Nay, Sir, drink it off! One cup, one heart! You know our proverb, Sir? ATTING. Go, children, and at eve, when work is done, We'll meet and talk the country's business over. [Exeunt servants.] Belted and plumed, and all thy bravery on! Thou art for Altdorf--for the castle, boy? RUD. Yes, uncle. Longer may I not delay-- ATTING. (sitting down). Why in such haste? Say, are thy youthful hours Doled in such niggard measure, that thou must Be chary of them to thy aged uncle? RUD. I see my presence is not needed here, I am but as a stranger in this house. ATTING. (gazes fixedly at him for a considerable time). Ay, pity 'tis thou art! Alas, that home To thee has grown so strange! Oh, Uly! Uly! I scarce do know thee now, thus deck'd in silks, The peacock's feather[*] flaunting in thy cap, And purple mantle round thy shoulders flung; Thou look'st upon the peasant with disdain; And tak'st his honest greeting with a blush. [*] The Austrian knights were in the habit of wearing a plume of peacock's feathers in their helmets. After the overthrow of the Austrian dominion in Switzerland, it was made highly penal to wear the peacock's feather at any public assembly there. RUD. All honour due to him I gladly pay, But must deny the right he would usurp. ATTING. The sore displeasure of its monarch rests Upon our land, and every true man's heart, Is full of sadness for the grievous wrongs We suffer from our tyrants. Thou alone Art all unmoved amid the general grief. Abandoning thy friends, thou tak'st thy stand Beside thy country's foes, and, as in scorn Of our distress, pursuest giddy joys, Courting the smiles of princes all the while Thy country bleeds beneath their cruel scourge. RUD. The land is sore oppress'd, I know it, uncle. But why? Who plunged it into this distress? A word, one little easy word, might buy Instant deliverance from all our ills, And win the good will of the Emperor. Woe unto those who seal the people's eyes. And make them adverse to their country's good-- The men who, for their own vile, selfish ends, Are seeking to prevent the Forest States From swearing fealty to Austria's House, As all the countries round about have done. It fits their humour well, to take their seats Amid the nobles on the Herrenbank;[*] They'll have the Kaiser for their lord, forsooth, That is to say, they'll have no lord at all. [*] The bench reserved for the nobility. ATTING. Must I hear this, and from thy lips, rash boy! RUD. You urged me to this answer. Hear me out. What, uncle, is the character you've stoop'd To fill contentedly through life? Have you No higher pride, than in these lonely wilds To be the Landamman or Banneret,[*] The petty chieftain of a shepherd race? How! Were it not a far more glorious choice, To bend in homage to our royal lord, And swell the princely splendours of his court, Than sit at home, the peer of your own vassals, And share the judgment-seat with vulgar clowns?