k struck eleven, Major Dyngwall, the candidate--that was
talking to old Parson Polsue, and carrying it off very fairly--puts his
eyeglass up of a sudden, and, says he, "Amazons, begad!" meaning, as I
have heard it explained, that here were some out-of-the-common females.

And out of the common they were--Kit Lebow with her eight daughters, all
wafting up the street like a bevy of peacocks in their best hoops and
bonnets: Kit herself sailing afore, with her long malacca staff
tap-tapping the cobbles, and her tall daughters behind like a bodyguard--
two and two--Maria, Constantia, Elizabeth Jane, Perilla, Christian the
Younger, Marcella, Thomasine, and Lally. Along she comes, marches up to
the board--the crowd making way for her--and reads down the list.
"H'm," says she, and wheeling to the rightabout, marches straight across
to the open window of the "George."

"Give you good morning, gentlemen," says she, dropping a curtsey. "I see
you've a-put me on the Voters' List; and, with your leave, I'd like a look
at your candidates."

"With pleasure, madam," says Lord William, starting up from the table
where he was writing at the back of the room, and coming forward with a
bow. And Major Dyngwall bowed likewise to her and to the whole company of
her daughters spreading out behind her like a fan. "Take your glass down
from your eye, young man," she said, addressing herself to the Major.
"One window should be shelter enough for a sojer--and la! you're none so
ill-featured for a pair of Whigs."

"Ay," put in John a Hall, "they'll stand comparisons with your Sammy
Macann, mistress." And he pitched to sing a verse of his invention, that
the Whigs of the town afterwards got by heart--

"Doctor Macann
's an Irishman,
He's got no business here;
Mister Saule
He's nothin' at all,
He won't lev us have no beer.

"Well, indeed now," answered Kitty, pitching her voice back for the crowd
to hear, "'tis the Martins should know if the Macanns be Irish, and what
business an Irishman has in Ardevora: for, if I recollect, the first
Macann and the first Martin were shipwrecked together coming over from
Dungarvan in a cattle-boat, and they do say 'twas Macann owned the cattle
and Martin drove 'em. And as for Mr. Saule," she went on, while the crowd
grinned to see John a Hall turning red in the gills, "if he stops off the
beer in this town, 'tis yourself will be the healthier for it, whoever's