The helplessness, the distress, together with the uncommon beauty of the child, moved the heart of a peasant near him, to compassion.  “Who is your father, my fair boy?” said he.  “Point him out, and I will lead you to him.”

“My father is William Tell, the crossbow-man of Burglen,” said the child.  “There he is close to the cap on the pole yonder.”

“Is he your father, poor babe?” said the peasant.  “Well, you will find him in rare trouble, and I hope you may not be the means of adding to it, my little man.”

No sooner had the kind man cleared the way through the crowd for his young companion, and conducted him within a few yards of the spot where William Tell stood, than the urchin drew his hand away from his new friend, and running to his father, flung his little arms about his knees, sobbing, “Father, dear father, pray forgive me this once, and I will never disobey you again.”

Henric made his appearance at an unlucky moment both for his father and himself; for the cruel governor of Uri, exasperated at the manly courage of Tell, seized the boy by the arm and sternly demanded if he were his son.

“Harm not the child, I pray thee,” cried Tell:  “he is my first born.”

“It is not my intention to do him harm,” replied the governor.  “If any mischief befall the child, it will be by thy own hand, traitor.  Here,” cried he to one of his soldiers, “take this boy, tie him beneath yon linden-tree, in the centre of the market-place, and place an apple on his head—­”

“What means this?” cried Tell.

“I am minded to see a specimen of your skill as an archer,” replied Gessler.  “I am told that you are the best marksman in all Uri; and, therefore, your life being forfeited by your presumptuous act of disobedience, I am inclined, out of the clemency of my nature, to allow you a chance of saving it.  This you may do, if you can shoot an arrow so truly aimed as to cleave the apple upon thy boy’s head.  But if thou either miss the apple, or slay the child, then shall the sentence of death be instantly executed.”

“Unfeeling tyrant!” exclaimed Tell; “dost thou think that I could endeavour to preserve my own life by risking that of my precious child?”

“Nay,” replied Gessler, “I thought I was doing thee a great favour by offering thee an alternative, whereby thou mightest preserve thy forfeited life by a lucky chance.”

“A lucky chance!” exclaimed Tell:  “and dost thou believe that I would stake my child’s life on such a desperate chance as the cast of an arrow launched by the agitated hand of an anxious father, at such a mark as that?  Nay, look at the child thyself, my lord.  Though he be no kin to thee, and thou knowest none of his pretty ways and winning wiles, whereby he endeareth himself to a parent’s heart—­yet consider his innocent countenance, the artless beauty of his features, and the rosy freshness of his rounded cheeks, which are dimpling with joy at the sight of me, though the tears yet hang upon them—­and then say, whether thou couldst find in thine heart to aim an arrow that perchance might harm him?”