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.
"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 pedlar 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 pigtail, 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.
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