"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 hid 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!"

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