'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 did'nt 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 pedler 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 dreamt of hanging on the St. Michæl'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 any body 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
