The servant
fulfilled his lord's commands. But as he unharnessed the oxen, Arnold,
the son of the countryman, fell into a rage, and striking him with a
stick on the hand, broke one of his fingers. Upon this Arnold fled, for
fear of his life, up the country towards Uri, where he kept himself long
secret in the country where Conrad of Baumgarten from Altzelen lay hid
for having killed the governor of Wolfenschiess, who had insulted his
wife, with a blow of his axe. The servant, meanwhile, complained to his
lord, by whose order old Melchthal's eyes were torn out. This tyrannical
action rendered the governor highly unpopular, and Arnold, on learning
how his good father had been treated, laid his wrongs secretly before
trusty people in Uri, and awaited a fit opportunity for avenging his
father's misfortune."
Such was the prologue to the tragic events which we have now to tell,
events whose outcome was the freedom of Switzerland and the formation of
that vigorous Swiss confederacy which has maintained itself until the
present day in the midst of the powerful and warlike nations which have
surrounded it.
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