Not all: Prince Friedrich, for example, is awake;--the Trio is indeed audibly asleep; unless others watch for them, their six eyes are closed. Friedrich cautiously rises; dresses; takes his money, his new red roquelaure, unbolts the Barn-door, and walks out. Trio of Vigilance is sound asleep, and knows nothing:
alas, Trio of Vigilance, while its own six eyes are closed, has appointed another pair to watch.
Gummersbach the Valet comes to Rochow's bolster: "Hst, Herr Oberst-Lieutenant, please awaken! Prince Royal is up, has on his top-coat, and is gone out of doors!" Rochow starts to his habiliments, or perhaps has them ready on; in a minute or two, Rochow also is forth into the gray of the morning;--finds the young Prince actually on the Green there; in his red roquelaure, leaning pensively on one of the travelling carriages.
"Guten Morgen, Ihro Konigliche Hoheit!" [Ranke, 1. 305.]
--Fancy such a salutation to the young man! Page Keith, at this moment, comes with a pair of horses, too: "Whither with the nags, Sirrah?" Rochow asked with some sharpness. Keith, seeing how it was, answered without visible embarrassment, "Herr, they are mine and Kunz the Page's horses" (which, I suppose, is true); "ready at the usual hour!" Keith might add.--"His Majesty does not go till five this morning;--back to the stables!" beckoned Rochow;and, according to the best accounts, did not suspect anything, or affected not to do so.
Page Keith returned, trembling in his saddle. Friedrich strolled towards the other Barn,--at least to be out of Rochow's company.
Seckendorf emerges from the other Barn; awake at the common hour:
"How do you like his Royal Highness in the red roquelaure?" asks Rochow, as if nothing had happened. Was there ever such a baffled Royal Highness; or young bright spirit chained in the Bear's Den in this manner? Our Steinfurth project has gone to water; and it is not to-day we shall get across the Rhine!--Not to-day; nor any other day, on that errand, strong as our resolutions are! For new light, in a few hours afterwards, pours in upon the project;and human finesse, or ulterior schemes, avail nothing henceforth.
"The Crown-Prince's meditated Flight" has tried itself, and failed. Here and so that long meditation ENDS; this at Steinfurth was all the over-act it could ever come to. In few hours more it will melt into air; and only the terrible consequences will remain!--By last night's arrangement, the Prince with his Trio was to set out an hour before his Father, which circumstance had helped Page Keith in his excuses. Naturally the Prince had now no wish to linger on the Green of Steinfurth, in such a posture of affairs:
"Towards Heidelberg, then; let us see the big Tun there: ALLONS!"How the young Prince and his Trio did this day's journey; where he loitered, what he saw, said or thought, we have no account: it is certain only that his Father, who set out from Steinfurth an hour after him, arrived in Mannheim several hours before him; and, in spite of Kurfurst Karl Philip's welcome, testified the liveliest inquietude on that unaccountable circumstance.
Beautiful Rhine-stream, thrice-beautiful trim Mannheim;--yes, all is beautiful indeed, your Serenity! But where can the Prince be?
he kept ejaculating. And Karl Philip had to answer what he could.
Of course the Prince may be lingering about Heidelberg, looking at the big Tun and other miracles:--"I had the pleasure to repair that world-famous Tub or Tun, as your Majesty knows; which had lain half burnt, ever since Louis XIV. with his firebrand robberies lay upon us, and burnt the Pfalz in whole, small honor to him! I repaired the Tun: [Kohler, Munzbelustigungen (viii. 418-424; 145-152), who gives a view of the world's wonder, lying horizontal with stairs running up to it.
Big Tuns of that kind were not uncommon in Germany; and had uses, if multiplex dues of wine were to be paid IN NATURA:
the Heidelberg, the biggest of them, is small to the Whitbread-and-Company, for porter's-ale, in our time.] it is probably the successfulest feat I did hitherto; and well worth looking at, had your Majesty had time!"--"JA WOHL;--but he came away an hour before me!"--The polite Karl Philip, at length, sent off one of his own Equerries to ride towards Heidelberg, or even to Steinfurth if needful, and see what was become of the Prince.
This Official person met the Prince, all in order, at no great distance; and brought him safe to Papa's presence again.
Why Papa was in such a fuss about this little circumstance?
Truly there has something come to Papa's knowledge since he started, perhaps since he arrived at Mannheim. Page Keith, who rides always behind the King's coach, has ridden this day in an agony of remorse and terror; and at length (probably in Mannheim, once his Majesty is got to his Apartments, or now that he finds his Majesty so anxious there) has fallen on his knees, and, with tears and obtestations, made a clean breast. Page Keith has confessed that the Crown-Prince and he were to have been in Speyer, or farther, at this time of the day; flying rapidly into France. "God's Providence alone prevented it! Pardon, pardon:
slay me, your Majesty; but there is the naked truth, and the whole of it, and I have nothing more to say!" Hereupon ensues despatch of the Equerry; and hereupon, as we may conjecture, the Equerry's return with Fritz and the Trio is an unspeakable relief to Friedrich Wilhelm.
