Part 3

With this highly unsatisfactory result, the fair inquisitors were compelled to return from their mission. Something, however, in the placid manner of Mrs. Tompkins, had produced an influence upon them which counteracted the natural effects of the irritability arising from ungratified curiosity. Their hypotheses in relation to her were by no means so uncharitable as might have been expected. Mrs. Steele actually maintained that she believed her to be Mrs. Fry, travelling incog. through the United States. Mrs. Hawkins had no doubt it was Dorothy Ripley, a woman who had a call to straggle through the country, vending her religious experience; and that her escort was no less a personage than Johnny Edwards, a lay enthusiast of great notoriety. Miss Cross, the least complimentary in her conjectures, supposed it was Mrs. Royal, a travelling authoress, and bugbear to book-sellers and editors.

After a walk of two hours or more, Mr. Tompkins returned from his perambulations, and stopped in at the tavern or stage-house, where he seated himself in an unobtrusive place, and began to read the newspapers. He perused these budgets of literature systematically and thoroughly; and the anxious expectant of the reversion of any particular journal he had in hand, waited in vain for him to lay it down. When he had finished one broad-side, and the fidgetty seeker after the latest news had half thrust forth his hand to grasp the prize, Mr. Tompkins, gently heaving a complacent sigh, turned over the folio, and began to read the next page with the same quiet fixedness of attention, and unequivocally expressed purpose of suffering nothing it contained to escape his attention. It thus took him about two hours to finish his prelection of one of the issues of that great moral engine, as it is called, by whose emanations the people of this country are made so wise and happy. Advertisements and all he read, except poetry, which he seemed to skip conscientiously, generally uttering an interjection, not of admiration. Notwithstanding he thus tried the patience of those who wanted a share of periodical light, he was so quiet and respectable a looking man, that not even a highwayman, or a highwayman's horse (supposing that respectable beast to be entitled to its proverbial character for assurance,) would have attempted to take the paper away from him by violence. His person was in nobody's way. His elbows and knees were kept in; and there was no quarrelling with his shoe or his shoe-tie. There was a _simplex munditiis_--a neat-but-not-gaudiness about him, which every body understood without understanding Latin.

When he had apparently exhausted the contents of all the periodicals that lay on the bar-room table, just as the village clock struck one, Mr. Tompkins asked for a glass of cider, which he drank and departed. I need make no apology to an intelligent reader for a detail of these minute particulars; because they engrossed the attention of many at the time, and were severally the subjects of conflicting hypotheses. And beside, the history of his first day's residence was so exactly that of every other which followed, that it is expedient to be particular in recording it.

He returned then to his lodgings, and after dinner was seen sitting in the porch of the widow's house, smoking a cigar, and reading in an ancient-looking volume. Toward sundown he again walked forth, with his wife (if wife she was) under his arm; and they strolled to some distance through the lanes and among the fields adjacent to the village. Thence they returned at tea-time, and at an early hour retired to their apartment.

Mrs. Wilkins had not for a long time received so many visiters as called upon her that evening, to inquire after her health, and the 'names, ages, usual places of residence, and occupations' of her boarders. For the best of all possible reasons, she was unable to satisfy them on many of these points. The appearance of Mr. Tompkins at the tavern, however, had produced a rëaction in the opinions of the men, as that of his wife had in those of the ladies; and he was supposed to be some greater character than a runaway husband, a fraudulent insolvent, or a half-hanged malefactor. They were determined to make an Æneas under a cloud out of him. One was convinced that he was Sir Gregor McGregor; another that he was Baron Von Hoffman, (a wandering High-Dutch adventurer, much in vogue at that time,) and a third ventured the bold conjecture that he was NAPOLEON himself. A rumor, then rife, that the most illustrious of _dêtenus_ had effected his escape, gave greater accuracy to the last surmise than to any other. Napoleon was then in ----!

The post-master advised the speculative crowd, whose imaginations were perturbed and overwrought by this suggestion, to keep themselves quiet and say nothing about it for the present. Letters and packages must necessarily come to the mysterious visiter, which would be subject to his inspection; and from the post-marks, directions, and other indices, which long experience had taught him to understand, he assured them that he should be able to read the riddle. By this promise, the adult population were controlled into forbearance from any public manifestation of astonishment. The little boys, however, whose discretion was not so great, kept hurraing for Bonypart to a late hour, around the widow's house; for which the biggest of them suffered severely next morning at school; their master being what was called an old tory.

'Days, weeks, and months, and generations (in the chronology of curiosity) passed;' but the post-master was unable to fulfil his promise. Nothing came to his department directed to _our_ Mr. Tompkins; nor did that gentleman ever inquire for any letters. During this period, which was about half a year, the daily occupations of Mr. T. were almost uniformly the same with those mentioned in the diary I have given. So punctual was he, that a sick lady, having marked the precise minute at which he passed before her house, on his return to dinner, set her watch regularly thereafter by his appearance, and was persuaded that it kept better time than those of her neighbors. One would have thought that she ought to have felt grateful to the isolated stranger who thus saved her the trouble of a solar observation; but whether it arose from the influence of the genius of the place, the irritability of sickness, or her association of Mr. Tompkins with ipecacuanha, certain it is, that her guesses about his identity, and his motives for coming to that town, were of all others the most unamiable.

I must mention, however, some of the other habits of Mr. Tompkins, and some of the peculiarities of his character. For, though the former were systematic, and the latter monotonous, he was yet not a mere animated automaton; and was distinguished from other male bipeds by certain traits, which his acutely observant neighbors of course did not fail to note.

Neither he nor his wife ever bought any thing for which they did not pay cash. Their purchases were few in number, and small in amount; and they generally seemed to have exactly the requisite sum about them, rarely requiring change, and never exhibiting any large surplus of the circulating medium. On Sunday, unless the weather was very bad, they attended at the Episcopal church regularly, sitting in Mrs. Wilkins's pew; and regularly did Mr. Tompkins deposite a sixpenny-piece in the plate which was handed round. They did not, however, partake of the communion in that church; why, I know not. It was in vain that Mrs. Tompkins was urged by the ladies with whom she became acquainted, to attend religious meetings of different kinds, held in the evening. It was also in vain that either her husband or she was solicited to subscribe to any charity, of whatever description. They severally answered, 'I cannot afford it,' so naturally, that the ladies and gentlemen on the several committees appointed by the several charitable meetings, gave them up in despair. They rarely accepted invitations to tea-drinkings; and yet there was nothing unsocial in their manner or conversation. They could converse very agreeably, according to the opinions of many of the people; and what was strange, was, that they neither talked about scandal, religion, or politics. Sometimes they spoke of other countries so familiarly, that the question, 'Have you ever been there?' was naturally asked; and the answer was generally 'Yes.' Avoiding, however, any communion other than what was inevitable, with those who were decidedly gross and vulgar in intellect and feeling, and forming no intimacies in the small social circle into which they were thrown, the barrier was never passed by their acquaintances, which precluded familiarity. The amusements of Mr. Tompkins, other than those I have stated--to wit, walking and reading the newspapers--were extremely limited in kind or degree, so far as they were observed. Books of his own he had none. The widow's collection was small: but he availed himself of it occasionally, when smoking, or when the weather was bad. As it was more than a quarter of a century since any of the volumes had been purchased, and they were mostly odd ones, his studies could neither have been profound nor extensive. He also very frequently played backgammon with an old Danish gentleman, Mr. Hans Felburgh, who had brought his wife from the West Indies, to reside in this village for the benefit of her health, and had buried her there. It had been a subject of much dispute why he remained; whether from regard to her memory, want of funds, or because he was afraid or too lazy to go back. My readers, I trust, are troubled with no such impertinent curiosity. No human being can long move and live in the same society, without contracting a preference for somebody or other; but the intercourse between these two gentlemen arose very naturally, as they were near neighbors and both strangers, and as the Dane was without kith or kin in the country.

Thus, as I have said, six months passed away, and the mystery which enshrouded Mr. Tompkins yet hung about him 'as a garment.' Curiosity, 'like the self-burning tree of Africa,' had almost consumed itself in its own ardors; but the vital fire yet glowed under the embers. The people had worn threadbare all the arguments on the questions who Mr. Tompkins was, and why he did not publish to them his autobiography. The all-absorbing topic of conversation now was, 'How did he live? what were his resources?' He ran in debt to no one, borrowed from no one, and kept no account in either of the four village banks; he paid his board regularly, as was regularly ascertained from the widow, who became indignant, however, at the frequent recurrence of the question. The tax-gatherer in his rounds called upon him, and found him only liable to be assessed at the same rate as those were who had neither realty nor personalty subject to taxation.

It was now suggested, and became the current report, that Mr. Tompkins and his wife were secretly connected with a gang of counterfeiters, for whom they filled up bank notes, and with whom they had means of holding clandestine intercourse. Often were they both dogged, on their rambles, by gratuitous enthusiasts in the cause of justice. Mrs. Tompkins was seen to stoop for some time, removing a stone that lay under a hedge. The observer in his eagerness, approached too incautiously, and trampled among the dry leaves. She turned her head and saw him, and went onward, making a pretext of pulling up a handful of violets. Nothing was to be found under the stone, or near it; but there could have been but little doubt, it was supposed, that she had intended to deposite counterfeit bank notes, where her accomplices knew how to find them. Mr. Tompkins was observed in his morning walks, to stop occasionally to talk to some very poor people, who lived in the outskirts of the village, and even occasionally to enter their ricketty and tumble-down habitations. Many inquiries were of course made of them, both in an insinuating and a fulminating tone, as to the object of Mr. Tompkins's visits, and the purport of his communications. But these virtuous, though impecunious democrats, made no other reply, than that Mr. Tompkins was a good man, and a better man than those who came to examine them; and, when threatened, they stood upon their integrity as individuals, and their rights as free citizens, and contrived to empty their tubs and kettles 'convenient,' as the Irish say, to the ankles of the questioners.

But now an event occurred--or rather seemed likely to occur. One afternoon, a horseman, dusty with travel, rode up to the tavern, and having alighted, inquired if a Mr. Tompkins lived in that town. Now there was also a shoe-maker of that name who had long dwelt there. But when the stranger added, that the person he sought for could not long have been a resident, all doubts vanished. Between their impatience, however, to assure him he had come to the right place, and uneasiness to get out of him the facts which were to explain the mystery, the dusty traveller had much difficulty in obtaining answers to his first question, and to his second, 'where Tompkins lived?' All the information he gave, in exchange for that which he received, was, that he had business with the gentleman. He also asked, where he could find the nearest justice of the peace? A bandy-legged individual, with a hump-back, and a strange obliquity in both his eyes, who was drinking beer, came forward immediately, and said _he_ was the 'squire. The traveller looked as if he thought the people had a strange taste in selecting their magistrates; but, telling the crooked functionary that he might have occasion to call on him in a short time, set forth in the direction indicated to him, to find the person he was in search of.

He marched at a round pace; but not so fast that others were not on the ground before him. Several persons who had heard what had passed, scudded off in different ways for the same point, announcing as they ran, in half-breathless accents, to every one they met, that a sheriff had come for Mr. Tompkins. A party kept at no great distance behind the stranger, among whom was the justice himself, who seemed disposed not to be out of the way, should his services be demanded.

As Mr. Tompkins, who was sitting in the porch of the widow's house, reading a volume of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1749, and had just exhaled a cloud of many-colored smoke, was watching the delicate spiral curve of sapphire hue, which did not intermingle with the other vapor, but wound through it like the Jordan through the Dead Sea, (to give the _coup de grace_ to a figure worn to tatters, and beggarly tatters too,) I say, as Mr. Tompkins lifted up his eyes and beheld the prospect before him, he was aware of a man in riding trim, lifting the latch of the widow's little court-yard; behind whom a small crowd, headed by the cross-eyed and cross-legged Coke of the parish, advanced in a huddle, all earnestly gazing upon himself. And, glancing around, through the rose-bushes, lilac-trees, and pales which surrounded the modest enclosure in which he was ensconced, he beheld, peeping and chuckling, the quaint and dirty faces of divers boys and girls, with dishevelled hair and goblin expressions; and he marvelled what in the world was the matter.

The stranger entered the court-yard, and touching his hat respectfully, asked if Mr. Tompkins was at home?

'That is my name, Sir,' said the gentleman.

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said the stranger. 'I have been mistaken. I was looking for another gentleman.'

So saying, he again touched his hat, and retired, looking rather surlily upon the people who gathered round him, and followed in a cluster his retiring footsteps. My tale does not lead me to tell how he got along with them, nor do I know more than what I have heard, which was, that having proceeded a little distance, and feeling them treading upon his heels, he got upon a stump, and looking around him, asked if the place was a Sodom or Gomorrah, that a Christian man, dressed like themselves, could not come into it without being mobbed in that manner? Upon which he marched on at a quicker step, some of the men shouting, and a few of the little boys following and throwing stones after him, till he remounted his horse; and mingling with the clatter of the charger's retiring hoofs was heard the rider's hoarse and coarse malison upon the town, and all the people that lived in it!

----'But with Mr. Tompkins Abides the minstrel tale.'

'Time rolled his ceaseless course,' as he does now while I write; and I shall record but one more anecdote, being an incident which happened several months after that last mentioned.

A fondness for getting up charitable societies had always prevailed, to a greater or less extent, in this village. But at this particular time it became a _rage_, in consequence of the organization in larger towns of associations on a grand scale; the notices of whose meetings, with the names of the several official dignitaries, as published in the newspapers, inflamed the ambition of the country folks. A society for the Suppression of Pauperism was immediately formed. Under its auspices, at the same time, was organized a society for the relief of the poor and destitute; and, subsidiary to the latter, an auxiliary branch was instituted, for the purpose of seeking out and examining the condition of such poor and destitute people, with a view of reporting their cases to the parent society. The executive committee of the auxiliary branch consisted of four ladies and three gentlemen; who met twice a week regularly, with the power of calling extra meetings, for the purpose of reporting and consulting.

It was certainly most unfortunate that a system so complicated and so admirable should be framed, without any subjects being found to try it upon. It was like a fine new mill, with a double run of stones, without any grist to be ground in it. The executive committee were not inactive; but, strange to relate, unless they patronised some of the members of one or all of the three societies, thus compacted like Chinese boxes, there was never a soul in the place upon the causes and actual extent of whose poverty and destitution they could report, without going to the gentiles whom I have mentioned before, who lived in the crazy and deciduous tenements in the outskirts.

To them, however, the three gentlemen, urged partly by their zeal in the cause, and partly by some sly intimations from the four ladies, that they were afraid of receiving injury to their clothes or to their persons, were induced to repair. Their mission was fruitless enough. While they were talking to some of the members of this small Alsatia below, others from above contrived accidentally to administer libations of ancient soap-suds and dish-water to the philanthropists, which sent them back in no amiable mood, and in a pickle by no means prepossessing, to report to the executive committee of the auxiliary branch.

What was to be done? It was necessary that some report should be made, which, having been approved by the branch and the parent institution, and laid by them before the Pauperism Society of the village, might be transmitted to the great Metropolitan Branch of the General State Association. The grand anniversary was approaching; and what a contemptible figure their returns would make. Under these circumstances Miss Cross called an extra meeting of the executive committee.

I do not intend to report the proceedings of this illustrious delegation, but merely the upshot of them. They actually appointed a sub-committee, consisting of Miss Cross, who was all of six feet high, and a pot-bellied tinman who was only four feet eleven, to wait upon Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins; and to inform them, in a delicate way, that the auxiliary branch had viewed with satisfaction their efforts to maintain a decent appearance, and had taken into very particular consideration the causes of their poverty, and the mode of applying suitable relief. It was well known, the committee were instructed to say, that they were destitute people, because nobody wrote to them, and it was a universal subject of wonder how they lived. They were growing paler and thinner under the influence of hope deferred, or more probably of no hope at all; and if they would quit Mrs. Wilkins's, whose charge for board was too high, they might yet have bright and pleasant days before them, under the patronage of the society. They might lodge with the aunt of Miss Cross, who had a nice room in her garret, and took as boarders half a dozen of the cabinet-maker's apprentices. Mrs. Tompkins could improve her time by washing and ironing; and something might be done for her husband, in the way of getting him accounts to cast up for grocers, running about to collect them, dunning, etc.

So Miss Cross and the tinman went the next afternoon; and, I believe, that with all the importance they assumed or felt, as members of the auxiliary branch, there was a little hesitation in their entrance into the demesne of Mrs. Wilkins. At any rate, I know, that in mounting the three steps before the door, Miss Cross, by a twitch of her foot, either nervous or accidental, kicked her colleague, who was behind her, on his back, or some other part; and set him a rolling with such emphasis, that he found it troublesome to stand up again fairly; or, indeed, to know the four points of the compass.

Mr. Tompkins was playing backgammon with his Danish friend, when his wife opened the door suddenly, with her face flushed, and said, 'My dear, here are a lady and gentleman, who wish to inquire into the causes of our poverty, and the means of relieving it.' She laughed as she spoke, but as she turned away and went up stairs, cried hysterically.

Mr. Tompkins, who had a man taken up, as the phrase is, and had just thrown doublets of the very point in which he could not enter, rose, and issued forth to talk to the sub-committee. I believe, most devoutly, that he was an amiable man; and as to the vulgar practice of profane swearing, I do not think he ever had indulged in it before in his life. But when he discharged this sub-committee, I am credibly informed, that he availed himself of as round and overwhelming a volley of blasphemy as ever was heard on board a man-of-war. I hope it has been pardoned him, among his other transgressions.

Time rolled on, and five years had passed away since the arrival of Mr. Tompkins and his wife at ----. Curiosity as to them had become superstition; though the vulgar imaginations of the mechanical _bourgeois_ of the village had not enabled them to conjure up any spirit or demon, by whose assistance this inoffensive couple were enabled to exist without getting into debt. No letters had come, during all this period, through the hands of the conscientious and intelligent post-master. No deposite had been made by Mr. Tompkins in any one of the four banks; nor, to the best of my knowledge and belief, had he ever seen the inside of either of them; for he never went to a place where he had no business to transact, or was not required by courtesy to go.

Death!--which we must all expect, and meet as we can--Death came, and makes tragical the end of a narrative which I have written, perhaps, in a strain of too much levity. A fever, occasioned probably by local influences, seized Mrs. Tompkins, and after a few days' illness, unexpectedly even to the doctor, she died. Such was the fact; and if I had all the particulars, I know not why they should be given. It is hard, however, to realize that any body is dead, with whom we have long associated; still harder, if we have dearly loved the friend who has gone before us. I suppose this was the case with Mr. Tompkins, who did not long wear his widower's weeds. He died too, only eight weeks afterward.