Twice-Told Tales

had a neat little cart painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel, and an Indian chief holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little m

in his stock, knowing well that the country-lasses of New England are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in th

morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to read the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of the hill at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watc

ithin speaking-distance. "You go a pretty good

r sullenly, that he did not come from Parker's Falls, which, as being the limi

he latest news where you did come from. I'm not part

ed to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last, mounting o

urdered in his orchard at eight o'clock last night by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung h

e of Mr. Higginbotham, whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long nines and a great deal of pig-tail, lady's twist and fig tobacco. He was rather astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread. Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder had been per

ike, "but this beats railroads. The fellow ought to

intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid filling up the outline till it became quite a respectable narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader, and a former clerk of his to whom Dominicus related the facts testified that the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orcha

bar-room and went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half an hour to tell. There were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer who had arrived on horseba

examination, "that old Squire Higginbotham of Kimballton was murdered in his orchar

ping his half-burnt cigar. "I don't say that I saw the thing done,

rs with his ghost this morning. Being a neighbor of mine, he called me into his store as I was riding by, and treated me, an

be a fact!" exclai

old farmer; and he removed his chair back to the

in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with a glass of gin and water and

ed swiftly away toward Parker's Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road and the pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to bear i

that neighborhood, maybe you can tell me the real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginboth

deep tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden question the Ethiopian appeared to change hi

hanged him last night at eight o'clock; I came away at seve

Tuesday night, who was the prophet that had foretold it in all its circumstances on Tuesday morning? If Mr. Higginbotham's corpse were not yet discovered by his own family, how came the mulatto, at above thirty miles' distance, to know that he was hanging in the orchard, especially a

and hanging the nigger wouldn't unhang Mr. Higginbotham. Unhang the old gentleman? It's a

e alighted in the stable-yard of the tavern and made it his first business to order the mare four quarts of oats. His second duty, of course, was to impart Mr. Higginbotham's catastrophe to the hostler. He deemed it advisable, however, not to be too positive as to the

ated its regular day of publication, and came out with half a form of blank paper and a column of double pica emphasized with capitals and headed "HORRID MURDER OF MR. HIGGINBOTHAM!" Among other dreadful details, the printed account described the mark of the cord round the dead man's neck and stated the number of thousand dollars of which he had been robbed; there was much pathos, also, about the affliction of his niece, who had gone from one faintin

rushed into the street and kept up such a terrible loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of the cotton-machines, which refrained from th

gence which had caused so wonderful a sensation. He immediately became the great man of the moment, and had just begun a new edition of the narrative with a voice li

all the particulars

vens to hear the news. The pedler, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre

" bawled the mob. "What is the coroner's verdict? Are the murderers apprehended? Is Mr.

he cause of the excitement was to produce a large red pocketbook. Meantime, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had h

nbotham's credit - has excited this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o'clock this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as st

ore probable case of two doubtful ones, that he was so absorbed in worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his death. But unexpected evidence was forthcoming. The young lad

she, "I am Mr. Hig

d supposed, on the authority of the Parker's Falls Gazette, to be lying at death's door in a fainting-fit. But some sh

aching a school. I left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of commencement-week with a friend about five miles from Parker's Falls. My generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called me to his bedside and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay my stage-fare, and another do

eather him, ride him on a rail or refresh him with an ablution at the town-pump, on the top of which he had declared himself the bearer of the news. The selectmen, by advice of the lawyer, spoke of prosecuting him for a misdemeanor in circulating unfounded reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the commonwealth. Nothing saved Dominicus either from mob-law or a court of justice but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady in his behalf. Addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to his benefactress, he mounted the green cart and rode out

andbills of the selectmen would cause the commitment of all the vagabonds in the State, the paragraph in the Parker's Falls Gazette would be reprinted from Maine to Florida, and perhaps form an item in the London newspapers, and many a miser would tremble for his moneybags and life o

now have been considered as a hoax; but the yellow man was evidently acquainted either with the report or the fact, and there was a mystery in his dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly questioned. When to this singular combination of incidents it was added that the rumor tallied exactly with Mr. Higginbotham's character and habits of life, and that he had an orchard and a St. Michael's pear tree, near which he

'll believe old Higginbotham is unhanged till I see him with my own eyes and hear it from his own mout

e was fast bringing him up with a man on horseback who trotted through the gate a few rods in advance of him, nodded to the toll-gatherer and kept

ring it down like a feather on the mare's flank, "you have no

k. He's been to Woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff's sale there. The old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me

ll me," sai

" continued the toll-gatherer. "Says I to myself tonight, 'He'

eemed to recognize the rear of Mr. Higginbotham, but through the evening shadows and amid the dust from the horse's feet the f

of the road. On reaching this point the pedler no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself at the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores and two taverns clustered round the meeting-house steeple. On his left was a stone wall and a gat

the St. Michael's pear tree." He leaped from the cart, gave the rein a turn round the gate-post, and ran along the green path of the wood-lot as if Old Nick were chasing behind. Just then the village clock tolled eight, and as each deep stroke fell Dominicus gave a fresh bound

emergency. Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated a sturdy Irishman with the butt-end of his whip, and found - not, i

sly, "you're an honest man, and I'll take yo

d plotted the robbery and murder of Mr. Higginbotham; two of them successively lost courage and fled, each delaying the crime one night by their disappearance; the

roperty on their children, allowing themselves the interest. In due time the old gentleman capped the climax of his favors by dying a Christian death in be