"A flying machine'd be the thing," said Clive. "Looks as if we'd be beaten."
"And have to go back. Don't like that," reflected Bert.
"Only we'd get there in time for lunch," Hugh reminded them. "That's one consolation."
A complete circuit of the tower at length convinced them that entrance was more difficult than they had anticipated, if not utterly impossible. Clive inspected the padlock on the postern and declared it to be unpickable. Hugh gazed aloft as if he expected to discover a dangling ladder waiting conveniently for them. Then Bert made a movement.
"I'm going to get into that tower whatever happens," he said obstinately. "Even if it takes me a week I'm going to get inside."
They would have cheered him if there had not been need for silence. As it was, Clive slapped him approvingly on the back and then asked an all-important question.
"How's it to be done? Creep in through one of those slits for firing arrows?" he asked in bantering tones. "Or dig a way under the wall? That sounds the most likely."
"I'm going to climb by that ivy," was the steady answer. "You chaps can hang about down below to pick up the pieces. There's a window fifty feet up, just beneath the battlements, and the ivy goes right up over the top, and's as thick as my leg. I'm going to chance its bearing."
When his friends came to inspect the place they were bound to admit that the idea was practicable. At the same time it was risky, particularly for Bert. One would have thought that Hugh would have made the attempt with greater chance of success, seeing that he was a gymnast. But Bert was an obstinate fellow. He seldom shone in adventures entered upon by the Old Firm. His comrades had come to look upon him as an excellent follower, an untiring though sometimes absent-minded listener, and as a youth with caustic and satirical wit, who at times roused them to the height of anger. To hear him now obstinately declare his intention of undertaking this difficult and dangerous task was rather staggering.
"Think you'll do it?" asked Clive doubtfully. "Awfully steep, eh?"