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 in 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 . He immediately became the great man of the moment , and had just begun a new edition of the narrative with a voice like a field-preacher when the mail-stage drove into the village street . It had travelled all night , and must have shifted horses at Kimballton at three in the morning . `` Now we shall hear all the particulars ! '' shouted the crowd . The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern followed by a thousand people ; for if any man had been minding his own business till then , he now left it at sixes and sevens 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 of a mob . Every man assailing them with separate questions , all propounded at once , the couple were struck speechless , though one was a lawyer and the other a young lady . `` Mr. Higginbotham ! Mr. Higginbotham !
Tell us the particulars XXXXX old Mr. Higginbotham ! ''
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