r were more carefully arranged when Sommerset
Cloudesly might be expected to walk that way; but Lily's strongest
demonstration was 'Dear me!' and that she said on hearing of his
intended contest. A perilous contest it seemed for Sommerset
Cloudesly. Stopford was by far the richer and more influential man;
the interest of his party, his aristocratic connections, and his
individual pride, all determined him to keep his ground; and the
generally prudent man had been heard to declare, that he would spend
to the last sixpence of his property, rather than see himself unseated
by an upstart simpleton.

Sommerset and his friends had, of course, the accredited weapons of
their party wherewith to attack the adversary, and Stopford was called
everything, from Radical up to Atheist. Thus the battle began, and
fiercely was it fought; but suffice it to say, that all the usual
means for obtaining the independent suffrage of freeborn Englishmen
were put in requisition. Voters suddenly emerged from corners wherein
no freeholds had been previously dreamed of; others were unaccountably
absent on the polling-days; the alehouses abounded in trade, and the
town in all disorderliness. There was everlasting controversy over
claims of residence and ownership, with numerous appeals to our famous
charter; and prosecutions for assault and battery occupied our town
lawyers the whole succeeding year.

What spites and quarrels are still flourishing among my old neighbours
which owe their origin to that election! How many long friendships it
split up, and how much family peace it disturbed, I cannot precisely
state; but the like did happen. Neither is it within my memory's scope
to enlarge on the Countess Dowager of Lumberdale and her seven
charming daughters, in elegant morning-dresses, appearing at the poll,
where they shook hands with everybody, and shewed a singular
acquaintance with family history; nor to relate how Lord Littlemore,
Stopford's brother-in-law, and the proudest peer in England, made
calls on small shopkeepers and farmers, perhaps to shew what rank
could do on important occasions. No manoeuvre was left untried by the
rival factions, nor any cause of dispute omitted, and the strife
increased in bitterness every day. Readers, can any of you explain why
people so generally run into the way of whatever they most fear? I
never could; but the case is common, and Sommerset Cloudesly was a
striking instance. What waves of worry passed ove