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“I never throw,” replied Cuno, sad at this display of obduracy on the part of his brothers.

“Of course not,” sneered Schalk. “Our brother is so pious that he thinks it is a deadly sin to throw dice. But I will make another proposal, to which the most religious recluse could offer no objection: Let us get some bait and hooks, and he who shall have caught the most fish this morning when the bell of Zollern strikes twelve, will be the owner of the pond.”

“I am truly a fool,” responded Cuno, “to strive for that which is mine by right of inheritance; but that you may see that my offer of a division was made in earnest, I will fetch my fishing tackle.”

They rode home, each one to his own castle. The twins sent their servants out in all haste, with orders to turn over all the old stones near by, and to collect what worms they found underneath them for bait. But Cuno took his usual fishing tackle, together with the bait which Frau Feldheimerin had once learned him to prepare, and was the first to reach the pond again. On the arrival of the twins he allowed them the first choice of position, and then threw in his own line. Then it was as if the fish seemed to recognize in him the owner of the pond. Whole schools of carp and pike drew near and swarmed about his line. The oldest and largest crowded the small fry aside; every moment he landed a fish, and each time he cast his line twenty or thirty darted at the hook with open mouths. Before two hours had passed, the ground around him was covered with fish; then he laid down his line and went over to where his brothers sat, to see how they were getting along. Schalk had one poor little carp and two paltry shiners; while Wolf had caught three barbels and two little gudgeons, and both looked sadly down into the water, for they had seen from their place the vast number that Cuno had caught.

When Cuno approached his brother Wolf, the latter sprang up in a rage, tore off his line, broke his rod into small pieces and flung them into the pond. “I wish I had a thousand hooks to throw in there, instead of one, and that a fish, was wriggling on every one of them,” cried he; “but this could never have occurred in a natural way, it is sorcery and witchcraft, or how should you, stupid Cuno, catch more fish in one hour than I could take in a year?”

“Yes, that’s so,” echoed Schalk. “I remember now that he learned how to fish from that vile witch, Frau Feldheimerin; and we were fools to fish with him; he will be a wizard himself one of these days.”

“You wicked fellows!” returned Cuno, sadly. “I have had time enough this morning to get an insight into your avarice, your shamelessness, and your insolence. Go now, and never return here; and believe it would be better for your souls if you were half as pious and good as she whom you have called a witch.”

“No, she is not a genuine witch,” sneered Schalk. “Such wives can prophesy; but Frau Feldheimerin is about as much of a prophetess as a goose is a swan. Didn’t she tell our father that one would be able to buy a good part of his heritage for a hirsch-gulden? And yet at his death everything within sight of the towers of Zollern belonged to him. Frau Feldheimerin is nothing more than a silly old hag, and you the stupid Cuno.”

Thus saying, Schalk ran off as fast as he could, for he feared the strong arm of his brother Cuno; and Wolf followed him, shouting back all the cursed he had learned from his father.

Grieved to the soul, Cuno returned home; for he now saw plainly that his brothers would never be reconciled to him. And he took their bitter words so seriously to heart that he fell sick the next day, and only the consoling words of good Father Joseph, and the strengthening remedies of Frau Feldheimerin, rescued him from death.