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THE MAID OF THE MILL Chapter 1
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 "The only objection I have to ghost stories," said young Sanford, "is from a literary point of view. They're so badly done, you know."
 
"In what way?" said the clerk of the hotel, settling back in his office chair, and smiling at young Sanford and the circle of men who had come down for their keys from the billiard-room.
 
"Well, in this way. I'm not considering the little harmless stories where the heroes are only frightened, or even those where their heads are grey in the morning. I'm thinking of those where they never live to tell the awful tale, you know; the ones in which they tell their friends to come if they call, and then they never call; the ones in which, although they scream and scream, nobody hears them.
 
"And yet the old trembling man who points them to the haunted room knows perfectly1 well that five men have entered that room on five nineteenths of[192] October, and never come out alive. Yet he only warns them, or at most only beseeches2 them not to go in. He has no police force—not that police could seriously harm the ghosts, but somehow they never appear to the police; he does not arrange with the victim's friend to burst in the door at twelve-thirty, anyhow, whether they are summoned or not; he doesn't—but then, what do any of them do that they might be expected to? And all this forced condition of things so that the ghost may have all the evening to work quietly in. Do you mean to tell me that if I were frightened to the extent of grey hair in the morning, I couldn't scream loud enough to be heard any distance?"
 
This speech drew nods of approval from several of the men. "I've thought of that, too," said the clerk. In a dark corner behind the stove sat a man, hunched3 over his knees, silent, and apparently4 unknown to any of the others. At this point he looked up, cleared his throat, and said in a strange, husky voice:
 
"Do you really suppose that that is anything else than nonsense?" Young Sanford flushed.[193] "Sir"—he began. The other continued in his rough, thick voice:
 
"Do you suppose they don't try to scream? Do you suppose they don't think they're screaming?"
 
A little silence of discomfort5 fell on the circle. There was something disagreeably suggestive in the question. Suddenly the man spoke6 again.
 
"I had a friend," he said, "in fact, I had two friends. One was young—about your age," nodding to Sanford. "The other was older. He was not so clever nor so attractive nor so brilliant nor so jolly as the younger, but he had a characteristic—perhaps his only one—for he was a very ordinary man. He had an iron will. His determination was as unbreakable as anything human could be. And he was devoted7 to his friend, who, somehow, loved him. I don't know why, because he had so many other admirers—but he stuck to his friend—Joan. They called the two Darby and Joan. Their real names were not unlike those, and it was rather funny. Darby used to talk as you were talking, sir," he nodded again to Sanford, "and he was sure, cock sure, that what he said was right. He[194] would tell what things were possible and what were not, and prove what he said very nicely. Joan wasn't clever, but he knew that it does no good to call a thing impossible. He knew, in fact, that nothing is more possible than the most impossible things."
 
The man coughed and cleared his throat and waited a moment as if to see whether he were intruding8. No one spoke, so he went on.
 
"One day Darby rushed into Joan's study and told him of a haunted mill he'd discovered. It was one of the old mills where the farmers used to bring their sacks before the big concerns in the West swallowed all the little trades. It was dusty and cobwebbed and broken down and unused and haunted. And there was a farmhouse9 directly across the road and a house on either side of it not a hundred feet away.
 
"'Was it always haunted?' asked Joan. 'No,' said Darby, 'only once a year.' On Christmas eve every year for nineteen years there had appeared, late at night, a little light in one of the windows; and that side of the house had an odd look, some[195]how it seemed to look fresher and newer, and at one o'clock or so a horrible piercing shriek10 would ring out from the mill, and then a kind of crashing fall, and then all was still, and the light would disappear.
 
"'Had nobody investigated?' Oh, yes. The first year it was noticed was when houses were built up around it. It used to stand away from everything else, and the miller11 and his family lived there. Then, long after they were dead, people moved out there and heard the noises and saw the light. They thought of tramps and escaped criminals and everything one suggests till it had occurred too repeatedly for that, and then a young farmer went over one Christmas eve, not telling any one, and they found him roaming about the mill, a hopeless wreck12 the next day; he had gone quite mad.
 
"And the next year a man came up from the city, and his friends were in the next room to help him if he called, and he didn't call, and they were afraid to startle him by knocking, so they got a ladder and peeped into the window at ten[196] minutes to one, and he lay peacefully on the bed with his eyes closed and his hands stretched loosely out, and they thought it was a great joke that he should sleep through it, so they went home, and in the morning they found him in horrible convulsions, and he never recovered.
 
"And there were two young divinity students that went once together, and they had a crowd along with instructions to break in the door at one exactly. And at the stroke of one the crowd beat in the great door and burst into an empty room! They had gone up a flight too far, somehow, and as they stood staring at each other, from the room beneath them came a dreadful shriek and a crash, and when they rushed down they found the boys in a dead faint. They brought them to and got them home, and they muttered nonsense about a dog and a sash and would say no more. And they escaped with severe nervous prostration13. But later they lost what little nerve they had and couldn't sleep at night, and joined the Catholic Church, because they said that there were things they found it difficult to reconcile....
 
[197]
 
"'And what was the story of it all?' asked Joan. Oh, the story was disagreeable enough. The miller's daughter wanted to marry a poor young man, but her father would not let her. And she refused to accept his rich nephew. So he locked her in her room till she should consent. And she stayed there a week. And one night the nephew came home late and saw a tiny light in her window, and presently he saw some one place a ladder and go softly up, and the miller's daughter leaned out and helped him in. So he told her father, who came into her room the next night with a bloodhound, and bound her to the bed and hushed her cries with her sash, and lit the little light. And when her lover had climbed the ladder—the dog was there. And that was Christmas eve.
 
"'Do the people suffer this without complaint—these deaths and convulsions and apostasies14?' asked Joan. Well, no. But if they destroyed the mill a liquor saloon would go up immediately. The proprietor15 was simply waiting. And they didn't want that. So they kept it quiet. And nobody need go there. Nobody had been alarmed or hurt except[198] the meddlers. And in villages the people have less scientific curiosity. But Darby was going immediately. It was December twenty-third now. Joan must come, too; it would be most exciting. Joan argued against it, but he too was curious, so they agreed to go. And the next day they went."

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 perfectly 8Mzxb     
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
  • Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
2 beseeches f9a510e18151ef0ff03a6891574f3e45     
v.恳求,乞求(某事物)( beseech的第三人称单数 )
参考例句:
3 hunched 532924f1646c4c5850b7c607069be416     
(常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦)耸肩弓身的,伏首前倾的
参考例句:
  • He sat with his shoulders hunched up. 他耸起双肩坐着。
  • Stephen hunched down to light a cigarette. 斯蒂芬弓着身子点燃一支烟。
4 apparently tMmyQ     
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎
参考例句:
  • An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽,豁然开朗。
  • He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。
5 discomfort cuvxN     
n.不舒服,不安,难过,困难,不方便
参考例句:
  • One has to bear a little discomfort while travelling.旅行中总要忍受一点不便。
  • She turned red with discomfort when the teacher spoke.老师讲话时她不好意思地红着脸。
6 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
7 devoted xu9zka     
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的
参考例句:
  • He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
  • We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
8 intruding b3cc8c3083aff94e34af3912721bddd7     
v.侵入,侵扰,打扰( intrude的现在分词);把…强加于
参考例句:
  • Does he find his new celebrity intruding on his private life? 他是否感觉到他最近的成名侵扰了他的私生活?
  • After a few hours of fierce fighting,we saw the intruding bandits off. 经过几小时的激烈战斗,我们赶走了入侵的匪徒。 来自《简明英汉词典》
9 farmhouse kt1zIk     
n.农场住宅(尤指主要住房)
参考例句:
  • We fell for the farmhouse as soon as we saw it.我们对那所农舍一见倾心。
  • We put up for the night at a farmhouse.我们在一间农舍投宿了一夜。
10 shriek fEgya     
v./n.尖叫,叫喊
参考例句:
  • Suddenly he began to shriek loudly.突然他开始大声尖叫起来。
  • People sometimes shriek because of terror,anger,or pain.人们有时会因为恐惧,气愤或疼痛而尖叫。
11 miller ZD6xf     
n.磨坊主
参考例句:
  • Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
  • The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。
12 wreck QMjzE     
n.失事,遇难;沉船;vt.(船等)失事,遇难
参考例句:
  • Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
  • No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。
13 prostration e23ec06f537750e7e1306b9c8f596399     
n. 平伏, 跪倒, 疲劳
参考例句:
  • a state of prostration brought on by the heat 暑热导致的虚脱状态
  • A long period of worrying led to her nervous prostration. 长期的焦虑导致她的神经衰弱。
14 apostasies 3178f0850127cf095f56b5c784aad38b     
n.背信,变节,叛教( apostasy的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Your own wickedness will correct you, And your apostasies will reprove you. 19你自己的恶必惩治你,你背道的事必责备你。 来自互联网
15 proprietor zR2x5     
n.所有人;业主;经营者
参考例句:
  • The proprietor was an old acquaintance of his.业主是他的一位旧相识。
  • The proprietor of the corner grocery was a strange thing in my life.拐角杂货店店主是我生活中的一个怪物。


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