The death of a ghost
For years , villagers believed that Endley farm was haunted
the farm
Was owned by two brothers Joe and Bert Cox . They employed a
few farm
Hands , but no one was willing to work there long every time
a worker
Gave up his job he told the same story. Farm labourers said
that they
Always work up to find that work hard been done overnight
hay had been
Cut and cow sheds had been cleaned a farm worker who stayed
up all night
Claimed to have seen a figure cutting corn in the moonlight
in time
It became an accepted fact that the cox brothers employed a
conscientions
Ghost that did most of their work for them no one suspected
that there
Might be someone else on the farm who had never been seen
this was
Indeed the case a
short time ago villagers were astonished to learnthat
The ghost of Endley
had died everyone went to the funeral
Was non other than Eric Cox ,third brother who was supposed
to have
Died as a young man after the funeral , Joe and Bert revealed a sectred
Which they had kept for over forty years Eric had been the
eldest son of
The family . He had been obliged to join the army during the
first world
War as he hated army life he decided to desert his regiment
when he
Learnt that he would be sent abroad he retuned to the farm
and his father
Hid him until the end of the war fearing the authorities
Eric remained
In hiding after the war as well his father told everybody that Eric had
Been killed in action . The only other people who knew the
secret were joe
And Bert . They did not even tell their wives when their
father died they
Thought it their duty to keep Eric in hiding all these years
Eric had lived
As a recluse he used to sleep during the day and work at
night
Of the fact that he had became the ghost Endley when he died
However his brothers found it impossible to keep the secret
any longer
Vocabulary
Explain the meanings of the following words and phrases as they are used
In the passage was willing labourers claimed an accepted
conscientious
Astonished