OTHER THREE PEASANTS (running in).

We’ll help you.  What’s the matter?  Down with them!

      [HILDEGARD, MECHTHILD and ELSBETH return.]

TELL.

Go, go, good people, I can help myself. 
Think you, had I a mind to use my strength,
These pikes of theirs should daunt me?

MELCHTHAL (to FRIESSHARDT).

Only try—­
Try from our midst to force him, if you dare.

FUeRST and STAUFFACHER.

Peace, peace, friends!

FRIESSHARDT (loudly).

Riot!  Insurrection, ho!

[Hunting-horns without.]

WOMEN.

The Governor!

FRIESSHARDT (raising his voice).

Rebellion!  Mutiny!

STAUFF.

Roar till you burst, knave!

ROeSSELMANN and MELCHTHAL.

Will you hold your tongue?

FRIESSHARDT (calling still louder).

Help, help, I say, the servants of the law!

FUeRST.

The Viceroy here!  Then we shall smart for this!

[Enter GESSLER on horseback, with a falcon on his wrist:  RUDOLPH DER HARRAS, BERTHA, and RUDENZ, and a numerous train of armed attendants, who form a circle of lances round the whole stage.]

HARRAS.

Room for the Viceroy!

GESSLER.

Drive the clowns apart. 
Why throng the people thus?  Who calls for help?

[General silence.]

[Illustration:  TELL AND GESSLER As performed at the Royal Theatre, Dresden, 1906.]

Who was it?  I will know.

[FRIESSHARDT steps forward.]

And who art thou? 
And why hast thou this man in custody?

[Gives his falcon to an attendant.]

FRIESS.

Dread sir, I am a soldier of your guard,
And station’d sentinel beside the cap;
This man I apprehended in the act
Of passing it without obeisance due;
So as you ordered, I arrested him,
Whereupon to rescue him the people tried.

GESSLER (after a pause).

And do you, Tell, so lightly hold your King,
And me, who act as his vice-regent here,
That you refuse obeisance to the cap,
I hung aloft to test your loyalty? 
I read in this a disaffected spirit.

TELL.

Pardon me, good my lord!  The action sprung
From inadvertence—­not from disrespect. 
Were I discreet, I were not William Tell. 
Forgive me now—­I’ll not offend again.

GESSLER (after a pause).

I hear, Tell, you’re a master with the bow—­
From every rival bear the palm away.

WALTER.

That’s very truth, sir!  At a hundred yards
He’ll shoot an apple for you off the tree.

GESSLER.

Is that boy thine, Tell?

TELL.

Yes, my gracious lord.