That is it, and this here is the Axenberg,” said Emily, the elder girl.
“But I see no Platform here,” remarked George with mischief in his eye, as he quickly detected the young girl’s faith in the hero.
“It would be impossible to see it,” she rejoined, “as it is three hundred feet below this house.”
“But we can show you the way, if you will come,” continued the younger child, taking George’s hand, who, partly from surprise and partly amusement, allowed himself to be led like a lamb across the road and through the garden to the pathway winding down the cliff, followed by us, under guidance of the elder sister, Emily.
“Yes,” the children answered, “they had spent the last two years in France and Germany.” And certainly they spoke both languages like natives. Emily was even translating William Tell into English blank verse. “Heigho!” sighed Mr. C——, “for this precocious age.” But the lake of the Forest Cantons was dearer to them than all else. They had climbed one thousand feet up the side of the Frohnalpstock that very morning with their father; knew every peak and valley, far and near, with all their legends and histories; even the ranz des vaches and the differences between them—the shepherds’ calls to the cows and the goats. Annie, our smaller friend, entertained George with all their varieties, as she tripped daintily along, like a little fairy, with her tiny alpenstock. Very different was she from continental children, who rarely, if ever, take interest in either pastoral or literary matters. She knew the way to the platform well; for did she not go up and down it many times a day? A difficult descent it was, too—almost perpendicular—notwithstanding the well-kept pathway; but not dangerous until we reached the bottom, when each one in turn had to jump on to a jutting piece of rock, in order to get round the corner into the chapel. Most truly it stands on a small ledge, with no inch of room for aught but the small building raised over it. The water close up to the shore is said to be eight hundred feet deep, and it made one shudder to hear Herr H——’s story of an artist who a few years ago fell into the lake while sketching on the cliffs above. Poor man! forgetful of the precipice, he had thoughtlessly stepped back a few steps to look at his painting, fell over, and was never seen again. His easel and painting alone remained to give pathetic warning to other rash spirits.
The chapel, open on the side next the water, is covered with faded frescos of Tell’s history, which our little friends quaintly described; and it contains, besides, an altar and a small pulpit. Here Mass is said once a year on the Friday after the Ascension, when all the people of the neighborhood come hither, and from their boats, grouped outside, hear Mass and the sermon preached to them from the railing in front. This was the feast which my Weggis guide so much desired to see. It is unique in every particular, and Herr H—— was eloquent on the beauty and impressiveness of the scene, at which he had once been present, and which it was easy to understand amidst these magnificent surroundings. Nor is it a common gathering of peasants, but a solemn celebration, to which the authorities of Uri come in state with the standard of Uri—the renowned Uri ox—floating at the bows. As may be supposed, the sermon is always national, touching on all those points of faith, honor, and dignity which constitute true patriotism. Mr. C—— had Murray’s guide-book in his hand, and would not allow us to say another word until he read aloud Sir James Macintosh’s remarks on this portion of the lake, which there occur as follows:
“The combination of what is grandest in nature with whatever is pure and sublime in human conduct affected me in this passage (along the lake) more powerfully than any scene which I had ever seen. Perhaps neither Greece nor Rome would have had such power over me. They are dead. The present inhabitants are a new race, who regard with little or no feeling the memorials of former ages. This is, perhaps, the only place on the globe where deeds of pure virtue, ancient enough to be venerable, are consecrated by the religion of the people, and continue to command interest and reverence. No local superstition so beautiful and so moral anywhere exists. The inhabitants of Thermopylæ or Marathon know no more of these famous spots than that they are so many square feet of earth. England is too extensive a country to make Runnymede an object of national affection. In countries of industry and wealth the stream of events sweeps away these old remembrances. The solitude of the Alps is a sanctuary destined for the monuments of ancient virtue; Grütli and Tell’s chapel are as much reverenced by the Alpine peasants as Mecca by a devout Mussulman; and the deputies of the three ancient cantons met, so late as the year 1715, to renew their allegiance and their oaths of eternal union.”
“All very well,” said George, “if there really had been a Tell; but this seems to me a body without a soul. Why, this very chapel is in the Italian style, and never could have been founded by the one hundred and twenty contemporaries who are said to have known Tell and to have been present at its consecration.”
“I never heard that any one insisted on this being the original building,” said Herr H——. “It is probably an improvement on it; but it was not the fashion in those times—for people were not then incredulous—to put up tablets recording changes and renovations, as nowadays at Kaltbad and Klösterle, for instance. But speaking dispassionately, Mr. George, it seems to me quite impossible that the introduction of any legend from Denmark or elsewhere could have taken such strong hold of a people like these mountaineers without some solid foundation, especially here, where every inhabitant is known to the other, and the same families have lived on in the same spots for centuries. Why is it not just as likely that the same sort of event should have occurred in more than one place? And as to its not being mentioned in the local documents, that is not conclusive either; for we all know how careless in these respects were the men of the middle ages, above all in a rude mountain canton of this kind. Transmission by word of mouth and by religious celebrations is much more in character with those times. I go heart and hand with your own Buckle, who places so much reliance on local traditions. The main argument used against the truth of the story is, you know, that it was first related in detail by an old chronicler called Ægidius Tschudi, a couple of hundred years after the event. But I see nothing singular in that; for most probably he merely committed to writing, with all the freshness of simplicity, the story which, for the previous two hundred years, had been in the hearts and on the lips of the peasants of this region. No invention of any writer could have founded chapels or have become ingrained in the hearts of the locality itself in the manner this story has done. It was never doubted until the end of the last century, when a Prof. Freudenberger, of Bern, wrote a pamphlet entitled William Tell: a Danish Fable.”
“Yes,” broke in little Emily, latest translator of Schiller, and who had been listening attentively to our discussion, “and the people of the forest cantons were so indignant that the authorities of Uri had the pamphlet burned by the common hangman, and then they solemnly proclaimed its author an outlaw.”