Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe Page 2

  However, the sun shone bright on poor Dominicus, and the mud, an emblem of all stains of undeserved opprobrium, was easily brushed off when dry. Being a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor could he refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which his story had excited. 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 money-bags 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 village. Dominicus was acquainted with the toll-man, and, while making change, the usual remarks on the weather passed between them.

  “I suppose,” said the pedler, throwing back his whip-lash, to bring it down like a feather on the mare’s flank, “you have not seen any thing of old Mr. Higginbotham within a day or two?”

  “Yes,” answered the toll-gatherer. “He passed the gate just before you drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him through the dusk. He’s been to Woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff’s sale there. The old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me; but to-night, he nodded, as if to say, “Charge my toll,” and jogged on; for wherever he goes, he must always be at home by eight o’clock.”

  “So they tell me,” said Dominicus.

  “I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does,” continued the toll-gatherer. “Says I to myself, to-night, ‘He’s more like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood.’ ”

  The pedler strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just discern the horseman now far ahead on the village road. He seemed to recognize the rear of Mr. Higginbotham; but through the evening shadows, and amid the dust from the horse’s feet, the figure appeared dim and unsubstantial; as if the shape of the mysterious old man were faintly moulded of darkness and gray light. Dominicus shivered.

  “Mr. Higginbotham has come back from the other world, by way of the Kimballton turnpike,” thought he.

  He shook the reins, and rode forward, keeping about the same distance in the rear of the gray old shadow, till the latter was concealed by a bend of the road. On reaching this point, the pedler no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself at the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores and two taverns, clustered round the meeting-house steeple. On his left was a stone wall and a gate, the boundary of a wood-lot, beyond which lay an orchard; farther still, a mowing-field; and last of all, a house. These were the premises of Mr. Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but had been left in the background by the Kimballton turnpike. Dominicus knew the place; and the little mare stopped short by instinct; for he was not conscious of tightening the reins.

  “For the soul of me, I cannot get by this gate!” said he, trembling. “I never shall be my own man again, till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael’s pear tree!”

  He leaped from the cart, gave the rein a turn round the gate-post, and ran along the green path of the wood-lot, as if Old Nick were chasing behind. Just then the village clock tolled eight; and as each deep stroke fell, Dominicus gave a fresh bound, and flew faster than before, till, dim in the solitary 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 large tobacco manufactory in my native village.