The Vogt not come!

STUeSSI. Did you want aught with him?

ARMGART. Ah! yes, indeed!

STUeSSI. Why have you placed yourself
In this strait pass to meet him?

ARMGART. In the pass
He cannot turn aside from me, must hear me.

FRIESSHARDT [_comes hastily down the Pass, and calls into the Scene_].

Make way! make way! My lord the Landvogt
Is riding close at hand.

ARMGART. The Landvogt coming!

[_She goes with her children to the front of the Scene. Gessler and
Rudolph der Harras appear on horseback at the top of the Pass._

STUeSSI [_to Friesshardt_].
How got you through the water, when the flood
Had carried down the bridges?

FRIESS. We have battled
With the billows, friend; we heed no Alp-flood.

STUeSSI. Were you o' board i' th' storm?

FRIESS. That were we;
While I live, I shall remember 't.

STUeSSI. Stay, stay!
O, tell me!

FRIESS. Cannot; must run on t' announce
His lordship in the Castle. [_Exit._

STUeSSI. Had these fellows
I' th' boat been honest people, 't would have sunk
With ev'ry soul of them. But for such rakehells,
Neither fire nor flood will kill them. [_He looks round._] Whither
Went the Mountain-man was talking with me? [_Exit._

GESSLER _and_ RUDOLPH DER HARRAS _on horseback_.

GESSLER. Say what you like, I am the Kaiser's servant,
And must think of pleasing him. He sent me
Not to caress these hinds, to soothe or nurse them:
Obedience is the word! The point at issue is
Shall Boor or Kaiser here be lord o' th' land.

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

[_Approaches timidly._

GESSLER. This Hat at Aldorf, mark you, I set up
Not for the joke's sake, or to try the hearts
O' th' people; these I know of old: but that
They might be taught to bend their necks to me,
Which are too straight and stiff: and in the way
Where they are hourly passing, I have planted
This offence, that so their eyes may fall on't,
And remind them of their lord, whom they forget.

RUDOLPH. But yet the people have some rights--

GESSLER. Which now
Is not a time for settling or admitting.
Mighty things are on the anvil. The house
Of Hapsburg must wax powerful; what the Father
Gloriously began, the Son must forward:
This people is a stone of stu