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 pedlar 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 (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
anybody awake to hear it.
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