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On the Sunday following, a peasant of Uri, William Tell by name, who, as we are told, was one of the thirty-three sworn confederates, passed several times through the market-place at Altdorf without bowing or bending the knee to Gessler's hat. This was reported to the governor, who summoned Tell to his presence, and haughtily asked him why he had dared to disobey his command.

A light southern breeze aided the efforts of the oarsmen, and tempered the rigor of the cold, which night in that season rendered almost insupportable so near the glaciers. All appeared in Gessler's favor. The extent of the first section of the lake was soon passed, and the boat headed for Brunnen.

In the torture by the rifle there was none of the latitude permitted that appeared in the case of even Gessler's apple, a hair's breadth being, in fact, the utmost limits that an expert marksman would allow himself on an occasion like this.

He waited in the woods on the edge of a ravine through which Gessler must pass on the way to his castle at Kussnacht, for no other way led there; and when the Governor's escort finally appeared, Tell aimed his bow, the arrow hissed from the string and imbedded itself squarely in Gessler's heart.

"Nay, what accusation could he bring against thee?" "That of being the friend of my country, which is, of course, a crime not to be forgiven by a person of Gessler's disposition." "But Gessler is too much exalted above our humble sphere of life, to be aware of a peasant's sentiments on such matters," said Annette.

Great was the anger felt by the Swiss when they heard of this infamous design on Gessler's part but how much more when the cap was actually taken to the public square by a force of heavily armed soldiers and a proclamation was read ordering all who saw it to salute it on pain of whatever penalty the Governor saw fit to impose!

Gessler's fear of Tell induced him at first to hesitate, but, the prayers of the soldiers becoming pressing, he told the prisoner that if he could take them safely through the storm he should be at once unbound.

"Thou shall shoot, or assuredly thou diest with thy son!" "Become the murderer of my child! My lord, you have no son you cannot have the feelings of a father's heart!" Gessler's friends interfere in behalf of the unhappy father, and plead for mercy. But all appeal is in vain. The tyrant is determined on carrying out his sentence. The father and son are placed at a distance of eighty paces apart.

Trunks were piled on it, and only when it disappeared did the crowd melt. I thought of Gessler's cap on the pole and William Tell. Curiosity is perhaps the prime root of patriotism. Finally, as too much Strauss palls, also too much Stuttgart.

A military cap does it alone, if showy and belaced, and shining at the top of a non-human pole, like Gessler's. Thus chatting and philosophising, the caravan proceeded. The barefooted porters leaped from rock to rock with ape-like screams. The guncases clanked, and the guns themselves flashed. The natives who were passing, salaamed to the ground before the magic cap.