"Je fais echo, ou sont-ils? et je suis fort aise que l'echo seul y
repond. Au diable les amis! Je me souviens encore du moment ou mon pere
et mes oncles Gerard appellerent autour d'eux leurs amis, et Dieu sait
si les amis se sont empresses d'accourir a leur secours! Tenez, M.
Yorke, ce mot, ami, m'irrite trop; ne m'en parlez plus."

"Comme tu voudras."

And here Mr. Yorke held his peace; and while he sits leaning back in his
three-cornered carved oak chair, I will snatch my opportunity to sketch
the portrait of this French-speaking Yorkshire gentleman.

CHAPTER IV.

MR. YORKE (_continued_).

A Yorkshire gentleman he was, _par excellence_, in every point; about
fifty-five years old, but looking at first sight still older, for his
hair was silver white. His forehead was broad, not high; his face fresh
and hale; the harshness of the north was seen in his features, as it was
heard in his voice; every trait was thoroughly English--not a Norman
line anywhere; it was an inelegant, unclassic, unaristocratic mould of
visage. Fine people would perhaps have called it vulgar; sensible people
would have termed it characteristic; shrewd people would have delighted
in it for the pith, sagacity, intelligence, the rude yet real
originality marked in every lineament, latent in every furrow. But it
was an indocile, a scornful, and a sarcastic face--the face of a man
difficult to lead, and impossible to drive. His stature was rather tall,
and he was well made and wiry, and had a stately integrity of port;
there was not a suspicion of the clown about him anywhere.

I did not find it easy to sketch Mr. Yorke's person, but it is more
difficult to indicate his mind. If you expect to be treated to a
Perfection, reader, or even to a benevolent, philanthropic old gentleman
in him, you are mistaken. He has spoken with some sense and with some
good feeling to Mr. Moore, but you are not thence to conclude that he
always spoke and thought justly and kindly.

Mr. Yorke, in the first place, was without the organ of veneration--a
great want, and which throws a man wrong on every point where veneration
is required. Secondly, he was without the organ of comparison--a
deficiency which strips a man of sympathy; and thirdly, he had too
little of the organs of benevolence and ideality, which took the glory
and softness from his nature, and for him diminished those divine
qualities throughout the universe.

The want of veneration made him into