Pelham Wodehouse: William Tell Told Again

"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."

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 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.

"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.

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.

"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."