P. G. Wodehouse

“ 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 bid 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”