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.