The man pulled the broad brim of a grey 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 pedler 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.” [Illustration: “AT LAST MOUNTING ON THE STEP OF THE CART, HE WHISPERED IN THE EAR OF DOMINICUS.”] 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 a 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 pedler 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 pig-tail, ladies’ 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; and yet Dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning, when in all probability poor Mr. Higginbotham’s own family had 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.”