Tales of the Caravan, Inn, and Palace Part 13

"You shall have it free," said Cuno. "I should like to see and speak with you at this pond now and then. We are the sons of one father."

"No," exclaimed Schalk; "that would not do at all, for there is nothing more silly than to fish in company; one is always frightening off the other's fishes. We might, however, decide on days for each one--say Monday and Thursday for you, Cuno, Tuesday and Friday for Wolf, and Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day for me. Such an arrangement would suit me."

"But I won't agree to that," cried the surly Wolf. "I don't want any free gift, neither will I divide my rights with any one. You were right, Cuno, in making your offer, for in justice the pond belongs as much to one as to the other; but let us throw the dice to decide who shall have the entire ownership for the future, and if I am more fortunate than you, then you will have to come to me for permission to fish."

"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 pa.s.sed, 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.

But when his brothers heard that Cuno lay very sick, they sat down to a jovial banquet, and over their cups made an agreement that the one who should be the first to hear of his death was to fire off a cannon, in order to notify the other of the event, and he who fired first might take the best cask of wine in Cuno's cellar. From this time forth Wolf stationed a watchman in the vicinity of Hirschberg, while Schalk bribed one of Cuno's servants with a large sum of money, to inform him, without delay, when Cuno was breathing his last.

But this servant was more faithful to his good and gentle master than to the wicked Count of Schalksberg. He inquired one evening of Frau Feldheimerin, very solicitously, after his master's health, and when she told him that the count was doing quite well, he related to her the project of the brothers of firing off guns when the Count Cuno should die. The old woman was infuriated, and quickly repeated this story to the count, who could hardly believe his brothers were so utterly heartless; so she advised him to put the matter to the proof by spreading a report of his death. The count summoned the servant to whom his brother had given a bribe, questioned him closely, and then ordered him to ride to Schalksberg and announce his approaching death.

As the servant was riding hastily down the hill, he was seen and stopped by the servant of Count Wolf, who asked him where he was riding to in such a hurry. "Alas!" was his reply, "my poor master will not outlive the night, they have all given him up."

"Indeed! Has his time come?" cried the spy, as he ran to his horse, 'sprang on his back, and rode so fast towards Zollern, that his horse sank down at the gate, and he was himself only able to call out: "Count Cuno is dying!" before he fell down senseless. Thereupon, the cannon of Hohen-Zollern thundered, and Count Wolf rejoiced with his mother, in antic.i.p.ation of the cask of wine, over the castle and its belongings, the jewels, the pond, and the echo of his cannon.

But what he had taken for its echo, was the cannon of Schalksberg, and Wolf said smilingly to his mother: "It seems Schalk has had a spy there too, and therefore he and I will have to divide the wine equally, as well as the rest of the property." With this he mounted his horse, fearing lest Schalk should arrive at Hirschberg before he did, and perhaps take away some of the jewels of the deceased. But the twins met at the fish-pond, and each blushed before the other, so apparent was the desire of both to be the first-comer at Hirschberg. They said not a word about Cuno, as they continued on their way together, but discussed in a brotherly manner how things should be arranged in the future, and to which of them Hirschberg should belong. But as they rode over the draw-bridge into the court, they saw their brother, safe and sound, looking out of the window; but anger and scorn flashed from his features.

The brothers shrank back in terror, taking him at first to be a ghost, and crossed themselves; but when they saw that he was still in flesh and blood, Wolf exclaimed:

"Stupid stuff! I thought you were dead."

"Omittance is no quittance," said Schalk, darting up at his half-brother a venomous look.

Cuno replied in a threatening voice: "From this hour, all bonds of brotherhood between us are broken. I heard the salute you fired; but know this, that I have five field-pieces here in the court that were loaded to do you honor. Take care to keep out of the range of my cannon, or you shall have a sample of our shooting at Hirschberg."

They did not wait to be spoken to a second time, for they saw that their brother was fully in earnest; so they gave their horses the spurs and raced down the mountain, while their brother sent a parting shot after them, that whistled above their heads, so that they both made a low and polite bow together; but he only wished to frighten and not to wound them.

"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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.serted, 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, pa.s.sed the Wuertemberg officer without a word, sprang on his horse, and rode back to Zollern.

When, on the following morning, his mother reproached him with having trifled away the estate and jewels, he rode over to Schalksberg and said to his brother:

"Shall we gamble with our inheritance, or drink it up?"

"Let's drink it away," replied Schalk; "then we shall both have won. We will ride down to Balingen and let the people see our disdain, even if we have lost the village in a most outrageous manner."

"And at 'The Lamb' tavern they have as good red wine as any the emperor drinks," added Wolf.

So they rode down together to "The Lamb," and inquired the cost of a quart of this red wine, and drank the worth of the gulden. Then Wolf got up, took from his purse the silver coin with the leaping stag stamped on it, threw it down on the table, and said:

"There's your gulden, that will make it right."

But the landlord picked up the gulden, looked at it first on one side and then on the other, and said smilingly:

"Yes, if it was any thing but a hirsch-gulden; but last night the messenger came from Stuttgart, and early this morning it was proclaimed in the name of the Count of Wuertemberg, to whom this town now belongs, that these coins would be no longer current; so give me some other money."

The brothers looked at one another in dismay. "Pay up," said one.

"Haven't you got any change?" replied the other; and, in short, they were obliged to remain in debt to "The Lamb" for a gulden.

They started back "home without speaking to one another until they came to the cross-road, where the road to the right ran to Zollern and the one to the left to Schalksberg. Then Schalk said:

"How now? We have inherited less than nothing; and moreover, the wine was miserable."

"Yes, to be sure," replied his brother, "but what Frau Feldheimerin said, has come to pa.s.s: 'We shall see what part of your inheritance is worth a hirsch-gulden.' And now we were not able to pay for even a measure of wine with it."

"Know it already!" answered he of Schalksberg.