新概念英语第三册英音版 30－The Death of a Ghost

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[ti:The Death of a Ghost]
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[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.