Английский для смелых. Истории о духах и привидениях / Great Ghost Stories

 But even whilst he made this explanation he felt its weakness. To begin with, the desk was too high for a boy. The improbability that any boy would place a book there was equalled by the improbability that he would leave it there. To discover its uninviting character would be the work only of a moment, and no boy would have brought it so far from its shelf.

Mr Batchel had, however, come to read, and habit was too strong with him to be wholly set aside. Leaving ‘The Compleat Gard’ner’ on the desk, he turned round to the shelves to find some more congenial reading.

Hardly had he done this when he was startled by a sharp rap upon the desk behind him, followed by a rustling of paper. He turned quickly about and saw the quarto lying open. In obedience to the instinct of the moment, he at once sought a natural cause for what he saw. Only a wind, and that of the strongest, could have opened the book, and laid back its heavy cover; and though he accepted, for a brief moment, that explanation, he was too candid to retain it longer. The wind out of doors was very light; the window sash was closed and latched, and, to decide the matter finally, the book had its back, and not its edges, turned towards the only quarter from which a wind could strike.

Mr Batchel approached the desk again and stood over the book (мистер Бэтчел снова подошел к столу и встал над книгой; to approach – подходить, приближаться). With increasing perturbation of mind (for he still thought of the matchbox) he looked upon the open page (в усилившемся замешательстве: «смятении ума» – так как он все еще думал о спичечном коробке – он посмотрел на открытую страницу). Without much reason beyond that he felt constrained to do something (без особой на то причины, кроме того что он ощущал потребность что-то сделать; much – присутствующий в большом количестве или объеме; to constrain – заставлять, принуждать; обязывать), he read the words of the half completed sentence at the turn of the page (он прочитал слова предложения без начала вверху страницы: «полузавершенного предложения на повороте страницы») – ‘at dead of night he left the house and passed into the solitude of the garden (в глухую полночь он покинул дом и прошел в тишину сада; dead – /прил./ мертвый; /сущ./ глухая пора /время полной тишины, темноты, холода/; at dead of night – глубокой ночью; solitude – одиночество; уединенность; удаленность).’