“You are a good honest little lad,” she said. “Remain so all your life and you will have all you wish for.” Then she released him and, shaking her finger threateningly at the Count, cried--“Zollern, Zollern, you still owe me the florin.” Then she turned away heedless of the Count’s angry words, and, leaning on her staff, disappeared in the wood. Conrad, the Count’s groom, dismounted, and, taking the little boy in his arms, set him on his saddle and then mounted behind him and rode after his master up the steep hill to the castle. This was the first and last time that Stormy Weather Zollern took his little son riding, for he considered him effeminate and faint-hearted because he had cried when the horse galloped, and decided that he would never be worth anything. He looked at him with displeasure and whenever the little one came to him and wished to sit upon his knee and be caressed he would push him away and say harshly: “Rubbish--get away!” The Lady Hedwig had borne her husband’s ill-temper without a murmur, but his harsh treatment of his innocent child wounded her deeply. She fretted and fretted, for whenever the boy committed some trifling offence he was punished so severely that she was afraid for him, and at length it preyed upon her mind so much that she fell ill and died. She was mourned by the whole household and by everyone in the neighbourhood, though most deeply by her son. From this time the Count took no further notice of his son, but left him entirely to the care of his nurse and the old chaplain. Shortly afterwards he married again, a young and rich lady, and as she had twin sons the Count consoled himself with them. Cuno’s favourite walk was to visit the old woman who had once saved his life. She told him all about his dead mother, and how much good she had done in her lifetime. The maids and men-servants warned him repeatedly not to go so often to see her, assuring him that she was nothing more nor less than a witch. But the boy was not afraid, for the chaplain had taught him that there were no such people as witches and that the stories about them riding on broomsticks through the air were all nonsense. It is true he saw at the old woman’s hut all sorts of strange things which he could not understand, and he still remembered the trick with the copper coins which she had played on his father. Then she knew how to mix all sorts of ointments and draughts with which to heal both man and beast; but it was certainly not true, as some folks declared, that she had a weather-glass, and when she hung it over the fire there was a fearful thunderstorm. She taught the young Count a good deal that was useful to him, for instance, all sorts of remedies for sick horses and cattle, how to mix a bait to lure the fishes, and many other useful things. The old woman was almost his sole companion, for his nurse died and his stepmother never troubled about him at all.