"Cooper, Susan - Dark is Rising 01 - Over Sea, Under Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooper Susan)

'Well - ' Jane said lamely, taken aback. 'I suppose we ought to, that's all.'

Barney sat back on his heels again, frowning, and riffled his fingers through his hair, which by now looked several shades darker than it had when they came up to the attic. 'I wonder what they'd say? '

'I know what they'd say,' Simon said promptly. 'They'd say it was all our imagination, and anyway they'd tell us to put the manuscript back where we found it because it isn't ours.'
'Well,' said Jane, 'it isn't, is it ? '

'It's treasure trove. Finding's keepings.'

'But we found it in someone else's house. It belongs to the captain. You know what Mother said about not touching anything.'

'She said anything that was put away. This wasn't put away, it was just chucked down in a corner.'

'I found it,' Barney said. 'It was all forgotten and dusty. I bet you anything the captain hadn't a clue it was there.'

'Oh honestly, Jane,' Simon said. You can't find a treasure map and just say Oh, how nice, and put it back again. And that's what they'd make us do.'

'Oh well,' Jane said doubtfully, 'I suppose you're right. We can always put it back afterwards.'

Barney had turned to the manuscript again. 'Hey,' he said, took at this top part, the old manuscript that's stuck down on the parchment. What's it made of? I thought it was parchment like the outside bit, but when you look properly it isn't, and it's not paper either. It's some funny thick stuff, and it's hard, like wood.'

He touched an edge of the strange brown surface gingerly with one finger.

'Be careful,' Jane said nervously. 'It might crumble away into dust before our eyes or something.'

'I suppose you'd still want to go showing everyone even then,' Simon said acidly. ' "Look what we've found, does it matter if we touch it? " and show them a little heap of dust in a match-box.' Jane said nothing.

'Oh well, never mind,' Simon said, relenting. She meant well, after all. 'Hey, it's getting awfully dark up here, d'you think we ought to go down ? They'll be looking for us soon, Mother will have stopped painting.'

'It is getting late.' Jane looked round the attic and shivered suddenly. The big echoing room was growing dark, and there was a dismal sound now to the rain faintly tapping on the glass. Back in their bedrooms, the boy's wardrobe pushed in again to hide the small secret door, they washed and changed hurriedly as the curt clang of the ship's bell calling them to supper echoed up the stairs. Simon changed his dusty shirt, rolling the clean one into a crumpled ball before he put it on, and hoping no one would notice it was fresh. There was not very much they could do about Barney's hair, now khaki. 'It's like what Mother says about that rug in the living-room at home,' Jane said in despair, trying to brush out the dust while her brother wriggled in protest. 'It shows every mark.'

'Perhaps we ought to wash it.' Simon peered at Barney critically.

'No,' Barney said.

'Oh well, there isn't time really. Anyway, I'm hungry. You'll just have to sit away from the light.'

But when they were all sitting round the supper-table, it soon became clear that no one was going to ask questions about where they had been. The evening began as one of those times when everything seemed determined to go wrong. Mother looked tired and depressed, and did not say very much; signs, they knew, that her day's painting had not been a success. Father, gloomy after the grey day, erupted into wrath when Rufus bounced in dripping from his walk, and banished him to the kitchen with Mrs Palk. And Great-Uncle Merry had come in silent and thoughtful, mysteriously brooding. He sat at one end of the table, alone, staring into the middle distance like a great carved totem-pole.

The children eyed him warily, and took care to pass him the salt before he had to ask. But Great-Uncle Merry scarcely seemed to see them. He ate automatically, picking up his food and guiding it to his mouth without taking the slightest notice of it. Barney wondered for a wistful moment what would happen if he were to slip a cork table-mat on to his great-uncle's plate.

Mrs Palk came in with an enormous apple tart and a dish of mounded yellow cream and clattered the dirty plates into a pile. She went out down the hall, and they heard the rich rolling contralto of 'O God, our help in ages past' echoing into the distance.

Father sighed. 'There are times,' he said irritably, 'when I could dispense with devotions at every meal.'

'The Cornish,' boomed Great-Uncle Merry from the shadows, 'are a devout and evangelical people.'

'I dare say,' said Father. He passed Simon the cream. Simon helped himself to a large spoonful, and a yellow blob dropped from the spoon to the table-cloth.

'Oh Simon,' Mother said. 'Do look what you're doing.'