"Aha!" said Tell. "Oho! so it's you, is it?
I
know you. And a
nice sort of person you are, with your taxes on bread and sheep, aren't
you! You'll come to a bad end one of these days, that's what will
happen to you. Oh, you old reprobate! Pooh!" And he had passed on with
a look of scorn, leaving Gessler to think over what he had said. And
Gessler ever since had had a grudge against him, and was only waiting
for a chance of paying him out.
"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,
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