MECHTHILD.
There hangs the viceroy! Your obeisance, children!
ELSBETH.
I would to God he'd go, and leave his cap!
The country would be none the worse for it.
FRIESSHARDT (driving them away).
Out of the way! Confounded pack of gossips!
Who sent for you? Go, send your husbands here,
If they have courage to defy the order.
[TELL enters with his crossbow, leading his son WALTER
by the hand. They pass the hat without noticing it, and
advance to the front of the stage.
WALTER (pointing to the Bannberg).
Father, is't true, that on the mountain there,
The trees, if wounded with a hatchet, bleed?
TELL.
Who says so, boy?
WALTER.
The master herdsman, father!
He tells us there's a charm upon the trees,
And if a man shall injure them, the hand
That struck the blow will grow from out the grave.
TELL.
There is a charm about them, that's the truth.
Dost see those glaciers yonder, those white horns,
That seem to melt away into the sky?
WALTER.
They are the peaks that thunder so at night,
And send the avalanches down upon us.
TELL.
They are; and Altdorf long ago had been
Submerged beneath these avalanches' weight,
Did not the forest there above the town
Stand like a bulwark to arrest their fall.