Mystery of Banshee Towers by Enid Blyton Read Free Book Online Page A

the most famous of sea-artists - and would you believe it, that picture was painted more than a hundred years ago! And yet it looks as fresh and clear as if it had been finished yesterday.”
    Someone clattered over the stone-floor, set down a stool and put an easel in front of a picture on the opposite wall. He proceeded to set up a large canvas on the easel. The children went over, in curiosity.
    “Hallo, kids,” said the man, a shock-haired fellow in a loose black painting overall. “Come to worship at the shrine of sea-art? Mind you don’t bump into the banshee. It wails one day a week, you know, so you may hear it.”
    “I don’t want to,” said Bets, at once. “Anyway, there isn’t a banshee. It’s just imaginary.”
    There was further clattering, and three more artists came in, carrying easels. They set themselves down in front of various pictures. Fatty stared in surprise.
    “Are you copying the pictures?” he asked the man beside him, who was now sitting on a stool, mixing colours on a palette.
    “Yes. We all belong to a School of Art,” said the man. “Those who are good enough are sent here to copy these pictures for practice - we can sell them all right afterwards, you know.”
    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