After supper , lighting one of his prime cigars , he seated himself 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 . 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 horseback a short time before and was now seated in a corner , smoking his pipe . When the story was concluded , he rose up very deliberately , brought his chair right in front of Dominicus and stared him full in the face , puffing out the vilest tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever smelt . `` Will you make affidavit , '' demanded he , in the tone of a country-justice taking an examination , `` that old Squire Higginbotham of Kimballton was murdered in his orchard the night before last and found 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 do n't say that I saw the thing done , so I ca n't take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way . '' `` But I can take mine , '' said the farmer , `` that if Squire Higginbotham was murdered night before last I drank a glass of bitters with his ghost this morning . Being a neighbor of mine , he called me into his store as I was riding by , and treated me , and then asked me to do a little business for him on the road . He did n't seem to know any more about his own murder than I did . '' `` Why , then it ca n'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 quite down in the mouth . Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham ! The pedler had no heart to mingle in the conversation any more , but comforted himself with a glass of gin and water and went to bed , where all night long he dreamed of hanging on the St. Michael 's pear tree . To avoid the old farmer -LRB- whom he so detested that his suspension would have pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham 's -RRB- , Dominicus rose in the gray of the morning , put the little mare into the green cart and trotted 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 it , but he met neither ox-team , light wagon , chaise , horseman nor foot-traveller till , just as he crossed Salmon River , a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over his shoulder , on the end of a stick . `` Good-morning , mister , '' said the pedler , reining in his mare . `` If you come from Kimballton or that neighborhood , maybe you can tell me the real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginbotham . Was the old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago by an Irishman and a nigger ? ''
Dominicus had spoken XXXXX too great a hurry to observe at first that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood .
To about as before from in into of over so