Micro R&D 1/MicroRD-CD-ROM-Vol1-1994.iso/books/hawthorn/higginbo

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                                      1834
                                TWICE-TOLD TALES
                          MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CASTROPHE
                             by Nathaniel Hawthorne

   A YOUNG FELLOW, a tobacco pedlar by trade, was on his way from
Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the Shaker
settlement, to the village of Parker's Falls, on Salmon River. He
had a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted
on each side panel, and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden
tobacco stalk, on the rear. The pedlar drove a smart little mare,
and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but
none the worse liked by the Yankees: who, as I have heard them say,
would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one.
Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut,
whose favor he used to court by presents of the best smoking tobacco
in his stock; knowing well that the country lasses of New England
are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen
in the course of my story, the pedlar was inquisitive, and something
of a tattler, always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it
again.
   After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedlar, whose
name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a
solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but
himself and his little gray mare. It being nearly seven o'clock, he
was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to read the
morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a
cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up, and perceived a man coming
over the brow of the hill, at the foot of which the pedlar had stopped
his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he descended and noticed that
he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and
travelled with a weary, yet determined pace. He did not look as if
he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it
all night, and meant to do the same all day.
   "Good morning, mister," said Dominicus, when within speaking
distance. "You go a pretty good jog. What's the latest news at
Parker's Falls?"
   The man pulled the broad brim of a gray hat over his eyes, and
answered, rather suddenly, that he did not come from Parker's Falls,
which, as being the limit of his own day's journey, the pedlar had
naturally mentioned in his inquiry.
   "Well then, rejoined Dominicus Pike, "let's have the latest news
where you did come from. I'm not particular about Parker's Falls.
Any place will answer."
   Being thus importuned, the traveller- who was as ill looking a
fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods-
appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his
memory for news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last,
mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of
Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal
would have heard him.
   "I do remember one little trifle of news," said he. "Old Mr.
Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight
o'clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to
the branch of a St. Michael's pear-tree, where nobody would find him
till the morning."
   As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the
stranger betook himself to his journey again, with more speed than
ever, not even turning his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke
a Spanish cigar and relate all the particulars. The pedlar whistled to
his mare and went up the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr.
Higginbotham whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him
many a bunch of long nines, and a great deal of pigtail, lady's twist,
and fig tobacco. He was rather astonished at the rapidity with which
the news had spread. Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a
straight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o'clock
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 pedlar had discovered in
his own dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as close
as a vice. 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 to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker's
Falls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated
himself in the bar-room, and went through the story of the murder,
which had grown so fast that it took him half an hour to tell. There
were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom received
it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer, who had
arrived on horseback a short time before, and was now seated in a
corner smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded, he rose up very
deliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominicus, and
stared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco smoke
the pedlar had ever smelt.
   "Will you make affidavit," demanded he, in the tone of a country
justice taking an examination, "that old Squire Higginbotham of
Kimballton was murdered in his orchard the night before last, and
found hanging on his great pear-tree yesterday morning?"
   "I tell the story as I heard it, mister," answered Dominicus,
dropping his half-burnt cigar; "I don't say that I saw the thing done.
So I can't take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way."
   "But I can take mine," said the farmer, that if Squire Higginbotham
was murdered night before last, I drank a glass of bitters with his
ghost this morning. Being a neighbor of mine, he called me into his
store, as I was riding by, and treated me, and then asked me to do a
little business for him on the road. He didn't seem to know any more
about his own murder than I did."
   "Why, then, it can't be a fact!" exclaimed Dominicus Pike.
   "I guess he'd have mentioned, if it was," said the old farmer;
and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite
down in the mouth.
   Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedlar had
no heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself
with a glass of gin and water, and went to bed where, all night
long, he dreamed of hanging on the St. Michael's pear-tree. To avoid
the old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would have
pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham's), Dominicus rose in the
gray of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart, and
trotted swiftly away towards Parker's Falls. The fresh breeze, the
dewy road, and the pleasant summer dawn, revived his spirits, and
might have encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been
anybody awake to hear it. But he met neither ox team, light wagon
chaise, horseman, nor foot traveller, till, just as he crossed
Salmon River, a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle
over his shoulder, on the end of a stick.
   "Good morning, mister," said the pedlar, reining in his mare. "If
you come from Kimballton or that neighborhood, may be you can tell
me the real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was the
old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago, by an Irishman
and a nigger?"
   Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe, at first,
that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of Negro blood. On
hearing this sudden question, the Ethiopian appeared to change his
skin, its yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while, shaking and
stammering, he thus replied: "No! no! There was no colored man! It was
an Irishman that hanged him last night, at eight o'clock. I came
away at seven! His folks can't have looked for him in the orchard
yet."
   Scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he interrupted himself,
and though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at a
pace which would have kept the pedlar's mare on a smart trot.
Dominicus started after him in great perplexity. If the murder had not
been committed till Tuesday night, who was the prophet that had
foretold it, in all its circumstances, on Tuesday morning? If Mr.
Higginbotham's corpse were not yet discovered by his own family, how
came the mulatto, at above thirty miles' distance, to know that he was
hanging in the orchard, especially as he had left Kimballton before
the unfortunate man was hanged at all? These ambiguous
circumstances, with the stranger's surprise and terror, made Dominicus
think of raising a hue and cry after him, as an accomplice in the
murder; since a murder, it seemed, had really been perpetrated.
   "But let the poor devil go," thought the pedlar. "I don't want
his black blood on my head; and hanging the nigger wouldn't unhang Mr.
Higginbotham. Unhang the old gentleman! It's a sin, I know; but I
should hate to have him come to life a second time, and give me the
lie!"
   With these meditations, Dominicus Pike drove into the street of
Parker's Falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a village as
three cotton factories and a slitting mill can make it. The
machinery was not in motion, and but a few of the shop doors unbarred,
when he 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.
   Meanwhile the whole population of Parker's Falls, consisting of
shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory girls, millmen,
and school boys, rushed into the street and kept up such a terrible
loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of the cotton
machines, which refrained from their usual din out of respect to the
deceased. Had Mr. Higginbotham cared about posthumous renown, his
untimely ghost would have exulted in this tumult. Our friend
Dominicus, in his vanity of heart, forgot his intended precautions,
and mounting on the town pump, announced himself as the bearer of
the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a
sensation. He immediately became the great man of the moment, and
had just begun a new edition of the narrative, with a voice like a
field preacher, when the mail stage drove into the village street.
It had travelled all night, and must have shifted horses at
Kimballton, at three in the morning.
   "Now we shall hear all the particulars," shouted the crowd.
   The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern, followed by a
thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till
then, he now left it at sixes and sevens, to hear the news. The
pedlar, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of
whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in
the centre of a mob. Every man assailing them with separate questions,
all propounded at once, the couple were struck speechless, though
one was a lawyer and the other a young lady.
   "Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars
about old Mr. Higginbotham!" bawled the mob. "What is the coroner's
verdict? Are the murderers apprehended? Is Mr. Higginbotham's niece
come out of her fainting fits? Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham!!"
   The coachman said not a word, except to swear awfully at the
hostler for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. The lawyer inside
had generally his wits about him even when asleep; the first thing
he did, after learning the cause of the excitement, was to produce a
large red pocket-book. Meantime Dominicus Pike, being an extremely
polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would
tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the
coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a
button, and had such a sweet pretty mouth, that Dominicus would almost
as lief have heard a love tale from it as a tale of murder.
   "Gentlemen and ladies, said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the
millmen, and the factory girls, "I can assure you that some
unaccountable mistake, or, more probably, a wilful falsehood,
maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham's credit, has excited
this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o'clock
this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the
murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as strong
as Mr. Higginbotham's own oral testimony, in the negative. Here is a
note relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts, which was
delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten
o'clock last evening."
   So saying, the lawyer exhibited the date and signature of the note,
which irrefragably proved, either that this perverse Mr.
Higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or- as some deemed the more
probable case, of two doubtful ones- that he was so absorbed in
worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his death.
But unexpected evidence was forthcoming. The young lady, after
listening to the pedlar's explanation, merely seized a moment to
smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared at the
tavern door, making a modest signal to be heard.
   "Good people," said she, "I am Mr. Higginbotham's niece."
   A wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so
rosy and bright; that same unhappy niece, whom they had supposed, on
the authority of the Parker's Falls Gazette, to be lying at death's
door in a fainting fit. But some shrewd fellows had doubted all along,
whether a young lady would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a
rich old uncle.
   "You see," continued Miss Higginbotham, with a smile, "that this
strange story is quite unfounded as to myself; and I believe I may
affirm it to be equally so in regard to my dear uncle Higginbotham. He
has the kindness to give me a home in his house, though I contribute
to my own support by teaching a school. I left Kimballton this morning
to spend the vacation of commencement week with a friend, about five
miles from Parker's Falls. My generous uncle, when he heard me on
the stairs, called me to his bedside, and gave me two dollars and
fifty cents to pay my stage fare, and another dollar for my extra
expenses. He then laid his pocket-book under his pillow, shook hands
with me, and advised me to take some biscuit in my bag, instead of
breakfasting on the road. I feel confident, therefore, that I left
my beloved relative alive, and trust that I shall find him so on my
return."
   The young lady courtesied at the close of her speech, which was
so sensible and well worded, and delivered with such grace and
propriety, that everybody thought her fit to be preceptress of the
best academy in the State. But a stranger would have supposed that Mr.
Higginbotham was an object of abhorrence at Parker's Falls, and that a
thanksgiving had been proclaimed for his murder; so excessive was
the wrath of the inhabitants on learning their mistake. The millmen
resolved to bestow public honors on Dominicus Pike, only hesitating
whether to tar and feather him, ride him on a rail, or refresh him
with an ablution at the town pump, on the top of which he had declared
himself the bearer of the news. The selectmen, by advice of the
lawyer, spoke of prosecuting him for a misdemeanor, in circulating
unfounded reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the
Commonwealth. Nothing saved Dominicus, either from mob law or a
court of justice, but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady in his
behalf. Addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to his
benefactress, he mounted the green cart and rode out of town, under
a discharge of artillery from the schoolboys, who found plenty of
ammunition in the neighboring clay-pits and mud-holes. As he turned
his head to exchange a farewell glance with Mr. Higginbotham's
niece, a ball, of the consistence of hasty pudding, hit him slap in
the mouth, giving him a most grim aspect. His whole person was so
bespattered with the like filthy missiles, that he had almost a mind
to ride back, and supplicate for the threatened ablution at the town
pump; for, though not meant in kindness, it would now have been a deed
of charity.
   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 pedlar 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 pedlar 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 indorser."
   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 tollman, and, while making change, the usual
remarks on the weather passed between them.
   "I suppose," said the pedlar, throwing back his whiplash, to
bring it down like a feather on the mare's flank, "you have not seen
anything 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 tonight, 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, tonight, he's more
like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood."
   The pedlar 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 pedlar 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 were 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 pedlar 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 pedlar
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.

                        THE END