"It was four o'clock; and I could not understand what had become of my Brother. I had sent out several persons on horseback to get tidings of him, and none of them came back. At length, in spite of all my prayers, the Hereditary Prince [my excellent Husband] himself would go in search. I remained waiting till nine at night, and nobody returned. I was in cruel agitations: these cataracts of rain are very dangerous in the mountain countries; the roads get suddenly overflowed, and there often happen misfortunes. I thought for certain, there had one happened to my Brother or to the Hereditary Prince." Such a 2d of July, to poor Wilhelmina!
"At last, about nine, somebody brought word that my Brother had changed his route, and was gone to Culmbach [a House of ours, lying westward, known to readers]; there to stay overnight. I was for setting out thither,--Culmbach is twenty miles from Berneck; but the roads are frightful," White Mayn, still a young River, dashing through the rock-labyrinths there, "and full of precipices:--everybody rose in opposition, and, whether I would or not, they put me into the carriage for Himmelkron [partly on the road thither], which is only about ten miles off. We had like to have got drowned on the road; the waters were so swoln [White Mayn and its angry brooks], the horses could not cross but by swimming.
"I arrived at last, about one in the morning. I instantly threw myself on a bed. I was like to die with weariness; and in mortal terrors that something had happened to my Brother or the Hereditary Prince. This latter relieved me on his own score; he arrived at last, about four o'clock,--had still no news farther of my Brother. I was beginning to doze a little, when they came to warn me that 'M. von Knobelsdorf wished to speak with me from the Prince-Royal.' I darted out of bed, and ran to him. He," handing me a Letter, "brought word that"--
But let us now give Letter Second, which has turned up lately, and which curiously completes the picture here. Friedrich, on rising refreshed with sleep at Hof, had taken a cheerfuler view; and the Generals still lagging rearward, he thinks it possible to see Wilhelmiua after all. Possible; and yet so very dangerous,-- perhaps not possible? Here is a second Letter written from Munchberg, some fifteen miles farther on, at an after period of the same Friday: purport still of a perplexed nature, "I will, and I dare not;"--practical outcome, of itself uncertain, is scattered now by torrents and thunderstorms. This is the Letter, which Knobelsdorf now hands to Wilhelmina at that untimely hour of Saturday:--
2. TO PRINCESS WILHELMINA (by Knobelsdorf).
"MY DEAREST SISTER,--I am in despair that I cannot satisfy my impatience and my duty,--to throw myself at your feet this day. But alas, dear Sister, it does not depend on me: we poor Princes, "the Margraves and I," are obliged to wait here till our Generals [Bredow, Schulenburg and Company] come up; we dare not go along without them. They broke a wheel in Gera [fifty miles behind us]; hearing nothing of them since, we are absolutely forced to wait here. Judge in what a mood I am, and what sorrow must be mine! Express order not to go by Baireuth or Anspach:--forbear, dear sister, to torment me on things not depending on myself at all.
"I waver between hope and fear of paying my court to you. I hope it might still be at Berneck," this evening,--"if you could contrive a road into the Nurnberg Highway again; avoiding Baireuth: otherwise I dare not go. The Bearer, who is Captain Knobelsdorf [excellent judicious man, old acquaintance from the Custrin time, who attends upon us, actual Captain once, but now titular merely, given to architecture and the fine arts (Seyfarth (Anonymous),
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