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 hostler.
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 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.