That time when past begins to look longer than the future
The climber, like a fox which is hard-pressed, should always have one more trick in his bag.
There is no night porter wandering about in King's. The authorities pay you the compliment, ugly gate-crasher, of treating you as a grown-up. And since we are not grown-up you and I, we will perform our midnight frolics as the inmates burn the midnig...
It is the conquest of this fear that adds half the charm to climbing.
Lest others should attempt the ascent of this terrible climb and perish, they swore themselves to secrecy (telling only enough people to ensure the perpetuation of their epic) and went off to try Everest instead.
We think of those nights spent with one or more friends, nights when we merged with the shadows and could see the world with eyes that were not our own.
Alas! Charles made the promise glibly, and forgot all about it.
Sometimes those experiences crowd back upon the memory, and the past flashes back like a distant peak momentarily lighted up by sunbeam piercing through the clouds. Then oblivion again. Strange it is how the prosaic present may hide the exciting past...
By a curious perversity, the human mind refuses to behave itself on the occasions when it should be intensely dramatic. It was so now; the climber suddenly forgot his fears in a smile. The choir had chosen this precise moment to start the Nunc Dimitt...
