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.