Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant

As the election approached, it became gradually the one absorbing object of interest in Carlingford. The contest was so equal that everybody took a certain share in it, and became excited as the decisive moment drew nigh. Most of the people in Grange Lane were for Mr. Ashburton, but then the Rector, who was a host in himself, was for Mr. Cavendish; and the coquetting of the Dissenting interest, which was sometimes drawn towards the liberal sentiments of the former candidate, but sometimes could not help reflecting that Mr. Ashburton "dealt" in George Street; and the fluctuations of the bargemen, who were, many of them, freemen, and a very difficult part of the population, excited the most vivid interest.

Young Mr. Wentworth, who had but lately come to Carlingford, had already begun to acquire a great influence at Wharfside, where most of the bargees lived, and the steady ones would no doubt have been largely swayed by him had his inclinations been the same as the Rector's; but Mr. Wentworth, perversely enough, had conceived that intuitive repugnance for Mr. Cavendish which a high-principled and not very tolerant young man often feels for the middle-aged individual who still conceives himself to have some right to be called young, and whose antecedents are not entirely beyond suspicion. Mr. Wentworth's disinclination (and he was a man rather apt to take his own way) lay like a great boulder across the stream of the Rector's enthusiasm, and unquestionably interrupted it a little. Both the candidates and both the committees had accordingly work enough to do up to the last moment.