uire of Hazeldean, with his young wife, had been
invited by the earl in honour of Audley; and in the squire the solicitor
beheld the only mortal who could cope with the sea-captain,--a man with
a voice as burly and a face as bold; a man who, if permitted for the
nonce by Mrs. Hazeldean, would kiss all the women no less heartily than
the captain kissed them; and who was, moreover, a taller and a handsomer
and a younger man,--all three great recommendations in the kissing
department of a contested election. Yes, to canvass the borough, and
to speak from the window, Squire Hazeldean would be even more popularly
presentable than the London-bred and accomplished Audley Egerton
himself.

The squire, applied to and urged on all sides, at first said bluntly
that he would do anything in reason to serve his brother, but that he
did not like, for his own part, appearing, even in proxy, as a lord's
nominee; and moreover, if he was to be sponsor for his brother, why,
he must promise and vow, in his name, to be stanch and true to the land
they lived by! And how could he tell that Audley, when once he got into
the House, would not forget the land, and then he, William Hazeldean,
would be made a liar, and look like a turncoat!

But these scruples being overruled by the arguments of the gentlemen
and the entreaties of the ladies, who took in the election that intense
interest which those gentle creatures usually do take in all matters of
strife and contest, the squire at length consented to confront the Man
from Baker Street, and went accordingly into the thing with that good
heart and old English spirit with which he went into everything whereon
he had once made up his mind.

The expectations formed of the squire's capacities for popular
electioneering were fully realized. He talked quite as much nonsense as
Captain Dashmore on every subject except the landed interest; there he
was great, for he knew the subject well,--knew it by the instinct that
comes with practice, and compared to which all your showy theories are
mere cobwebs and moonshine.

The agricultural outvoters--many of whom, not living under Lord
Lansmere, but being small yeomen, had hitherto prided themselves on
their independence, and gone against my Lord--could not in their hearts
go against one who was every inch the farmer's friend. They began to
share in the earl's personal interest against the Man from Baker Street;
and big fellows, with legs bigger round than Ca