By-and-by, as his brothers grew up, his life was even sadder than before, for the twins were so fortunate as to keep their seats at their first ride, and Stormy Weather Zollern thought them clever manly fellows and loved them accordingly, and rode out with them every day and taught them everything he knew himself. But they did not learn much good; the Count could neither read nor write and he would not allow his sons to waste time over such things. By the time they were ten years old they were as wild and quarrelsome as their father and led a cat-and-dog life between themselves. It was only when they wanted to play some unkind trick on Cuno that they were united. Their mother did not interfere, she thought it manly for them to fight one another. One day an old servant spoke to the Count about the way the two boys fought and quarrelled, and although he only said: “Rubbish!” he bore it in remembrance, and thought out a means to prevent their killing one another as they grew older and fiercer, for the witch’s warning still rang in his ears: “We shall see if your inheritance will be worth a florin.” One day when he was out hunting he noticed two hills which seemed to him to have been specially formed as the site of two castles, and made up his mind to build one on each. And so he did, and named the castles one Schalksberg, and the other Hirschberg. Stormy Weather Zollern intended leaving the castle of Hohenzollern to his eldest son and the other two castles to the two younger ones, but his wife never rested until she made him alter his mind. “Stupid Cuno,” this was what she always called the poor boy, “stupid Cuno is rich enough as it is with what he inherited from his mother, and yet you would give him the beautiful castle of Hohenzollern, and my sons are only to have a castle with nothing but woods attached.” [Illustration: _The old woman taught the Count a good deal that was useful to him._ (P. 189.)] In vain the Count pointed out to her that Cuno could not be so easily deprived of his birthright; she wept and scolded until even Stormy Weather, who was generally so stubborn, gave in for the sake of peace, and made a will leaving Schalksberg to Schalk, the younger of the twins, and Hohenzollern to Wolf, the elder, whilst Hirschberg, together with the little town of Balingen, were given to Cuno. Soon afterwards he fell very ill. The doctor warned him of his approaching end and so did the chaplain, the latter bidding him prepare to face death, but he only growled out:--“Rubbish!” and so died as he had lived, a wild, fierce-tempered man. Scarcely had he been laid in his grave than the Countess brought the will to Cuno and told him mockingly that, since he was so learned, he might read it and see for himself that he had no longer any interest in Hohenzollern, and she rejoiced with her two sons over the fact that they had deprived Cuno of his inheritance.