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“Why did you fire off your gun?” asked Schalk of his brother Wolf, in an ill-humored lone. “I only shot because I heard your gun, you fool!”

“On the contrary,” replied Wolf. “I’ll leave it to mother if you were not the first to shoot; and you have brought this disgrace on us, you little badger.”

Schalk returned all his brother’s epithets with interest; and when they came to the pond, they hurled at one another some of the choicest curses that the “Tempest of Zollern” had bequeathed them, and parted in hate and anger.

Shortly after this occurrence, Cuno made his will, and Frau Feldheimerin said to Father Joseph: “I would wager something that he has not left much to the twins.” But with all her curiosity, and much as she urged her favorite, he would not tell her what was written in the will; nor did she ever learn, for a year afterwards the good woman passed away in spite of her salves and potions. She died, not of any disease, but of her ninety-eighth year, which might well bring even the most healthy person to the grave. Count Cuno had her buried with as much ceremony as if she had been his own mother and not a poor old woman, and he grew more and more lonely in his castle, especially as Father Joseph soon followed Frau Feldheimerin.

Still he did not suffer this solitude very long; for in his twenty-eighth year the good Cuno died, and, as wicked people asserted, of poison administered by Schalk. Be that as it may, some hours after his death the thunder of cannon was heard once more from Zollern and Schalksberg.

“This time he will have to acknowledge the truth of the reports,” said Schalk to his brother Wolf, as they met on the road to Hirschberg.

“Yes,” answered Wolf; “but even if he should rise from the dead and abuse us from the window as before, I have a rifle with me that will make him polite and dumb.”

As they rode up the castle hill, they were joined by a horseman with his retinue, whom they did not know. They believed, however, that he must be a friend of their brother’s who had come to attend the funeral. Therefore they demeaned themselves as mourners, were loud in their praises of the deceased, lamented his early death, and Schalk even managed to squeeze out a few crocodile tears. The stranger paid no attention to what they said, but rode silently by their side up to the castle. “Now, then, we will make ourselves comfortable; and, butler, bring some wine, the very best!” cried Wolf, as he dismounted. They went up the spiral staircase into the salon, where they were followed by the silent stranger; and just as the twins had sat down to the table, he took from his purse a silver coin, and throwing it down on the slate table, where it rolled about and settled down with a ring, said:

“Then and there you have your inheritance; it is a good piece of silver, a hirsch-gulden.”

The two brothers looked at one another in astonishment, laughed, and asked him what he meant by this.

The stranger, by way of reply, produced a parchment, attached to which were many seals, in which Cuno had recorded all the instances of malevolence that his brothers had shown him in his life-time, and at the close decreed and made known that his entire estate, real and personal, with the exception of his mother’s jewels, should, in the event of his death, become the property of Wuertemberg, in consideration of a pitiful hirsch-gulden ! But with his mother’s jewels, a poor-house should be built in the town of Balingen.

The brothers were astonished anew; but instead of laughing this time, they ground their teeth together, for they could not hope to dispute the claim of Wuertemberg. They had lost the beautiful castle, the forest and field, the town of Balingen, and even the fish-pond, and inherited nothing but a miserable hirsch-gulden. This, Wolf stuck into his purse with a defiant air, put on his cap, passed the Wuertemberg officer without a word, sprang on his horse, and rode back to Zollern.