THE WOLVES AND THE DEVOURERS.
It was a frightful thing to view the approach of the lawless crowd, whose first act of hostility had been so fatal to Marshal Simon's father.One wing of the Common Dwelling-house, which joined the garden-wall on that side, was next to the fields.It was there that the Wolves began their attack.The precipitation of their march, the halt they had made at two public-houses on the road, their ardent impatience for the approaching struggle, had inflamed these men to a high pitch of savage excitement.
Having discharged their first shower of stones, most of the assailants stooped down to look for more ammunition.Some of them, to do so with greater ease, held their bludgeons between their teeth; others had placed them against the wall; here and there, groups had formed tumultuously round the principal leaders of the band; the most neatly dressed of these men wore frocks, with caps, whilst others were almost in rags, for, as we have already said, many of the hangers-on at the barriers, and people without any profession, had joined the troop of the Wolves, whether welcome or not.Some hideous women, with tattered garments, who always seem to follow in the track of such people, accompanied them on this occasion, and, by their cries and fury, inflamed still more the general excitement.One of them, tall, robust, with purple complexion, blood-
shot eyes, and toothless jaws, had a handkerchief over her head, from beneath which escaped her yellow, frowsy hair.Over her ragged gown, she wore an old plaid shawl, crossed over her bosom, and tied behind her back.This hag seemed possessed with a demon.She had tucked up her half-torn sleeves; in one hand she brandished a stick, in the other she grasped a huge stone; her companions called her Ciboule (scullion).
This horrible hag exclaimed, in a hoarse voice: "I'll bite the women of the factory; I'll make them bleed."
The ferocious words were received with applause by her companions, and with savage cries of "Ciboule forever!" which excited her to frenzy.
Amongst the other leaders, was a small, dry pale man, with the face of a ferret, and a black beard all round the chin; he wore a scarlet Greek cap, and beneath his long blouse, perfectly new, appeared a pair of neat cloth trousers, strapped over thin boots.This man was evidently of a different condition of life from that of the other persons in the troop;
it was he, in particular, who ascribed the most irritating and insulting language to the workmen of the factory, with regard to the inhabitants of the neighborhood.He howled a great deal, but he carried neither stick nor stone.A full-faced, fresh-colored man, with a formidable bass voice, like a chorister's, asked him: "Will you not have a shot at those impious dogs, who might bring down the Cholera on the country, as the curate told us?"
"I will have a better shot than you," said the little man, with a singular, sinister smile.
"And with what, I'd like to see?"
"Probably, with this," said the little man, stooping to pick up a large stone; but, as he bent, a well-filled though light bag, which he appeared to carry under his blouse, fell to the ground.
"Look, you are losing both bag and baggage," said the other; "it does not seem very heavy."
"They are samples of wool," answered the man with the ferret's face, as he hastily picked up the bag, and replaced it under his blouse; then he added: "Attention! the big blaster is going to speak."
And, in fact, he who exercised the most complete ascendency over this irritated crowd was the terrible quarryman.His gigantic form towered so much above the multitude, that his great head, bound in its ragged handkerchief, and his Herculean shoulders, covered with a fallow goat-
skin, were always visible above the level of that dark and swarming crowd, only relieved here and there by a few women's caps, like so many white points.Seeing to what a degree of exasperation the minds of the crowd had reached, the small number of honest, but misguided workmen, who had allowed themselves to be drawn into this dangerous enterprise, under the pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, now fearing for the consequences of the struggle, tried, but too late, to abandon the main body.Pressed close, and as it were, girt in with the more hostile groups, dreading to pass for cowards, or to expose themselves to the bad treatment of the majority, they were forced to wait for a more favorable moment to effect their escape.To the savage cheers, which had accompanied the first discharge of stones, succeeded a deep silence commanded by the stentorian voice of the quarryman.
"The Wolves have howled," he exclaimed; "let us wait and see how the Devourers will answer, and when they will begin the fight."
"We must draw them out of their factory, and fight them on neutral ground," said the little man with the ferret's face, who appeared to be the thieves' advocate; "otherwise there would be trespass."
"What do we care about trespass?" cried the horrible hag, Ciboule; "in or out, I will tear the chits of the factory."
"Yes, yes," cried other hideous creatures, as ragged as Ciboule herself;
"we must not leave all to the men."
"We must have our fun, too!"
"The women of the factory say that all the women of the neighborhood are drunken drabs," cried the little man with the ferret's face.
"Good! we'll pay them for it."
"The women shall have their share."
"That's our business."
"They like to sing in their Common House," cried Ciboule; "we will make them sing the wrong side of their mouths, in the key of `Oh, dear me!'"
This pleasantry was received with shouts, hootings, and furious stamping of feet, to which the stentorian voice of the quarryman put a term by roaring: "Silence!"
"Silence! silence!" repeated the crowd."Hear the blaster!"
"If the Devourers are cowards enough not to dare to show themselves, after a second volley of stones, there is a door down there which we can break open, and we will soon hunt them from their holes."