The St. Johns herald., 1891-05-07
A MUSICAL PHANTOM.
Violin Solos by g. Ghost That
 Haunts q Mine.
The Strange Story Told of a Deserted Cabin Down in Alabama-Sweet Strains from an Invisible
 Musician.

gold fields, twenty miles south of Ed wardsville, Ala, says the Pittsburgh Dispatch, stands the ruins of log cabin where years ago a mysterious and bloody crime was committed. The place is haunted, but not by visible ghosts. No white-robed phantom forms walk with noiseless tread across the broken, vine-covcrcd floor of the old cabin. No specter lights gleam through the one window or across the rotten threshold of the shutterless door. The ghost is heard, net seen, and no one who has once heard the sounds that come from the old cabin at midnight will ever again doubt the existence of spooks.
 The ghostly sounds are the music of a violin. The playing is not that of master, but it is good, and it is soft and low as though the soul of the player was in sympathy with his music. Night after night for many years this ghostly violin played by ghostly hands has awakened the echoes of the deserted cabin. First, there is heard drumming on the strings, tuning of the instru- ment, and then the bow is drawn across the strings when they arc ali in perfect harmony. 4 sweet Scottish love ballad of olden days is first played, then comes the familiar music of the Scots high land fling.
 Then there is brief pause, another drumming of the strings, and then on the night air softly floats the music of that old Scottish song: "Within Mile O Edinboro Town" Che stanza is fin ished, another is begun; the music is softer, sweetcr than before, when sud denly it stops in the middle of a bar, and is heard no more until the following night. when the same programme is re- peated.
 Of course, there is story attached to the old cabin, a story to explain the ghOstly music, and a weird story it is. In 1868, when the Arbacoochee gold fields were filled with prospectors, two old California miners turned up there one day. Their names were Martin Burke and Daniel Mcleod. They were past middle life, and had been mining in California and Nevada for twenty years with indifferent success. Mcleod was Scotchman, and to the newly-dis- covered gold field he brought an old violin, which he never tired of playing when asked to perform.
 The two miners rented the cabin and went to work prospecting among the hills. They had been there only few pectors noticed they went out carly in the morning, always going in the same direction, and did not return till night. Many suspected they had struck it rich somewhere in the hills, but as no one else had been able to find gold in paying quantities it was finally agreed that Burke and Mcleod were merely follow ing some blind lead. '.
 One day the two men were missed. Next day they were still missing, and the cabin was visited. The dead body of Mcleod was lying on the floor of the cabin. He had been shot through the head while sitting in front of the fire playing his violin. When he fell his fingers stiffened on his violin, and when in removing it from the dead mans hands the bow was drawn across the strings by accident the old fiddle emitted a vail for the dead musician which, it is stated, made those who heard it shudder. Burke was gone, and naturally he was suspected of the mur- der of his partner.
 There seemed to be but one reasona- ble theory of the crime-that the two men had made q rich find, that Burke had murdered his companion and taking all the gold had fled. The theory was generally accepted, but as there was no positive evidence against Burke no effort was made to find him.
 None dared to charge him with the murder of Mcleod, because they had no evidence. Burke spent his days and nights in the one saloon of the little town. About that time the ghostly violin-playing in the old cabin was first heard, and one night a frightened coun- trymen was giving an account of it in the saloon'at Arbacoochee. Burke heard the story, and it was noticed that he turned deadly pale, and, staggering to the bar, called fer a glass of liquor. From that night Burke drank more and more, and in a week he was On the verge of the jim-jams.
 Late one night he reeled up to the bar and called for liouor. A crowd of coun- trymen were drinking in q back room, and one of them was playing a violin. Burke paid no attention to the music at first, but just as he raised the glass to his lips the country fiddler began to play: Within Mile O EdinSoro Town The glass of liquor fell from Burhe's trembling fingers, and, with a gasp, he fell to the floor. The look of terror on the mans face was one never to be for gotten. He fell all in q heap, and in five minutes he was dead. The doctors said he died of heart failure. caused by drink and sudden excitement.
 Terrible Siberia.