"Blyton, Enid - The Five Find-Outers 15 - The Mystery of Banshee Towers 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

Bets looked at the picture on the man's easel. It didn't seem very good to her. "You haven't painted that wave the right colour," she said, pointing.

"Well, alter it for me," said the man, offering her an enormously long paint-brush.

"Oh, I couldn't," said Bets.

"See that fellow over there?" said the man, pointing with his brush. "Well, he's the best of the lot. He doesn't belong to our art-school, though. You go and see _his_ work - better than the original artist's, I sometimes think!"

They went over to look at the picture the other man was copying. He sat in front of a lovely seascape, that shone on the wall opposite the man. It was a picture of a blue sea swirling round the bottom of a high cliff, tumbling over the rocks. On his big canvas he was reproducing a marvellous copy. He scowled at the children.

"_Allez vous en!_" he growled.

"That's French for 'Go away'," Bets whispered to the surprised Ern. "We'd better go."

But Ern wouldn't move. He stood staring at the picture on the wall, his face full of wonder and awe. To think anyone could paint the sea like that - why, it was _real_ - you could almost hear the wind and the roar of the waves - you could feel the spray and...

"Wake up. Ern," said Larry. "You'll shout for a lifeboat if you look at that picture any more!"

"It's smashing," said Ern. "Ab-so-lutely smashing. Wish _I_ could paint. Gosh, if I'd painted that picture there, I'd never do anything but sit and look at it all day long!"

The French artist who was copying the picture suddenly lost his temper as Ern breathed heavily down the back of his neck. He leapt up, drew his paint-brush across Ern's face, and hissed at him with a long string of what sounded like complete gibberish to the startled Ern.

"Come on, we've upset the fellow," said Fatty, seeing the alarm on Bets' face. "Sorry, sir - but you shouldn't lash out with your brush like that. Ern, come with me. ERN!"

But Ern was still staring at the picture on the wall, absent-mindedly rubbing at the paint that the artist had streaked across his face. Larry chuckled. Ern looked rather like a clown now! Fatty and Larry took him firmly by the arms and led him to the opposite side of the great hall, where other pictures were.

Ern and Bets could have stayed there all day, staring at the pictures. There seemed to be some magic about the seascapes that appealed to each of them in a way that the others did not feel. Soon they left Bets and Ern to themselves and wandered into the other rooms. Here there was old armour on the walls, and old weapons in cases. The four examined them with much interest, and Fatty longed to take down a great old pike from the wall, and caper about with it.

"I don't see why we shouldn't have our picnic in _here_, do you?" said Larry, looking out of one of the great windows. "That enormous black cloud is now pouring down sheets of rain. We can't picnic out-of-doors. We needn't make any mess at all, and we'll take all our litter home with us."

"I bet that bad-tempered fellow out at the turnstile won't let us stay," said Fatty.

"What's it to do with _him_?" said Larry. "We've paid, haven't we? Anyway, I'm jolly hungry. Gosh, was that thunder?"

It was! The children felt all the more determined to stay in Banshee Towers for shelter, and have their lunch there. Ern was longing to - not because of the lunch, but because of the pictures. He simply could not take his eyes off them!

The six sat down in a corner of one of the great rooms, behind a kind of large settee. Now if that turnstile man looked in, he wouldn't see them and turn them out!

"Wonder where the dogs are?" said Fatty, suddenly. "They ought to have been here long ago."

"Gone rabbiting halfway up the hill, I expect," said Ern. "Or else that turnstile man wouldn't let them in! They'll be all right. They'll either turn up - or go home!"

"Some of those artists are leaving," said Larry. "I can hear them packing up and shouting goodbye. Hallo, who are these? Peep through the arms of the settee, Fatty - visitors, do you think? "

Yes - they certainly looked like sightseers. There were three women and a man, and they ambled aimlessly round, looking at the pictures and the old armour.

"Not worth a shilling, to come in and see all this junk - and I never did like sea-pictures," said one woman. "All those picture waves that never break, but just rear up and keep still! Gives me the willies!"

To the children's dismay, the visitors sat down on the settee behind which they were hiding, and began to rustle paper, unpacking their lunch. "All them silly tales too, about banshees wailing!" said the man. "We've wasted our shillings. It would be _worth_ a shilling to hear a banshee wail - but there, I never did believe in things like that."