verifying Lady Anne's assertion, that people in the country having few opportunities of experiencing excitement, generally make the most of them.
But of all who were concerned, the most anxious and active was Mr. Wigram, who, from the dawn of day, was busied with arrangements of all descriptions; and, having learnt that his opponents had expressed much surprise on finding him they had contemptuously considered only a commercial man, accompanied by two noblemen (said to be his relations), and warmly supported by Sir Henry Scriven, a baronet of much mark in the county, and a great number of gentlemen, it was his object to strengthen the impression.
Horses, carriages, music, provisions, flags, and fantoccini, whatever could sustain life, or amuse it, excite good humour and keep it up by song or sound, promise or reality; objects to charm the eye, or divert the mind, were resorted to: and, by the aid of jingling bells, bawling ballad singers, cracked trumpets and fiddles without number, before nine o'clock, when the candidates and their respective friends sat down to breakfast, and when many a barrel of old October and round of beef awaited the will of the public, Keenborough was as much alive as Smithfield at Bartlemy fair.
