dining-room, which is in the part of the house occupied by the Emperor, is a fine building with a high-pitched roof of massive beams, from which hang many splendid trophies of the chase, fallen to His Majesty’s gun. There is a long wide window to the left, two large brick fireplaces at the end, a sideboard with a buttery-hatch into the kitchen, and wooden chairs surrounding the massive table which are quite penitential in their hardness; yet, since Majesty sits on them without any ameliorating interposition of cushions, no one dare complain. In a few days’ time they become more endurable.

The Emperor once overheard some comment of mine relative to their unyieldingness.

“What’s the matter with the chairs?” he says sharply, bulging his eyes at me in the usual Imperial manner. “Don’t you like them?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I reply meekly, “I think they are beautiful chairs, but somewhat—er—harsh—on first acquaintance.”

“Harsh!” he laughs derisively—“I hope they are. Time you came here and learned to do without cushions. Here we live hardily.” He laughs like a delighted schoolboy, and asks every day afterwards if the chairs are getting a little softer.

Certain friends of His Majesty came every year with him to Rominten. First and foremost among them all was that Prince Philip Eulenburg before mentioned, a pale, grey-haired, somewhat weary-looking man with a pallid, fleeting smile, something of a visionary, with a nature attracted to music and art, as well as towards all that is strange or abnormal in life. He was a born raconteur, like the Emperor, but told his tales in a quiet, soft, subtle voice, with a grave face and a certain fascinating charm of manner. One could easily understand how the robust personality of the Emperor, so frank, so generous, so open-hearted, was attracted to the somewhat reserved, mysterious, gentle nature of this brilliant man, who yearly entertained His Majesty at his own home, Schloss Liebenberg, and was the repository of his thoughts and aspirations.

He, however, disappeared. Rominten knew him no more. Yet probably no one was more missed than he whose name was never afterwards mentioned there. I can still see his pale face emerge from behind the red curtains of the gallery when he came to the tea-table of the Empress and sat down to entertain us with his store of literary and artistic reminiscences. He had the look even then of an ill man, whose nerves are not in the best condition, who is pursued by some haunting spectre, some fear from which he cannot escape.

Another man of a different type who came yearly was Prince Dohna of Schlobitten, a tall elderly gentleman who was a mighty hunter, and knew all about deer and their habits. We ladies were much indebted to him for instruction in the proper terms of venery—for, as the Princess forcibly impressed on us, it was quite impossible when at Rominten to speak of any part of an animal by its usual name, everything having a special and peculiar designation. “Nose, eyes, ears and tail” were shocking to the ear, and no longer to be tolerated, suffering a change into something technical and sporting. The “ears” of the hare, for example, had to be called its “spoons,” and the feet of the deer became “runners"—I think—but it may have been something else.

One notable visitor came once to Rominten for a short stay of an hour or two on his way back to Russia from America—a rather stern, silent, harassed-looking man with peasant-features, who moved wearily and with an air of abstraction beside the Emperor as they walked up and down on the gravelled space before the Jagd-Haus. It was Herr Witte, the Russian statesman, soon to become Count Witte, on his way home after negotiating terms of peace between his country and Japan. At table he sat eating soup somewhat nervously, with the air of a man in a dream, listening politely to the Emperor’s talk, replying in monosyllables, but conversing with no one else. He was obviously tired and apprehensive.

Soon after dinner we saw his carriage departing for the station. He would be in Russia before nightfall.

Every morning in the early darkness somewhere between five and six, or it may have been even earlier, the panting of a motor-car could be heard outside, and presently it departed, bearing away the Emperor and his loader to some remote corner of the forest where a lordly stag had been marked as coming in the early mornings to browse.

At eight the Princess and I breakfasted alone in the little corridor outside Her Majesty’s sitting-room upstairs. Often we made for ourselves beautiful buttered toast at the big fire which blazed on the hearth; and once the Princess, who always had a fine feminine instinct for that sort of thing, took a large succulent plateful of this delicacy downstairs to His Majesty, who happened for a wonder to be at home for breakfast at the appointed hour. This was a thing which very seldom happened—for, as a rule, we from our window could see the hungry courtiers waiting about the courtyard for the Emperor’s return, which was naturally apt to be rather uncertain as to time, sometimes being postponed till eleven.

Rominten was the only place where Their Majesties breakfasted with the suite. Usually it was a meal taken strictly en famille and at a very rapid pace.

The Emperor appreciated the Princess’s buttered toast so much that the Empress directed that some should be sent up every morning. Now buttered toast is quite unknown in the Fatherland excepting perhaps in large and fashionable hotels where international customs prevail. Rather leathery dry toast is served at tea; but when the royal command for buttered toast reached the kitchen through the medium of the footman it created nothing short of consternation. A flurried lackey came hastening up to me begging for some slight hints as to how it should be made. I foresaw that any instructions I might give when they reached the cook distilled through the footman’s mind would be vague and unsatisfactory. Nevertheless I did my best; but the Empress told me afterwards that the toast was quite uneatable—a result which rather gratified the Princess, who liked to believe that she was the only person capable of making toast for “Papa.”

The lessons with the tutor lasted from half-past eight until twelve o’clock, when a short walk with the Empress was taken, weather permitting. After luncheon, if the stag or stags slain by the Emperor had arrived, we all assembled under the dining-room window for the ceremony of “the Strecke.” The stags were laid on the small lawn beneath the windows, and three of the JÄgers of His Majesty blew on hunting-horns the old hunting-call of the “Ha-la-li,” denoting to all who hear the success of the sportsman.

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 manoeuvre 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.

We moved across the space in front of the station, which had been kept clear by the police, in full view of the enormous mass of people gathered there, the young Princess in her green uniform being a very conspicuous object. A pleasant elderly officer was to escort us on what the Empress called our “little stroll through the town,” though that was hardly perhaps the appropriate expression.

Full of apprehension, which was amply justified by our subsequent adventures, we walked over the empty space, the Empress chatting to the officer, while the rest of us looked at each other, trying to think that what we foresaw must happen would perhaps not be so inevitable after all. The people began to cheer wildly as soon as they realized that the Empress was before them, for her name naturally had not been included in the programme of the day’s ceremonies; and as soon as we emerged from the emptiness into the crowd itself, we all realized at once the imprudence of the step taken, and the danger involved, not only to ourselves, but also to the unwieldy mass of humanity.

Most of the extra policemen drafted into the town had naturally been placed on the streets along the route where the Emperor would pass, and as we had directed our steps to a more secluded thoroughfare, there were none to be seen anywhere, with the exception of those near the station.

The enormous crowd seemed to break up at once with a yelp of astonished joy, and to fling itself with that blindly loyal ardour so characteristic of the nation upon our small group.

“Let us get back to the station,” implored the Empress, who saw at once the danger of advancing into that yelling, shouting, scampering, excited mass.

It was wonderful to see the orderly, apparently disciplined crowd of a moment before, which had settled down peaceably to wait for the Emperor’s return, suddenly disintegrate into a wildly-running horde, to watch the policemen, voluble and excited, and absolutely nonplussed at the unexpected turn of events, swept like leaves before the wind. Their shouts, blows and expostulations were powerless to stem that torrent of irresistible humanity. The shriek of their voices betrayed a fearful anxiety and powerlessness, which sounded ominously in our ears.

We all wanted to return to the station—even the Princess was obviously ready to renounce her “little walk” through the town—but a glance behind showed its impossibility. All we could do was to keep on, the officer pointing out a side-street which he thought led back to the station in another direction.

He kept on continually shouting vain appeals to the crowd, which became every moment denser, ruder and dirtier. It was the hour when the workshops and factories vomited forth their occupants for Mittagessen, so that it soon became a crowd composed largely of Socialists and Jewish Poles, who congregate in KÖnigsberg. Unfortunately we took a wrong turning, and our road led through some of the worst quarters of the town.

The cheering and hurrahing soon ceased, but the shouting and yelling went on; we were the centre of a dirty, frowsy mob, who smelt abominably, and treated our small group as though we were a show of some kind out for their amusement. The officer again appealed to the better feelings of the people, and begged the dirty children to remember what they had been taught in school, but they only laughed and darted in and out and laid their filthy hands on the dress of the Empress.

In my younger more unregenerate days I had learned from a schoolboy brother a certain sudden grip at the back of the neck or collar which we often employed in any slight dispute. Our nurses and governesses always characterized it as “most unladylike,” which no doubt it was, but none the less effective; and as these horrible children grew bolder and more repulsive, and tried to dart between the Empress and the Princess, I found this old “choker,” as we had called it, very useful in intercepting them. As a yelling boy bumped along, he was suddenly “brought up short” in mid career and by a grip at the nape of his neck flung back among his comrades, helping to put them also into momentary confusion. Even this slight check was a great help, and although it was warm work for such a hot day, I continued unweariedly, with a certain sporting pleasure which struck me at the time as amusing, to capture one filthy youngster after another and fling him violently back into the roadway. The officer still shouted after policemen, and presently I became aware of one walking beside me, who was also aiding in the good work of “chucking out.” I think he had caught the idea from me. At any rate we toiled in tacit good-fellowship side by side for some time. Then at last a few more policemen were picked up and we got into a rather more respectable neighbourhood; but the crowd was still frightfully dense, and the policemen banged and thrust unmercifully. Sometimes quite innocent, unsuspecting people just coming out of their own doorways were taken by the shoulders and whirled back into their homes again, wondering, I am sure, if dynamite or an earthquake had struck them.

At last we came again in view of the station, and a mass of policemen took us in charge, still rather nervous—the policemen I mean—and very irritated with the crowd and perhaps a little with us.

The time for the train to start was overdue. We scrambled in hurriedly, but the Empress wished to show the accompanying officer some recognition of the strenuous activity he had displayed on her behalf. The gentleman-in-waiting hastily produced a case full of those royal-monogrammed-scarfpins, studs, and brooches, which are part of the travelling equipment of every court. The officer received a tie-pin, and one of the police-officers some studs, thrust into his hands almost as the train moved off, and we were left to review and discuss the experiences of the last half-hour.

“Never, no, never in the whole course of my experience,” declared the Empress, “was I in such a fearful crowd. I really began to think that we never should emerge alive. It was too horrible.”

She shuddered and was obviously unstrung. As for the Princess, she was unusually pale and subdued, and it was a long time before she again proposed “a tiny walk” in a strange town.

In the next morning’s KÖnigsberg Times was a paragraph in the news column to the effect that the Empress and Princess, with a small following, had walked “ungezwungen” (freely) through the town for a short time. Obviously the reporter had not been in the thick of the crowd.