The doctor who was called in to Elizabeth prescribed sea-air as the best means of recruiting her strength.  Mr. Bradshaw (who liked to spend money ostentatiously) went down straight to Abermouth, and engaged a house for the remainder of the autumn; for, as he told the medical man, money was no object to him in comparison with his children’s health; and the doctor cared too little about the mode in which his remedy was administered to tell Mr. Bradshaw that lodgings would have done as well, or better, than the complete house he had seen fit to take.  For it was now necessary to engage servants, and take much trouble, which might have been obviated, and Elizabeth’s removal effected more quietly and speedily, if she had gone into lodgings.  As it was, she was weary of hearing all the planning and talking, and deciding, and undeciding, and redeciding, before it was possible for her to go.  Her only comfort was in the thought that dear Mrs. Denbigh was to go with her.

It had not been entirely by way of pompously spending his money that Mr. Bradshaw had engaged this seaside house.  He was glad to get his little girls and their governess out of the way; for a busy time was impending, when he should want his head clear for electioneering purposes, and his house clear for electioneering hospitality.  He was the mover of a project for bringing forward a man on the Liberal and Dissenting interest, to contest the election with the old Tory member, who had on several successive occasions walked over the course, as he and his family owned half the town, and votes and rent were paid alike to the landlord.

Kings of Eccleston had Mr. Cranworth and his ancestors been this many a long year; their right was so little disputed that they never thought of acknowledging the allegiance so readily paid to them.  The old feudal feeling between land-owner and tenant did not quake prophetically at the introduction of manufactures; the Cranworth family ignored the growing power of the manufacturers, more especially as the principal person engaged in the trade was a Dissenter.  But notwithstanding this lack of patronage from the one great family in the neighbourhood, the business flourished, increased, and spread wide; and the Dissenting head thereof looked around, about the time of which I speak, and felt himself powerful enough to defy the great Cranworth interest even in their hereditary stronghold, and, by so doing, avenge the slights of many years—­slights which rankled in Mr. Bradshaw’s mind as much as if he did not go to chapel twice every Sunday, and pay the largest pew-rent of any member of Mr. Benson’s congregation.

Accordingly, Mr. Bradshaw had applied to one of the Liberal parliamentary agents in London—­a man whose only principle was to do wrong on the Liberal side; he would not act, right or wrong, for a Tory, but for a Whig the latitude of his conscience had never yet been discovered.  It was possible Mr. Bradshaw was not aware of the character of this agent; at any rate, he knew he was the man for his purpose, which was to hear of some one who would come forward as a candidate for the representation of Eccleston on the Dissenting interest.