Above a century has passed away, since the last heroines of that family, to whose annals I am preparing to add, quitted the scene of human action. I say, the last, because no accounts exist of their successors; but during that long and vacant period, who knows, but that many excellent persons may have acted in a manner which did credit to their ancestors, though no written or traditional memorial remains to communicate to posterity their virtues and their woes, their trials and their victories? My heart delights in the tale, which records examples of heroic excellence; and I have frequently censured the indolence of cotemporary writers, for suffering this period to remain a blank. Lest I should deserve that censure myself, which I have not scrupled to inflict upon others, I now take up my pen, and proceed to execute a task, which (should I live to finish it) will, I trust, rescue from oblivion some circumstances well-deserving to be remembered. What I shall set down will be truth, pure unadorned truth. A just cause demands not the aid of ornament; and should these leaves ever meet the eye of persons, who may think themselves more nearly interested in their contents than others, let them not for an instant suspect, that one syllable is either inserted or retrenched upon their account, or with a view to produce any other sentiment in their bosoms, than a conviction of the truth. It is not before their tribunal, that I plead the cause of two unfortunates, but before that of the whole world: I write not for them, whose prejudices may perhaps make them refuse to peruse more than a few pages of this narrative, and who may close their eyes obstinately against the light, which shews them that, which they are unwilling to see. No; I write for impartial judges, and will state my case with as pure and rigid fidelity, as were I stating it to the ear of Heaven.
In the tranquil vales, which border the lakes of Thun and of the Four Cantons, those lakes where Helvetian Liberty first threw her fetters away, still do the families exist of those best friends of their native country, the Melthals, the Forests, the Bernsdorfs, and the Tells. Their different branches have spread themselves on all sides, and almost form a little nation of their own; whose sons and daughters, even in a land where honour, bravery, and truth are so universal, still distinguish themselves from their compatriots by the superiority of their virtues. It were an easy task for me to point out many Williams, Walters, and Henrics, many Gertrudes and Amabels in this amiable community, so perfectly have the good qualities of their fore-fathers been inherited by their children: but at present I shall only mention the inhabitants of one particular house, which sheltered the infancy of the heroines of my tale.
’Twas the peaceful cottage of a younger William and a younger Amabel, the descendants of that Tell, who offered up the tyrant Gessler as a sacrifice to the insulted liberties of Helvetia: here among a crowd of blooming sons and daughters two lovely girls were remarked, whose appearance made it evident, that their origin was not the same with that of their play-mates. It is true, that they called themselves their sisters, and were persuaded, that in fact they were so; but yet the truth was quite otherwise. The real children of the family were healthy and strong like the generality of their kindred; but these two girls were fair and delicate, and rather resembled beautiful exotic plants surrounded by meadow flowers, to which they condescended to allow the honour of a common origin: and however they might themselves esteem the merits of these simple children of nature, to all other eyes it was plain, that their own perfections were far superior.
I have entitled this narrative “the Sisters without a Name,” for it was long before they knew the family, from which they sprung; and when it was at length revealed to them, they found, that their rights were in the possession of strangers. Nay, at the moment that I am writing, they are still denied the privilege of calling themselves by the name of an illustrious House, whose dignity would be disgraced by the inferior station, in which they are at present compelled to exist.
In the early and happiest period of their lives, the Sisters were totally unconscious of the magnitude of their claims, and their minds encouraged no wish to be greater than they were. Happy in the humble sphere for which they believed themselves ordained, happy in the shades of their mountains, in the tranquillity of their flowery vallies and glassy lakes, they considered the scenes which surrounded them, and which appeared to them so enchanting, as a beautiful specimen of the whole world; nor did they ever trouble their heads with a thought, whether beyond those mountains, and on the outside of those vallies, there existed objects which were deserving of a wish to be acquainted with. This fortunate unconsciousness was assiduously preserved in their minds by those, to whose care they were confided; and on winter-evenings, when William Tell had collected all his children around him (among whom the Sisters were still reckoned) the stories, with which he entertained them, always respected some hero or heroine of ancient Helvetia; so that nothing was made known to them except the country which gave them birth, and they were led to consider nothing as of importance but what related to that country, because of that country alone had they ever been told any thing important. In the same manner were they instructed respecting the concerns of human life: every illustration was selected from the lower or middling classes of society and the manners and customs of the great would have been totally unknown to them, had it not been for an old man, over whose head near a century had past, and who was a member of the happy family, in which the Sisters resided. This good father would often take the two girls apart from their playmates, and recount to them particulars of the ancient Houses of Carlsheim, Torrenburg, and Homburg. Mary and Rosanna (so were the Sisters called, while under Tell’s roof) listened to him with the greatest interest, and each selected a heroine from among the Helens, Emmelines, and Uranias, as the object of her peculiar admiration.
But such ladies of those illustrious families, as had finished their lives in a cloister, were sure of obtaining the favour of the gentle serious Mary. She was not fourteen, when she made a pilgrimage to the Convent of Engelberg for the purpose of kissing the stone, on which Amalberga was kneeling, when surprised by Landenberg’s emissaries; and she frequently expressed a wish, that she might one day be permitted to take the veil in that Convent, which had so long given shelter to the heiress of Sargans.
The laughing Rosanna often added to this wish an assertion, that her sister hoped like Amalberga to exchange in due time the cloister for a bridal garland; but Mary’s conduct sufficiently proved, that her religious vocation was at that time no affectation. She was just sixteen, when William Tell was obliged to comply with her entreaties, and suffer her to reside at Engelberg. He seemed to consent to this step unwillingly: but he comforted himself with the reflection, that the rules of this House permitted no one to pronounce the irrevocable vow, who had not completed her twenty-fifth year; a period, before whose arrival a thousand accidents must necessarily have taken place, capable of shaking the most determined resolutions and the most ardent zeal.
Rosanna accompanied her sister to the Convent, and for a few days forced herself to be pleased and satisfied with the religious tranquillity of her new abode. But at length she could no longer conceal from herself, that nothing save Mary’s society could have made the manners of a convent endurable; and that in fact she was much better calculated for singing and dancing with her young companions on the village green, than for attending the Abbess and her Nuns to the midnight mass. She therefore endeavoured to give her occupations some variety by taking an active part in the internal arrangements of the Convent.
Rosanna was beautiful, but as yet no one had told her so. None of the neighbouring youths pleased her enough to make any impression upon her, and the consequence was, that her charms made but little impression upon them. With all her vivacity, there was a certain something in Rosanna’s manner, which kept the multitude in awe. Every one admired her, wished her well, was pleased to see her join in their amusements, but she produced no warmer sentiment. A kind of dignity, of which she was herself unconscious, prevented the young men from being as much at their ease with her, as with her companions, and kept even the least abashed of them at a distance: at length the society was increased by the arrival of a person, who only required to be seen, in order to inspire her with a wish to obtain from him something more than indifference, or mere dispassionate approbation.
The ancient friendship established between the families of William Tell and Henric Melthal was kept up by their descendants in all its original vigour. A son of that Alwyn Melthal, who played the chief part at the capture of Rassburg, was still alive, and nearly of the same age with that old relation of William Tell, whom I formerly mentioned. Both these venerable men were still fresh and hearty in spite of their advanced time of life; such is indeed the natural effect of breathing the pure mountain air, and living far from the vices and excesses of cities. The two families often met together, and their days of festivity were always observed in common.