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.
He followed his wife to the grave, leaning on the arm of his friend, the Dane—for I may be allowed to call him his friend, as he had no other—and shed no tears that any body saw. His habits of life were ostensibly the same as before. He took his morning's walk, and his afternoon's walk, although he had no wife to accompany him then. He caused a plain white marble tomb-stone to be erected at the head of her grave, on which was simply inscribed, 'Susan Tompkins: Died in the 49th year of her age.' A fever of the same type with that which carried off his wife, seized him, and he died as I have already mentioned.
There is no difficulty in getting up a funeral procession in such country places. Those who would have cheerfully consigned their own blood connexions to Don Pedro or the Dey of Algiers, while living, will make it a matter of business to follow any body's corpse to its last home: and there is no religion, sentimentality, or poetical superstition, in their so doing. It is a mere way they have.
Therefore there was no lack of people to make up a procession, either at the funeral of Mrs. Tompkins or of her husband. There was a group of rather ragged-looking people, men, women, and children, who remained after the crowd had gone away, near the graves on both occasions. They had reason to cry, as they honestly did, for the loss of those who had been kind to them.
It was a strange circumstance, but it was actually true, that when Mrs. Wilkins, under Mr. Felburgh's inspection, came to settle up what was due for the funeral expenses of Mr. Tompkins, and to herself, they found exactly the amount required, and neither a cent more nor less. What papers he might have burned after his wife's death I know not; but the lady and gentleman above-mentioned, who acted as his legatees, did not find the smallest memorandum or scrap of paper left by him. The wardrobe of both husband and wife was not extensive, and the trunks containing their wearing apparel were preserved inviolate by the respectable Mrs. Wilkins. She has since died. Mr. Felburgh went shortly after Mr. Tompkins's death to Denmark. If any private revelations were made to him, he has never divulged them, and I know he never will. When I saw him in Copenhagen, in the summer of 1826, I did not think he looked like a man who was to stay much longer in this world of care. He had not any thing to trouble him particularly, that I know of; except that he had nobody to inherit his property, and that was not much.
There was another strange circumstance, which I must not pass over. A few weeks after Mr. Tompkins was buried, a plain tomb-stone, shaped exactly like that which had been erected by his order over his wife, appeared at the head of his grave; and on it was inscribed, 'Hugh Tompkins: Died in the 58th year of his age.' Who put it up, no one could tell, nor is it known to this day.
The burying-ground is as forlorn a place as can well be imagined. There is only a ragged fence around it, and nothing but rank common grass, dandelions, and white-weed grow in it. There is nothing picturesque in or about it; and a Paris belle would rather never die at all, than be stowed into such vile sepulchral accommodations.
These are all the facts in my knowledge, relating to my hero and heroine, as to whom and whose resources curiosity is yet so lively, in the village which I have referred to, but not named, in order to avoid scandal.