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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of William Tell Told Again, by P. G. Wodehouse
+#24 in our series by P. G. Wodehouse
+
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+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
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+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: William Tell Told Again
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7298]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 9, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM TELL TOLD AGAIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Branko Collin, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team,
+and the Oxford College Library of Emory University.
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: _William Tell Told Again_ is two children's books
+in one. One is a picture book--16 full-color illustrations by Philip
+Dadd described in verse by John W. Houghton. The other is a humorous
+novel by P. G. Wodehouse, based on the picture book. The novel has a
+lengthier storyline, a more intricate plot, and more characterization.
+The bound volume intermingled the picture book with the novel,
+illustrations and poems appearing at regular intervals. Most pictures
+and verses were distant from the page of the novel that they reflected.
+
+For this text version, placeholders for the illustrations (with plate
+numbers) have been inserted following the paragraph in the novel that
+describes the events being illustrated. The verse descriptions of the
+illustrations, labelled with plate numbers, have been moved to the end
+of the novel, so as not to disrupt the story. Each verse also has an
+illustration placeholder that includes the phrase from the novel shown
+as a description on the List of Illustrations.]
+
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM TELL TOLD AGAIN
+
+
+
+
+BY P. G. WODEHOUSE
+
+1904
+
+
+WITH
+ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY PHILIP DADD
+DESCRIBED IN VERSE BY JOHN W. HOUGHTON
+
+
+
+
+[Dedication]
+TO BIDDY O'SULLIVAN
+FOR A CHRISTMAS PRESENT
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+SOMETIMES IT WAS ONLY A BIRD [Frontispiece]
+
+GESSLER'S METHODS OF PERSUASION [Plate I]
+
+THEY WOULD MARCH ABOUT, BEATING TIN CANS AND SHOUTING [Plate II]
+
+AN EGG FLEW ACROSS THE MEADOW, AND BURST OVER LEUTHOLD'S SHOULDER
+[Plate III]
+
+"HERE! HI!" SHOUTED THE SOLDIERS, "STOP!" [Plate IV]
+
+THEY SAW FRIESSHARDT RAISE HIS PIKE, AND BRING IT DOWN WITH ALL HIS
+FORCE ON TELL'S HEAD [Plate V]
+
+"LOOK HERE!" HE BEGAN. "LOOK THERE!" SAID FRIESSHARDT [Plate VI]
+
+FRIESSHARDT RUSHED TO STOP HIM [Plate VII]
+
+THE CROWD DANCED AND SHOUTED [Plate VIII]
+
+"COME, COME, COME!" SAID GESSLER, "TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT" [Plate IX]
+
+"I HAVE HERE AN APPLE" [Plate X]
+
+THERE WAS A STIR OF EXCITEMENT IN THE CROWD [Plate XI]
+
+A MOMENT'S SUSPENSE, AND THEN A TERRIFIC CHEER AROSE FROM THE
+SPECTATORS [Plate XII]
+
+"SEIZE THAT MAN!" HE SHOUTED [Plate XIII]
+
+HE WAS LED AWAY TO THE SHORE OF THE LAKE [Plate XIV]
+
+TELL'S SECOND ARROW HAD FOUND ITS MARK [Plate XV]
+
+
+
+
+
+     The Swiss, against their Austrian foes,
+       Had ne'er a soul to lead 'em,
+     Till Tell, as you've heard tell, arose
+       And guided them to freedom.
+     Tell's tale we tell again--an act
+       For which pray no one scold us--
+     This tale of Tell we tell, in fact,
+       As this Tell tale was told us.
+
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM TELL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Once upon a time, more years ago than anybody can remember, before the
+first hotel had been built or the first Englishman had taken a
+photograph of Mont Blanc and brought it home to be pasted in an album
+and shown after tea to his envious friends, Switzerland belonged to the
+Emperor of Austria, to do what he liked with.
+
+One of the first things the Emperor did was to send his friend Hermann
+Gessler to govern the country. Gessler was not a nice man, and it soon
+became plain that he would never make himself really popular with the
+Swiss. The point on which they disagreed in particular was the question
+of taxes. The Swiss, who were a simple and thrifty people, objected to
+paying taxes of any sort. They said they wanted to spend their money on
+all kinds of other things. Gessler, on the other hand, wished to put a
+tax on everything, and, being Governor, he did it. He made everyone who
+owned a flock of sheep pay a certain sum of money to him; and if the
+farmer sold his sheep and bought cows, he had to pay rather more money
+to Gessler for the cows than he had paid for the sheep. Gessler also
+taxed bread, and biscuits, and jam, and buns, and lemonade, and, in
+fact, everything he could think of, till the people of Switzerland
+determined to complain. They appointed Walter Fürst, who had red hair
+and looked fierce; Werner Stauffacher, who had gray hair and was always
+wondering how he ought to pronounce his name; and Arnold of Melchthal,
+who had light-yellow hair and was supposed to know a great deal about
+the law, to make the complaint. They called on the Governor one lovely
+morning in April, and were shown into the Hall of Audience.
+
+"Well," said Gessler, "and what's the matter now?"
+
+The other two pushed Walter Fürst forward because he looked fierce, and
+they thought he might frighten the Governor.
+
+Walter Fürst coughed.
+
+"Well?" asked Gessler.
+
+"Er--ahem!" said Walter Fürst.
+
+"That's the way," whispered Werner; "_give_ it him!"
+
+"Er--ahem!"
+said Walter Fürst again; "the fact is, your Governorship--"
+
+"It's a small point," interrupted Gessler, "but I'm generally called
+'your Excellency.' Yes?"
+
+"The fact is, your Excellency, it seems to the people of Switzerland--"
+
+"--Whom I represent," whispered Arnold of Melchthal.
+
+"--Whom I represent, that things want changing."
+
+"What things?" inquired Gessler.
+
+"The taxes, your excellent Governorship."
+
+"Change the taxes? Why, don't the people of Switzerland think there are
+enough taxes?"
+
+Arnold of Melchthal broke in hastily.
+
+"They think there are many too many," he said. "What with the tax on
+sheep, and the tax on cows, and the tax on bread, and the tax on tea,
+and the tax--"
+
+"I know, _I_ know," Gessler interrupted; "I know all the taxes.
+Come to the point. What about 'em?"
+
+"Well, your Excellency, there are too many of them."
+
+"Too many!"
+
+"Yes. And we are not going to put up with it any longer!" shouted
+Arnold of Melchthal.
+
+Gessler leaned forward in his throne.
+
+"Might I ask you to repeat that remark?" he said.
+
+"We are not going to put up with it any longer!"
+
+Gessler sat back again with an ugly smile.
+
+"Oh," he said--"oh, indeed! You aren't, aren't you! Desire the Lord
+High Executioner to step this way," he added to a soldier who stood
+beside him.
+
+The Lord High Executioner entered the presence. He was a kind-looking
+old gentleman with white hair, and he wore a beautiful black robe,
+tastefully decorated with death's-heads.
+
+"Your Excellency sent for me?" he said.
+
+"Just so," replied Gessler. "This gentleman here"--he pointed to Arnold
+of Melchthal--"says he does not like taxes, and that he isn't going to
+put up with them any longer."
+
+"Tut-tut!" murmured the executioner.
+
+"See what you can do for him."
+
+"Certainly, your Excellency. Robert," he cried, "is the oil on the
+boil?"
+
+"Just this minute boiled over," replied a voice from the other side of
+the door.
+
+"Then bring it in, and mind you don't spill any."
+
+Enter Robert, in a suit of armour and a black mask, carrying a large
+caldron, from which the steam rose in great clouds.
+
+"Now, sir, if you please," said the executioner politely to Arnold of
+Melchthal.
+
+Arnold looked at the caldron.
+
+"Why, it's hot," he said.
+
+"Warmish," admitted the executioner.
+
+"It's against the law to threaten a man with hot oil."
+
+[Illustration: PLATE I]
+
+"You may bring an action against me," said the executioner. "Now, sir,
+if _you_ please. We are wasting time. The forefinger of your left
+hand, if I may trouble you. Thank you. I am obliged."
+
+He took Arnold's left hand, and dipped the tip of the first finger into
+the oil.
+
+"Ow!" cried Arnold, jumping.
+
+"Don't let him see he's hurting you," whispered Werner Stauffacher.
+"Pretend you don't notice it."
+
+Gessler leaned forward again.
+
+"Have your views on taxes changed at all?" he asked. "Do you see my
+point of view more clearly now?"
+
+Arnold admitted that he thought that, after all, there might be
+something to be said for it.
+
+"That's right," said the Governor. "And the tax on sheep? You don't
+object to that?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And the tax on cows?"
+
+"I like it."
+
+"And those on bread, and buns, and lemonade?"
+
+"I enjoy them."
+
+"Excellent. In fact, you're quite contented?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"And you think the rest of the people are?"
+
+"Oh, quite, quite!"
+
+"And do you think the same?" he asked of Walter and Werner.
+
+"Oh _yes_, your Excellency!" they cried.
+
+"Then _that's_ all right," said Gessler. "I was sure you would be
+sensible about it. Now, if you will kindly place in the tambourine
+which the gentleman on my left is presenting to you a mere trifle to
+compensate us for our trouble in giving you an audience, and if you"
+(to Arnold of Melchthal) "will contribute an additional trifle for use
+of the Imperial boiling oil, I think we shall all be satisfied. You've
+done it? _That's_ right. Good-bye, and mind the step as you go
+out."
+
+And, as he finished this speech, the three spokesmen of the people of
+Switzerland were shown out of the Hall of Audience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+They were met in the street outside by a large body of their
+fellow-citizens, who had accompanied them to the Palace, and who had
+been spending the time since their departure in listening by turns at
+the keyhole of the front-door. But as the Hall of Audience was at the
+other side of the Palace, and cut off from the front-door by two other
+doors, a flight of stairs, and a long passage, they had not heard very
+much of what had gone on inside, and they surrounded the three spokesmen
+as they came out, and questioned them eagerly.
+
+"Has he taken off the tax on jam?" asked Ulric the smith.
+
+"What is he going to do about the tax on mixed biscuits?" shouted Klaus
+von der Flue, who was a chimney-sweep of the town and loved mixed
+biscuits.
+
+"Never mind about tea and mixed biscuits!" cried his neighbour, Meier
+of Sarnen. "What I want to know is whether we shall have to pay for
+keeping sheep any more."
+
+"What _did_ the Governor say?" asked Jost Weiler, a practical man,
+who liked to go straight to the point.
+
+The three spokesmen looked at one another a little doubtfully.
+
+"We-e-ll," said Werner Stauffacher at last, "as a matter of fact, he
+didn't actually _say_ very much. It was more what he _did_,
+if you understand me, than what he said."
+
+"I should describe His Excellency the Governor," said Walter Fürst, "as
+a man who has got a way with him--a man who has got all sorts of
+arguments at his finger-tips."
+
+At the mention of finger-tips, Arnold of Melchthal uttered a sharp
+howl.
+
+"In short," continued Walter, "after a few minutes' very interesting
+conversation he made us see that it really wouldn't do, and that we
+must go on paying the taxes as before."
+
+There was a dead silence for several minutes, while everybody looked at
+everybody else in dismay.
+
+The silence was broken by Arnold of Sewa. Arnold of Sewa had been
+disappointed at not being chosen as one of the three spokesmen, and he
+thought that if he had been so chosen all this trouble would not have
+occurred.
+
+"The fact is," he said bitterly, "that you three have failed to do what
+you were sent to do. I mention no names--far from it--but I don't mind
+saying that there are some people in this town who would have given a
+better account of themselves. What you want in little matters of this
+sort is, if I may say so, tact. Tact; that's what you want. Of course,
+if you _will_ go rushing into the Governor's presence--"
+
+"But we didn't rush," said Walter Fürst.
+
+"--Shouting out that you want the taxes abolished--"
+
+"But we didn't shout," said Walter Fürst.
+
+"I really cannot speak if I am to be constantly interrupted," said
+Arnold of Sewa severely. "What I say is, that you ought to employ tact.
+Tact; that's what you want. If I had been chosen to represent the Swiss
+people in this affair--I am not saying I ought to have been, mind you;
+I merely say _if_ I had been--I should have acted rather after the
+following fashion: Walking firmly, but not defiantly, into the tyrant's
+presence, I should have broken the ice with some pleasant remark about
+the weather. The conversation once started, the rest would have been
+easy. I should have said that I hoped His Excellency had enjoyed a good
+dinner. Once on the subject of food, and it would have been the
+simplest of tasks to show him how unnecessary taxes on food were, and
+the whole affair would have been pleasantly settled while you waited. I
+do not imply that the Swiss people would have done better to have
+chosen me as their representative. I merely say that that is how I
+should have acted had they done so."
+
+And Arnold of Sewa twirled his moustache and looked offended. His
+friends instantly suggested that he should be allowed to try where the
+other three had failed, and the rest of the crowd, beginning to hope
+once more, took up the cry. The result was that the visitors' bell of
+the Palace was rung for the second time. Arnold of Sewa went in, and
+the door was banged behind him.
+
+Five minutes later he came out, sucking the first finger of his left
+hand.
+
+"No," he said; "it can't be done. The tyrant has convinced me."
+
+"I knew he would," said Arnold of Melchthal.
+
+"Then I think you might have warned me," snapped Arnold of Sewa,
+dancing with the pain of his burnt finger.
+
+"Was it hot?"
+
+"Boiling."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Then he really won't let us off the taxes?" asked the crowd in
+disappointed voices.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then the long and short of it is," said Walter Fürst, drawing a deep
+breath, "that we must rebel!"
+
+"Rebel?" cried everybody.
+
+"Rebel!" repeated Walter firmly.
+
+"We will!" cried everybody.
+
+"Down with the tyrant!" shouted Walter Fürst.
+
+"Down with the taxes!" shrieked the crowd.
+
+A scene of great enthusiasm followed. The last words were spoken by
+Werner Stauffacher.
+
+"We want a leader," he said.
+
+"I don't wish to thrust myself forward," began Arnold of Sewa, "but I
+must say, if it comes to leading--"
+
+"And I know the very man for the job," said Werner Stauffacher.
+"William Tell!"
+
+"Hurrah for William Tell!" roared the crowd, and, taking the time from
+Werner Stauffacher, they burst into the grand old Swiss chant which
+runs as follows:
+
+     "For he's a jolly good fellow!
+      For he's a jolly good fellow!!
+      For he's a jolly good fe-e-ll-ow!!!!
+      And so say all of us!"
+
+And having sung this till they were all quite hoarse, they went off to
+their beds to get a few hours' sleep before beginning the labours of
+the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+In a picturesque little châlet high up in the mountains, covered with
+snow and edelweiss (which is a flower that grows in the Alps, and you
+are not allowed to pick it), dwelt William Tell, his wife Hedwig, and
+his two sons, Walter and William. Such a remarkable man was Tell that I
+think I must devote a whole chapter to him and his exploits. There was
+really nothing he could not do. He was the best shot with the cross-bow
+in the whole of Switzerland. He had the courage of a lion, the
+sure-footedness of a wild goat, the agility of a squirrel, and a
+beautiful beard. If you wanted someone to hurry across desolate
+ice-fields, and leap from crag to crag after a chamois, Tell was the
+man for your money. If you wanted a man to say rude things to the
+Governor, it was to Tell that you applied first. Once when he was
+hunting in the wild ravine of Schächenthal, where men were hardly
+ever to be seen, he met the Governor face to face. There was no way
+of getting past. On one side the rocky wall rose sheer up, while below
+the river roared. Directly Gessler caught sight of Tell striding along
+with his cross-bow, his cheeks grew pale and his knees tottered, and he
+sat down on a rock feeling very unwell indeed.
+
+"Aha!" said Tell. "Oho! so it's you, is it? _I_ know you. And a
+nice sort of person you are, with your taxes on bread and sheep, aren't
+you! You'll come to a bad end one of these days, that's what will
+happen to you. Oh, you old reprobate! Pooh!" And he had passed on with
+a look of scorn, leaving Gessler to think over what he had said. And
+Gessler ever since had had a grudge against him, and was only waiting
+for a chance of paying him out.
+
+"Mark my words," said Tell's wife, Hedwig, when her husband told her
+about it after supper that night--"mark my words, he will never
+forgive you."
+
+"I will avoid him," said Tell. "He will not seek me."
+
+"Well, mind you do," was Hedwig's reply.
+
+On another occasion, when the Governor's soldiers were chasing a friend
+of his, called Baumgarten, and when Baumgarten's only chance of escape
+was to cross the lake during a fierce storm, and when the ferryman,
+sensibly remarking, "What! must I rush into the jaws of death? No man
+that hath his senses would do that!" refused to take out his boat even
+for twice his proper fare, and when the soldiers rode down to seize
+their prey with dreadful shouts, Tell jumped into the boat, and, rowing
+with all his might, brought his friend safe across after a choppy
+passage. Which made Gessler the Governor still more angry with him.
+
+But it was as a marksman that Tell was so extraordinary. There was
+nobody in the whole of the land who was half so skilful. He attended
+every meeting for miles around where there was a shooting competition,
+and every time he won first prize. Even his rivals could not help
+praising his skill. "Behold!" they would say, "Tell is quite the
+pot-hunter," meaning by the last word a man who always went in for
+every prize, and always won it. And Tell would say, "Yes, truly am I
+a pot-hunter, for I hunt to fill the family pot." And so he did. He never
+came home empty-handed from the chase. Sometimes it was a chamois that
+he brought back, and then the family had it roasted on the first day,
+cold on the next four, and minced on the sixth, with sippets of toast
+round the edge of the dish. Sometimes it was only a bird (as on the
+cover of this book), and then Hedwig would say, "Mark my words, this
+fowl will not go round." But it always did, and it never happened that
+there was not even a fowl to eat.
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+In fact, Tell and his family lived a very happy, contented life, in
+spite of the Governor Gessler and his taxes.
+
+Tell was very patriotic. He always believed that some day the Swiss
+would rise and rebel against the tyranny of the Governor, and he used
+to drill his two children so as to keep them always in a state of
+preparation. They would march about, beating tin cans and shouting, and
+altogether enjoying themselves immensely, though Hedwig, who did not
+like noise, and wanted Walter and William to help her with the
+housework, made frequent complaints. "Mark my words," she would say,
+"this growing spirit of militarism in the young and foolish will lead
+to no good," meaning that boys who played at soldiers instead of
+helping their mother to dust the chairs and scrub the kitchen floor
+would in all probability come to a bad end. But Tell would say, "Who
+hopes to fight his way through life must be prepared to wield arms.
+Carry on, my boys!" And they carried on. It was to this man that the
+Swiss people had determined to come for help.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE II]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Talking matters over in the inn of the town, the Glass and Glacier, the
+citizens came to the conclusion that they ought to appoint three
+spokesmen to go and explain to Tell just what they wanted him to do.
+
+"I don't wish to seem to boast at all," said Arnold of Sewa, "but I
+think I had better be one of the three."
+
+"I was thinking," said Werner Stauffacher, "that it would be a pity
+always to be chopping and changing. Why not choose the same three as
+were sent to Gessler?"
+
+"I don't desire to be unpleasant at all," replied Arnold of Sewa, "but
+I must be forgiven for reminding the honourable gentleman who has just
+spoken that he and his equally honourable friends did not meet with the
+best of success when they called upon the Governor."
+
+"Well, and you didn't either!" snapped Arnold of Melchthal, whose
+finger still hurt him, and made him a little bad-tempered.
+
+"That," said Arnold of Sewa, "I put down entirely to the fact that you
+and your friends, by not exercising tact, irritated the Governor, and
+made him unwilling to listen to anybody else. Nothing is more important
+in these affairs than tact. That's what you want--tact. But have it
+your own way. Don't mind _me!_"
+
+And the citizens did not. They chose Werner Stauffacher, Arnold of
+Melchthal, and Walter Fürst, and, having drained their glasses, the
+three trudged up the steep hill which led to Tell's house.
+
+It had been agreed that everyone should wait at the Glass and Glacier
+until the three spokesmen returned, in order that they might hear the
+result of their mission. Everybody was very anxious. A revolution
+without Tell would be quite impossible, and it was not unlikely that
+Tell might refuse to be their leader. The worst of a revolution is
+that, if it fails, the leader is always executed as an example to the
+rest. And many people object to being executed, however much it may set
+a good example to their friends. On the other hand, Tell was a brave
+man and a patriot, and might be only too eager to try to throw off the
+tyrant's yoke, whatever the risk. They had waited about an hour, when
+they saw the three spokesmen coming down the hill. Tell was not with
+them, a fact which made the citizens suspect that he had refused their
+offer. The first thing a man does when he has accepted the leadership
+of a revolution is to come and plot with his companions.
+
+"Well?" said everybody eagerly, as the three arrived.
+
+Werner Stauffacher shook his head.
+
+"Ah," said Arnold of Sewa, "I see what it is. He has refused. You
+didn't exercise tact, and he refused."
+
+"We _did_ exercise tact," said Stauffacher indignantly; "but he
+would not be persuaded. It was like this: We went to the house and
+knocked at the door. Tell opened it. 'Good-morning,' I said.
+
+"'Good-morning,' said he. 'Take a seat.'
+
+"I took a seat.
+
+"'My heart is full,' I said, 'and longs to speak with you.' I thought
+that a neat way of putting it."
+
+The company murmured approval.
+
+"'A heavy heart,' said Tell, 'will not
+grow light with words.'"
+
+"Not bad that!" murmured Jost Weiler. "Clever way of putting things,
+Tell has got."
+
+"'Yet words,' I said, 'might lead us on to deeds.'"
+
+"Neat," said Jost Weiler--"very neat. Yes?"
+
+"To which Tell's extraordinary reply was: 'The only thing to do is to
+sit still.'
+
+"'What!' I said; 'bear in silence things unbearable?'
+
+"'Yes,' said Tell; 'to peaceable men peace is gladly granted. When the
+Governor finds that his oppression does not make us revolt, he will
+grow tired of oppressing.'"
+
+"And what did you say to that?" asked Ulric the smith.
+
+"I said he did not know the Governor if he thought he could ever grow
+tired of oppressing. 'We might do much,' I said, 'if we held fast
+together. Union is strength,' I said.
+
+"'The strong,' said Tell, 'is strongest when he stands alone.'
+
+"'Then our country must not count on thee,' I said, 'when in despair
+she stands on self-defence?'
+
+"'Oh, well,' he said, 'hardly that, perhaps. I don't want to desert
+you. What I mean to say is, I'm no use as a plotter or a counsellor and
+that sort of thing. Where I come out strong is in deeds. So don't
+invite me to your meetings and make me speak, and that sort of thing;
+but if you want a man to _do_ anything--why, that's where I shall
+come in, you see. Just write if you want me--a postcard will do--and
+you will not find William Tell hanging back. No, sir.' And with those
+words he showed us out."
+
+"Well," said Jost Weiler, "I call that encouraging. All we have to do
+now is to plot. Let us plot."
+
+"Yes, let's!" shouted everybody.
+
+Ulric the smith rapped for silence on the table.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "our friend Mr. Klaus von der Flue will now read
+a paper on 'Governors--their drawbacks, and how to get rid of them.'
+Silence, gentlemen, please. Now, then, Klaus, old fellow, speak up and
+get it over."
+
+And the citizens settled down without further delay to a little serious
+plotting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+A few days after this, Hedwig gave Tell a good talking to on the
+subject of his love for adventure. He was sitting at the door of his
+house mending an axe. Hedwig, as usual, was washing up. Walter and
+William were playing with a little cross-bow not far off.
+
+"Father," said Walter.
+
+"Yes, my boy?"
+
+"My bow-string has bust." ("Bust" was what all Swiss boys said when
+they meant "broken.")
+
+"You must mend it yourself, my boy," said Tell. "A sportsman always
+helps himself."
+
+"What _I_ say," said Hedwig, bustling out of the house, "is that a
+boy of his age has no business to be shooting. I don't like it."
+
+"Nobody can shoot well if he does not begin to practise early. Why,
+when I was a boy--I remember on one occasion, when--"
+
+"What _I_ say," interrupted Hedwig, "is that a boy ought not to
+want always to be shooting, and what not. He ought to stay at home and
+help his mother. And I wish you would set them a better example."
+
+"Well, the fact is, you know," said Tell, "I don't think Nature meant
+me to be a stay-at-home and that sort of thing. I couldn't be a
+herdsman if you paid me. I shouldn't know what to do. No; everyone has
+his special line, and mine is hunting. Now, I _can_ hunt."
+
+"A nasty, dangerous occupation," said Hedwig. "I don't like to hear of
+your being lost on desolate ice-fields, and leaping from crag to crag,
+and what not. Some day, mark my words, if you are not careful, you will
+fall down a precipice, or be overtaken by an avalanche, or the ice will
+break while you are crossing it. There are a thousand ways in which you
+might get hurt."
+
+"A man of ready wit with a quick eye," replied Tell complacently,
+"never gets hurt. The mountain has no terror for her children. I am a
+child of the mountain."
+
+"You are certainly a child!" snapped Hedwig. "It is no use my arguing
+with you."
+
+"Not very much," agreed Tell, "for I am just off to the town. I have an
+appointment with your papa and some other gentlemen."
+
+(I forgot to say so before, but Hedwig was the daughter of Walter
+Fürst.)
+
+"Now, _what_ are you and papa plotting?" asked Hedwig. "I know
+there is something going on. I suspected it when papa brought Werner
+Stauffacher and the other man here, and you wouldn't let me listen.
+What is it? Some dangerous scheme, I suppose?"
+
+"Now, how in the world do you get those sort of ideas into your head?"
+Tell laughed. "Dangerous scheme! As if I should plot dangerous schemes
+with your papa!"
+
+"I know," said Hedwig. "You can't deceive _me!_ There is a plot
+afoot against the Governor, and you are in it."
+
+"A man must help his country."
+
+"They're sure to place you where there is most danger. I know them.
+Don't go. Send Walter down with a note to say that you regret that an
+unfortunate previous engagement, which you have just recollected, will
+make it impossible for you to accept their kind invitation to plot."
+
+"No; I must go."
+
+"And there is another thing," continued Hedwig: "Gessler the Governor
+is in the town now."
+
+"He goes away to-day."
+
+"Well, wait till he has gone. You must not meet him. He bears you
+malice."
+
+"To me his malice cannot do much harm. I do what's right, and fear no
+enemy."
+
+"Those who do right," said Hedwig, "are those he hates the most. And
+you know he has never forgiven you for speaking like that when you met
+him in the ravine. Keep away from the town for to-day. Do anything
+else. Go hunting, if you will."
+
+"No," said Tell; "I promised. I must go. Come along, Walter."
+
+"You _aren't_ going to take that poor _dear_ child? Come
+here, Walter, directly minute!'
+
+"Want to go with father," said Walter, beginning to cry, for his father
+had promised to take him with him the next time he went to the town,
+and he had saved his pocket-money for the occasion.
+
+"Oh, let the boy come," said Tell. "William will stay with you, won't
+you, William?"
+
+"All right, father," said William.
+
+"Well, mark my words," said Hedwig, "if something bad does not happen I
+shall be surprised."
+
+"Oh no," said Tell. "What can happen?"
+
+And without further delay he set off with Walter for the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+In the meantime all kinds of things of which Tell had no suspicion had
+been happening in the town. The fact that there were no newspapers in
+Switzerland at that time often made him a little behindhand as regarded
+the latest events. He had to depend, as a rule, on visits from his
+friends, who would sit in his kitchen and tell him all about everything
+that had been going on for the last few days. And, of course, when
+there was anything very exciting happening in the town, nobody had time
+to trudge up the hill to Tell's châlet. They all wanted to be in the
+town enjoying the fun.
+
+What had happened now was this. It was the chief amusement of the
+Governor, Gessler (who, you will remember, was _not_ a nice man),
+when he had a few moments to spare from the cares of governing, to sit
+down and think out some new way of annoying the Swiss people. He was
+one of those persons who
+
+            "only do it to annoy,
+     Because they know it teases."
+
+What he liked chiefly was to forbid something. He would find out what
+the people most enjoyed doing, and then he would send a herald to say
+that he was very sorry, but it must stop. He found that this annoyed
+the Swiss more than anything. But now he was rather puzzled what to do,
+for he had forbidden everything he could think of. He had forbidden
+dancing and singing, and playing on any sort of musical instrument, on
+the ground that these things made such a noise, and disturbed people
+who wanted to work. He had forbidden the eating of everything except
+bread and the simplest sorts of meat, because he said that anything
+else upset people, and made them unfit to do anything except sit still
+and say how ill they were. And he had forbidden all sorts of games,
+because he said they were a waste of time.
+
+So that now, though he wanted dreadfully to forbid something else, he
+could not think of anything.
+
+Then he had an idea, and this was it:
+
+He told his servants to cut a long pole. And they cut a very long pole.
+Then he said to them, "Go into the hall and bring me one of my hats.
+Not my best hat, which I wear on Sundays and on State occasions; nor
+yet my second-best, which I wear every day; nor yet, again, the one I
+wear when I am out hunting, for all these I need. Fetch me, rather, the
+oldest of my hats." And they fetched him the very oldest of his hats.
+Then he said, "Put it on top of the pole." And they put it right on top
+of the pole. And, last of all, he said, "Go and set up the pole in the
+middle of the meadow just outside the gates of the town." And they went
+and set up the pole in the very middle of the meadow just outside the
+gates of the town.
+
+Then he sent his heralds out to north and south and east and west to
+summon the people together, because he said he had something very
+important and special to say to them. And the people came in tens, and
+fifties, and hundreds, men, women, and children; and they stood waiting
+in front of the Palace steps till Gessler the Governor should come out
+and say something very important and special to them.
+
+And punctually at eleven o'clock, Gessler, having finished a capital
+breakfast, came out on to the top step and spoke to them.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen,"--he began. (A voice from the crowd: "Speak
+up!")
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he began again, in a louder voice, "if I could
+catch the man who said 'Speak up!' I would have him bitten in the neck
+by wild elephants. (Applause.) I have called you to this place to-day
+to explain to you my reason for putting up a pole, on the top of which
+is one of my caps, in the meadow just outside the city gates. It is
+this: You all, I know, respect and love me." Here he paused for the
+audience to cheer, but as they remained quite silent he went on: "You
+would all, I know, like to come to my Palace every day and do reverence
+to me. (A voice: 'No, no!') If I could catch the man who said 'No, no!'
+I would have him stung on the soles of the feet by pink scorpions; and
+if he was the same man who said 'Speak up!' a little while ago, the
+number of scorpions should be doubled. (Loud applause.) As I was saying
+before I was interrupted, I know you would like to come to my Palace
+and do reverence to me there. But, as you are many and space is
+limited, I am obliged to refuse you that pleasure. However, being
+anxious not to disappoint you, I have set up my cap in the meadow, and
+you may do reverence to _that_. In fact, you _must_. Everybody is
+to look on that cap as if it were me. (A voice: 'It ain't so ugly as
+you!') If I could catch the man who made that remark I would have him
+tied up and teased by trained bluebottles. (Deafening applause.) In
+fact, to put the matter briefly, if anybody crosses that meadow without
+bowing down before that cap, my soldiers will arrest him, and I will
+have him pecked on the nose by infuriated blackbirds. So there!
+Soldiers, move that crowd on!"
+
+And Gessler disappeared indoors again, just as a volley of eggs and
+cabbages whistled through the air. And the soldiers began to hustle the
+crowd down the various streets till the open space in front of the
+Palace gates was quite cleared of them. All this happened the day
+before Tell and Walter set out for the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Having set up the pole and cap in the meadow, Gessler sent two of his
+bodyguard, Friesshardt (I should think you would be safe in pronouncing
+this Freeze-hard, but you had better ask somebody who knows) and
+Leuthold, to keep watch there all day, and see that nobody passed by
+without kneeling down before the pole and taking off his hat to it.
+
+But the people, who prided themselves on being what they called
+_üppen zie schnuffen_, or, as we should say, "up to snuff," and
+equal to every occasion, had already seen a way out of the difficulty.
+They knew that if they crossed the meadow they must bow down before the
+pole, which they did not want to do, so it occurred to them that an
+ingenious way of preventing this would be not to cross the meadow. So
+they went the long way round, and the two soldiers spent a lonely day.
+
+"What I sez," said Friesshardt, "is, wot's the use of us wasting our
+time here?" (Friesshardt was not a very well-educated man, and he did
+not speak good grammar.) "None of these here people ain't a-going to
+bow down to that there hat. Of course they ain't. Why, I can remember
+the time when this meadow was like a fair--everybody a-shoving and
+a-jostling one another for elbow-room; and look at it now! It's a desert.
+That's what it is, a desert. What's the good of us wasting of our time
+here, I sez. That's what I sez.
+
+"And they're artful, too, mind yer," he continued. "Why, only this
+morning, I sez to myself, 'Friesshardt,' I sez, 'you just wait till
+twelve o'clock,' I sez, ''cos that's when they leave the council-house,
+and then they'll _have_ to cross the meadow. And then we'll see
+what we _shall_ see,' I sez. Like that, I sez. Bitter-like, yer
+know. 'We'll see,' I sez, 'what we _shall_ see.' So I waited, and
+at twelve o'clock out they came, dozens of them, and began to cross the
+meadow. 'And now,' sez I to myself, 'look out for larks.' But what
+happened? Why, when they came to the pole, the priest stood in front of
+it, and the sacristan rang the bell, and they all fell down on their
+knees. But they were saying their prayers, not doing obeisance to the
+hat. That's what _they_ were doing. Artful--that's what _they_ are!"
+
+And Friesshardt kicked the foot of the pole viciously with his iron
+boot.
+
+"It's my belief," said Leuthold (Leuthold is the thin soldier you see
+in the picture)--"it's my firm belief that they are laughing at us.
+There! Listen to that!"
+
+A voice made itself heard from behind a rock not far off.
+
+"Where did you get that hat?" said the voice.
+
+"There!" grumbled Leuthold; "they're always at it. Last time it was,
+'Who's your hatter?' Why, we're the laughing-stock of the place. We're
+like two rogues in a pillory. 'Tis rank disgrace for one who wears a
+sword to stand as sentry o'er an empty hat. To make obeisance to a hat!
+I' faith, such a command is downright foolery!"
+
+"Well," said Friesshardt, "and why not bow before an empty hat? Thou
+hast oft bow'd before an empty skull. Ha, ha! I was always one for a
+joke, yer know."
+
+"Here come some people," said Leuthold. "At last! And they're only the
+rabble, after all. You don't catch any of the better sort of people
+coming here."
+
+A crowd was beginning to collect on the edge of the meadow. Its numbers
+swelled every minute, until quite a hundred of the commoner sort must
+have been gathered together. They stood pointing at the pole and
+talking among themselves, but nobody made any movement to cross the
+meadow.
+
+At last somebody shouted "Yah!"
+
+The soldiers took no notice.
+
+Somebody else cried "Booh!"'
+
+"Pass along there, pass along!" said the soldiers.
+
+Cries of "Where did you get that hat?" began to come from the body of
+the crowd. When the Swiss invented a catch-phrase they did not drop it
+in a hurry.
+
+"Where--did--you--get--that--HAT?" they shouted.
+
+Friesshardt and Leuthold stood like two statues in armour, paying no
+attention to the remarks of the rabble. This annoyed the rabble. They
+began to be more personal.
+
+"You in the second-hand lobster-tin," shouted one--he meant
+Friesshardt, whose suit of armour, though no longer new, hardly
+deserved this description--"who's your hatter?"
+
+"Can't yer see," shouted a friend, when Friesshardt made no reply, "the
+pore thing ain't alive? 'E's stuffed!"
+
+Roars of laughter greeted this sally. Friesshardt, in spite of the fact
+that he enjoyed a joke, turned pink.
+
+"'E's blushing!" shrieked a voice.
+
+Friesshardt turned purple.
+
+Then things got still more exciting.
+
+"'Ere," said a rough voice in the crowd impatiently, "wot's the good of
+_torkin'_ to 'em? Gimme that 'ere egg, missus!"
+
+And in another instant an egg flew across the meadow, and burst over
+Leuthold's shoulder. The crowd howled with delight. This was something
+_like_ fun, thought they, and the next moment eggs, cabbages,
+cats, and missiles of every sort darkened the air. The two soldiers
+raved and shouted, but did not dare to leave their post. At last, just
+as the storm was at its height, it ceased, as if by magic. Everyone in
+the crowd turned round, and, as he turned, jumped into the air and
+waved his hat.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE III]
+
+A deafening cheer went up.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried the mob; "here comes good old Tell! _Now_ there's
+going to be a jolly row!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Tell came striding along, Walter by his side, and his cross-bow over
+his shoulder. He knew nothing about the hat having been placed on the
+pole, and he was surprised to see such a large crowd gathered in the
+meadow. He bowed to the crowd in his polite way, and the crowd gave
+three cheers and one more, and he bowed again.
+
+"Hullo!" said Walter suddenly; "look at that hat up there, father. On
+the pole."
+
+"What is the hat to us?" said Tell; and he began to walk across the
+meadow with an air of great dignity, and Walter walked by his side,
+trying to look just like him.
+
+"Here! hi!" shouted the soldiers. "Stop! You haven't bowed down to the
+cap."
+
+[Illustration: PLATE IV]
+
+Tell looked scornful, but said nothing. Walter looked still more
+scornful.
+
+"Ho, there!" shouted Friesshardt, standing in front of him. "I bid you
+stand in the Emperor's name."
+
+"My good fellow," said Tell, "please do not bother me. I am in a hurry.
+I really have nothing for you."
+
+"My orders is," said Friesshardt, "to stand in this 'ere meadow and to
+see as how all them what passes through it does obeisance to that there
+hat. Them's Governor's orders, them is. So now."
+
+"My good fellow," said Tell, "let me pass. I shall get cross, I know I
+shall."
+
+Shouts of encouragement from the crowd, who were waiting patiently for
+the trouble to begin.
+
+"Go it, Tell!" they cried. "Don't stand talking to him. Hit him a
+kick!"
+
+Friesshardt became angrier every minute.
+
+"My orders is," he said again, "to arrest them as don't bow down to the
+hat, and for two pins, young feller, I'll arrest you. So which is it to
+be? Either you bow down to that there hat or you come along of me."
+
+Tell pushed him aside, and walked on with his chin in the air. Walter
+went with him, with his chin in the air.
+
+WHACK!
+
+A howl of dismay went up from the crowd as they saw Friesshardt raise
+his pike and bring it down with all his force on Tell's head. The sound
+of the blow went echoing through the meadow and up the hills and down
+the valleys.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE V]
+
+"Ow!" cried Tell.
+
+"_Now_," thought the crowd, "things must begin to get exciting."
+
+Tell's first idea was that one of the larger mountains in the
+neighbourhood had fallen on top of him. Then he thought that there must
+have been an earthquake. Then it gradually dawned upon him that he had
+been hit by a mere common soldier with a pike. Then he _was_
+angry.
+
+"Look here!" he began.
+
+"Look there!" said Friesshardt, pointing to the cap.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VI]
+
+"You've hurt my head very much," said Tell. "Feel the bump. If I hadn't
+happened to have a particularly hard head I don't know what might not
+have happened;" and he raised his fist and hit Friesshardt; but as
+Friesshardt was wearing a thick iron helmet the blow did not hurt him
+very much.
+
+But it had the effect of bringing the crowd to Tell's assistance. They
+had been waiting all this time for him to begin the fighting, for
+though they were very anxious to attack the soldiers, they did not like
+to do so by themselves. They wanted a leader.
+
+So when they saw Tell hit Friesshardt, they tucked up their sleeves,
+grasped their sticks and cudgels more tightly, and began to run across
+the meadow towards him.
+
+Neither of the soldiers noticed this. Friesshardt was busy arguing with
+Tell, and Leuthold was laughing at Friesshardt. So when the people came
+swarming up with their sticks and cudgels they were taken by surprise.
+But every soldier in the service of Gessler was as brave as a lion, and
+Friesshardt and Leuthold were soon hitting back merrily, and making a
+good many of the crowd wish that they had stayed at home. The two
+soldiers were wearing armour, of course, so that it was difficult to
+hurt them; but the crowd, who wore no armour, found that _they_
+could get hurt very easily. Conrad Hunn, for instance, was attacking
+Friesshardt, when the soldier happened to drop his pike. It fell on
+Conrad's toe, and Conrad limped away, feeling that fighting was no fun
+unless you had thick boots on.
+
+And so for a time the soldiers had the best of the fight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+For many minutes the fight raged furiously round the pole, and the
+earth shook beneath the iron boots of Friesshardt and Leuthold as they
+rushed about, striking out right and left with their fists and the
+flats of their pikes. Seppi the cowboy (an ancestor, by the way, of
+Buffalo Bill) went down before a tremendous blow by Friesshardt, and
+Leuthold knocked Klaus von der Flue head over heels.
+
+"What you _want_" said Arnold of Sewa, who had seen the beginning
+of the fight from the window of his cottage and had hurried to join it,
+and, as usual, to give advice to everybody--"what you want here is
+guile. That's what you want--guile, cunning. Not brute force, mind you.
+It's no good rushing at a man in armour and hitting him. He only hits
+you back. You should employ guile. Thus. Observe."
+
+He had said these words standing on the outskirts of the crowd. He now
+grasped his cudgel and began to steal slowly towards Friesshardt, who
+had just given Werni the huntsman such a hit with his pike that the
+sound of it was still echoing in the mountains, and was now busily
+engaged in disposing of Jost Weiler. Arnold of Sewa crept stealthily
+behind him, and was just about to bring his cudgel down on his head,
+when Leuthold, catching sight of him, saved his comrade by driving his
+pike with all his force into Arnold's side. Arnold said afterwards that
+it completely took his breath away. He rolled over, and after being
+trodden on by everybody for some minutes, got up and limped back to his
+cottage, where he went straight to bed, and did not get up for two
+days.
+
+All this time Tell had been standing a little way off with his arms
+folded, looking on. While it was a quarrel simply between himself and
+Friesshardt he did not mind fighting. But when the crowd joined in he
+felt that it was not fair to help so many men attack one, however badly
+that one might have behaved.
+
+He now saw that the time had come to put an end to the disturbance. He
+drew an arrow from his quiver, placed it in his crossbow, and pointed
+it at the hat. Friesshardt, seeing what he intended to do, uttered a
+shout of horror and rushed to stop him. But at that moment somebody in
+the crowd hit him so hard with a spade that his helmet was knocked over
+his eyes, and before he could raise it again the deed was done. Through
+the cap and through the pole and out at the other side sped the arrow.
+And the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Tell standing
+beside him twirling his moustache, while all around the crowd danced
+and shouted and threw their caps into the air with joy.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VII]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VIII]
+
+"A mere trifle," said Tell modestly.
+
+The crowd cheered again and again.
+
+Friesshardt and Leuthold lay on the ground beside the pole, feeling
+very sore and bruised, and thought that perhaps, on the whole, they had
+better stay there. There was no knowing what the crowd might do after
+this, if they began to fight again. So they lay on the ground and made
+no attempt to interfere with the popular rejoicings. What they
+_wanted_, as Arnold of Sewa might have said if he had been there,
+was a few moments' complete rest. Leuthold's helmet had been hammered
+with sticks until it was over his eyes and all out of shape, and
+Friesshardt's was very little better. And they both felt just as if
+they had been run over in the street by a horse and cart.
+
+"Tell!" shouted the crowd. "Hurrah for Tell! Good old Tell!"
+
+"Tell's the boy!" roared Ulric the smith. "Not another man in
+Switzerland could have made that shot."
+
+"No," shrieked everybody, "not another!"
+
+"Speech!" cried someone from the edge of the crowd.
+
+"Speech! Speech! Tell, speech!" Everybody took up the cry.
+
+"No, no," said Tell, blushing.
+
+"Go on, go on!" shouted the crowd.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't," said Tell; "I don't know what to say."
+
+"Anything will do. Speech! Speech!"
+
+Ulric the smith and Ruodi the fisherman hoisted Tell on to their
+shoulders, and, having coughed once or twice, he said:
+
+"Gentlemen--"
+
+Cheers from the crowd.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Tell again, "this is the proudest moment of my life."
+
+More cheers.
+
+"I don't know what you want me to talk about. I have never made a
+speech before. Excuse my emotion. This is the proudest moment of my
+life. To-day is a great day for Switzerland. We have struck the first
+blow of the revolution. Let us strike some more."
+
+Shouts of "Hear, hear!" from the crowd, many of whom, misunderstanding
+Tell's last remark, proceeded to hit Leuthold and Friesshardt, until
+stopped by cries of "Order!" from Ulric the smith.
+
+"Gentlemen," continued Tell, "the floodgates of revolution have been
+opened. From this day they will stalk through the land burning to ashes
+the slough of oppression which our tyrant Governor has erected in our
+midst. I have only to add that this is the proudest moment of my life,
+and----"
+
+He was interrupted by a frightened voice.
+
+"Look out, you chaps," said the voice; "here comes the Governor!"
+
+Gessler, with a bodyguard of armed men, had entered the meadow, and was
+galloping towards them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Gessler came riding up on his brown horse, and the crowd melted away in
+all directions, for there was no knowing what the Governor might not do
+if he found them plotting. They were determined to rebel and to throw
+off his tyrannous yoke, but they preferred to do it quietly and
+comfortably, when he was nowhere near.
+
+So they ran away to the edge of the meadow, and stood there in groups,
+waiting to see what was going to happen. Not even Ulric the smith and
+Ruodi the fisherman waited, though they knew quite well that Tell had
+not nearly finished his speech. They set the orator down, and began to
+walk away, trying to look as if they had been doing nothing in
+particular, and were going to go on doing it--only somewhere else.
+
+Tell was left standing alone in the middle of the meadow by the pole.
+He scorned to run away like the others, but he did not at all like the
+look of things. Gessler was a stern man, quick to punish any insult,
+and there were two of his soldiers lying on the ground with their nice
+armour all spoiled and dented, and his own cap on top of the pole had
+an arrow right through the middle of it, and would never look the same
+again, however much it might be patched. It seemed to Tell that there
+was a bad time coming.
+
+Gessler rode up, and reined in his horse.
+
+"Now then, now then, now then!" he said, in his quick, abrupt way.
+"What's this? what's this? what's this?"
+
+(When a man repeats what he says three times, you can see that he is
+not in a good temper.)
+
+Friesshardt and Leuthold got up, saluted, and limped slowly towards
+him. They halted beside his horse, and stood to attention. The tears
+trickled down their cheeks.
+
+"Come, come, come!" said Gessler; "tell me all about it."
+
+[Illustration: PLATE IX]
+
+And he patted Friesshardt on the head. Friesshardt bellowed.
+
+Gessler beckoned to one of his courtiers.
+
+"Have you a handkerchief?" he said.
+
+"I have a handkerchief, your Excellency."
+
+"Then dry this man's eyes."
+
+The courtier did as he was bidden.
+
+"_Now_," said Gessler, when the drying was done, and Friesshardt's
+tears had ceased, "what has been happening here? I heard a cry of
+'Help!' as I came up. Who cried 'Help!'?"
+
+"Please, your lordship's noble Excellencyship," said Friesshardt, "it
+was me, Friesshardt."
+
+"You should say, 'It was I,'" said Gessler. "Proceed."
+
+"Which I am a loyal servant of your Excellency's, and in your
+Excellency's army, and seeing as how I was told to stand by this 'ere
+pole and guard that there hat, I stood by this 'ere pole, and guarded
+that there hat--all day, I did, your Excellency. And then up comes this
+man here, and I says to him--'Bow down to the hat,' I says. 'Ho!' he
+says to me--'ho, indeed!' and he passed on without so much as nodding.
+So I takes my pike, and I taps him on the head to remind him, as you
+may say, that there was something he was forgetting, and he ups and
+hits me, he does. And then the crowd runs up with their sticks and hits
+me and Leuthold cruel, your Excellency. And while we was a-fighting
+with them, this here man I'm a-telling you about, your Excellency, he
+outs with an arrow, puts it into his bow, and sends it through the hat,
+and I don't see how you'll ever be able to wear it again. It's a waste
+of a good hat, your Excellency--that's what it is. And then the people,
+they puts me and Leuthold on the ground, and hoists this here man--Tell,
+they call him--up on their shoulders, and he starts making a speech,
+when up you comes, your Excellency. That's how it all was."
+
+Gessler turned pale with rage, and glared fiercely at Tell, who stood
+before him in the grasp of two of the bodyguard.
+
+"Ah," he said, "Tell, is it? Good-day to you, Tell. I think we've met
+before, Tell? Eh, Tell?"
+
+"We have, your Excellency. It was in the ravine of Schächenthal," said
+Tell firmly.
+
+"Your memory is good, Tell. So is mine. I think you made a few remarks
+to me on that occasion, Tell--a few chatty remarks? Eh, Tell?"
+
+"Very possibly, your Excellency."
+
+"You were hardly polite, Tell."
+
+"If I offended you I am sorry."
+
+"I am glad to hear it, Tell. I think you will be even sorrier before
+long. So you've been ill-treating my soldiers, eh?"
+
+"It was not I who touched them."
+
+"Oh, so you didn't touch them? Ah! But you defied my power by refusing
+to bow down to the hat. I set up that hat to prove the people's
+loyalty. I am afraid you are not loyal, Tell."
+
+"I was a little thoughtless, not disloyal. I passed the hat without
+thinking."
+
+"You should always think, Tell. It is very dangerous not to do so. And
+I suppose that you shot your arrow through the hat without thinking?"
+
+"I was a little carried away by excitement, your Excellency."
+
+"Dear, dear! Carried away by excitement, were you? You must really be
+more careful, Tell. One of these days you will be getting yourself into
+trouble. But it seems to have been a very fine shot. You _are_ a
+capital marksman, I believe?"
+
+"Father's the best shot in all Switzerland," piped a youthful voice.
+"He can hit an apple on a tree a hundred yards away. I've seen him.
+Can't you, father?"
+
+Walter, who had run away when the fighting began, had returned on
+seeing his father in the hands of the soldiers.
+
+Gessler turned a cold eye upon him.
+
+"Who is this?" he asked.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+"It is my son Walter, your Excellency," said Tell.
+
+"Your son? Indeed. This is very interesting. Have you any more
+children?"
+
+"I have one other boy."
+
+"And which of them do you love the most, eh?"
+
+"I love them both alike, your Excellency."
+
+"Dear me! Quite a happy family. Now, listen to me, Tell. I know you are
+fond of excitement, so I am going to try to give you a little. Your son
+says that you can hit an apple on a tree a hundred yards away, and I am
+sure you have every right to be very proud of such a feat.
+Friesshardt!"
+
+"Your Excellency?"
+
+"Bring me an apple."
+
+Friesshardt picked one up. Some apples had been thrown at him and
+Leuthold earlier in the day, and there were several lying about.
+
+"Which I'm afraid as how it's a little bruised, your Excellency," he
+said, "having hit me on the helmet."
+
+"Thank you. I do not require it for eating purposes," said Gessler.
+"Now, Tell, I have here an apple--a simple apple, not over-ripe. I
+should like to test that feat of yours. So take your bow--I see you
+have it in your hand--and get ready to shoot. I am going to put this
+apple on your son's head. He will be placed a hundred yards away from
+you, and if you do not hit the apple with your first shot your life
+shall pay forfeit."
+
+[Illustration: PLATE X]
+
+And he regarded Tell with a look of malicious triumph.
+
+"Your Excellency, it cannot be!" cried Tell; "the thing is too
+monstrous. Perhaps your Excellency is pleased to jest. You cannot bid a
+father shoot an apple from off his son's head! Consider, your
+Excellency!"
+
+"You shall shoot the apple from off the head of this boy," said Gessler
+sternly. "I do not jest. That is my will."
+
+"Sooner would I die," said Tell.
+
+"If you do not shoot you die with the boy. Come, come, Tell, why so
+cautious? They always told me that you loved perilous enterprises, and
+yet when I give you one you complain. I could understand anybody else
+shrinking from the feat. But you! Hitting apples at a hundred yards is
+child's play to you. And what does it matter where the apple is--whether
+it is on a tree or on a boy's head? It is an apple just the same.
+Proceed, Tell."
+
+The crowd, seeing a discussion going on, had left the edge of the
+meadow and clustered round to listen. A groan of dismay went up at the
+Governor's words.
+
+"Down on your knees, boy," whispered Rudolph der Harras to Walter--"down
+on your knees, and beg his Excellency for your life."
+
+"I won't!" said Walter stoutly.
+
+"Come," said Gessler, "clear a path there--clear a path! Hurry
+yourselves. I won't have this loitering. Look you, Tell: attend to me
+for a moment. I find you in the middle of this meadow deliberately
+defying my authority and making sport of my orders. I find you in the
+act of stirring up discontent among my people with speeches. I might
+have you executed without ceremony. But do I? No. Nobody shall say that
+Hermann Gessler the Governor is not kind-hearted. I say to myself, 'I
+will give this man one chance.' I place your fate in your own skilful
+hands. How can a man complain of harsh treatment when he is made master
+of his own fate? Besides, I don't ask you to do anything difficult. I
+merely hid you perform what must be to you a simple shot. You boast of
+your unerring aim. Now is the time to prove it. Clear the way there!"
+
+Walter Fürst flung himself on his knees before the Governor.
+
+"Your Highness," he cried, "none deny your power. Let it be mingled
+with mercy. It is excellent, as an English poet will say in a few
+hundred years, to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to
+use it like a giant. Take the half of my possessions, but spare my
+son-in-law."
+
+But Walter Tell broke in impatiently, and bade his grandfather rise,
+and not kneel to the tyrant.
+
+"Where must I stand?" asked he. "I'm not afraid. Father can hit a bird
+upon the wing."
+
+"You see that lime-tree yonder," said Gessler to his soldiers; "take
+the boy and bind him to it."
+
+"I will not be bound!" cried Walter. "I am not afraid. I'll stand
+still. I won't breathe. If you bind me I'll kick!"
+
+"Let us bind your eyes, at least," said Rudolph der Harras.
+
+"Do you think I fear to see father shoot?" said Walter. "I won't stir
+an eyelash. Father, show the tyrant how you can shoot. He thinks you're
+going to miss. Isn't he an old donkey!"
+
+"Very well, young man," muttered Gessler, "we'll see who is laughing
+five minutes from now." And once more he bade the crowd stand back and
+leave a way clear for Tell to shoot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The crowd fell back, leaving a lane down which Walter walked, carrying
+the apple. There was dead silence as he passed. Then the people began
+to whisper excitedly to one another.
+
+"Shall this be done before our eyes?" said Arnold of Melchthal to
+Werner Stauffacher. "Of what use was it that we swore an oath to rebel
+if we permit this? Let us rise and slay the tyrant."
+
+Werner Stauffacher, prudent man, scratched his chin thoughtfully.
+
+"We-e-ll," he said, "you see, the difficulty is that we are not armed
+and the soldiers _are_. There is nothing I should enjoy more than
+slaying the tyrant, only I have an idea that the tyrant would slay us.
+You see my point?"
+
+"Why were we so slow!" groaned Arnold. "We should have risen before,
+and then this would never have happened. Who was it that advised us to
+delay?"
+
+"We-e-ll," said Stauffacher (who had himself advised delay), "I can't
+quite remember at the moment, but I dare say you could find out by
+looking up the minutes of our last meeting. I know the motion was
+carried by a majority of two votes. See! Gessler grows impatient."
+
+Gessler, who had been fidgeting on his horse for some time, now spoke
+again, urging Tell to hurry.
+
+"Begin!" he cried--"begin!"
+
+"Immediately," replied Tell, fitting the arrow to the string.
+
+Gessler began to mock him once more.
+
+"You see now," he said, "the danger of carrying arms. I don't know if
+you have ever noticed it, but arrows very often recoil on the man who
+carries them. The only man who has any business to possess a weapon is
+the ruler of a country--myself, for instance. A low, common fellow--if
+you will excuse the description--like yourself only grows proud through
+being armed, and so offends those above him. But, of course, it's no
+business of mine. I am only telling you what I think about it.
+Personally, I like to encourage my subjects to shoot; that is why I am
+giving you such a splendid mark to shoot at. You see, Tell?"
+
+Tell did not reply. He raised his bow and pointed it. There was a stir
+of excitement in the crowd, more particularly in that part of the crowd
+which stood on his right, for, his hand trembling for the first time in
+his life, Tell had pointed his arrow, not at his son, but straight into
+the heart of the crowd.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XI]
+
+"Here! Hi! That's the wrong way! More to the left!" shouted the people
+in a panic, while Gessler roared with laughter, and bade Tell shoot and
+chance it.
+
+"If you can't hit the apple or your son," he chuckled, "you can bring
+down one of your dear fellow-countrymen."
+
+Tell lowered his bow, and a sigh of relief went through the crowd.
+
+"My eyes are swimming," he said; "I cannot see."
+
+Then he turned to the Governor.
+
+"I cannot shoot," he said; "bid your soldiers kill me."
+
+"No," said Gessler--"no, Tell. That is not at all what I want. If I had
+wished my soldiers to kill you, I should not have waited for a formal
+invitation from you. I have no desire to see you slain. Not at present.
+I wish to see you shoot. Come, Tell, they say you can do everything,
+and are afraid of nothing. Only the other day, I hear, you carried a
+man, one Baumgartner--that was his name, I think--across a rough sea in
+an open boat. You may remember it? I particularly wished to catch
+Baumgartner, Tell. Now, this is a feat which calls for much less
+courage. Simply to shoot an apple off a boy's head. A child could do
+it."
+
+While he was speaking, Tell had been standing in silence, his hands
+trembling and his eyes fixed, sometimes on the Governor, sometimes on
+the sky. He now seized his quiver, and taking from it a second arrow,
+placed it in his belt. Gessler watched him, but said nothing.
+
+"Shoot, father!" cried Walter from the other end of the lane; "I'm not
+afraid."
+
+Tell, calm again now, raised his bow and took a steady aim. Everybody
+craned forward, the front ranks in vain telling those behind that there
+was nothing to be gained by pushing. Gessler bent over his horse's neck
+and peered eagerly towards Walter. A great hush fell on all as Tell
+released the string.
+
+"Phut!" went the string, and the arrow rushed through the air.
+
+A moment's suspense, and then a terrific cheer rose from the
+spectators.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XII]
+
+The apple had leaped from Walter's head, pierced through the centre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Intense excitement instantly reigned. Their suspense over, the crowd
+cheered again and again, shook hands with one another, and flung their
+caps into the air. Everyone was delighted, for everyone was fond of
+Tell and Walter. It also pleased them to see the Governor disappointed.
+He had had things his own way for so long that it was a pleasant change
+to see him baffled in this manner. Not since Switzerland became a
+nation had the meadow outside the city gates been the scene of such
+rejoicings.
+
+Walter had picked up the apple with the arrow piercing it, and was
+showing it proudly to all his friends.
+
+"I told you so," he kept saying; "I knew father wouldn't hurt me.
+Father's the best shot in all Switzerland."
+
+"That was indeed a shot!" exclaimed Ulric the smith; "it will ring
+through the ages. While the mountains stand will the tale of Tell the
+bowman be told."
+
+Rudolph der Harras took the apple from Walter and showed it to Gessler,
+who had been sitting transfixed on his horse.
+
+"See," he said, "the arrow has passed through the very centre. It was a
+master shot."
+
+"It was very nearly a 'Master Walter shot,'" said Rösselmann the priest
+severely, fixing the Governor with a stern eye.
+
+Gessler made no answer. He sat looking moodily at Tell, who had dropped
+his cross-bow and was standing motionless, still gazing in the
+direction in which the arrow had sped. Nobody liked to be the first to
+speak to him.
+
+"Well," said Rudolph der Harras, breaking an awkward silence, "I
+suppose it's all over now? May as well be moving, eh?"
+
+He bit a large piece out of the apple, which he still held. Walter
+uttered a piercing scream as he saw the mouthful disappear. Up till now
+he had shown no signs of dismay, in spite of the peril which he had had
+to face; but when he watched Rudolph eating the apple, which he
+naturally looked upon as his own property, he could not keep quiet any
+longer. Rudolph handed him the apple with an apology, and he began to
+munch it contentedly.
+
+"Come with me to your mother, my boy," said Rösselmann.
+
+Walter took no notice, but went on eating the apple.
+
+Tell came to himself with a start, looked round for Walter, and began
+to lead him away in the direction of his home, deaf to all the cheering
+that was going on around him.
+
+Gessler leaned forward in his saddle.
+
+"Tell," he said, "a word with you."
+
+Tell came back.
+
+"Your Excellency?"
+
+"Before you go I wish you to explain one thing."
+
+"A thousand, your Excellency."
+
+"No, only one. When you were getting ready to shoot at the apple you
+placed an arrow in the string and a second arrow in your belt."
+
+"A second arrow!" Tell pretended to be very much astonished, but the
+pretence did not deceive the Governor.
+
+"Yes, a second arrow. Why was that? What did you intend to do with that
+arrow, Tell?"
+
+Tell looked down uneasily, and twisted his bow about in his hands.
+
+"My lord," he said at last, "it is a bowman's custom. All archers place
+a second arrow in their belt."
+
+"No, Tell," said Gessler, "I cannot take that answer as the truth. I
+know there was some other meaning in what you did. Tell me the reason
+without concealment. Why was it? Your life is safe, whatever it was, so
+speak out. Why did you take out that second arrow?"
+
+Tell stopped fidgeting with his bow, and met the Governor's eye with a
+steady gaze.
+
+"Since you promise me my life, your Excellency," he replied, drawing
+himself up, "I will tell you."
+
+He drew the arrow from his belt and held it up.
+
+The crowd pressed forward, hanging on his words.
+
+"Had my first arrow," said Tell slowly, "pierced my child and not the
+apple, this would have pierced you, my lord. Had I missed with my first
+shot, be sure, my lord, that my second would have found its mark."
+
+A murmur of approval broke from the crowd as Tell thrust the arrow back
+into the quiver and faced the Governor with folded arms and burning
+eyes. Gessler turned white with fury.
+
+"Seize that man!" he shouted.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XIII]
+
+"My lord, bethink you," whispered Rudolph der Harras; "you promised him
+his life. Tell, fly!" he cried.
+
+Tell did not move.
+
+"Seize that man and bind him," roared Gessler once more. "If he
+resists, cut him down."
+
+"I shall not resist," said Tell scornfully. "I should have known the
+folly of trusting to a tyrant to keep his word. My death will at least
+show my countrymen the worth of their Governor's promises."
+
+"Not so," replied Gessler; "no man shall say I ever broke my knightly
+word. I promised you your life, and I will give you your life. But you
+are a dangerous man, Tell, and against such must I guard myself. You
+have told me your murderous purpose. I must look to it that that
+purpose is not fulfilled. Life I promised you, and life I will give
+you. But of freedom I said nothing. In my castle at Küssnacht there are
+dungeons where no ray of sun or moon ever falls. Chained hand and foot
+in one of these, you will hardly aim your arrows at me. It is rash,
+Tell, to threaten those who have power over you. Soldiers, bind him and
+lead him to my ship. I will follow, and will myself conduct him to
+Küssnacht."
+
+The soldiers tied Tell's hands. He offered no resistance. And amidst
+the groans of the people he was led away to the shore of the lake,
+where Gessler's ship lay at anchor.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XIV]
+
+"Our last chance is gone," said the people to one another. "Where shall
+we look now for a leader?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The castle of Küssnacht lay on the opposite side of the lake, a mighty
+mass of stone reared on a mightier crag rising sheer out of the waves,
+which boiled and foamed about its foot. Steep rocks of fantastic shape
+hemmed it in, and many were the vessels which perished on these, driven
+thither by the frequent storms that swept over the lake.
+
+Gessler and his men, Tell in their midst, bound and unarmed, embarked
+early in the afternoon at Flüelen, which was the name of the harbour
+where the Governor's ship had been moored. Flüelen was about two miles
+from Küssnacht.
+
+When they had arrived at the vessel they went on board, and Tell was
+placed at the bottom of the hold. It was pitch dark, and rats scampered
+over his body as he lay. The ropes were cast off, the sails filled, and
+the ship made her way across the lake, aided by a favouring breeze.
+
+A large number of the Swiss people had followed Tell and his captors to
+the harbour, and stood gazing sorrowfully after the ship as it
+diminished in the distance. There had been whispers of an attempted
+rescue, but nobody had dared to begin it, and the whispers had led to
+nothing. Few of the people carried weapons, and the soldiers were clad
+in armour, and each bore a long pike or a sharp sword. As Arnold of
+Sewa would have said if he had been present, what the people wanted was
+prudence. It was useless to attack men so thoroughly able to defend
+themselves.
+
+Therefore the people looked on and groaned, but did nothing.
+
+For some time the ship sped easily on her way and through a calm sea.
+Tell lay below, listening to the trampling of the sailors overhead, as
+they ran about the deck, and gave up all hope of ever seeing his home
+and his friends again.
+
+But soon he began to notice that the ship was rolling and pitching more
+than it had been doing at first, and it was not long before he realized
+that a very violent storm had begun. Storms sprung up very suddenly on
+the lake, and made it unsafe for boats that attempted to cross it.
+Often the sea was quite unruffled at the beginning of the crossing, and
+was rough enough at the end to wreck the largest ship.
+
+Tell welcomed the storm. He had no wish to live if life meant years of
+imprisonment in a dark dungeon of Castle Küssnacht. Drowning would be a
+pleasant fate compared with that. He lay at the bottom of the ship,
+hoping that the next wave would dash them on to a rock and send them to
+the bottom of the lake. The tossing became worse and worse.
+
+Upon the deck Gessler was standing beside the helmsman, and gazing
+anxiously across the waters at the rocks that fringed the narrow
+entrance to the bay a few hundred yards to the east of Castle
+Küssnacht. This bay was the only spot for miles along the shore at
+which it was possible to land safely. For miles on either side the
+coast was studded with great rocks, which would have dashed a ship to
+pieces in a moment. It was to this bay that Gessler wished to direct
+the ship. But the helmsman told him that he could not make sure of
+finding the entrance, so great was the cloud of spray which covered it.
+A mistake would mean shipwreck.
+
+"My lord," said the helmsman, "I have
+neither strength nor skill to guide the helm. I do not know which way
+to turn."
+
+"What are we to do?" asked Rudolph der Harras, who was standing near.
+
+The helmsman hesitated. Then he spoke, eyeing the Governor uneasily.
+
+"Tell could steer us through," he said, "if your lordship would but
+give him the helm."
+
+Gessler started.
+
+"Tell!" he muttered. "Tell!"
+
+The ship drew nearer to the rocks.
+
+"Bring him here," said Gessler.
+
+Two soldiers went down to the hold and released Tell. They bade him get
+up and come with them. Tell followed them on deck, and stood before the
+Governor.
+
+"Tell," said Gessler.
+
+Tell looked at him without speaking.
+
+"Take the helm, Tell," said Gessler, "and steer the ship through those
+rocks into the bay beyond, or instant death shall be your lot."
+
+Without a word Tell took the helmsman's place, peering keenly into the
+cloud of foam before him. To right and to left he turned the vessel's
+head, and to right again, into the very heart of the spray. They were
+right among the rocks now, but the ship did not strike on them.
+Quivering and pitching, she was hurried along, until of a sudden the
+spray-cloud was behind her, and in front the calm waters of the bay.
+
+Gessler beckoned to the helmsman.
+
+"Take the helm again," he said.
+
+He pointed to Tell.
+
+"Bind him," he said to the soldiers.
+
+The soldiers advanced slowly, for they were loath to bind the man who
+had just saved them from destruction. But the Governor's orders must he
+obeyed, so they came towards Tell, carrying ropes with which to bind
+him.
+
+Tell moved a step back. The ship was gliding past a lofty rock. It was
+such a rock as Tell had often climbed when hunting the chamois. He
+acted with the quickness of the hunter. Snatching up the bow and quiver
+which lay on the deck, he sprang on to the bulwark of the vessel, and,
+with a mighty leap, gained the rock. Another instant, and he was out of
+reach.
+
+Gessler roared to his bowmen.
+
+"Shoot! shoot!" he cried.
+
+The bowmen hastily fitted arrow to string. They were too late. Tell was
+ready before them. There was a hiss as the shaft rushed through the
+air, and the next moment Gessler the Governor fell dead on the deck,
+pierced through the heart.
+
+Tell's second arrow had found its mark, as his first had done.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XV]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+There is not much more of the story of William Tell. The death of
+Gessler was a signal to the Swiss to rise in revolt, and soon the whole
+country was up in arms against the Austrians. It had been chiefly the
+fear of the Governor that had prevented a rising before. It had been
+brewing for a long time. The people had been bound by a solemn oath to
+drive the enemy out of the country. All through Switzerland
+preparations for a revolution were going on, and nobles and peasants
+had united.
+
+Directly the news arrived that the Governor was slain, meetings of the
+people were held in every town in Switzerland, and it was resolved to
+begin the revolution without delay. All the fortresses that Gessler had
+built during his years of rule were carried by assault on the same
+night. The last to fall was one which had only been begun a short time
+back, and the people who had been forced to help to build it spent a
+very pleasant hour pulling down the stones which had cost them such
+labour to put in their place. Even the children helped. It was a great
+treat to them to break what they pleased without being told not to.
+
+"See," said Tell, as he watched them, "in years to come, when these
+same children are gray-haired, they will remember this night as freshly
+as they will remember it to-morrow."
+
+A number of people rushed up, bearing the pole which Gessler's soldiers
+had set up in the meadow. The hat was still on top of it, nailed to the
+wood by Tell's arrow.
+
+"Here's the hat!" shouted Ruodi--"the hat to which we were to bow!"
+
+"What shall we do with it?" cried several voices.
+
+"Destroy it! Burn it!" said others. "To the flames with this emblem of
+tyranny!"
+
+But Tell stopped them.
+
+"Let us preserve it," he said. "Gessler set it up to be a means
+of enslaving the country; we will set it up as a memorial of our
+newly-gained liberty. Nobly is fulfilled the oath we swore to drive
+the tyrants from our land. Let the pole mark the spot where the
+revolution finished."
+
+"But _is_ it finished?" said Arnold of Melchthal. "It is a nice
+point. When the Emperor of Austria hears that we have killed his friend
+Gessler, and burnt down all his fine new fortresses, will he not come
+here to seek revenge?"
+
+"He will," said Tell. "And let him come. And let him bring all his
+mighty armies. We have driven out the enemy that was in our land. We
+will meet and drive away the enemy that comes from another country.
+Switzerland is not easy to attack. There are but a few mountain passes
+by which the foe can approach. We will stop these with our bodies. And
+one great strength we have: we are united. And united we need fear no
+foe."
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted everybody.
+
+"But who is this that approaches?" said Tell. "He seems excited.
+Perhaps he brings news."
+
+It was Rösselmann the pastor, and he brought stirring news.
+
+"These are strange times in which we live," said Rösselmann, coming up.
+
+"Why, what has happened?" cried everybody.
+
+"Listen, and be amazed."
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"The Emperor----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"The Emperor is dead."
+
+"What! dead?"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+"Impossible! How came you by the news?"
+
+"John Müller of Schaffhausen brought it. And he is a truthful man."
+
+"But how did it happen?"
+
+"As the Emperor rode from Stein to Baden the lords of Eschenbach and
+Tegerfelden, jealous, it is said, of his power, fell upon him with
+their spears. His bodyguard were on the other side of a stream--the
+Emperor had just crossed it--and could not come to his assistance. He
+died instantly."
+
+By the death of the Emperor the revolution in Switzerland was enabled
+to proceed without check. The successor of the Emperor had too much to
+do in defending himself against the slayers of his father to think of
+attacking the Swiss, and by the time he was at leisure they were too
+strong to be attacked. So the Swiss became free.
+
+As for William Tell, he retired to his home, and lived there very
+happily ever afterwards with his wife and his two sons, who in a few
+years became very nearly as skilful in the use of the cross-bow as
+their father.
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+
+     Some say the tale related here
+       Is amplified and twisted;
+     Some say it isn't very clear
+       That William Tell existed;
+     Some say he freed his country _so_,
+       The Governor demolished.
+     Perhaps he did. I only know
+       That taxes aren't abolished!
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[The Illustrations and accompanying descriptive verses]
+
+
+
+
+[PROLOGUE.]
+
+     The Swiss, against their Austrian foes,
+       Had ne'er a soul to lead 'em,
+     Till Tell, as you've heard tell, arose
+       And guided them to freedom.
+     Tell's tale we tell again--an act
+       For which pray no one scold us--
+     This tale of Tell we tell, in fact,
+       As this Tell tale was told us.
+
+
+
+
+PLATE I.
+
+
+     Beneath a tyrant foreign yoke,
+       How love of freedom waxes!
+     (Especially when foreign folk
+       Come round collecting taxes.)
+     The Swiss, held down by Gessler's fist,
+       Would fain have used evasion;
+     Yet none there seemed who could resist
+       His methods of persuasion.
+
+[Illustration: GESSLER'S METHODS OF PERSUASION]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE II.
+
+
+     And pride so filled this Gessler's soul
+       (A monarch's pride outclassing),
+     He stuck his hat up on a pole,
+       That all might bow in passing.
+     Then rose the patriot, William Tell--
+       "We've groaned 'neath Austria's sway first;
+     Must we be ruled by poles as well?
+       I've just a word to say first!"
+
+[Illustration: THEY WOULD MARCH ABOUT, BEATING TIN CANS AND SHOUTING]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE III.
+
+
+     The crowd about the pole at morn
+       Used various "persuaders"--
+     They flung old cans (to prove their scorn
+       Of all tin-pot invaders);
+     And cabbage-stumps were freely dealt,
+       And apples (inexpensive),
+     And rotten eggs (to show they felt
+       A foreign yoke offensive).
+
+[Illustration: AN EGG FLEW ACROSS THE MEADOW, AND BURST OVER LEUTHOLD'S
+SHOULDER]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE IV.
+
+
+     Said William Tell, "And has this cuss
+       For conquest such a passion
+     He needs must set his cap at us
+       In this exalted fashion?"
+     And then the people gave a cry,
+       'Twixt joy and apprehension,
+     To see him pass the symbol by
+       With studied inattention!
+
+[Illustration: "HERE! HI!" SHOUTED THE SOLDIERS, "STOP!"]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE V.
+
+
+     At first the sentinel, aghast,
+       Glared like an angry dumb thing;
+     Then "Hi!" he shouted, "not so fast,
+       You're overlooking something!"
+     The sturdy Tell made no response;
+       Then through the hills resounded
+     A mighty thwack upon his sconce--
+       The people were astounded.
+
+[Illustration: THEY SAW FRIESSHARDT RAISE HIS PIKE, AND BRING IT DOWN
+WITH ALL HIS FORCE ON TELL'S HEAD]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE VI.
+
+
+     Could Tell an insult such as this
+       Ignore or pass? I doubt it!
+     No, no; that patriotic Swiss
+       Was very cross about it.
+     The people, interested now,
+       Exclaimed, "Here! Stop a minute
+     If there's to be a jolly row,
+       By Jingo! we'll be in it!"
+
+[Illustration: "LOOK HERE!" HE BEGAN. "LOOK THERE!" SAID FRIESSHARDT]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE VII.
+
+
+     Said Tell, "This satrap of the Duke
+       Is sore in need of gumption;
+     With my good bow I will rebuke
+       Such arrow-gant presumption."
+     "Stand back!" the soldier says, says he;
+       "This roughness is unseemly!"
+     The people cried, "We _will_ be FREE!"
+       And so they were--extremely!
+
+[Illustration: FRIESSHARDT RUSHED TO STOP HIM]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE VIII.
+
+
+     They dealt that soldier thump on thump
+       (He hadn't any notion,
+     When on Tell's head he raised that bump,
+       Of raising this commotion);
+     Tell's arrow sped, the people crowed,
+       And loudly cheered his action;
+     While Tell's expressive features showed
+       A certain satisfaction.
+
+[Illustration: THE CROWD DANCED AND SHOUTED]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE IX.
+
+
+     Now, when the cat's away, the mice
+       Are very enterprising,
+     But cats return, and, in a trice--
+       Well, Gessler nipped that rising.
+     And when those soldiers lodged complaint
+       (Which truly didn't lack ground),
+     The people practised self-restraint
+       And fell into the background.
+
+[Illustration: "COME, COME, COME!" SAID GESSLER, "TELL ME ALL ABOUT
+IT"]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE X.
+
+
+     And Tell, before the tyrant hailed,
+       No patriot you'd have guessed him,
+     For even his stout bosom quailed
+       When Gessler thus addressed him:--
+     "As you're the crack shot of these Swiss
+       (I've often heard it said so),
+     Suppose you take a shot at this,
+       Placed on your youngster's head--so!"
+
+[Illustration: "I HAVE HERE AN APPLE"]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE XI.
+
+
+     "The bearing," as they say, "of that
+       Lay in the apple-cation,"
+     And nobody will wonder at
+       A parent's agitation;
+     That anguish filled Tell's bosom proud
+       Needs scarcely to be stated,
+     And, it will be observed, the crowd
+       Was also agitated.
+
+[Illustration: THERE WAS A STIR OF EXCITEMENT IN THE CROWD]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE XII.
+
+
+     Said Gessler, "This is all my eye!
+       Come, hurry up and _buck_ up!
+     Remember, if you miss, you die--
+       That ought to keep your pluck up.
+     The flying arrow may, no doubt,
+       Your offspring's bosom enter--"
+     But here there rose a mighty shout:
+       "By George! He's scored a centre!"
+
+[Illustration: A MOMENT'S SUSPENSE, AND THEN A TERRIFIC CHEER AROSE
+FROM THE SPECTATORS]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE XIII.
+
+
+     But, as the arrow cleft the core,
+       Cried G. with indignation,
+     "What was the second arrow for?
+       Come, no e-quiver-cation!
+     You had a second in your fist."
+       Said Tell, the missile grippin',
+     "This shaft (had I that apple missed)
+       Was meant for you, my pippin!"
+
+[Illustration: "SEIZE THAT MAN!" HE SHOUTED]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE XIV.
+
+
+     With rage the tyrant said, said he,
+       "It's time to stop this prating;
+     I find your style of repartee
+       Extremely irritating.
+     You'll hang for this, be pleased to note."
+       On this they bound and gagged him
+     (For Gessler's castle booked by boat),
+       And through the village dragged him.
+
+[Illustration: HE WAS LED AWAY TO THE SHORE OF THE LAKE]
+
+
+
+
+PLATE XV.
+
+
+     But slips between the cup and lip,
+       When least expected, peer through--
+     A storm arose upon the trip
+       Which Tell alone could steer through.
+     Thus, of all hands he quickly got
+       (As you may see) the upper,
+     At Gessler took a parting shot,
+       And hurried home to supper.
+
+[Illustration: TELL'S SECOND ARROW HAD FOUND ITS MARK]
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+
+     Some say the tale related here
+       Is amplified and twisted;
+     Some say it isn't very clear
+       That William Tell existed;
+     Some say he freed his country <i>so</i>,
+       The Governor demolished.
+     Perhaps he did. I only know
+       That taxes aren't abolished!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's William Tell Told Again, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM TELL TOLD AGAIN ***
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