INKLE AND YARICO. STEELE. MR. THOMAS INKLE, of London, aged twenty years, embarked in the Downs, in the good ship called the Achilles, bound for the West Indies, on the 16th of June, 1647, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandise. Our adventurer was the third son of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to instil into his mind an early love of gain, by making him a perfect master of numbers, and consequently giving him a quick view of loss and advantage, and preventing the natural impulses of his passions, by prepossession towards his interests. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a person every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, strength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loosely flowing on his shoulders. It happened, in the course of the voyage, that the Achilles, in some distress, put into a creek on the main of America, in search of provisions. The youth who is the hero of my story, among others, went on shore on this occasion. From their first landing they were observed by a party of Indians, who hid themselves in the wood for that purpose. The English unadvisedly marched a great distance from the shore into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who slew the greatest number of them. Our adventurer escaped, among others, by flying into a forest. Upon his coming into a remote and pathless part of the wood, he threw himself, tired and breathless, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rushed from a thicket behind him. After the first surprise, they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the naked American; the American was no less taken with the dress, complexion, and shape of an European, covered from head to foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and consequently solicitous for his preservation. She therefore conveyed him to a cave, where she gave him a delicious repast of fruits, and led him to a stream to slake his thirst. In the midst of these good offices, she would sometimes play with his hair, and delight in the opposition of its colour to that of her fingers: then open his bosom, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a person of distinction, for every day came to him in a different dress, of the most beautiful she shells, bugles, and beads. She likewise brought him a great many spoils, which her other lovers had presented to her, so that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted skins of beasts, and most party-coloured feathers of fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, she would carry him, in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moonlight, to unfrequented groves and solitudes, and show him where to lie down in safety, and sleep amidst the falls of waters and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him asleep in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and wake him on occasions to consult his safety. In this manner did the lovers pass away their time, till they had learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his country, where she should be clothed in such silks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in houses drawn by horses, without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without such fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correspondence these lovers lived for several months, when Yarico, instructed by her lover, discovered a vessel on the coast, to which she made signals; and in the night, with the utmost joy and satisfaction, accompanied him to a ship's crew of his countrymen bound for Barbadoes. When a vessel from the main arrives in that island, it seems the planters come down to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other slaves, as with us of horses and oxen. To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began seriously to reflect upon his loss of time, and to weigh with himself how many days' interest of his money he had lost during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man pensive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage; upon which consideration, the prudent and frugal young man sold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant. ORTHON. [THE following story, told in the most quaint and picturesque manner, is from the Chronicles of Froissart, translated by Lord Berners.] HOW A SPIRIT, CALLED ORTHON, SERVED Ir is a great marvel to consider one thing, the which was showed me in the Count of Foix's house, at Orthes; of the same squire that informed me of the business at Aljubarota.* He showed me one thing that I have oftentimes thought on since, and shall do as long as I live. As this squire told me, of truth, the next day after the battle was fought, at Aljubarota, the Count of Foix knew it; whereof I had great marvel. For the said Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, the count was very pensive, and so sad of cheer, that no man could hear a word of him. And all the same three days he would not issue out of his chamber, nor speak to any man, though they were never so near about him. And on the Tuesday at night, he called to him his brother, Sir Ernaut Guillaume, and said to him with a soft voice: "Our men have had to do; whereof I am sorry; for it is come of them by their voyage, as I said before they departed." * A great battle, in 1385, when the Spaniards, and the French, their allies, were beaten by the Portuguese. Froissart heard the story of Orthon in 1388. No. III.-THE BEST STORY-TELLERS. D Ernaut Guillaume, who was a sage knight, and knew right well his brother's conditions, stood still, and gave none answer. And then the count, who thought to declare his mind more plainly (for long he had borne the trouble thereof in his heart), spake again more high than he did before, and said: "By God, Sir Ernant, it is as I say; and shortly ye shall hear tidings thereof. But the country of Bierne, this hundred year, never lost such a loss at no journey, as it hath done now in Portugal." Divers knights and squires that were there present, and heard him say so, stood still, and durst not speak. But they remembered his words; and within a ten days after they knew the truth thereof by such as had been at the business; and there they showed everything as it was fortuned at Aljubarota. Then the count renewed again his dolour, and all the country were in sorrow, for they had lost their parents, brethren, children, and friends. "Saint Mary!" quoth I to the squire that showed me this tale, "how is it that the Count of Foix could know on one day what was done within a day or two before, being so far off?" "By my faith, Sir," quoth he, "as it appeared, well he knew it." "Then he is a diviner," quoth I, "or else he hath messengers that flieth with the wind, or he must needs have some craft.” The squire began to laugh, and said, Surely he must know it by some art of necromancy or otherwise. To say the truth, we cannot tell how it is but by our imaginations." 66 "Sir," quoth I, "such imagination as ye have therein, if it please you to show me, I would be glad thereof; and if it be such a thing as ought to be secret, I shall not publish it, nor as long as I am in this country I shall never speak word thereof." "I pray you thereof," quoth the squire, "for I would not it should be known that I should speak thereof; but I shall show you as divers men speak secretly when they be together as friends." Then he drew me apart into a corner of the chapel at Orthes, and began his tale, and said: It is well a twenty years past, that there was in this country a Baron, called Raymond, Lord of Corasse, which is a seven leagues from this town of Orthes. This Lord of Corasse had, the same time, a plea at Avignon before the Pope, for the dismes [tithes] of his church, against a clerk-curate there, the which priest was of Catalonia. He was a great clerk, and claimed to have a right of the dismes of the town of Corasse, which was valued to a hundred florins by the year; and the right that he had he showed and proved it. And by sentence definitive, Pope Urban the Fifth, in consistory general, condemned the knight and gave judgment with the priest. And of this last judgment he had letters of the pope for his possession, and so rode till he came into Bierne, and 1 there showed his letters and rules of the pope for the possession of his dismes. The Lord of Corasse had great indignation at this priest, and came to him and said, "Master Peter," or, "Master Martin," as his name was, "thinkest thou that by reason of thy letters that I will lose mine heritage? Be not so hardy that thou take anything that is mine; if thou dost it shall cost thee thy life. Go thy way into some other place to get thee a benefice, for of mine heritage thou gettest no part; and once for always I defend [forbid] thee." The clerk doubted [feared] the knight; for he was a cruel man, therefore he durst not persevere. Then he thought to return to Avignon, as he did; but, when he departed, he came to the knight, the Lord of Corasse, and said: 66 'Sir, by force and not by right, ye take from me the right of my church, wherein ye greatly hurt your conscience. I am not so strong in this country as ye be; but, Sir, know for truth, that as soon as I may, shall send to you such a champion whom ye shall doubt more than me." The knight, who doubted nothing his threatenings, said, "God be with thee; do what thou mayest. I doubt no more death than life; for all thy words, I will not lose mine heritage.” Thus the clerk parted from the Lord of Corasse, and went, I cannot tell whether to Avignon or into Catalonia; and forgot not the promise that he had made to the Lord of Corasse ere he departed. For afterward, when the knight thought least on him, about a three months after, as the knight laid on a night abed in his castle of Corasse, with the lady his wife, there came to him messengers invisible, and made marvellous tempest and noise in the castle, that it seemed as though the castle should have fallen down; and struck great strokes at his chamberdoor, that the good lady, his wife, was sore afraid. The knight heard all, but he spake no word thereof, because he would show no abashed courage; for he was hardy to abide all adventures. This noise and tempest was in sundry places of the castle, and endured a long space, and at last ceased for that night. Then the next morning, all the servants of the house came to the lord when he was risen, and said, "Sir, have ye not heard this night, that, we have done?" The lord dissembled, and said, "No; I heard nothing.-What have you heard ?" Then they showed him what noise they had heard, and how all the vessels in the kitchen were overturned. Then the lord began to laugh, and said, "Yea, Sirs, ye dreamed! It was nothing but the wind." "In the name of God," quoth the lady, “I heard it well.” The next night there was as great noise, and greater, and such strokes given at his chamber-door and windows, as if all should have been broken in pieces. The knight started up out of his bed, and would not be hindered to |