The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-04-25
A MUSICAL PHANTOM.
Violin Solos by a Ghost That
Haunts q Mine.
Tho Strange Story Told OF Deserted
Cabin Down In Alabnma-Swcet
Strains from an Invisible
Musician.

Down in the abandoned Arbncoochec
gold fields, twenty miles south of Ed
wardsvillc, Ala, says tho Pittsburgh
Dispatch, stands the ruins of a log cabin
where years ago n mysterious and
bloody crime was committed. The place
is haunted, but not by visible ghosts.
No whitc-robed phantom forms walk
with noisclcss tread across the broken,
vine-cOvercd floor of the old cabin No
specter lights CLEAN through the one
window or across the rotten threshold
OF the shutterlcss door. The ghost is
heard, net seen, and no one who has
once heard the sounds that como from
the old cabin at midnight will ever
again doubt the existence of spooks.
The ghostly sounds arc the music of n
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, n tuning of the instru-
ment, and then the bow is drawn across
the str ngs when they are all in perfect
harmony. A sweet Scottish love ballad
of oldcn days is first played, then comes
the familiar music of the Scots hirh-
land fling.
Then there is Il brief pause another
drumming of the strings, and then on
the night air softly floats the music of
that old Scottish song: "Within u Mile
o Edinboro Town" One stanZa is fin
ishcd, another is begun; the music is
softer, swcctcr than before, when sud-
denly it stops in the middle of bar,
and is heard no moro until the following
night, when the same programme is re-
peatcd
OF course, there is story attached to
the old cabin, n story to explain the
ghostly music, and weird story it Is.
In 1868, when the Arbacoochce gold
fields were filed with prospectors, two
old California miners turned up there
one day. Their names were Martin
Burke and Daniel Mcleod. They were
rast 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
weeks when cher miners and pros
pcctors noticed they went out early 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
Burlc 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 tho floor OF
the cabin. Tie had been shot through
the head while sitting In front of the
fire playing his violin. 3 hon he fell
his fingers stiffcncd 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 wall for the dead musician
which, it is stated, made those who
heard it shuddcr. Burke was gone, and
naturally he was suspected of the MUIR
der of his partner.
There seemed to be but one rcasona-
bic theory of the crimc--that the two
men had made 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 frightened coun-
trymen was giving an account of it in
the saloon at Arbacoochce. Burke heard
the story, and it was noticed that he
turned deadly pale, and, staggering to
the bar, called for n glass of liquor
From that night Burke drank more and
moro, and in week lie was on the
verge of the jim-jams
Late one night he rcclcd up to the bar
and called for liquor. a crowd of coun-
trymcn were drinking in a back room.
and one of them was playing a violin.
Burke paid no attention to the music al
first, but just as he raised the glass to
his lips the country fiddler began to
play: within Mile o Edinboro Town"
The glass of liquor fell from Burke's
trembling fingers, and, with gasp, he
fell to the floor. The look of terror on
the mans face was one never to be for
gotten. lie fell all in heap, and in
five minutes he was deed Tho doctors
said he died of heart failure, caused by
drink and sudden excitement