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 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 vise.
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