Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/40

 

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 deposit 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 freemen, 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 village. Now there was also a shoemaker 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,