第238章

The result of the poll was to be shown on an illuminated sign at the Town Hall, at eleven o'clock that night, and long before that hour a vast crowd gathered in the adjacent streets.About ten o'clock it began to rain, but the crowd stood its ground and increased in numbers as the time went by.At a quarter to eleven the rain increased to a terrible downpour, but the people remained waiting to know which hero had conquered.Eleven o'clock came and an intense silence fell upon the crowd, whose eyes were fixed eagerly upon the window where the sign was to be exhibited.To judge by the extraordinary interest displayed by these people, one might have thought that they expected to reap some great benefit or to sustain some great loss from the result, but of course that was not the case, for most of them knew perfectly well that the result of this election would make no more real difference to them than all the other elections that had gone before.

They wondered what the figures would be.There were ten thousand voters on the register.At a quarter past eleven the sign was illuminated, but the figures were not yet shown.Next, the names of the two candidates were slid into sight, the figures were still missing, but D'Encloseland's name was on top, and a hoarse roar of triumph came from the throats of his admirers.Then the two slides with the names were withdrawn, and the sign was again left blank.

After a time the people began to murmur at all this delay and messing about, and presently some of them began to groan and hoot.

After a few minutes the names were again slid into view, this time with Sweater's name on top, and the figures appeared immediately afterwards:

Sweater....................4,221D'Encloseland.................4,200It was several seconds before the Liberals could believe their eyes;it was too good to be true.It is impossible to say what was the reason of the wild outburst of delighted enthusiasm that followed, but whatever the reason, whatever the benefit was that they expected to reap - there was the fact.They were all cheering and dancing and shaking hands with each other, and some of them were so overcome with inexplicable joy that they were scarcely able to speak.It was altogether extraordinary and unaccountable.

A few minutes after the declaration, Sweater appeared at the window and made a sort of a speech, but only fragments of it were audible to the cheering crowd who at intervals caught such phrases as `Slashing Blow', `Sweep the Country', `Grand Old Liberal Flag', and so on.Next D'Encloseland appeared and he was seen to shake hands with Mr Sweater, whom he referred to as `My friend'.

When the two `friends' disappeared from the window, the part of the Liberal crowd that was not engaged in hand-to-hand fights with their enemies - the Tories - made a rush to the front entrance of the Town Hall, where Sweater's carriage was waiting, and as soon as he had placed his plump rotundity inside, they took the horses out and amid frantic cheers harnessed themselves to it instead and dragged it through the mud and the pouring rain all the way to `The Cave' - most of them were accustomed to acting as beasts of burden - where he again addressed a few words to them from the porch.

Afterwards as they walked home saturated with rain and covered from head to foot with mud, they said it was a great victory for the cause of progress!

Truly the wolves have an easy prey.