Yorke

“ Then “George,” a merry-faced, broad-chested native of Anaa, in the Paumotu Islands, after an inquiring glance at me, broke out into a bastard Samoan-Tokelauan canoe song, with a swinging chorus, altering and improvising as he sang, showing his white teeth, as every now and then he smiled at Yorke and myself when making some humorous play upon the words of the original song, praising the former for his skill and bravery, and his killing of the man-eating savages of New Hanover, his great strength and stature, and his kindly heart—“a heart which groweth from his loins upwards to his throat.” ”

“ Mutiny heroes had not gone out of fashion, and Yorke found himself welcomed and petted to the top of his bent. Always the London season has charms for the young of both sexes; but to be thoroughly enjoyed, it must come as it did to Yorke, with all the freshness of a new revelation. ”

“ Josiah Hurst and Roland Yorke were at their desk, writing side by side. Jenner was at his, similarly occupied; Mr. Brown was holding a conversation in an undertone with some stranger, who had entered with him as he came in from an errand: a man of respectable, staid appearance. Something in the cut of his clothes spoke of the provinces; and Roland Yorke, who never failed to look after other people's affairs, however pressing his own might be, decided that the stranger was a countryman, come up to see the sights of London. ”

“ Yorke, while I sit up for Alletha Rye. She is not in yet."
"Out on the spree?" cried Roland.
"She and sprees don't have much to do with each other," said Mrs. Jones. "There's a little child ill a few doors higher up, and Alletha's gone in to sit with her. But she ought to have been home by eleven. And how have you enjoyed yourself, Mr. Yorke?"
"I say, Mrs. J., don't you go talking about enjoyment," spoke Roland resentfully. "It has been a miserable failure altogether. Not a soul there; the men and women howling like mad; and one's elbows crushed in the crowd. Catch me dressing for another!" ”

“ The clerk hesitated whether to say he did or did not. The place that he considered good might not appear so to the nephew of Sir Richard Yorke.
"I generally go to a house in Tottenham Court Road, sir. It's a kind of cook's shop, clean, and the meat excellent; but one sees all kinds of people there, and you may not think it up to you."
"Law, bless you!" cried Roland. "When a fellow has been knocked about for four years in the streets of Port Natal, he doesn't retain much ceremony. Let's get on to it. Do you know of any lodgings to be let in these parts, Jenner?" ”

“ But that Roland Yorke had not seen the parlour at Helstonleigh (which the reader had the satisfaction of once entering with Mr. Butterby) , he would have gone well nigh to think this the same room. The red carpet on the floor, the small book-shelves, the mahogany sideboard with its array of glasses, the horsehair chairs, the red cloth on the centre table, all had been transplanted. When Roland bustled in, he found Mrs. Jones knitting away at lambs' wool socks, as if for her life. ”

“ Yorke went home that night, though it was late, he found his wife and Betsey waiting for him at a turn of the road. He expressed no surprise nor disapprobation, but walked slowly homeward with them.
“What have they done?” Mrs. Yorke asked. She perceived that her husband’s arm trembled.
“Nothing can stop their running but themselves,” he answered. “They must fall by their own speed.” ”

“ Roland's expression was an apt one. Gerald Yorke was in the very pink of male fashion. His manners were easy; entirely those of a man at home in society.
"He does it grand, does he not?" cried Roland, who had made one advance towards making friends with his brother since coming to London, and was not responded to in kind.
Miss Channing laughed. Gerald Yorke had entered on some kind of public career and was very prosperous, she believed, moving amidst the great ones of the land. ”

“ At Copenhagen Captain Yorke was much impressed by the royal palace of Frederiksborg, with its chapel where are crowned the Kings of Denmark, and its pane of glass on which Caroline Matilda [Footnote: Sister of George III, Queen of Christian VII. She was entrapped into a confession of criminality to save the life of her supposed lover Struensee, who was afterwards beheaded. She was condemned to imprisonment for life in the Castle of Zell, and died there aged twenty-four in 1775.] ”

“ Yorke varied a little in his phraseology; now he spoke broad Yorkshire, and anon he expressed himself in very pure English. His manner seemed liable to equal alternations; he could be polite and affable, and he could be blunt and rough. ”

“ Butterby took a friendly glass of beer and a biscuit; Mrs. Jones, knitting always, took none. Without seeming to be at all anxious for the information, he had speedily gathered in every particular about Roland Yorke that there was to gather. Not too charitably disposed to the world in general, in speech at any rate, Mrs. Jones yet spoke well of Roland.
"He is no more like the proud, selfish aristocrat he used to be than chalk's like cheese," she said. "In his younger days Roland Yorke thought the world was made for him and his pleasure, no matter who else suffered: he doesn't think it now." ”

“ Some of the young men, with Josef Papin and Gabriel Cerré at their head, were for going at once to our rescue; but the maidens implored, and Yorke averred it was too late, and reported the savages in such numbers as would make such an undertaking only foolhardy. (And by this you must not judge Yorke a villain and a coward; he would have been the first to volunteer and the loudest to urge on the others, but he had heard Fatima's hoofs behind him, and knew we were safe, and, rascal that he was, could not resist his practical joke nor his negro love of producing a great effect.) ”

“ Yorke is a very good rider, and I am sure there is nothing harum-scarum about him," replied the young lady.
"Oh no, that's just it; young Yorke always looks as if he couldn't say bo to a goose; and that's what surprised me so, his going in for this steeplechase." ”

“ When that precious cousin of mine, Bill Yorke, lent you his surplice."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Ollivera, hastily; "I had forgotten the name. And so that is Arthur Channing's sister!"
"She is governess to that provoking little wretch, Jane Greatorex," said polite Roland, forgetting in his turn that he was speaking of his listener's cousin, "and she ought to be a queen. She ought, Mr. Ollivera, and you would say so if you knew her. She looks one, does she not? She's as like Arthur as two pins, and he's fit for the noblest king in the world." ”

“ Arrived at his lodgings, and letting himself in, Yorke went to his room without disturbing the people of the house, to lie tossing on his bed, recalling the sad scenes which he had witnessed, seeking in vain for a way of deliverance for the unfortunate husband and wife from the difficulty which beset them. But in the end nature asserted itself ”

“ Lady Augusta Yorke had an assembly--as was plain enough by the signs.
"Was ever the like bother known!" spoke Roland aloud, momentarily halting in the quiet spot. "She's got all the world and his wife there. And I didn't want a soul to know that I was at Helstonleigh!"
He took his resolution at once, ran on, and made for a small side door. A smart maid, in a flounced gown and no cap to make mention of, stood at it, flirting with a footman from one of the waiting carriages. Roland went in head foremost, saying nothing, passing swiftly through tortuous passages and up the stairs. ”

“ Butterby. We place every confidence in our clerks; I repeat it emphatically. Mr. Brown and Mr. Jenner have been with me for some years now; Mr. Hurst and Mr. Yorke are gentlemen."
"I know who they two are; knew them long before you did, sir; and their fathers too. Dr. Yorke, the late prebendary, put some business into my hands once. But now, just leave this matter with me, Mr. Bede Greatorex. ”

“ If ever Roland Yorke went nigh to lose his mind, it was now. Strangers thought he must be a candidate for Bedlam. Totally neglecting the exigencies of the office, he went tearing about like a lunatic. From one place to another, from this spot to that, backwards and forwards and round again, strode Roland, as if his legs went on wires. His aspect was fierce, his hair wild. The main resting-posts, at which he halted by turns, were Scotland Yard, Waterloo Bridge, and the London docks. The best that Roland's dark fears could suggest was, that Arthur had been murdered. ”

“ YORKE, PHILIP (1743–1804) , author of the ‘Royal Tribes of Wales,’ born in 1743, was the son of Symon Yorke (d. 28 July 1767) of Erddig, a few miles south of Wrexham, who married Dorothy, daughter and heiress of Matthew Hutton of Newnham, Hertfordshire. His grandfather, Simon Yorke, was uncle of Philip Yorke, first earl of Hardwicke [q. v.] ”

“ The Chancellor must of necessity be a peer, or cannot sit in the House of Lords. The Coronet was announced to Yorke; but he slighted it as of no consequence to his eldest son, who would, probably, succeed his uncle, Lord Hardwicke, the latter having been long married, and having only two daughters. But Mr. Yorke himself had a second wife, a very beautiful woman, and by her had another son. ”

“ YORK or YORKE, ROWLAND (d. 1588) , soldier of fortune, is conjectured to have been one of the ten sons of Sir John York [q. v.] , whose ninth son bore the name of Rowland (Visit. of Yorkshire, ed. Foster, p. 382) . Being of an adventurous disposition, he volunteered for the Netherlands under Captain Thomas Morgan (d. 1595) [q. v.] in 1572. He embarked at Gravesend on 19 March that year with his two companions, Gascoigne and Herle, but the ship in which they sailed was nearly lost on the coast of Holland owing to the incompetence of the Dutch pilot (Brydges, Censura Literaria, i. 111) . ”

“ The characterisation is far more varied and more realistic; since we have at least two pairs of lovers, the numerous Yorke family, and a whole host of “walking ladies and gentlemen,” more or less carefully portrayed. Local colour appears in several passages of enthusiastic analysis of Yorkshire manners; and the philosophy is frequently turned on everyday life. For example:
“In English country ladies there is this point to be remarked. ”

“ In the panic, she believed.
"And that beautiful kinsman of mine, William Yorke, reigns at Hazeldon, and old Galloway is flourishing in his office, with his flaxen curls!" burst forth Roland, suddenly struck with a weighty sense of injustice. "The bad people get the luck of it in this world, Mrs. Jenkins; the deserving ones go begging. Hamish Channing's bank come to grief;--bright Hamish! And look at me!--and you! I never saw such a world as this with its miserable ups and downs."
"Ah," said Mrs. Jones with a touch of her native tartness, "it's a good thing there's another world to come after. ”

“ Roland Yorke--you'd look rather foolish if I walked into Mr. Greatorex's office tomorrow morning, and told him of that past mistake."
"I don't much care whether you do or don't," said candid Roland. "As good let it come out as not, for somebody or other is always casting it in my teeth. Hurst does; my brother Gerald does--I've come now straight from hearing it. I thought I should have lived that down at Port Natal; but it seems I didn't."
"You'll not live it down by impudence," said Mr. Butterby. ”

“ How are you getting on, Butterby? Take a stool if you like, Butterby."
"Can't stop," said Butterby. "Just meant to give a nod round and go out again. Not come in on business today. You look spruce, Mr. Yorke."
"I've got on my Sunday suit," answered Roland--who in point of fact was uncommonly well got-up, and had a rosebud in his button-hole. "Carrick's tailor has not a bad cut. You have heard of red-letter days, old Butterby: this is one for me. One should not put on one's every-day coat on such occasions: they don't come too often."
"Got a fortune bequeathed?" enquired Mr. Butterby. ”

“ By nightfall we were running before a lusty south-east breeze, the cutter keeping about half a mile to windward of us, and taking in her gaff topsail, when it became dark, otherwise she would have run ahead of, and lost us before morning. At daylight, when I went on deck, she was within a cable's length, Yorke was steering—smoking as usual—and no one else was visible on deck.
I hailed him: “Good morning, Captain; where are your men?” “Taking it out in 'bunk, oh,'” he answered with a laugh. “I came on deck about two hours ago, and told them to turn in until four bells.” ”

“ I can see that. An awful clog, it is, when a fellow has dropped into mischief once in his life, and repented and atoned for it, that it must be cast in his teeth always; cropping up at any hour, like a dead donkey in the Thames; I might as well have stayed at Port Natal!"
Such was the inward soliloquy of Mr. Roland Yorke as he bent over his writing after that overwhelming question of Hurst's, "Did you take it?" Hurst, really grieved at having hurt his feelings, strove to smooth away what he had said. ”

“ Yorke, inwardly wondering whether this appeal to Annabel had meant anything, or was only one of Roland's thoughtless interludes of speech.
"Don't I?" said Roland; "I was on one for ever so long at Port Natal, and had to drive pigs. It is astonishing the sight of experience a fellow picks up over there, and the little he learns to live upon." ”

“ Gerald's man-servant in chambers, just as glad as his master to get a respite from troublesome creditors, who went well nigh to wear his patience out, informed one of that ill-used body of men where Mr. Gerald Yorke had gone, on the very day following the departure--"Cruising over the sea in a lord's yacht to foreign parts, and likely to be away till winter." Of course this struck the applicant dumb. He happened to know that Gerald Yorke had a wife and family in town, and he set himself forthwith to learn their address; which he found not very difficult of accomplishment. ”