His Grace — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

40 HIS GRACE. quite astonished to see such a crowd upon the plat form, where I became aware of many faces hitherto unknown to me, nor could I account for the presence of half-a-dozen strange servants attired in the Gas- coigne livery; but when Mr. Higgins, very red in the face after his ride, joined me, he cleared up the mys- tery, and gave me information as to what he and I agreed was a somewhat awkward contretemps. Mr. Paul Gascoigne, it seemed, had selected this day of all others for taking formal possession of his property ; he was coming down in the same train with the Duke; for him also triumphal arches had been set up; his tenantry, like ours, had assembled to welcome him ; and the worst of it was that he had a much larger array of tenants than his cousin could boast of. ‘“‘He have done it o’ purpose, sir,” the old man said, adding some forcible expressions which, as Mr. Hig- gins 1s a church-warden, I forbear to record. “ His nature is to spoil sport, and true to his nature he will’ be, so long as there’s life in the ugly carcase of him, you may depend. Now, I ain’t got no quarrel with them as is bound to receive him proper, but it do grieve me to think that his Grace must drive away from this station in a carriage and pair, when that there feller has got four horses and postillions waiting for him.” We might have had four horses, and I was sorry that I had not thought of it; but there was no time to make any alteration in the arrangements, so I stated boldly that the Prince of Wales habitually sat behind a pair, and that, in these days of macadamized roads, leaders were considered as not only useless, but as savoring of vulgar ostentation. I don’t know whether Mr. Higgins was satisfied, but Gomicboo “S (G0)