Very few people have read William Tell, I imagine - more likely they have been exposed to it via the Rossini opera, though that is rarely performed and mostly known through its overture (itself mostly known through being the theme song of “The Lone Ranger”).
In the original legend (Tell is a Swiss folk hero of uncertain historicity), he is forced to shoot an apple from his son’s head by the evil Austrian Vogt Gessler with a crossbow for the crime of refusing to bow to the Vogt’s hat. After completing his legendary shot, Gessler notes that Tell has brought two bolts instead of one; when he asks why, Tell replies that the second is for Gessler if the first killed his son. Gessler has him arrested and takes Tell’s son prisoner back with him to Austria. Tell then escapes, races across the countryside just in time to catch Gessler at his own gates and assassinates him.
