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