Eureka Daily Sentinel

A HAUNTED GRAVEYARD.

A Loving Couple Taken for Ghosts and Come Near Being Shot.

On Monday evening last, a miner from Ruby Hill, who had spent the Fourth in Eureka, left the town after midnight for home. The stages had stopped running for the night, and he was compelled to rely upon shank's mare for locomotion. It was pitch dark, though as he had traversed the road often before he found little difficulty in picking his way up Poverty Avenue and over the hill. As our local readers know, the road passes between two graveyards beyond Dick Ryland's brick kilns. When opposite the first one, known as Haskell's, the belated miner heard low murmurs issuing from the inclosure. Of course his first impressions were associated with ghosts and hobgoblins, and not being desirous of meddling with the perturbed spirits of the dead, he hastened to the brow of the hill, and nearly opposite the Eureka Cemetery. It had struck him, however, that if the voices he had heard belonged to ghosts they were very healthy ones, and partook of other refreshments than those found around graveyards. Our hero finally concluded to solve the mystery. He threw himself flat upon the ground, after carefully examining his revolver, and endeavored to pierce the gloom in the direction of the lower cemetery, from which murmurs could still occasionally be heard. The white fence was easily traced, and the small plots, head-boards and tombstones within became visible one by one as the man's eyes became accustomed to the darkness. All of a sudden he imagined he saw two figures moving slowly about among the graves, one in white and the other as black as the mantle of night. Getting up from his position, he cautiously approached the fence, revolver in hand, when the sounds became more distinct but the figures could not be seen. After listening for some minutes and straining his sight to the severest test without seeing any moving objects, he came to the conclusion that something very mysterious was going on in the cemetery. It was 2 o'clock, and it could not be possible for persons to be abroad at that hour and in such a place. With no desire to put the whole night in unraveling the mystery, he raised his revolver and fired a shot in the air in the direction he supposed the sounds came from. The report had scarcely left the pistol when there was a feminine scream like a locomotive whistle, and two objects rose from behind a grave and hurried toward the eastern entrance of the cemetery, through which they emerged and fled over the hills toward Eureka as if the devil was after them. Our hero from the Hill, conscience-stricken at the thought of having taken a loving couple for a pair of ghostly visitors, made his way home in a sad and dejected mood, and related his adventure to his wife, who naturally related it to a neighbor, and she in turn communicated it to a Sentinel reporter. Our informant also pretends to know who the unlucky graveyard picnickers were, and says if a certain old man would keep a weather eye on a certain young woman such scenes would not be re-enacted. It is highly probable that they will not be—in either of the cemeteries in the future.