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Updated: June 7, 2025
His father had been a small farmer, who bettered his fortune by all manner of money-making speculations the last of which, a cider-manufactory, and a mill, together with a house he had built, the orchard he had planted, and a handsome strip of landed property, descending to his only son, made him the second man in Tattleton.
It was a quiet autumn evening, but there was no peace for Tattleton. The shops and houses of Stopford's friends were lighting up in every quarter for a grand illumination, while the opposition and the stingy were closing as quickly as possible. Old politicians said it was a great victory for Whig principles, and many a joke was cracked at the unsuccessful candidate's expense.
There were Conservatives among us, who clung to the time-honoured institutions of Tattleton, and could not consent to see their ancient privileges, charter, old posts, and all, submerged in those of two adjoining boroughs Little Tattleton, whose constituency consisted of the beadle, and Lumberdale, to which the earl always nominated his second son; for people already understood, that on the passing of the Bill these three should become one, at least in elections.
Spiteful people said, that Lily was beginning to look old-maidish, but I never saw it in her calm face. It was also said what didn't they say in Great Tattleton? that her muslin dress and crimped collar 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.
He had been the consulting friend and boon-companion of old Cloudesly forty years before, when the one began to brew beer and the other to make cider. Tom's brewery had not paid him so well as old Cloudesly's apples. He had been the first to establish a business of the kind in Tattleton.
Great Tattleton was not a fighting place a serious riot had never occurred within the memory of its 'oldest inhabitant; yet on that evening quiet people began to feel uneasy; and my particular friend, Miss Croply, had selected it as a fitting occasion for her tea-party. Miss Croply was a maiden lady of some fifty years, and great note among us.
England has floated safely through many a conflict of the old and new since then, and more of the kind are coming; but no event in our national history ever appeared to the denizens of Tattleton of half such magnitude as that contested election. Tattleton was an ancient and respectable borough.
Wasn't it really good for you that you lost the Tattleton election? Our readers may probably have from time to time read allusions to 'Sailors' Homes, without precisely understanding the nature of these institutions. They are based on the fact that sailors, as a class, are little better than children when ashore, and require to be providently cared for, to save them from imposition and misery.
There were three there at the time of the election; but the townspeople still knew him familiarly as the brewer, though he had long become a sleeping partner, having saved enough for himself and his old wife to live on in a cottage covered with grape vines, at the end of a long green lane in which the main street of Tattleton dwindled away.
Its stocks were a marvel of age and efficiency. A ducking-stool for scolds yet remained in the courthouse, beside the beam with which they weighed witches against the Bible; but the oldest thing in Great Tattleton was its charter: a native antiquary demonstrated, that it had been signed by King John the day after Runnymede; and among other superannuated privileges, it conferred on the free burghers the right of trade and toll, ward and gibbet, besides that of electing their own mayor and one loyal commoner, to serve in the king's parliament.
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