[al:新概念英语（三）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:The Death of a Ghost] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.49]Lesson 30 [00:03.20]The death of a ghost [00:11.86]Why did the two brothers keep the secret? [00:17.04]For years, villagers believed that Endley farm was haunted. [00:22.08]The farm was owned by two brothers, Joe and Bob Cox. [00:26.88]They employed a few farmhands, but no one was willing to work there long. [00:31.88]Every time a worker gave up his job, he told the same story. [00:36.71]Farm labourers said that they always woke up to find that work had been done overnight. [00:43.20]Hay had been cut and cowsheds had been cleaned. [00:47.20]A farm worker, who stayed up all night, claimed to have seen a figure cutting corn in the moonlight. [00:54.18]In time, it became an accepted fact [00:57.35]that the Cox brothers employed a conscientious ghost that did most of their work for them. [01:04.03]No one suspected that there might be someone else on the farm who had never been seen. [01:09.95]This was indeed the case. [01:11.81]A short time ago, villagers were astonished to learn that the ghost of Endley had died. [01:18.98]Everyone went to the funeral, for the 'ghost' was none other than Eric Cox, [01:24.50]a third brother who was supposed to have died as a young man. [01:28.84]After the funeral, Joe and Bob revealed a secret which they had kept for over fifty years. [01:36.26]Eric had been the eldest son of the family, [01:39.22]very much older than his two brothers. [01:41.98]He had been obliged to join the army during the Second World War. [01:45.95]As he hated army life, he decided to desert his regiment. [01:50.30]When he learnt that he would be sent abroad, [01:53.25]he returned to the farm and his father hid him until the end of the war. [01:58.31]Fearing the authorities, Eric remained in hiding after the war as well. [02:03.14]His father told everybody that Eric had been killed in action. [02:07.47]The only other people who knew the secret were Joe and Bob. [02:11.96]They did not even tell their wives. [02:14.75]When their father died they thought it their duty to keep Eric in hiding. [02:19.15]All these years, Eric had lived as a recluse. [02:23.20]He used to sleep during the day and work at night, [02:26.51]quite unaware of the fact that he had become the ghost of Endley. [02:31.36]When he died, however, his brothers found it impossible to keep the secret any longer.