Читать книгу Magic London онлайн

32 страница из 42

Godmother smiled. “I’m afraid not. It is thought that this galley was sunk a hundred years or so earlier than the one we saw when we stood on the first London Bridge. But it must have been very like it.”

Betty looked up again at the picture. “It shows a piece of the wall that went round London,” she said, gazing at it with interest. “And in the background there is the great forest. Oh, I think the painter has imagined it very well.”

“Considering that he hadn’t our magic advantage I think he has,” agreed Godmother.

Betty was silent a moment, looking down thoughtfully at the remains of the poor battered galley which once sailed so proudly on London’s river, filled with soldiers, their armour and helmets glittering in the sunshine of long ago. There were other things in this basement hall that looked interesting, but Godmother would not let her stay to examine them.

“We will go upstairs now,” she said. So up the narrow staircase they went, into the corridor again, and thence to a room with Roman London painted over the door.