centre of the orchard, he saw the fated pear tree. One great branch
stretched from the old contorted trunk across the path and threw the
darkest shadow on that one spot. But something seemed to struggle
beneath the branch.

The pedler had never pretended to more courage than befits a man of
peaceable occupation, nor could he account for his valor on this awful
emergency. Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated
a sturdy Irishman with the butt-end of his whip, and found--not,
indeed, hanging on the St. Michael's pear tree, but trembling beneath
it with a halter round his neck--the old identical Mr. Higginbotham.

"Mr. Higginbotham," said Dominicus, tremulously, "you're an honest
man, and I'll take your word for it. Have you been hanged, or not?"

If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words will explain the
simple machinery by which this "coming event" was made to cast its
"shadow before." Three men had plotted the robbery and murder of Mr.
Higginbotham; two of them successively lost courage and fled, each
delaying the crime one night by their disappearance; the third was in
the act of perpetration, when a champion, blindly obeying the call of
fate, like the heroes of old romance, appeared in the person of
Dominicus Pike.

It only remains to say that Mr. Higginbotham took the pedler into high
favor, sanctioned his addresses to the pretty schoolmistress and
settled his whole property on their children, allowing themselves the
interest. In due time the old gentleman capped the climax of his
favors by dying a Christian death in bed; since which melancholy
event, Dominicus Pike has removed from Kimballton and established a