p128-001 MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE.

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A young fellow, a tobacco-pedler by trade, was on
his way from Morristown, where he had dealt largely
with the deacon of the Shaker settlement, to the
village of Parker's Falls, on Salmon River. He 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 mare, and was
a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain,
but none the worse liked by the Yankees; who,
as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved
with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was
he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut,
whose favor he used to court by presents of the best
smoking-tobacco in his stock; knowing well that
the country lasses of New England are generally
great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen
in the course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive,
and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the
news, and anxious to tell it again.

After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco-pedler,
whose name was Dominicus Pike, had

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travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of
woods, without speaking a word to any body but himself
and his little gray mare. It being nearly seven
o'clock, he was as eager to hold a 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 watched him as he descended, and noticed
that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end
of a stick, and travelled with a weary, yet determined
pace. He did not look as if he had started in the
freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night,
and meant to do the same all day.

“Good morning, mister,” said Dominicus, when
within speaking distance. “You go a pretty good
jog. What's the latest news at Parker's Falls?”

The man pulled the broad brim of a gray hat over
his eyes, and answered, rather sullenly, that he did
not come from Parker's Falls, which, as being the
limit of his own day's journey, the pedler had naturally
mentioned in his inquiry.

“Well, then,” rejoined Dominicus Pike, “let's
have the latest news where you did come from. I'm
not particular about Parker's Falls. Any place will
answer.”

Being thus importuned, the traveller—who was
as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet, in
a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate a
little, as if he was either searching his memory for
news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At
last, mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered
in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have
shouted aloud, and no other mortal would have
heard him.

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“I do remember one little trifle of news,” said he.
“Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered
in his orchard, at eight o'clock last night, by
an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to
the branch of a St. Michael's pear tree, where nobody
would find him till the morning.”

As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated,
the stranger betook himself to his journey
again, with more speed than ever, not even turning
his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke a
Spanish cigar and relate all the particulars. The
pedler whistled to his mare, and went up the hill,
pondering on the doleful fate 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 perpetrated
only at eight o'clock the preceding night; yet Dominicus
had heard of it at seven in the morning,
when, in all probability, poor Mr. Higginbotham's
own family had but just discovered his corpse, hanging
on the St. Michael's pear tree. The stranger on
foot must have worn seven-league boots, to travel at
such a rate.

“Ill news flies fast, they say,” thought Dominicus
Pike; “but this beats railroads. The fellow ought
to be hired to go express with the President's Message.”

The difficulty was solved, by supposing that the
narrator had made a mistake of one day, in the date
of the occurrence; so that our friend did not hesitate
to introduce the story at every tavern and country
store along the road, expending a whole bunch of
Spanish wrappers among at least twenty horrified

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audiences. He found himself invariably the first
bearer of the 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 orchard, about nightfall, with the money
and valuable papers of the store in his pocket. The
clerk manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham's
catastrophe, hinting, what the pedler had
discovered in his own dealings with him, that he was
a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice. His property
would descend to a pretty niece who was now keeping
school in Kimballton.

What with telling the news for the public good,
and driving bargains for his own, Dominicus was so
much delayed on the road, that he chose to put up at
a tavern, about five miles short of Parker's Falls.
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

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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 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 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 didn't seem to know any more about
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 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 dreamt of hanging on the St. Michael's
pear tree. To avoid the old farmer, (whom he so detested,
that his suspension would have pleased him
better than Mr. Higginbotham's,) Dominicus rose in
the gray of the morning, put the little mare into the
green cart, and trotted swiftly away towards 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 any body awake to hear it. But he met
neither ox-team, light wagon, chaise, horseman, nor
foot-traveller, till, just as he crossed Salmon River, a

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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, may be 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 in too great a hurry to observe,
at first, that the stranger himself had a deep
tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden question,
the Ethiopian appeared to change his skin, its
yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while, shaking
and stammering, he thus replied:—

“No! no! There was no colored man! It was
an Irishman that hanged him last night, at eight
o'clock. I came away at seven! His folks can't
have looked for him in the orchard yet.”

Scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he interrupted
himself, and, though he seemed weary
enough before, continued his journey at a pace
which would have kept the pedler's mare on a smart
trot. Dominicus stared after him in great perplexity.
If the murder had not been committed till 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 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.

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“But let the poor devil go,” thought the pedler.
“I don't want his black blood on my head; and
hanging the nigger wouldn'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 every body
knows, is as thriving 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 ostler.
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

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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, millmen, 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

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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 about old Mr. Higginbotham!”
bawled the mob. “What is the coroner's verdict?
Are the murderers apprehended? Is Mr. Higginbotham's
niece come out of her fainting fits? Mr.
Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!!”

The coachman said not a word, except to swear
awfully at the ostler for not bringing him a fresh team
of horses. The lawyer inside had generally his wits
about him, even when asleep; the first thing he did,
after learning the cause of the excitement, was to produce
a large red pocket-book. 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 handed the lady out
of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide
awake, and bright as a button, and had such a sweet,
pretty mouth, that Dominicus would almost as lief
have heard a love tale from it as a tale of murder.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” said the lawyer to the
shopkeepers, the millmen, and the factory girls, “I
can assure you that some unaccountable mistake,
or, more probably, a wilful falsehood, maliciously
contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham'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,

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had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly
as strong as Mr. Higginbotham's own oral testimony,
in the negative. Here is a note, relating to a suit of
his in the Connecticut courts, which was delivered
me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at
ten o'clock last evening.”

So saying, the lawyer exhibited the date and signature
of the note, which irrefragably proved, either
that this perverse Mr. Higginbotham was alive when
he wrote it, or—as some deemed the more 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 lady, after listening to the pedler's
explanation, merely seized a moment to smooth
her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared
at the tavern door, making a modest signal to
be heard.

“Good people,” said she, “I am Mr. Higginbotham's
niece.”

A wondering murmur passed through the crowd,
on beholding her so rosy and bright—that same unhappy
niece, whom they had supposed, on the authority
of the Parker's Falls Gazette, to be lying at
death's door in a fainting fit. But some shrewd
fellows had doubted all along whether a young lady
would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a rich
old uncle.

“You see,” continued Miss Higginbotham, with a
smile, “that this strange story is quite unfounded, as
to myself; and I believe I may affirm it to be equally
so in regard to my dear uncle Higginbotham. He has
the kindness to give me a home in his house, though
I contribute to my own support by teaching a school.
I left Kimballton this morning to spend the vacation
of commencement week with a friend, about five

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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 dollar for my extra expenses.
He then laid his pocket-book under his pillow,
shook hands with me, and advised me to take
some biscuit in my bag, instead of breakfasting on
the road. I feel confident, therefore, that I left my
beloved relative alive, and trust that I shall find him
so on my return.”

The young lady courtesied at the close of her
speech, which was so sensible, and well-worded, and
delivered with such grace and propriety, that every
body thought her fit to be preceptress of the best
academy in the state. But a stranger would have
supposed that Mr. Higginbotham was an object of
abhorrence at Parker's Falls, and that a thanksgiving
had been proclaimed for his murder; so excessive
was the wrath of the inhabitants, on learning their
mistake. The millmen resolved to bestow public
honors on Dominicus Pike, only hesitating whether
to tar and feather 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 of town, under a discharge of artillery
from the schoolboys, who found plenty of ammunition
in the neighboring clay-pits and mud-holes.
As he turned his head, to exchange a farewell glance

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with Mr. Higginbotham's niece, a ball, of the consistence
of hasty-pudding, hit him slap in the mouth,
giving him a most grim aspect. His whole person
was so bespattered with the like filthy missiles, that
he had almost a mind to ride back, and supplicate
for the threatened ablution at the town pump; for,
though not meant in kindness, it would now have
been a deed of charity.

However, the sun shone bright on poor Dominicus,
and the mud, an emblem of all stains of undeserved
opprobrium, was easily brushed off when dry. Being
a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor could
he refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which
his story had excited. The handbills 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 money-bags and life, on learning the catastrophe
of Mr. Higginbotham. The pedler meditated with
much fervor on the charms of the young schoolmistress,
and swore that Daniel Webster never spoke
nor looked so like an angel as Miss Higginbotham,
while defending him from the wrathful populace at
Parker's Falls.

Dominicus was now on the Kimballton turnpike,
having all along determined to visit that place, though
business had drawn him out of the most direct road
from Morristown. As he approached the scene of
the supposed murder, he continued to revolve the
circumstances in his mind, and was astonished at the
aspect which the whole case assumed. Had nothing
occurred to corroborate the story of the first traveller,
it might now have been considered as a hoax; but
the yellow man was evidently acquainted either with

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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 always passed at nightfall,
the circumstantial evidence appeared so strong, that
Dominicus doubted whether the autograph produced
by the lawyer, or even the niece's direct testimony,
ought to be equivalent. Making cautious inquiries
along the road, the pedler further learned that Mr.
Higginbotham had in his service an Irishman of
doubtful character, whom he had hired without a
recommendation, on the score of economy.

“May I be hanged myself,” exclaimed Dominicus
Pike aloud, on reaching the top of a lonely hill, “if
I'll believe old Higginbotham is unhanged, till I see
him with my own eyes, and hear it from his own
mouth! And, as he's a real shaver, I'll have the
minister, or some other responsible man, for an endorser.”

It was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house
on Kimballton turnpike, about a quarter of a
mile from the village of this name. His little mare
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 on towards
the village. Dominicus was acquainted with the
toll-man, and, while making change, the usual remarks
on the weather passed between them.

“I suppose,” said the pedler, throwing back his
whip-lash, to bring it down like a feather on the
mare's flank, “you have not seen any thing of old
Mr. Higginbotham within a day or two?”

“Yes,” answered the toll-gatherer. “He passed

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the gate just before you drove up, and yonder he
rides now, if you can see him through the dusk.
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; but to-night,
he nodded, as if to say, “Charge my toll,” and
jogged on; for wherever he goes, he must always be
at home by eight o'clock.”

“So they tell me,” said Dominicus.

“I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as
the squire does,” continued the toll-gatherer. “Says
I to myself, to-night, `He's more like a ghost or an
old mummy than good flesh and blood.' ”

The pedler strained his eyes through the twilight,
and could just discern the horseman now far ahead
on the village road. He seemed to recognize the
rear of Mr. Higginbotham; but through the evening
shadows, and amid the dust from the horse's feet, the
figure appeared dim and unsubstantial; as if the
shape of the mysterious old man were faintly moulded
of darkness and gray light. Dominicus shivered.

“Mr. Higginbotham has come back from the
other world, by way of the Kimballton turnpike,”
thought he.

He shook the reins, and rode forward, keeping
about the same distance in the rear of the gray old
shadow, till the latter was concealed by a bend 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 gate, the boundary of a wood-lot, beyond
which lay an orchard; farther still, a mowing-field;
and last of all, a house. These were the premises
of Mr. Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside

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the old highway, but had been left in the background
by the Kimballton turnpike. Dominicus knew the
place; and the little mare stopped short by instinct;
for he was not conscious of tightening the reins.

“For the soul of me, I cannot get by this gate!”
said he, trembling. “I never shall be my own man
again, till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging
on 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, and
flew faster than before, till, dim in the solitary centre
of the orchard, he saw the fated pear tree. One
great branch stretched, from the old, contorted trunk,
across the path, and threw the darkest shadow on
that one spot. But something seemed to struggle
beneath the branch!

The pedler had never pretended to more courage
than befits a man of peaceable occupation; nor could
he account for his valor on this awful emergency.
Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated
a sturdy Irishman with the butt-end of his
whip, and found—not indeed hanging on the St.
Michael's pear tree, but trembling beneath it, with a
halter round his neck—the old, identical Mr. Higginbotham!

“Mr. Higginbotham,” said Dominicus, tremulously,
“you're an honest man, and I'll take your word for
it. Have you been hanged, or not?”

If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words
will explain the simple machinery, by which this
“coming event” was made to “cast its shadow
before.” Three men had plotted the robbery and
murder of Mr. Higginbotham; two of them,

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successively, lost courage and fled, each delaying the crime
one night, by their disappearance; the third was in
the act of perpetration, when a champion, blindly
obeying the call of fate, like the heroes of old romance,
appeared in the person of Dominicus Pike.

It only remains to say, that Mr. Higginbotham took
the pedler into high favor, sanctioned his addresses to
the pretty schoolmistress, and settled his whole property
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 bed;
since which melancholy event, Dominicus Pike has
removed from Kimballton, and established a large
tobacco manufactory in my native village.