Upon a certain Good Friday night, considerably less than a hundred years ago, the little smoke room at Wastdale was filled almost to overflowing with those peculiar people who most frequent it at that period of the year.

The greater part of them smoked and talked incessantly. Some few occupied chairs, while others perched insecurely on the edges of various articles of furniture, the while mechanically preserving their balance by some of the unusual methods they had resorted to on the rocks during the day. Others, and they were in a majority, descended to more primitive habits, and occupied most of the available floor space.

The atmosphere was laden with tobacco smoke. It was almost as difficult to see across the room as it is to catch a sight of Collier’s Climb from Mickledore Ridge on a cloudy day. And to make oneself heard across the chatter of conversation was quite as impossible as it is in a high wind to hear the summons to ‘come on’ from one’s leader at the top of Slingsby’s Chimney on Scawfell Pinnacle, when one is shivering on the small, well-worn ledge above the ‘crevasse’.

The occupants of the room formed a motley crowd. Probably nowhere save at a climbing centre could such a gathering be found. Their garb for the most part was quite unusual, and ranged in detail from the latest fashionable evening dress to a certain torn and tattered brown Norfolk jacket, the only respectable part of which was the silken chamois-portraying badge of the Swiss Alpine Club. The coat was a relic of the late Owen Jones, and its present wearer looked upon it as his especial evening property when staying at the inn. Its juxtaposition to the ‘proper’ garments of the present day afforded, to those who were in a position to observe it, an indication of the change that has come over the habitués of Wastdale; and its wearer, an ‘Old Stager’ whose knowledge of the surrounding rocks dated back more than twenty years, formed almost as great a contrast to most of those about him as did his apparel to theirs. He was seated on the floor at the corner of the hearth-stone, and was for a time one of the few silent men in the place. After a while he got up, and going to the window threw it wide open, somewhat to the disgust of many of his companions. But before long he was to raise an even greater dissent amongst them, and tread pretty effectually on one of their most cherished tenets.

The lull in the conversation which followed the admission of the fresh air was broken by two men sitting in the armchair at the side of the room most removed from the fire.

‘What do you think of Moss Ghyll for to-morrow?’ asked the one of the other.

‘Oh! Moss Ghyll’s all right, but it doesn’t fill in a day you know. Ten years ago men used to waste a whole day on it, and return to Wastdale in the evening, jolly well pleased with themselves. But just a week ago we went up Scawfell Pinnacle from the Second Pitch in Deep Ghyll, and then down Professor’s Chimney and up the Great Chimney opposite. Even then it was too soon to come home, so we rattled down the Penrith climb and then climbed Moss Ghyll by Collier’s exit, coming down to Mickledore again by way of the two pitches in Deep Ghyll.’

Silence greeted this confession. There was an atmosphere of something amiss when such a number of standard courses could be crowded into one day’s climbing.

The Old Stager on the corner of the hearth-stone proceeded to lay his finger most unpleasantly on the cause.

‘More’s the pity!’ growled he.

‘Why?’ queried he of the many ascents.

‘Well, perhaps you may not be altogether pleased if I tell you. However, has it never struck you that when a small matter of ten years works such a change in the amount of climbing possible in one day, there must either be something wrong with the climbs themselves, or else that you present-day climbers are vastly superior to those of ten or twenty years ago?’

‘Well, I hadn’t thought much about it,’ confessed the other, ‘but I very much doubt if we present rock climbers are better than some of those of the past.’

‘Better?’ queried the Old Stager scornfully; ‘Do you think you are nearly as good?’ — ‘Pardon my seeming rudeness,’ he hastened to say. ‘It has not been my privilege to climb with you; but, again pardon my speaking plainly, it must be apparent by your achievements that you cannot be quite as good. However good you may be in the actual climbing, it seems to me that you lack initiative. Where are the new climbs of the present day? What have you to set against Moss Ghyll, Scawfell Pinnacle Arête, North Climb on the Pillar, the Napes Arêtes, and so on, to mention a few of the good standard climbs? And what have you in the way of difficult climbs to beat Eagle’s Nest Arête, Walker’s Gully, the C Gully on the Screes, or Jones’ Climb up Scawfell Pinnacle from Lord’s Rake?’

‘Oh, surely!’ exclaimed many in the room, all anxious to speak at once.

But the Old Stager had spoken to the man of many ascents, and looked to him for an answer. The field opened up by the other’s queries was such a wide one that he found some difficulty in selecting the most effective reply.

After a moment’s pause, however, he began.

‘Well, I think you lose sight of a certain truism. You forget that now these things have been climbed we cannot make the first ascent of them! I don’t for a moment wish to institute a comparison of ourselves with those illustrious men who climbed the things you have just mentioned. I fear we should emerge feeling very ridiculous. But I think you must do us the justice of admitting that there are no new climbs round here but what would prove exceptionally severe, and I know you would condemn these. It’s like your “old school” to come down on us like “a thousand of bricks” if we climb anything very difficult. You lose sight of those difficult things you were gloating over just now! You forget that Jones’ ascent of Walker’s Gully, and Collier’s exploit on his Scawfell Climb, and Haskett-Smith’s solitary ascent of the Needle, or, even more daring still, G.A. Solly’s leading up the Eagle’s Nest Arête don’t leave much room for your school to preach caution and wisdom! But I’m getting a bit off the route. What we really lack is the possibility of new ascents. They are all exhausted, and I think you must admit as much!’

‘Not at all,’ immediately returned the Old Stager. ‘There are any amount of new things just itching to be climbed! I can think of at least a dozen, and if you don’t hurry up and do them, instead of making more evident the routes up the standard climbs, you’ll have some of the older men returning and robbing you of them.’

‘Where are these new climbs?’ cried the others. ‘Tell us one!’

‘Ah, no! to tell you of them would be foolish on my part. You would climb them and begin to fancy yourselves; then that modesty, which all must admit is one of your strongest qualities, would be likely to vanish.’

All this with a twinkle in the speaker’s eye and certain evidences of discomfort on the part of the others. They feared they were being ‘got at.’

‘But I think I must change my mind about giving away new climbs, and ask you a question. Have any of you ever noticed a bayonet-shaped crack descending from the skyline about midway between Moss Ghyll and Botterill’s Crack on Scawfell? No? Has it never occurred to you that between these two climbs there is a stretch of nearly two hundred feet of unscaled rock? No? I bear in mind Collier’s and Keswick Brothers’ climbs which follow such a bayonet-shaped line, and rather fancy this third course — but you must just take my suggestion for what it is worth.’

Distrustful, furtive glances exchanged between the leaders of the various parties in the room, spoke of a certain hasty resolve. It materialised early next morning when three strong parties raced up to the ‘bayonet-shaped crack.’ After spending four futile hours thereabouts, they hastened down to Wastdale, intent upon slaying the Old Stager. He had retreated via Drigg, however, so let us return to the previous night in the smoke room.

‘But I also have digressed,’ resumed the Old Stager. ‘I said “more’s the pity” when you told me of your day’s climbing on Scawfell, and you wondered why. Well, I’ll tell you, though I know that at first you’ll probably disagree with me. The reason of your being able to accomplish in one day more than was possible in bygone days, is that the Wastdale climbs have, almost without exception, become easier.’

‘Rubbish!’ ‘Nothing of the sort!’ ‘Don’t you deceive yourself!’ ‘Quite impossible!’ ‘They’re more difficult!’ and other like exclamations were roared from all parts of the room.

But when the storm had abated somewhat the Old Stager was still smiling serenely. To obtain silence, he waved in the air the black companion of many climbs, and his bearing was that of a man who is confident of his ability to make good his position.

‘Now,’ said he, ‘let us discuss this matter quietly. To many of you my remark must sound like rank sacrilege. The word easy is not wont to be connected with the climbing around Wastdale, and, indeed, there can surely be no more difficult climbing anywhere. Here the best rock climbers in the kingdom have foregathered. In the pink of training and often fresh from a curtailed Swiss holiday, they have climbed things that are just about as difficult as are humanly possible. My remarks...