William Tell

            On Sunday morning I gathered another set of chords for “Ah! Si javais un franc cinquante” (Oh! If I Had A Dollar Fifty) by Boris Vian.

            "Raccrochez c'est une horreur!” (Hang Up! This is Horrible!” by Serge Gainsbourg. It’s a song with two voices depicting an obscene phone call.

            Around midday I returned to sanding the former exit door in my bedroom. The parts with most of the plaster that I have to wear down is at the bottom of the door frame. It was hard to tell if I made any progress until I saw all of the plaster dust that I needed to sweep up.

            I finished writing my Food Bank Adventure.

            I grilled the rest of the pack of breakfast sausages before dinner because the two that I’d tried to fry in the pan the night before were not fully cooked. I had two of them and a fried egg with a beer while watching episodes three and four of “The Adventures of William Tell”.

            In the first story William’s wife Hedda is captured while trying to smuggle crossbows into the city. Since her father Judge Furst refuses to find his daughter guilty of treason, Gessler orders her imprisoned and Tell is at a loss for a way to rescue her until a travelling magician and potion salesman comes forward to offer help. He says that he has a potion that when taken produces the effect of death but the antidote must be given to the user within four hours or they will die. William tells the magician to take the potion himself to prove that it works but when he's about to do so Tell is satisfied that he is telling the truth. Tell attaches the powder with instructions to an arrow and through a complicated ricochet he is able to shoot the arrow into Hedda’s window. When Gessler comes to have Hedda tortured to reveal the whereabouts of her husband he finds her dead. But he does not remove her body from the cell until after dark because he does not want to incite a riot. When Hedda is finally in the tomb there is only one hour left for the antidote to save her. One of Tell’s friends works in the castle and has all the keys but doesn’t know which one is for the tomb. Tell has to take out a couple of guards and opens the tomb. He gives Hedda the antidote but then he is captured. Meanwhile Hedda recovers and stumbles out of the tomb. The superstitious Austrian guards think that she is a ghost and run away in terror. Somehow she just happens to walk to William’s cell and his guards run away. Next we see them together with no explanation as to how he got out of the cell unless it wasn’t locked. William gets Hedda to play on the fear of the guards, put her arms in front of her and moan, sending the guards scurrying away as she and he walk out of the castle.

            In the second story the Swiss revolutionaries have been inspired to being courageous in battle against the Austrians because of a relic called The Gauntlet of St Gerhardt. The gauntlet is guarded by a father abbot of St Erica in a small shrine in the mountains in a grotto on the east side of Mount Hillian. Captain Werner knows the way to the shrine and so he goes under the command of Major Augustin. Gessler says he won’t mind if the abbot meets with a fatal accident on the way back. The major doesn’t want to harm a father of the church but the captain doesn’t mind. The soldiers arrive at the shrine, take the gauntlet and capture the abbot, but Tell witnesses this and along with his wife Hedda and his son Walter, they follow them and get ahead through the mountains to the watering hole. Hedda and Walter pretend to be fishing. Walter asks the soldiers if he can water the horses but he and Hedda mount two of them and lead the rest away. The soldiers now must travel on foot and they are being told by the abbot that god is punishing them for taking the relic. When they stop to rest, Hedda, posing as a passing hermit, steals one of the men’s boots. The soldiers take shelter in a mountain shack and prepare the last meal in their supplies, but while the abbot is making them say grace, Tell lowers a hook from the roof and takes the pot from the fire. They try to sleep but Tell shoots fire arrows and sets the roof of the hut on fire. In the high mountains the captain pushes the major over and assumes command. The remaining soldier tries to stop Werner, but he stabs him. Werner is about to kill the abbot when Tell shoots him in the arm. The gauntlet is returned to its shrine and Tell leaves Werner at Gessler’s gate. Gessler says he will be taken back Austria in chains. Werner tries to tell him it wasn’t his fault and that he had tried to kill the abbot. For accusing him of wishing harm to the abbot, Gessler orders Werner executed.