Meanwhile, the whole population of Parker’s Falls, consisting of shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory-girls, mill-men 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 pedler, 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 mill-men 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.”