05 William Tell Told Again Read online

  “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 crossbow 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.