rrived?

STUSSI.
And do you seek him?

ARMGART.
Alas, I do!

STUSSI.
But why thus place yourself
Where you obstruct his passage down the pass?

ARMGART.
Here he cannot escape me. He must hear me.

FRIESSHARDT (coming hastily down the pass, and calls upon the stage).
Make way, make way! My lord, the governor,
Is coming down on horseback close behind me.

[Exit TELL.

ARMGART (with animation).
The viceroy comes!

[She goes towards the pass with her children.
GESSLER and RUDOLPH DER HARRAS appear upon the
heights on horseback.

STUSSI (to FRIESSHARDT).
How got ye through the stream
When all the bridges have been carried down?

FRIESSHARDT.
We've battled with the billows; and, my friend,
An Alpine torrent's nothing after that.

STUSSI.
How! Were you out, then, in that dreadful storm?

FRIESSHARDT.
Ay, that we were! I shall not soon forget it.

STUSSI.
Stay, speak----

FRIESSHARDT.
I cannot. I must to the castle,
And tell them that the governor's at hand.

[Exit.

STUSSI.
If honest men, now, had been in the ship,
It had gone down with every soul on board:--
Some folks are proof 'gainst fire and water both.

[Looking round.

Where has the huntsman gone with whom I spoke?

[Exit.

Enter GESSLER and RUDOLPH DER HARRAS on horseback.

GESSLER.
Say what you please; I am the emperor's servant,
And my first care must be to do his pleasure.
He did not send me here to fawn and cringe
And coax these boors into good humor. No!
Obedience he must have. We soon shall see
If king or peasant is to lord it here?

ARMGART.
Now is the moment! Now for my petition!

GESSLER.
'Twas not in sport that I set up the cap
In Altdorf--or to try the people's hearts--
All this I knew before. I set it up
That they might learn to bend those stubborn necks
They carry far too proudly--and I placed
What well I knew their eyes could never brook
Full in the road, which they perforce must pass,
That, when their eyes fell on it, they might call
That lord to mind whom they too much forget.

HARRAS.
But surely, sir, the people have some rights----

GESSLER.
This is no time to settle what they are.
Great projects are at work, and hatching now;
The imperial house seeks to extend its power.
Those vast designs of conquests, which the sire
Has gloriously begun, the son will end.
This petty nation is a s