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 Captain Dashmore's tight little
body, and huge whips in their hands, were soon seen entering the shops,
"intimidating the electors," as Captain Dashmore indignantly declared.

These new recruits made a great difference in the musterroll of the
Lansmere books; and when the day for polling arrived, the result was a
fair question for even betting. At the last hour, after a neck-and-neck
contest, Mr. Audley Egerton beat the captain by two votes; and the names
of these voters were John Avenel, resident freeman, and his son-in-law,
Mark Fairfield, an outvoter, who, though a Lansmere freeman, had settled
in Hazeldean, where he had obtained the situation of head carpenter on
the squire's estate.

These votes were unexpected; for though Mark Fairfield had come to
Lansmere on purpose to support the squire's brother, and though the
Avenels had been always stanch supporters of the Lansmere Blue interest,
yet a severe affliction (as to the nature of which, not desiring to
sadden the opening of my story, I am considerately silent) had befallen
both these persons, and they had left the town on the very day after Lord
L'Estrange and Mr. Egerton had quitted Lansmere Park.

Whatever might have been the gratification of the squire, as a canvasser