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 as he had left Kimballton before the unfortunate man was hanged at all ? These ambiguous circumstances , with the stranger 's surprise and terror , made Dominicus think of raising a hue-and-cry after him as an accomplice in the murder , since a murder , it seemed , had really been perpetrated . `` But let the poor devil go , '' thought the pedler . `` I do n't want his black blood on my head , and hanging the nigger would n't unhang Mr. Higginbotham . Unhang the old gentleman ? It 's a sin , I know , but I should hate to have him come to life a second time and give me the lie . '' With these meditations Dominicus Pike drove into the street of Parker 's Falls , which , as everybody knows , is as thriving a village as three cotton-factories and a slitting-mill can make it . The machinery was not in motion and but a few of the shop doors unbarred when he 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 date of the direful fact , and also to be uncertain whether it were perpetrated by an Irishman and a mulatto or by the son of Erin alone . Neither did he profess to relate it on his own authority or that of any one person , but mentioned it as a report generally diffused . The story ran through the town like fire among girdled trees , and became so much the universal talk that nobody could tell whence it had originated . Mr. Higginbotham was as well known at Parker 's Falls as any citizen of the place , being part-owner of the slitting-mill and a considerable stockholder in the cotton-factories . The inhabitants felt their own prosperity interested in his fate . Such was the excitement that the Parker 's Falls Gazette anticipated 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 fainting-fit to another ever since her uncle was found hanging on the St. Michael 's pear tree with his pockets inside out . The village poet likewise commemorated the young lady 's grief in seventeen stanzas of a ballad . The selectmen held a meeting , and in consideration of Mr. Higginbotham 's claims on the town determined to issue handbills offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of his murderers and the recovery of the stolen property . Meanwhile , the whole population of Parker 's Falls , consisting of shopkeepers , mistresses of boarding-houses , factory-girls , mill-men and schoolboys , 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 their usual din out of respect to the deceased . Had Mr. Higginbotham cared about posthumous renown , his untimely ghost would have exulted in this tumult .
Our friend Dominicus XXXXX his vanity of heart forgot his intended precautions , and , mounting on the town-pump , announced himself as the bearer of the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a sensation .
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