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Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe
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 sullenly,
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."
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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
ads:
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 stared 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 schoolboys, 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
pocketbook. 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 pocketbook 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 school-boys, 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 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 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 woodlot, 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 peaceful 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.
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