ATTING.
Go, children, and at eve, when work is done,
We'll meet and talk the country's business over.
[Exeunt servants.]
Belted and plumed, and all thy bravery on!
Thou art for Altdorf—for the castle, boy?
RUD.
Yes, uncle. Longer may I not delay—
ATTING. (sitting down).
Why in such haste? Say, are thy youthful hours
Doled in such niggard measure, that thou must
Be chary of them to thy aged uncle?
RUD.
I see my presence is not needed here,
I am but as a stranger in this house.
ATTING. (gazes fixedly at him for a considerable time).
Ay, pity 'tis thou art! Alas, that home
To thee has grown so strange! Oh, Uly! Uly!
I scarce do know thee now, thus deck'd in silks,
The peacock's feather[*] flaunting in thy cap,
And purple mantle round thy shoulders flung;
Thou look'st upon the peasant with disdain;
And tak'st his honest greeting with a blush.
[*] The Austrian knights were in the habit of wearing a plume of
peacock's feathers in their helmets. After the overthrow of the
Austrian dominion in Switzerland, it was made highly penal to wear
the peacock's feather at any public assembly there.
RUD.
All honour due to him I gladly pay,
But must deny the right he would usurp.
ATTING.
The sore displeasure of its monarch rests
Upon our land, and every true man's heart,
Is full of sadness for the grievous wrongs
We suffer from our tyrants. Thou alone
Art all unmoved amid the general grief.
Abandoning thy friends, thou tak'st thy stand
Beside thy country's foes, and, as in scorn
Of our distress, pursuest giddy joys,
Courting the smiles of princes all the while
Thy country bleeds beneath their cruel scourge.