Higginbotham whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold himmany a bunch of long nines, and a great deal of pigtail, lady's twist,and fig tobacco. He was rather astonished at the rapidity with whichthe news had spread. Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in astraight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o'clockthe preceding night; yet Dominicus had heard of it at seven in themorning, when, in all probability, poor Mr. Higginbotham's ownfamily had but just discovered his corpse, hanging on the St.
Michael's pear-tree. The stranger on foot must have wornseven-league boots to travel at such a rate.
"Ill news flies fast, they say," thought Dominicus Pike; "butthis beats railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go expresswith the President's Message."The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made amistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our frienddid not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and countrystore along the road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappersamong at least twenty horrified audiences. He found himself invariablythe first bearer of the intelligence, and was so pestered withquestions that he could not avoid filling up the outline, till itbecame quite a respectable narrative. He met with one piece ofcorroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader; and a formerclerk of his, to whom Dominicus related the facts, testified thatthe old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchardabout nightfall, with the money and valuable papers of the store inhis pocket. The clerk manifested but little grief at Mr.
Higginbotham's catastrophe, hinting, what the pedlar had discovered inhis own dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as closeas a vice. His property would descend to a pretty niece who was nowkeeping school in Kimballton.
What with telling the news for the public good, and drivingbargains for his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road thathe chose to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker'sFalls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seatedhimself in the bar-room, and went through the story of the murder,which had grown so fast that it took him half an hour to tell. Therewere as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom receivedit all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer, who hadarrived on horseback a short time before, and was now seated in acorner smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded, he rose up verydeliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominicus, andstared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco smokethe pedlar had ever smelt.
"Will you make affidavit," demanded he, in the tone of a countryjustice taking an examination, "that old Squire Higginbotham ofKimballton was murdered in his orchard the night before last, andfound hanging on his great pear-tree yesterday morning?""I tell the story as I heard it, mister," answered Dominicus,dropping his half-burnt cigar; "I don't say that I saw the thing done.
So I can't take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way.""But I can take mine," said the farmer, that if Squire Higginbothamwas murdered night before last, I drank a glass of bitters with hisghost this morning. Being a neighbor of mine, he called me into hisstore, as I was riding by, and treated me, and then asked me to do alittle business for him on the road. He didn't seem to know any moreabout his own murder than I did.""Why, then, it can't be a fact!" exclaimed Dominicus Pike.
"I guess he'd have mentioned, if it was," said the old farmer;and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quitedown in the mouth.
Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedlar hadno heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himselfwith a glass of gin and water, and went to bed where, all nightlong, he dreamed of hanging on the St. Michael's pear-tree. To avoidthe old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would havepleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham's), Dominicus rose in thegray of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart, andtrotted swiftly away towards Parker's Falls. The fresh breeze, thedewy road, and the pleasant summer dawn, revived his spirits, andmight have encouraged him to repeat the old story had there beenanybody awake to hear it. But he met neither ox team, light wagonchaise, horseman, nor foot traveller, till, just as he crossedSalmon River, a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundleover his shoulder, on the end of a stick.
"Good morning, mister," said the pedlar, reining in his mare. "Ifyou come from Kimballton or that neighborhood, may be you can tellme the real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was theold fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago, by an Irishmanand a nigger?"Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe, at first,that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of Negro blood. Onhearing this sudden question, the Ethiopian appeared to change hisskin, its yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while, shaking andstammering, he thus replied: "No! no! There was no colored man! It wasan Irishman that hanged him last night, at eight o'clock. I cameaway at seven! His folks can't have looked for him in the orchardyet."Scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he interrupted himself,and though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at apace which would have kept the pedlar's mare on a smart trot.
Dominicus started after him in great perplexity. If the murder had notbeen committed till Tuesday night, who was the prophet that hadforetold it, in all its circumstances, on Tuesday morning? If Mr.
