Note 1 — Chapter III

It is difficult to decide whether it is superfluous to tell once again the story of Tell. On the principle that a good story cannot be told too often, here are the main "facts" as given in Swiss histories:

"One day the Austrian Governor of Uri, Gessler, set up a pole in the market-place of Altdorf. Upon this pole he set his hat, and gave orders that every Swiss who passed should bow down before it, in homage to his Austrian masters. Tell came by and did not bow. Gessler ordered him to be seized. Tell was a very famous archer. So the Governor bade his soldiers seize Tell's son and set the boy against a tree. An apple was placed on the child's head, and Tell was bidden to shoot at that mark. Tell took two arrows, placed one on his bow-string, and made careful aim. He shot his arrow, and it cleft the apple in two. Gessler demanded then why he had taken two arrows. Tell said: 'If the first arrow had injured my son, the second would soon have pierced thy heart.' Tell was then bound and placed in the Governor's barge, and the boat was rowed across the lake. When the barge was far from the shore, a sudden storm came. Tell was the most expert boatman of them all, and Gessler ordered that Tell should be unbound, and the hero took the tiller and steered the boat through the storm to safety. But then he killed Gessler with an arrow and took to the forest and there gave the first call to active revolt."