Chapter 16 LOOKING THROUGH WINDOWS

Chapter 16 LOOKING THROUGH WINDOWS
The three tiptoed quietly up to the cottage. 'Don't go too near when you look in,' whispered Julian.
'Keep a little distance away. We shall be able to see who is in the rooms, but they mustn't be able tosee us outside. I sincerely hope they won't!'
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'Look in the downstairs rooms,' said Dick. 'See, that's the kitchen window over there. Old Mrs.
Janes may be there, if she's still up.'
They crept to the uncurtained window. The room was lighted by only a candle, and was full ofshadows. The boys gazed in.
Old Mrs. Janes was there, sitting up in a brown rocking-chair, clad in a dirty dressing-gown. Sherocked herself to and fro, and although the boys could not see her face, they sensed that the oldwoman was frightened and unhappy. Her head sank on her chest, and when she put her wispy¹ hairback from her face, her hand shook.
'She's no witch, poor old thing!' whispered Dick, feeling quite sad to see her rocking to and fro all byherself so late at night. 'She's just a poor, frightened old woman.'
'Why is she up so late?' wondered Julian. 'She must be waiting for someone.'
'Yes. She might be. We'd better look out then,' said Toby at once, looking behind him as if heexpected to see someone creeping up.
'Now let's go round to the front,' said Dick. So they tiptoed there, and saw another lighted window -much more brightly lighted than the kitchen window had been.
They kept a little way from the pane², afraid of being seen. They looked in and saw two men there,sitting at a table, poring over some papers.
'Mr. Gringle!' said Julian, in a low voice. 'No doubt about that - and the other one must be his friend,Mr. Brent, I suppose. Certainly he isn't wearing dark glasses, as that man was we gave the butterfly toand who gave us five shillings. He isn't a bit like him!'
They all looked intently at the 'friend'. He was a perfectly³ ordinary man, with a small moustache,dark hair and a rather big nose. Not in the least like the 'Mr. Brent' they had seen the day before.
'What are they doing?' whispered Toby.
'It looks as if they're making lists of something - probably making out bills for their customers,'
said Julian. 'Anyway - I must say they look perfectly ordinary sitting there, doing a perfectly ordinaryjob. I think Mr. Gringle was speaking the truth when he said that it wasn't Mr. Brent who gave us thefive shillings and it certainly wasn't him either that I saw on the hill-side last night with a butterflynet.'
'Then who was it?' asked Dick, pulling the others right away from the window, in order to talk moreeasily. 'And why did he carry the butterfly net and tell that lie about moth-traps? Why was he on thehill, the night the planes were stolen?'
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'Yes - why was he? I'd like to ask him that!' said Toby in too loud a voice. The others nudged him atonce, and he spoke⁴ more softly. 'Something funny was going on last night - something people don'tknow anything about. I'd like to find that phony Mr. Brent you met on the hill-side, Julian!'
'Well, may be we shall,' said Julian. 'Now - any other window lighted? Yes - one up there, under theroof. Who's there, I wonder?'
'Perhaps it's Mrs. Janes' son,' said Dick. 'It would be just like him to take one of the three bedroomsand make her sleep downstairs in the old rocking-chair! I expect the other two little rooms up thereare used by the Butterfly Men.'
'How can we see into the lighted room?' wondered Toby. 'Look - if we got up in that tree there, we'dsee in.'
'There's an easier way!' said Julian, switching his torch on and off very quickly, giving the others justhalf a second to see a ladder leaning against a nearby woodshed.
'Good - yes, that would be much easier,' said Dick. 'But we'll have to be jolly quiet. Whoever is inthere would come to the window at once if he so much as heard the top of the ladder grating againstthe window-ledge!'
'Well, we'll manage it all right,' said Julian. 'The window isn't very high, and the ladder isn't veryheavy. Between us we can place it very gently against the wall without disturbing anyone!'
The ladder was certainly quite light. The boys found no difficulty in carrying it slowly and carefullyacross to the cottage. They placed it against the wall without a sound!
'I'll go up,' whispered Julian. 'Hold the ladder steady - and for goodness' sake keep a lookout⁵!
Give me a signal if you hear anything at all, because I don't want to be trapped at the top of theladder!'
The others held the sides as he climbed the rather rickety rungs. He came to the lighted window andvery cautiously and slowly lifted his head until he could see right into the room.
It was lighted by a candle, a very small and untidy room, poorly furnished. A man sat on the bedthere, a big hulking man, with broad shoulders and a neck like a bull. Julian gazed at him - yes, thatmust be Mrs. Janes' son, who, she said, was so unkind to her. Julian remembered the old mumblingvoice saying that her son was cruel. 'He hits me. He twists my arm!' Yes, the man on the bed could bea nasty bully⁶, no doubt about that.
He was reading a newspaper close to the candle.
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As Julian looked at him, he pulled out a big watch from his pocket and stared at it, mutteringsomething that Julian couldn't hear. He stood up, and the boy was so afraid that he might come to thewindow, that he slithered down the ladder as quickly as possible.
'The son's in there,' he whispered to the others. 'I was afraid he was coming to the window to lookout; that's why I slid down so quickly. Blow! I've got a splinter in the palm of my hand doing that!
Toby - could you creep up to the top in a minute or two and look in - just to make sure I'm right, andthat it is Will Janes, the old woman's son?'
Toby went up the ladder as soon as they were certain that Will Janes was not going to look out.
He came down almost at once.
'Yes - that's Will - but, my word, he has changed!' whispered Toby. 'He looks a brute⁷ now - and yethe was a kind, decent fellow not so long ago. Mother said he'd fallen in with a bad set of fellows, andhad taken to drinking - so I suppose he's quite different now.'
'He looked at his watch as if he was expecting someone,' said Julian. 'I wonder - now, I wonder -if the man who paraded about the hill-side last night with a net is coming here tonight? I must say I'dlike to get a good look at him. He can't be up to any good.'
'Well - let's hide somewhere and wait,' suggested Toby. 'Nobody knows I've slipped out to be withyou, so I shan't be missed. Anyway, Mother wouldn't mind if she knew I was on a night trip with youtwo!'
'We'll hide in that barn over there,' said Julian, and, on tiptoe again, they crossed to an old ruinedbarn, whose roof was partly off, and whose walls were falling in. It smelt⁸ dirty and there seemed noclean place to sit in, but at last Julian pulled out some dusty sacks and they laid them in a corner andsat there waiting in the dark.
'Pooh!' said Dick. 'What a horrible smell in here - old rotting potatoes, or something. I wish we'dchosen somewhere else.'
'Sh!' said Julian suddenly, giving him a nudge that made him jump. 'I can hear something.'
They all sat silent and listened. They could certainly hear something - yes - quiet footsteps, very quiet- made by rubber-soled shoes. The soft sounds passed by the barn, and they could no longer hearthem. Then came a soft, low whistle.
Julian stood up and looked through the broken barn window. 'I think there are two men standingbelow Will Janes' bedroom,' he whispered. 'They must be the men he was waiting for. He'll becoming down. I hope to goodness they don't come into this barn to talk!'
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This was a horrible thought, but there was no chance of going anywhere else, because at that momentthe front door opened and Will Janes came out. Julian, still looking through the broken pane, couldsee him dimly outlined in the light that came from Mr. Gringle's front window.
The three men went off very quietly round the cottage. 'Come on,' said Julian. 'Let's shadow them.
We might hear something to explain what's up.'
'What's the time?' asked Dick. 'I hope the girls won't start worrying about us. It must be gone twelveby now.'
'Yes. It is,' said Julian, looking at the luminous⁹ hands of his watch. 'It can't be helped. They'll guesswe're on to something!'
They crept after the three men, who went to a clump¹⁰ of trees on the other side of the glass-houses.
There they began to talk, but in such low tones that the three boys could hear nothing but the murmurof the voices.
Then one man raised his voice. It was Will Janes - Toby recognized it at once and told the others. 'It'sWill. He's furious about something. He always loses his temper when he thinks people have treatedhim badly in any way - and it sounds as if he thinks those two men have.'
The two men tried to quiet him, but he would not be pacified¹¹. 'I want my money!' the boys heard himsay. 'I helped you, didn't I, I hid you here, didn't I, till the job was done. Then give me my money!'
His voice rose almost to a shout, and the two men with him grew frightened. Exactly what happenednext the boys never knew, but quite suddenly there was the sound of a blow and a fall -then another blow and a fall - and Will Janes laughed. It was not a nice laugh.
In a few seconds there came an anxious voice from the window of the room where Mr. Gringle andhis friend were at work. 'Who's there? What's happening?'
CRASH! That was the sound of breaking glass! Will Janes had picked up a big stone and flung it atthe nearby glass-house. It made the three boys almost jump out of their skins.
'It's all right, sir! I came out to see who was prowling about!' shouted Will Janes. 'And whoever it washas broken some of the glass in your butterfly house. I've been out here shouting, trying to catch him.'
He came blundering towards the house - and then, as luck would have it, his torch picked out thethree crouching¹² boys. He gave a yell!
'Who's this? Here they are, sir, kids who've been trying to smash the glass! Catch them - that's 67right - I've got two of them - you catch the third!'

1 wispy   

adj.模糊的；纤细的

参考例句：

• Grey wispy hair straggled down to her shoulders.稀疏的灰白头发披散在她肩头。
• The half moon is hidden behind some wispy clouds.半轮月亮躲在淡淡的云彩之后。

2 pane   

n.窗格玻璃，长方块

参考例句：

• He broke this pane of glass.他打破了这块窗玻璃。
• Their breath bloomed the frosty pane.他们呼出的水气，在冰冷的窗玻璃上形成一层雾。

3 perfectly   

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。

4 spoke   

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。

5 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

6 bully   

n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮

参考例句：

• A bully is always a coward.暴汉常是懦夫。
• The boy gave the bully a pelt on the back with a pebble.那男孩用石子掷击小流氓的背脊。

7 brute   

n.野兽，兽性

参考例句：

• The aggressor troops are not many degrees removed from the brute.侵略军简直象一群野兽。
• That dog is a dangerous brute.It bites people.那条狗是危险的畜牲，它咬人。

8 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

9 luminous   

adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的

参考例句：

• There are luminous knobs on all the doors in my house.我家所有门上都安有夜光把手。
• Most clocks and watches in this shop are in luminous paint.这家商店出售的大多数钟表都涂了发光漆。

10 clump   

n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走

参考例句：

• A stream meandered gently through a clump of trees.一条小溪从树丛中蜿蜒穿过。
• It was as if he had hacked with his thick boots at a clump of bluebells.仿佛他用自己的厚靴子无情地践踏了一丛野风信子。

11 pacified   

使（某人）安静( pacify的过去式和过去分词 )； 息怒； 抚慰； 在（有战争的地区、国家等）实现和平

参考例句：

• The baby could not be pacified. 怎么也止不住婴儿的哭声。
• She shrieked again, refusing to be pacified. 她又尖叫了，无法使她平静下来。

12 crouching   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• a hulking figure crouching in the darkness 黑暗中蹲伏着的一个庞大身影
• A young man was crouching by the table, busily searching for something. 一个年轻人正蹲在桌边翻看什么。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译