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 pedlar 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 don't say that I saw the thing done.
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