Directly the news arrived that the Governor was slain², meetings of the people were held in every town in Switzerland, and it was resolved to begin the revolution without delay. All the fortresses³ that Gessler had built during his years of rule were carried by assault on the same night. The last to fall was one which had only been begun a short time back, and the people who had been forced to help to build it spent a very pleasant hour pulling down the stones which had cost them such labour to put in their place. Even the children helped. It was a great treat to them to break what they pleased without being told not to.

 

"See," said Tell, as he watched them, "in years to come, when these same children are gray-haired, they will remember this night as freshly as they will remember it to-morrow."

 

A number of people rushed up, bearing the pole which Gessler's soldiers had set up in the meadow. The hat was still on top of it, nailed to the wood by Tell's arrow.

 

"Here's the hat!" shouted Ruodi--"the hat to which we were to bow!"

 

"What shall we do with it?" cried several voices.

 

"Destroy it! Burn it!" said others. "To the flames with this emblem⁴ of tyranny!"

 

But Tell stopped them.

 

"Let us preserve it," he said. "Gessler set it up to be a means of enslaving the country; we will set it up as a memorial of our newly-gained liberty. Nobly is fulfilled the oath we swore to drive the tyrants⁵ from our land. Let the pole mark the spot where the revolution finished."

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