Read "My Novel, Book XII" by Edward Bulwer-lytton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the centre of the raised platform in the town-hall sat the mayor. On either hand of that dignitary now appeared the candidates of the respective parties, -- to his right, Audley Egerton and Leslie; to his left, Dick Avenel and Leonard.
The place was as full as it could hold. Rows of grimy faces peeped in, even from the upper windows outside the building. The contest was one that created intense interest, not only from public principles, but local passions. Dick Avenel, the son of a small tradesman, standing against the Right Honourable Audley Egerton, the choice of the powerful Lansmere aristocratic party, -- standing, too, with his nephew by his side; taking, as he himself was wont to say, "the tarnation Blue Bull by both its oligarchical horns! " -- there was a pluck and gallantry in the very impudence of the attempt to convert the important borough -- for one member of which a great earl had hitherto striven, "with labour dire and weary woe" into two family seats for the House of Avenel and the triumph of the Capelocracy.