HYACINTH

“The new fashion of introducing the candidate’s children into an election

contest is a pretty one,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “it takes away something

from the acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an interesting

experience for children to look back on in after years. Still, if you

will listen to my advice, Matilda, you will not take Hyacinth with you

down to Luffbridge on election day.”

“Not take Hyacinth!” exclaimed his mother; “but why not? Jutterly is

bringing his three children, and they are going to drive a pair of Nubian

donkeys about the town, to emphasise the fact that their father has been

appointed Colonial Secretary. We are making the demand for a strong Navy

a special feature in _our_ campaign, and it will be particularly

appropriate to have Hyacinth dressed in his sailor suit. He’ll look

heavenly.”

“The question is, not how he’ll look, but how he’ll behave. He’s a

delightful child, of course, but there is a strain of unbridled pugnacity

in him that breaks out at times in a really alarming fashion. You may

have forgotten the affair of the little Gaffin children; I haven’t.”

“I was in India at the time, and I’ve only a vague recollection of what

happened; he was very naughty, I know.”

“He was in his goat-carriage, and met the Gaffins in their perambulator,

and he drove the goat full tilt at them and sent the perambulator

spinning. Little Jacky Gaffin was pinned down under the wreckage, and

while the nurse had her hands full with the goat Hyacinth was laying into

Jacky’s legs with his belt like a small fury.”

“I’m not defending him,” said Matilda, “but they must have done something

to annoy him.”

“Nothing intentionally, but some one had unfortunately told him that they

were half French—their mother was a Duboc, you know—and he had been

having a history lesson that morning, and had just heard of the final

loss of Calais by the English, and was furious about it. He said he’d

teach the little toads to go snatching towns from us, but we didn’t know

at the time that he was referring to the Gaffins. I told him afterwards

that all bad feeling between the two nations had died out long ago, and

that anyhow the Gaffins were only half French, and he said that it was

only the French half of Jacky that he had been hitting; the rest had been

buried under the perambulator. If the loss of Calais unloosed such fury

in him, I tremble to think what the possible loss of the election might

entail.”

“All that happened when he was eight; he’s older now and knows better.”

“Children with Hyacinth’s temperament don’t know better as they grow

older; they merely know more.”

“Nonsense. He will enjoy the fun of the election, and in any case he’ll

be tired out by the time the poll is declared, and the new sailor suit

that I’ve had made for him is just in the right shade of blue for our

election colours, and it will exactly match the blue of his eyes. He

will be a perfectly charming note of colour.”

“There is such a thing as letting one’s æsthetic sense override one’s

moral sense,” said Mrs. Panstreppon. “I believe you would have condoned

the South Sea Bubble and the persecution of the Albigenses if they had

been carried out in effective colour schemes. However, if anything

unfortunate should happen down at Luffbridge, don’t say it wasn’t

foreseen by one member of the family.”

The election was keenly but decorously contested. The newly-appointed

Colonial Secretary was personally popular, while the Government to which

he adhered was distinctly unpopular, and there was some expectancy that

the majority of four hundred, obtained at the last election, would be

altogether wiped out. Both sides were hopeful, but neither could feel

confident. The children were a great success; the little Jutterlys drove

their chubby donkeys solemnly up and down the main streets, displaying

posters which advocated the claims of their father on the broad general

grounds that he was their father, while as for Hyacinth, his conduct

might have served as a model for any seraph-child that had strayed

unwittingly on to the scene of an electoral contest. Of his own accord,

and under the delighted eyes of half a dozen camera operators, he had

gone up to the Jutterly children and presented them with a packet of

butterscotch; “we needn’t be enemies because we’re wearing the opposite

colours,” he said with engaging friendliness, and the occupants of the

donkey-cart accepted his offering with polite solemnity. The grown-up

members of both political camps were delighted at the incident—with the

exception of Mrs. Panstreppon, who shuddered.

“Never was Clytemnestra’s kiss sweeter than on the night she slew me,”

she quoted, but made the quotation to herself.

The last hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour for both

parties; it was generally estimated that not more than a dozen votes

separated the candidates, and every effort was made to bring up

obstinately wavering electors. It was with a feeling of relaxation and

relief that every one heard the clocks strike the hour for the close of

the poll. Exclamations broke out from the tired workers, and corks flew

out from bottles.

“Well, if we haven’t won; we’ve done our level best.” “It has been a

clean straight fight, with no rancour.” “The children were quite a

charming feature, weren’t they?”

The children? It suddenly occurred to everybody that they had seen

nothing of the children for the last hour. What had become of the three

little Jutterlys and their donkey-cart, and, for the matter of that, what

had become of Hyacinth. Hurried, anxious embassies went backwards and

forwards between the respective party headquarters and the various

committee-rooms, but there was blank ignorance everywhere as to the

whereabouts of the children. Every one had been too busy in the closing

moments of the poll to bestow a thought on them. Then there came a

telephone call at the Unionist Women’s Committee-rooms, and the voice of

Hyacinth was heard demanding when the poll would be declared.

“Where are you, and where are the Jutterly children?” asked his mother.

“I’ve just finished having high-tea at a pastry-cook’s,” came the answer,

“and they let me telephone. I’ve had a poached egg and a sausage roll

and four meringues.”

“You’ll be ill. Are the little Jutterlys with you?”

“Rather not. They’re in a pigstye.”

“A pigstye? Why? What pigstye?”

“Near the Crawleigh Road. I met them driving about a back road, and told

them they were to have tea with me, and put their donkeys in a yard that

I knew of. Then I took them to see an old sow that had got ten little

pigs. I got the sow into the outer stye by giving her bits of bread,

while the Jutterlys went in to look at the litter, then I bolted the door

and left them there.”

“You wicked boy, do you mean to say you’ve left those poor children there

alone in the pigstye?”

“They’re not alone, they’ve got ten little pigs in with them; they’re

jolly well crowded. They were pretty mad at being shut in, but not half

as mad as the old sow is at being shut out from her young ones. If she

gets in while they’re there she’ll bite them into mincemeat. I can get

them out by letting a short ladder down through the top window, and

that’s what I’m going to do _if we win_. If their blighted father gets

in, I’m just going to open the door for the sow, and let her do what she

dashed well likes to them. That’s why I want to know when the poll will

be declared.”

Here the narrator rang off. A wild stampede and a frantic sending-off of

messengers took place at the other end of the telephone. Nearly all the

workers on either side had disappeared to their various club-rooms and

public-house bars to await the declaration of the poll, but enough local

information could be secured to determine the scene of Hyacinth’s

exploit. Mr. John Ball had a stable yard down near the Crawleigh Road,

up a short lane, and his sow was known to have a litter of ten young

ones. Thither went in headlong haste both the candidates, Hyacinth’s

mother, his aunt (Mrs. Panstreppon), and two or three hurriedly-summoned

friends. The two Nubian donkeys, contentedly munching at bundles of hay,

met their gaze as they entered the yard. The hoarse savage grunting of

an enraged animal and the shriller note of thirteen young voices, three

of them human, guided them to the stye, in the outer yard of which a huge

Yorkshire sow kept up a ceaseless raging patrol before a closed door.

Reclining on the broad ledge of an open window, from which point of

vantage he could reach down and shoot the bolt of the door, was Hyacinth,

his blue sailor-suit somewhat the worse of wear, and his angel smile

exchanged for a look of demoniacal determination.

“If any of you come a step nearer,” he shouted, “the sow will be inside

in half a jiffy.”

A storm of threatening, arguing, entreating expostulation broke from the

baffled rescue party, but it made no more impression on Hyacinth than the

squealing tempest that raged within the stye.

“If Jutterly heads the poll I’m going to let the sow in. I’ll teach the

blighters to win elections from us.”

“He means it,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “I feared the worst when I saw that

butterscotch incident.”

“It’s all right, my little man,” said Jutterly, with the duplicity to

which even a Colonial Secretary can sometimes stoop, “your father has

been elected by a large majority.”

“Liar!” retorted Hyacinth, with the directness of speech that is not

merely excusable, but almost obligatory, in the political profession;

“the votes aren’t counted yet. You won’t gammon me as to the result,

either. A boy that I’ve palled with is going to fire a gun when the poll

is declared; two shots if we’ve won, one shot if we haven’t.”

The situation began to look critical. “Drug the sow,” whispered

Hyacinth’s father.

Some one went off in the motor to the nearest chemist’s shop and returned

presently with two large pieces of bread, liberally dosed with narcotic.

The bread was thrown deftly and unostentatiously into the stye, but

Hyacinth saw through the manœuvre. He set up a piercing imitation of a

small pig in Purgatory, and the infuriated mother ramped round and round

the stye; the pieces of bread were trampled into slush.

At any moment now the poll might be declared. Jutterly flew back to the

Town Hall, where the votes were being counted. His agent met him with a

smile of hope.

“You’re eleven ahead at present, and only about eighty more to be

counted; you’re just going to squeak through.”

“I mustn’t squeak through,” exclaimed Jutterly, hoarsely. “You must

object to every doubtful vote on our side that can possibly be

disallowed. I must _not_ have the majority.”

Then was seen the unprecedented sight of a party agent challenging the

votes on his own side with a captiousness that his opponents would have

hesitated to display. One or two votes that would have certainly passed

muster under ordinary circumstances were disallowed, but even so Jutterly

was six ahead with only thirty more to be counted.

To the watchers by the stye the moments seemed intolerable. As a last

resort some one had been sent for a gun with which to shoot the sow,

though Hyacinth would probably draw the bolt the moment such a weapon was

brought into the yard. Nearly all the men were away from their homes,

however, on election night, and the messenger had evidently gone far

afield in his search. It must be a matter of minutes now to the

declaration of the poll.

A sudden roar of shouting and cheering was heard from the direction of

the Town Hall. Hyacinth’s father clutched a pitchfork and prepared to

dash into the stye in the forlorn hope of being in time.

A shot rang out in the evening air. Hyacinth stooped down from his perch

and put his finger on the bolt. The sow pressed furiously against the

door.

“Bang,” came another shot.

Hyacinth wriggled back, and sent a short ladder down through the window

of the inner stye.

“Now you can come up, you unclean little blighters,” he sang out; “my

daddy’s got in, not yours. Hurry up, I can’t keep the sow waiting much

longer. And don’t you jolly well come butting into any election again

where I’m on the job.”

In the reaction that set in after the deliverance furious recrimination

were indulged in by the lately opposed candidates, their women folk,

agents, and party helpers. A recount was demanded, but failed to

establish the fact that the Colonial Secretary had obtained a majority.

Altogether the election left a legacy of soreness behind it, apart from

any that was experienced by Hyacinth in person.

“It is the last time I shall let him go to an election,” exclaimed his

mother.

“There I think you are going to extremes,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “if

there should be a general election in Mexico I think you might safely let

him go there, but I doubt whether our English politics are suited to the

rough and tumble of an angel-child.”