kindly disposition and was liked as well
as admired by his neighbors.

William Tell had won more than one prize at the fairs and competitions
that were sometimes held near his town; on one occasion he had shot a
small bird on the wing with his sure arrow, for the bullseye of the
target had seemed too large for him. And so it came to pass that when
his neighbors revolted from the foreign yoke that Austria had thrown
over Switzerland Tell was one of the first to be called on by the
patriots who desired to free their country.

Switzerland was not a single country in those days, but was divided
into the three cantons or districts of Schwyz (from which it takes its
present name) Uri and Unterwalden. The Austrians had nominally governed
the country for a long time without any dissent on the part of the
Swiss people, for the Austrian ruler, named Adolph, had treated them
extremely well and allowed them to keep their ancestral rights and
customs.

Then, however, the Hapsburg Emperor, Albrecht, came to the throne; and
discontent and misery were soon apparent in the Swiss cantons. For the
new monarch did not follow the policy of the former king, but sent
cruel governors to rule over the honest Swiss, with secret orders to
oppress them in many ways until their love of liberty, for which they
had always been famous, might be destroyed.

All the time that these changes were taking place, William Tell went
quietly about his affairs. He looked after his herds and hunted in the
mountains, while his wife, Hedwig, saw to his house and brought up his
two boys, William and Walter. He had everything to make him happy--a
clean and well ordered home on the side of the mountain, a devoted
wife, two manly boys, and a herd of cattle that included the most
beautiful cow for miles around. This cow was named Hifeli, and wore a
sweet toned bell about her neck.

Driving a cow over the mountain paths was a difficult and dangerous
undertaking, and one that Tell had never entrusted to either of his
children, but as his son William seemed to be able and venturesome he
was allowed one day as a great pleasure to drive Hifeli and her calf up
to the mountain pasture. The way led along the side of a cliff, and in
one place it was so narrow that only a few inches separated those on
the path from a terrific gulf so deep that the clouds sometimes hid the
trees below it.

While the boy was driving Hifeli over this place, with a sudden rush a
fierce eagle