d.
The handbills of the selectmen would cause the commitment of all the
vagabonds in the State, the paragraph in the Parker's Falls _Gazette_
would be reprinted from Maine to Florida, and perhaps form an item in
the London newspapers, and many a miser would tremble for his
moneybags and life on learning the catastrophe of Mr. Higginbotham.
The pedler meditated with much fervor on the charms of the young
schoolmistress, and swore that Daniel Webster never spoke nor looked
so like an angel as Miss Higginbotham while defending him from the
wrathful populace at Parker's Falls.

Dominicus was now on the Kimballton turnpike, having all along
determined to visit that place, though business had drawn, him out of
the most direct road from Morristown. As he approached the scene of
the supposed murder he continued to revolve the circumstances in his
mind, and was astonished at the aspect which the whole case assumed.
Had nothing occurred to corroborate the story of the first traveller,
it might now have been considered as a hoax; but the yellow man was
evidently acquainted either with the report or the fact, and there was
a mystery in his dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly
questioned. When to this singular combination of incidents it was
added that the rumor tallied exactly with Mr. Higginbotham's character
and habits of life, and that he had an orchard and a St. Michael's
pear tree, near which he always passed at nightfall, the
circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus doubted
whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece's
direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. Making cautious inquiries
along the road, the pedler further learned that Mr. Higginbotham had
in his service an Irishman of doubtful character whom he had hired
without a recommendation, on the score of economy.

"May I be hanged myself," exclaimed Dominicus Pike, aloud, on reaching
the top of a lonely hill, "if I'll believe old Higginbotham is
unhanged till I see him with my own eyes and hear it from his own
mouth. And, as he's a real shaver, I'll have the minister, or some
other responsible man, for an endorser."

It was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house on Kimballton
turnpike, about a quarter of a mile from the village of this name. His
little mare was fast bringing him up with a man on horseback who
trotted through the gate a few rods in advance of him, nodded to the
toll-gatherer and kept on towards the vill