The morning call., 1893-03-25

habitaton within sight. All is a wilder
less OF vegetation and desolation.
In the daytime, from the distance, a more
picturesque scene would be hard TO find In
Alameda County.
At midnight. with the history of the
grueS ONE place in ones mind, the strange
noises that infest the old house in ones
ears and the darkness Of a rainy night out
side. the place is ghouiish
Everybody who knows where the old
octaEonal stone house stands knows that
il is haunted.
And if ever n deserted house were in
habited uy phautoms this one ought to be.
That II is every one will attest.
And why not? Murder WAS done here.
Human blood split and-aye and drank
THAT'S the story, II you get II authentic.
An EngiiShman and his beautiful young
wife came ont 20 California a quarter of a
century ago. He acquired this lwentv-acre
tract in the Wilderness and built himself a
home that has been the wonder and aston
lshmeut OF every one who has ever seen
it-p0ssibly including the Englishnan him
self.
One day when tile Englishman was away
from his lovely home robbers came and
murdered his fair young wife and cast her
body into tie cisIern.
And the husband, wondering and won
derlng where his wife was, drank the
water from that cistern.
And il was long before he discovered the
awful truth 1t made him mad. he shot
himself and threw himself into the well.
That WAS more Than twenty years ago,
and ever since then that queer old stone
mansion, which sits only few feet away
from the dreadful cisteTn, has been
haunted.
Always at midnight the mad husband
comes back from shadowland and searches
through that deserted house Tor his lost
vile. And ever at morning, just before the
break Of dawn, the ghost of the demented
Englishman rushes from the house and
throws himself inio the murky waters Of
that horrible well.
From midnight till dawn there are always
the conventional ghoStlike sounds. Ciauk-
lug Of chains. means. ghoulish groans,
sighinC-all these occur with perfunctory
regularity.
And belated travellers who have passed
the lonesome spot after dark have always
seen lights fitting about through the open
windows OF the haunted house and heard
strange nOises-Or thought they did.
They were not mistaken Thursday night.
The most skeptieal observer, peering in
through the chinks between the gum trees
could have seen the light fitting and moving
from room 10 room, could have seen shadOWy
forms shifting hither ana thither, and
heard unusual sounds for so deserted a
place.
But these manifestations, however con-
Tinclng TO the observer, were Of a most flesh
and blood origin.
Two CALL men we're groplng their way
through the noOks and cUrners-the queer
house is all nooks and corners-of the
haunted house, hooking for ghosts.
Two hours before midnight two black
forms might have been seen moving north
ward in the blaekness Of the night along
High street.
They carried sundry bundles and pack
ages, and their pockets bulged out with
things the shape or consistency of which
could not be distinguished
When they reached the center of the
double guard Of eucalyptus trees at the left
Of the road they halted, and one said
This must be it,"
The other said:
at Is"
-. Then the two figures vaulted the fence
HsLty and disappeared In the tall brush