We didn't care to knock, for all was dark, and we came away.

Rectus proposed that we should reconnoitre the place, and I agreed, although, in reality, there wasn't anything to reconnoitre.

We went down into the moat, which was perfectly dry, and very wide, and walked all around the fort.
We examined the walls, which were pretty jagged and rough in some places, and we both agreed that if we _had_ to do it, we believed we could climb to the top.
As we walked home, Rectus proposed that we should try to climb in some night.
"What's the good ?" I asked.
"Why, it would be a splendid thing," said he, "to scale the walls of an old Middle-Age fort, like that.

Let's try it, anyway." I couldn't help thinking that it would be rather a fine thing to do, but it did seem rather foolish to risk our necks to get over the walls at night, when we could walk in, whenever we pleased, all day.
But it was of no use to say anything like that to Rectus.

He was full of the idea of scaling the walls, and I found that, when the boy did get worked up to anything, he could talk first-rate, and before we went to sleep I got the notion of it, too, and we made up our minds that we would try it.
The next day we walked around the walls two or three times, and found a place where we thought we could get up, if we had a rope fastened to the top of the wall.