A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

II

The factory stood some little way from the smelting works. It was surrounded by a high wall, and its numerous sheds and imposing magazine, surmounted by a clock-tower, nestled at the foot of the hills some distance back from the road.

Mathurin, the chief overseer—a burly giant, who followed de Maurel's every movement with the look of a faithful watchdog—ventured to lay a restraining hand on his master's arm when he was told to lead the way to that more risky and dangerous portion of the great armament works.

"Leroux," he said, and there was a tone of anxiety in his gruff voice, "is in one of his most surly moods. He has given a deal of trouble lately."

"All the more reason why I should speak with him," retorted de Maurel.

"But the lady, mon général," rejoined Mathurin, as he indicated Fernande.

De Maurel turned to the young girl. "Would you care to wait, Mademoiselle Fernande," he asked, "till I have spoken to the recalcitrants? Mathurin will make you comfortable in his office...."

"Eh, mon cousin," she said boldly, with a toss of her pretty head, "are you thinking that I am afraid?"

"Indeed not, Mademoiselle," he rejoined; "nor would I allow you to enter the factory if there was the slightest cause for anxiety. But the men in there are rough; they are," he added with a harsh laugh, "the jail-birds for whom my brother Laurent hath such great contempt. They rebel against their work—and it is hard and dangerous work, I own—but the State hath need of it, and ... well, someone has to do it. But, of course, some of them hate their taskmaster, and I for one cannot altogether blame them."

"And," queried Fernande, "do they hate you, mon cousin?"

"Of course," he replied with a smile; "I am the taskmaster."

"But ... in that case ..." she hazarded, somewhat timidly this time, "are you not exposing yourself to unnecessary danger by...."

She hesitated, then paused abruptly, as he broke in with a loud laugh. "Danger!" he exclaimed. "I? In my own workshops? Why, I fought at Austerlitz, Mademoiselle."

She said nothing more, for already she was ashamed of her sudden access of sensibility. Mathurin, once more ordered to lead the way to the factory, obeyed in silence.

No doubt that here the men wore a sullen and glowering aspect which had been wholly absent in the foundries. The risky nature of the work, when the slightest inattention or carelessness might cause the most terrible accident, the rank smell of the black carbon, of the saltpetre and sulphur, together with the dirt and the mud and the weight of the mortars, all seemed to produce an ill-effect upon the tempers of the men, and as de Maurel entered the first and most important workshed, the looks which greeted him and which swept over Fernande were furtive, if not openly hostile.

It was clear that muttered discontent was in the air, and as de Maurel went from one group to another of the workers, and either praised or criticized what was done, murmurings were only suppressed by the awe which his personality obviously inspired. Mathurin stuck close to his heels, and the look of faithful watch-dog became more marked on his large, ruddy face.

A word of severe blame from the master for grave contravention of rules set the spark to the smouldering fire of discontent. A short, thick-set man, with tousled red hair and tawny beard, on whom the blame had fallen, threw down his tool at de Maurel's feet.

"Blame? Blame?" he snarled, showing his yellow teeth like an ill-conditioned cur, "nothing but blame in this place of malediction. Are we beasts that we should be made to work and risk our lives for a tyranny that would make a slave of every free citizen?"

"You'll soon become a beast, mon ami," retorted de Maurel coolly, "if you refuse to work; a useless beast and a burden to the State, fit only to be cast into a ditch, or thrown as food for foreign cannon. Pick up your tool and show that you are a man and a free citizen by doing your duty for France."

"Not another stroke will I do," growled Leroux sullenly, "till I've eaten and drunk my fill, which I've not done these past twenty days. Not another stroke, do you hear? And if I lift that accursed tool again it will be to crack your skull with it! Do you hear, mon Général? I am under one sentence for murder already—another cannot do me much more harm. So look to yourself—what? for not another stroke of work will I do ... Foi de Paul Leroux."

"Then by all means go and eat and drink your fill, friend Leroux," rejoined de Maurel imperturbably; "go, and wait as leisurely as you please for the hour when the Emperor's orders send you to join your battalion in Poland. Never another stroke of work will you do in this factory, mon ami, but 'tis the Russian cannons who will eat their fill of you."

Then he turned to the overseer.

"Mathurin!" he called peremptorily.

"Yes, mon Général!"

"Give Leroux the money that is due to him. He is no longer in my employ."

"Name of a dog ..." came with an ominous imprecation from Leroux, "is this the way to treat an honest citizen?..."

"There is no honest citizen, my man," spoke de Maurel firmly, "save he who toils for France. Get you gone! Get you gone, I say! France has no use for slackers."

"You'll rue that, General, on my faith," here interposed one of Leroux' mates in tones that held an overt threat. "No one can finish this crushing save Leroux. If you dismiss him now, some of us go with him ... and the twelve hundred cannon-balls of this high calibre which the Emperor hath ordered will not be completed for want of a few skilled men."

"Those of you who wish to go," retorted de Maurel loudly, "can go hence at once, and to hell with the lot of you," he added, with a sudden outburst of contemptuous anger. "Have I not said that France hath no use for slackers? You grumblers! you miserable, dissatisfied curs! Go an you wish! The workshop stinks of your treachery!"

Then as some of the men, somewhat awed by his aspect and by the flame of unbridled wrath which shot from his glowing eyes, congregated in a little group of malcontents, egging one another on to more open revolt, he went close up to them, forcing the group to scatter before him, till he stood right in the midst of them, looking down from his great height on the skulking heads which were obstinately turned away from him and on the furtive glances which equally stubbornly avoided his own.

"You miserable cowards!" he exclaimed. "Have you no entrails, no hearts, no mind? When the sons of France—her true sons—bleed and die on the fields of Prussia and in the mountains of Italy—sometimes unfed, always ill-clothed, under a grilling sun or in snowstorms and blizzards—dragging half-shattered limbs up the precipitous heights of the Alps, or falling uncared for, unattended and unshriven, into the nearest ditch—when your brothers and your sons die for France with a 'Vive l'Empereur' upon their lips, with the unsullied flag held victorious in their dying hands, you murmur here because food is dear and work heavy! To hell, I say! to hell! Give me that, tool, Mathurin. The Emperor shall not lack for gunpowder because a few traitors refuse to toil for France!"

To Fernande, who watched this scene from a remote and dark angle of the workshop, to which she had crept on tiptoe, terrified lest her presence be noticed and considered an outrage in the midst of these turbulent quarrels—to Fernande, it seemed as if the whole personality of de Maurel had undergone an awesome change. There was something almost supernatural in that huge, massive figure with the proud head thrown back, the face lit up by the grey light which came through the skylight above.

Then suddenly, with a quick, impatient gesture, he cast off his blouse and shirt and stood there in the midst of the sullen and threatening crowd—a workman among his kindred—a man amongst men; stripped to the waist as they were, with huge, powerful torso bare, and massive arms whereon the muscles stood out as if carved in stone, as he lifted from the floor the enormous iron pestle which Leroux had flung down, and wielded it as if it were a stick. And Fernande bethought herself of all the mythological heroes of old of which she had read as a child in her story-books; of men who were as strong and mighty as the gods; of those who defied Jupiter and Mars and dared to look into the sun, or to enslave the hidden forces of the earth to their will.

For a while Leroux and the others looked on "the General" with shifty eyes wherein hatred and murder had kindled an ill-omened light. But in the mighty figure which towered above them there was not the slightest tremor of fear; in the commanding glance that met their own there was not a quiver and not the remotest sign of submission. The intrepid soldier, who at Austerlitz, bleeding, muddy, with leg shattered by a bullet, a sabre-slash across his forehead, a broken sword in his hand, had with two thousand men—some of them ex-jail-birds, as he said—held ten thousand Russians and their young Czar at bay, until the arrival of Rapp and his reinforcements, and then fell with shattered leg almost beneath the hoofs of the victorious cavalry still shouting: "Vive la France!"—he was not like to give in or to retreat before a few murderous threats from a sulky crowd of dissatisfied workmen. No, not though he knew that in the hip-pocket of more than one pair of breeches there was—always ready—the clasp-knife of the ex-jail-bird made to toil in the defence of the country which his crimes had outraged, and still at war with the authority which he had once defied. Rumour in this had not lied; it was with flails that some of these men were kept to their work—the flails of the mighty will-power of one man, of his burning patriotism and of his boundless energy. Even now his look of withering contempt, his open scorn of their threats, his appropriation of Leroux' tool and the skill and strength wherewith he wielded it, whipped them like a lash. In a moment Leroux, the leader of the malcontents, found himself alone, a hang-dog expression in his face, hatred still lurking in his narrow eyes, but subdued and held in submission by a power which he could not attack save by the united will of his mates.

"I'll finish my work," he muttered after a while.

"You'll do double shift at half-pay for ten days," said de Maurel, ere he handed him back his tool, "and one month in the black carbon factory for insubordination."

For a moment it looked as if the men would rebel again. A murmur went round the workshop.

"Another sound," said the General loudly and firmly, "and I send the lot of you back to rot in jail."

He threw Leroux' tool down and quietly struggled back into his shirt and blouse. The incident was obviously closed. A minute or two later the men were back at their work, with renewed energy, perhaps, certainly in perfect silence and discipline. Mathurin, the overseer, shrugged his shoulders as he conducted Fernande and "the General" out of the workshop.

"That means peace and quiet for a few weeks," he said gruffly, "but Leroux is a real malcontent, and gives me any amount of trouble. He was condemned to deportation for murder and arson—one of the worst characters we have in the place. I wouldn't trust that man, General...."

"He is a good workman," was de Maurel's only comment.

"A good workman? Yes," Mathurin admitted, "but he is always ready with his knife. We have had two or three affrays with him. He gave me a nasty cut on the forearm less than a week ago."

"You did not tell me."

"Why should I? The cut will heal all right."

"And I would have had the fellow thrashed like the cur he is," came with a harsh oath from de Maurel. "So no doubt you were wise not to tell me—good old Mathurin," he added, and placed his hand affectionately on the workman's shoulder.

"It would be better to have him sent elsewhere," suggested the overseer.

"No one would have him."

"Let him join the army. He is good fodder for Prussian cannon."

"A mischief-maker in the army is more dangerous than here at home. And if he is a skilled workman, the Emperor hath more need of him just now at La Frontenay than in Poland."

Mathurin was silent for a moment or two, then he muttered between his teeth:

"We ought to have a couple of military overseers here, as they have at Nevers and at Ruelle. The Minister of War is ready to send us help whenever we want it."

"Are we puling infants," rejoined de Maurel lightly, "that we want nurses to look after us? You must have a poor opinion of your employer, my good Mathurin, if you think he cannot keep a few recalcitrant workmen in order."

"No one can guard against a madman striking in the dark."

"If a madman chooses to strike at me in the dark," rejoined de Maurel coolly, "all the military representatives in the world could not ward off the blow."

"But...."

"Enough, my good friend," broke in the other, with a slight tone of impatience. "You know my feelings in the matter well enough. I do not intend to have military overseers in my works, whilst I have the strength to look after them myself. When the Emperor allows me to rejoin the army I'll write to the Minister of War, for a couple of representatives to take my place during my absence ... but not before."