they had been doing nothing in particular, and were going to go on doing it—only somewhere else.
Tell was left standing alone in the middle of the meadow by the pole. He scorned to run away like the others, but he did not at all like the look of things. Gessler was a stern man, quick to punish any insult, and there were two of his soldiers lying on the ground with their nice armour all spoiled and dented, and his own cap on top of the pole had an arrow right through the middle of it, and would never look the same again, however much it might be patched. It seemed to Tell that there was a bad time coming.
Gessler rode up, and reined in his horse.
“Now then, now then, now then!” he said, in his quick, abrupt way. “What’s this? what’s this? what’s this?"
(When a man repeats what he says three
