AN ANCIENT GAME
I
SOMEWHERE on the east coast of Scotland lie the famous Links of Eric.
The district has not changed much, to all seeming, during the last
thousand years--or ten thousand, for that matter. Then, as now, the
links were a sandy waste, a wilderness of whin, sand, and bent, the home
of countless scuttling rabbits and plaintive peewits. Later, perhaps,
when William the Conqueror was creating a disturbance in the southern
parts of remote England, a tiny fishing town began to grow up round the
little harbour reluctantly yielded by the tall red cliffs to the eternal
industry of the ocean, and the adjoining strip of low-lying sand-dunes
acquired the title that it now bears, derived, it is said, from the name
of the Norse king who once landed on this, the only piece of accessible
shore for miles, and was there slain, after a bloody battle with the
neighbouring lord and his retainers. The town itself will have none of
these barbaric titles, but exists smugly and contentedly as Port Allan.
But it was through her little-valued links that Port Allan achieved
fame. Two hundred years ago a new minister came from St. Andrew's, and
introduced the men of Port Allan to a game called Golf. They took to it
in their deliberate, methodical fashion, and laid out a little course on
the hitherto neglected Links of Eric. Thither they repaired on fine
summer evenings, carrying queer long-nosed wooden clubs and
feather-stuffed balls. The golfing minister went the way of all flesh,
and his compeers with him, but the golf endured. Generations of
slow-moving fisher-folk, ecclesiastical luminaries, and holiday-making
scholars--for the fame of the links brought visitors from so great a
distance as a hundred miles--all played round the links in their day,
recking nothing of Medal Scores, Colonel Bogey, the Schenectady putter,
or other modern excrescences. They used their long-nosed wooden clubs to
some purpose, and though they did not drive the feather-stuffed ball
very far they drove it very straight. Once the great Allan Robertson
visited Port Allan. He pronounced favourably on the course, and a word
from Allan Robertson in those days was as good as a descriptive article
in "Golf Illustrated" in these. And so for many years the Links of Eric
grew steadily in favour with golfers.
But one day--one momentous day--the men of England came to the
conclusion that golf was the one and only game worth playing, and
Scotland the one and only place to play it in. Accordingly, with that
spontaneous readiness to suit the action to the word that has ever been
the characteristic of an Empire-making race, they migrated with their
wives and families across the Border, and proceeded to hew divots from
the face of Scotland with an eagerness and _bonhomie_ which was equalled
only by the unanimity with which they forbore to replace them. Golf,
which had existed for centuries as a sort of religious ceremony, to be
cultivated by its votaries in reverent silence and at a strictly
processional pace, suddenly became a species of bank-holiday picnic; and
those ancient and highly respectable burghs which fostered the game in
especial purity were converted into rather _recherche_ editions of
Hampstead Heath.
However unpleasant this foray might be for the Scottish golfer, it
presented certain compensating features to the Scottish railways and
hotel-proprietors. Of remote villages, which had formerly figured in the
traffic returns as occasional yielders of a truck-load of fish, there
now appeared highly-tinted pictures, with the Company's name at the top
and a list of trains at the bottom. The hotel proprietors, on their
part, quickly realising that to the average Englishman a golf-course
consists of any tract of land in Scotland plentifully endowed with
rabbit-holes, hastily staked out a claim on the nearest collection of
sand-hills, and advertised to all and sundry that visitors to their
hotel would be permitted, for a consideration, to play golf over the
celebrated links of so-and-so, "adjoining the hotel."
Port Allan was one of the places which benefited by reason of the boom.
The nearest railway station was seven miles away, but the Company
quickly remedied that defect, and advertised through bookings from
King's Cross. A special time-table was published, decorated at the top
with a coloured view of the Links of Eric, in the foreground of which a
golf-match was in progress between a gentleman in a sky-blue Norfolk
suit and a red cap, and a lady in a red dress and a sky-blue hat. The
lady was depicted in the act of driving off from the tee (with a blue
putter); while the gentleman, rather ungallantly, had gone forward a few
yards, and was engaged in playing out of the first bunker (with a red
brassie).
The inhabitants of Port Allan soon realised that to play golf over their
own links in summer was out of the question. They accordingly accepted
the situation, and, relegating their own golfing efforts to the autumn,
turned to the equally congenial task of spoiling the Egyptians. Elderly
seafaring men, who had hitherto extracted a precarious livelihood from
the grudging ocean, abandoned their nets and took to carrying clubs, the
fee of eighteenpence per round which they were permitted to charge being
inclusive of a vast amount of caustic criticism, and priceless, if
unintelligible, advice.
Behold, then, the Links of Eric one fine morning in early August.
Observe the throng of golfers, male and female, young and old. Here you
may see Youth, full of slashing drives and strange oaths, and Age, known
for his sage counsel and long putts. Here is a schoolboy, with bare
knees and head, and a supple swing that makes middle-aged golfers
wriggle with envy. Here is a "golfing minister." His clubs are
old-fashioned and his ball has been repainted; you will outdrive him
over and over again, but unless you have at least a stroke in hand when
it comes to approaching and putting, he will beat you. Those two men
over there, playing in their shirt-sleeves, are Americans, of course.
They are playing very keenly, but they are thinking, not of the game,
but of some entirely new and original way of winning it. The fat
gentleman is an Englishman. He originally took up golf by his doctor's
orders, but by this time is badly bitten. He wears a red coat, adorned
with the buttons of the Toadley-in-the-Hole Golf Club, and ekes out his
want of skill by the help of patent clubs, an india-rubber tee,--ye
gods!--and a wealth of technical phraseology. The couple in the middle
of the course, with a highly profane throng waiting behind them, are a
honeymoon, and as such ought not to be there at all. Their balls lie
side by side in a rabbit-scrape; and they are disputing, not as to the
right club to use, but whether Pussy can possibly love Sweetie more than
Sweetie loves Pussy. Ah! an irascible couple have driven into them!
Sweetie, at once putting a protecting arm round Pussy, turns and glares
at them wrathfully, but Pussy, looking distinctly relieved, picks up
both balls and impels her newly acquired lord over an adjacent sand-hill
to a secluded spot that she knows of, where they can sit in peace till
lunch-time.
But besides these anomalies and curiosities--common objects of all
golf-links in summer--there are some real golfers to be seen. Here are
two young men worth watching. Number One is addressing his ball for an
approach shot. It will have to be a cunning stroke, for there is a
yawning bunker in front of the green and a thick patch of whin beyond
it. If he attempts to run the ball up, the bunker will catch it, and if
he plays to carry the bunker, the chances are that he will overrun the
green and find himself in the whins. He plays a fine lofted ball, which
drops on to the hard green six yards from the pin, and then, with that
marvellous back-spin which only a master-hand can impart, gives a
curious staggering rebound, and after trickling forward for a few yards
lies almost dead.
"Good shot!" remarks Number Two, and turns to play his own ball. It is
lying very badly in some bents, half buried in sand. Number Two--he is a
left-hander--rejects the proffered niblick and selects a ponderous
driving-mashie. Then, with an opening of the shoulders and an upward
lift that betray the cricketer in every movement, he gives a mighty
slog, and propels a confused cloud of sand, bents, and ball into the
bunker guarding the green sixty yards away.
"Too good that time, Pip," remarks his companion.
"Didn't think I could get so far," replied Pip. "However, I get a stroke
from you this hole, so wait a bit."
He descended into the bunker, but the ball was reposing in a heel-mark,
and it required two even of Pip's earth-compelling niblick shots to
remove it. Colquhoun, plus one at St. Andrew's, consequently took the
hole in four.
Pip was staying at the Station Hotel, by himself. The motive which had
brought him to a distant part of Scotland, to play a game at which he
was far from being first-class, will appear in due course. Sufficient
to say that it was a strong motive, and an exceedingly ancient one,--a
motive which has brought about even more surprising events than the
abandonment of first-class cricket, on the eve of a Test Match, by the
finest amateur bowler in England.
They finished their match half an hour later, Pip, who was in receipt of
a half, being one down. As they turned to leave the last green Pip found
himself confronted by a large man in a Panama hat.
"Pip!" cried the stranger--"Pip! Bless my soul! What the blazes are you
doing in Scotland in August?"
"Hallo, Raven," replied Pip. "Fancy meeting you, old man!"
They turned and walked up the road together.
"Why aren't you playing for the County?" inquired Pip severely.
"Missis," replied Raven Innes laconically. Then he added,--
"Said we must go away for August on account of the kiddies. I'm taking a
holiday from cricket in consequence: golf isn't a bad substitute. But
what are you doing here, young man? Aren't you about due at Old Trafford
for the Test Match?"
"No," replied Pip, beginning to fill his pipe; "I'm not."
Innes stopped short in his walk.
"You don't mean to tell me," he said, "that they have been such fools--"
"It's not that," said Pip.
"Oh! So you're chosen all right, then?"
"Yes, I'm chosen, but I'm not going to play."
"Great Caesar! Why?"
"Well, I'm a bit stale, and I'm rather off cricket, and--and I want to
play golf."
Now Raven Innes was a man of the world. Moreover, he was a married
man,--married to a young and pretty wife,--and married men know things
that are not revealed to the ordinary unobservant bachelor. Constant
female society sharpens their wits. A woman has only one explanation for
all male eccentricities, and Raven Innes had been married long enough to
know that in nine cases out of ten this explanation is the correct one.
He therefore pursued the conversation on the lines which he felt sure
would have been adopted by Mrs. Raven had she been present.
"We have taken a cottage down the road--'Knocknaha,' it's called--so you
must come and look us up. No time like the present, so come along now.
By the way, my little sister is staying with us--Elsie. Have you seen
her yet?"
The diplomat cocked an inquiring eye in the direction of his victim.
Personally he had never noticed anything unusual in Pip's relations
with Elsie, but in matters of this kind Raven was guided entirely by his
wife, and as that female Hawkshaw, whose feminine instincts were
infallible in these cases, had long since informed him that there was
something in the wind, he was now embarking upon this elephantine effort
of cross-examination.
"No, really?" said Pip, who was lighting his pipe at the moment. "No, I
haven't seen her yet."
He threw away the match and walked on, his features as immobile as
usual. But his old weakness betrayed him, and he turned a dusky red.
Raven Innes noted this portent, chuckled, and inwardly dug himself in
the ribs, as we all do when we find that our natural acumen has
unearthed a savoury secret.
Nearly a year had passed since Pip returned from "abroad," once more to
take his place among his friends and in first-class cricket. During that
time he had met Elsie only once--at Pipette's wedding; but he had
gathered then, by dint of some artful cross-examination, that she would
probably be the guest of the Ravens at Port Allan during August. Had
Raven Innes realised that their chance meeting on the links that morning
had been the result of a fortnight's planning, waiting, and scheming on
the part of the enigmatical young man beside him; that the said young
man had abandoned first-class cricket in the height of the season, and
taken the precaution of arriving at Port Allan a full week before he
knew Elsie was due there, in order to avoid all appearance of having
followed her, and had even endeavoured to give a casual appearance to
their prospective and greatly desired meeting by withholding his
presence for another three days,--Raven Innes would have realised that a
superficial blush may conceal a greater depth of guile than the ordinary
male intellect can fathom.
II
There are many kinds of golfer, and there are many kinds of girl, but
there are only two kinds of girl with whom it is possible to play golf.
One is the beginner and the other is the expert.
The beginner is wholly irresponsible. Let us imagine that she is taken
out in a "mixed" foursome. She refers to her clubs as "sticks," or even
"poles." She declines the services of a caddie, with a little scream of
apprehension at the very idea of such publicity. For the same reason she
refuses to drive her ball from the tee if any one is "looking." Indeed,
she has been known to implore her partner to turn even his sympathetic
back during that performance. This excessive shyness is maintained all
the way to the first hole, and, unless carefully watched, she will
arrive at the green, ball in hand, having been unable to endure the
critical gaze of two men at least a hundred and fifty yards away, who
she feels convinced are laughing at her.
Presently she feels more comfortable. A long drive by her partner
elicits a little shriek of astonished admiration, which flatters his
manly vanity, and goes far to mitigate the handicap of her assistance.
She at once begins to imitate his stance and swing, straddles well over
the ball, shuts both eyes, gives a mighty swipe, and usually falls down,
the necessity of "tackety shoon" being as yet unrevealed to her. On she
goes, perfectly at her ease now, though a little hot and flustered,
babbling incessantly during the stroke, regardless of the sinister
frowns of the man who is endeavouring to play it. Should she miss the
ball altogether, she is moved to unnecessary mirth; should she by any
chance hit it out of sight, say over a sand-hill, she scampers up the
slope after it at a run, and announces its discovery at the top of her
voice, upsetting the nerves of all the old gentlemen within earshot. On
the green her actions are as characteristic as ever. In running the ball
up to the hole she either hits the ground behind it and sends it six
inches, or plays a shot which necessitates the departure of her
long-suffering partner, niblick in hand and scarlet in the face, to an
adjacent bunker. Short putts she invariably holes out by an ingenious
and unblushing push-stroke, which no one has the heart to question or
the courage to criticise. So the game proceeds. It is not golf, but then
you never expected it to be. It is another game, even older, and even
better.
After a few such rounds as this the dread seriousness of the game
descends upon her, and she loses some of her charm. She never speaks,
for she knows now that there is a rule on the subject. Her irresponsible
gaiety is gone; she is actually nervous; and after missing an easy
stroke (which she does quite as frequently as before), she looks
piteously at her partner, and even sighs enviously as the lady on the
other side, whom she has hitherto regarded as a mere example of how
clothes should not be worn, plays a perfect approach out of a bad lie.
In short, she has reverted to the status of the ordinary duffer, and as
such she ceases to be anything but a common nuisance--unless, of course,
sir, you take a special interest in her, in which case you will find her
quite as attractive, and infinitely less exhausting, over a quiet game
of croquet or spilikins.
But when--or rather if--she attains to the degree of a real golfer; if
she can drive off before a crowd without giggling or blushing, and can
be trusted not to shut her eyes when taking a full swing,--then she is
indeed a pearl of price, for she is now a congenial companion, from the
golfing as well as the other point of view. She is neither childishly
frivolous nor grimly determined. She looks upon golf neither as a
glorified form of croquet nor as woman's one mission in life. Behold her
as she walks across the links to begin her morning round. She calls up
her favourite caddie with a little nod of her head, and gives you a
cheery good-morning when she finds you waiting at the first tee. (A
pretty girl-golfer is about as nearly perfect as a woman can be, but
even that cannot make her punctual.) She is neatly turned out: she has
abandoned kid boots with high heels, and wears trim shoes with plenty of
nails in them. Her head is usually bare, or perhaps she wears a
motor-veil tied under her chin; at any rate, the unstable edifice of
former days no longer flaps in the breeze and obscures her vision. She
is independent too. She does not take the first club the caddie offers:
she chooses her own, and rates the boy for not having cleaned it better.
No longer does she put her ball in her pocket for fear of keeping back
the green; on the contrary, she drives repeatedly (and I am afraid
purposely) into a steady-going foursome in front. It is useless to
remind her of a by-law which says that ladies must invariably give way
to gentlemen and allow them to pass.
"Real gentlemen," she remarks, "would invariably give way to ladies and
allow _them_ to pass." And her iron-shot bumps past the head of an
octogenarian who is trying to hole out a long putt on the distant green.
To look at her now you would never guess that she was once a shrinking
_debutante_, a hewer of turf, and a drawer of water from the eyes of the
green-keeper. Her putting is still erratic, and she is rather helpless
in heavy sand; but, given a clean lie and a fair stance, she will handle
her light clubs to some purpose, and her swing is a "sicht for sair
een." If you are at all off your game she will beat you; therefore it is
advisable to offer her points before beginning the match, not so much
because she needs them as to preserve your masculine self-respect in the
event of a "regrettable incident."
Miss Elsie Innes combined all the virtues of the girl-golfer in her own
graceful young body. Though she had "filled out" considerably since we
last saw her, she was anything but a hobnailed, masculine woman. She was
neither heavily built nor muscular; she looked almost too fragile to
play at all. But she handled her light clubs with a suppleness and
dexterity usually given only to a schoolboy of fourteen, and the length
of her drive was amazing. She was always graceful, always cool, and, as
Pip once noted to himself, "never got either hot or hairy."
After their first meeting at Raven's cottage Pip and Elsie saw each
other constantly. They played a round of golf every day, usually between
tea and dinner, the hour when the ardent male golfer relaxes from his
noonday strenuousness and turns to thoughts of mixed foursomes. Usually
Pip and Elsie played Mr. and Mrs. Raven. Raven was a far better golfer
than Pip, but then Elsie was very much the superior of Mrs. Raven, which
made matters even. Many were the battles that raged between the two
couples. At first victory favoured the married pair. Raven, besides
being a scratch golfer, was a good general, and his unruffled coolness
and unerring advice made the most of his wife's limited powers. Pip and
Elsie, on the other hand, did not "combine" well. Elsie, who (strictly
between ourselves) fancied her golf not a little, insisted on dictating
the line of action to be followed on each occasion, and more than once
told Pip what club to use. Pip, though relatively her inferior, declined
at first to be trampled upon by a female, even a high-spirited goddess
with fair hair and a swing like an archangel. But few men in Pip's
condition argue the point long: after a brief struggle to assert the
predominance of man he subsided completely, and, as he thought, rather
diplomatically. There he was wrong. The sage of antiquity who composed
the uncomplimentary proverb about "a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree"
knew something of life, and the course of Pip's true love might have run
a good deal smoother if he had put down his masculine foot a little more
frequently. However, there is no doubt that after his capitulation their
golfing efforts reached a higher level than before. After a series of
matches extending over a week, each side stood with three games to its
credit, Pip and Elsie just managing to draw level by winning a match on
the last green on Saturday evening.
Sunday golf is not encouraged in Scotland. Consequently next morning
Elsie accompanied her relatives to one of the numerous places of worship
in Port Allan, which ancient township possessed its full complement of
Auld Licht, Established, United, and Wee Free kirks, and other homes of
religious controversy. Pip stayed on the hotel veranda and smoked,
watching them pass but lacking nerve to join them. He summoned up
sufficient courage, however, to put in an appearance at Knocknaha during
the afternoon. He was even more silent than usual, though he made a
hearty tea.
After that meal he invited Elsie to come for a walk with him. She
consented, and they set off together, followed by the amused glances of
Mr. and Mrs. Raven.
It was a glorious August afternoon. The North Sea, blue and placid,
lapped gently against the red cliffs, or ran with a slow hiss up the
slope of yellow sand which bordered the Links of Eric. There was hardly
any wind--just enough, in fact, to keep the air clear; and Pip and
Elsie, as they lounged luxuriously in a hollow at the top of a
sand-hill,--their walk had been strictly limited to a Sabbath day's
journey,--could see the smoke of a steam-trawler on the horizon though
they could not see the ship herself.
"This is nice," murmured Elsie luxuriantly, as she arranged her holland
skirt to cover up as much of her tan boots as possible--her Sunday frock
had found its way back to her wardrobe soon after church. "Sunday really
does feel like a day of rest if one plays golf all the week."
"Talking of golf," said Pip, "you haven't played me yet."
"I've played with you all the week," replied Elsie.
"With me, not against me," said Pip.
"Oh, I see. All right; I'll play with Raven to-morrow against you and
Ethel. We shall beat you horribly, though."
Elsie was in a very perverse mood.
"Yes, but I want a single--a match," explained Pip.
"Oh!" said Elsie.
There was a pause. Pip lit his pipe, which had somehow gone out, and
continued,--
"Shall we say to-morrow morning?"
"Afraid not," said Elsie. "I rather think I promised to play one of the
men in the hotel."
This was not strictly true, but Elsie was in a curious frame of mind
that evening. There was no reason why she should not have played Pip his
match, nor was she particularly averse to doing so. But some flash of
feminine intuition, infallible as ever, was unconsciously keeping her in
the defensive attitude natural to women in such cases.
"Is it Anstruther?" inquired Pip.
"Yes," said Elsie rashly.
"In that case your match is off, for he has had a wire, and must go
to-morrow morning."
"It's not Mr. Anstruther," said Elsie. "I had forgotten he was going
away." (This was strictly true.)
"Is it Gaythorne?" asked Pip.
Elsie regarded him covertly, through conveniently long lashes. She
suspected another trap.
"No," she said at last.
"That's queer," remarked Pip meditatively. "He was saying only last
night that he expected to play you to-morrow morning."
Elsie, who had fallen into the not uncommon error of underrating her
adversary, was for the moment quite flabbergasted by this bold stroke.
Then, quickly noting the joint in her opponent's harness, she interposed
swiftly,--
"Why did you ask me to play with _you_, then?"
"I didn't think you ought to play with him," said Pip coolly. "He's an
utter outsider."
"I shall play with whom I like," said Elsie hotly.
"All right," said Pip; "I'll tell him. What time do you want him to be
down at the tee?"
Elsie, though not inexperienced in the management of young men, fairly
gasped for breath. This slow-speaking, serious youth would, unless she
could speedily extricate herself, either compel her to acknowledge
herself defeated or else force her into an unpremeditated golf-match
with a comparative stranger.
"I--I tell you I don't want to play with Mr. Gaythorne," she said.
"Oh, sorry!" replied Pip; "I thought you said you did. Very well, I'll
tell him not to come, and you can play me instead."
Now, it is obviously unwise to continue to assert to a second party that
you have a previous engagement with a third party when you have not,
especially when your knowledge is shared by the second party. So Elsie
did the only possible thing, and laughed.
"All right, Pip," she said; "I'll play you. Be down at the tee early and
we'll get off before the rush begins. As it is, I shall be driven into
all the time, playing with a duffer!"
Pip, quite unmoved, parried this insult with another.
"Right-o," he said. "What shall I give you--a half?"
Elsie smiled indulgently.
"As a favour," she replied, "and to preserve your masculine pride, I
will play you level. Otherwise----"
Pip interrupted. He was not looking quite so serene as usual, and he
puffed almost nervously at his pipe.
"What shall we play for?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"In a match," he explained, "it is usual to play for some small stake--a
ball, or a bottle of----"
"Nonsense!" said Elsie decidedly.
"Not a bit; it's often done," said Pip. "What shall we play for?"
"We shall play for love."
"Love? Right!"
There was an awkward pause. Technical terms lead one into such pitfalls.
Elsie felt herself beginning to turn pink. Pip, who might have smoothed
the situation over, made it worse by saying,--
"So it's to be a love-match?"
There was no mistaking Elsie's colour now. A blush ran flaming over her
face in a great scarlet wave. But Pip proceeded quite calmly,--
"That's just what I want it to be. I'm glad you said that, though of
course you didn't mean it in that way. You are a good golfer. On your
day you can get round in, say, ninety. I am a rotter. I have only twice
got round under a hundred. If I play you level to-morrow and beat you,
will you--marry me?"
"_Pip!_"
Elsie was sincere enough now. She was genuinely astounded. She knew Pip
for a man of blunt speech and direct methods, but she had hardly been
prepared for this. She merely turned from red to white, and repeated her
astonished cry,--
"_Pip!_"
Pip continued, quite coolly now,--
"Yes, I mean it. I have been in love with you from the first moment I
saw you, the afternoon that I took you to the Blanes' garden-party. You
remember?" The girl nodded gravely. "I was bowled over then, and I've
worshipped you ever since. I suppose you knew that? Women are always
said to know these things. Did you know?"
This was a long speech for Pip, but it drew no answer from Elsie.
"Did you know?" he repeated gently.
Elsie plucked a few bents from the sand around her and began to plait
them with great care.
"Did you know?" asked Pip for the third time.
Elsie answered, without raising her eyes--
"Yes--at least, lately. But you never gave yourself away, Pip."
"I know that. I rather prided myself on it. I should have asked you long
ago, only after the Governor's death I had to--work for a living. It's
only recently I have become a man with money. Besides, I think these
things ought to be kept sacred, just between--between the two, you know.
I haven't a very high opinion of myself, but I do think I can keep a
secret. I wasn't going to have you talked about, even by friends.
However"--he brought his gaze back from the distant horizon with an
effort--"we are wandering from the point. Will you play me a match,
Elsie,--a love-match?"
Elsie raised her eyes for the first time.
"Pip, don't be absurd!"
"Absurd? Not a bit. I think it's a jolly sensible notion. I simply can't
talk the sort of rot that men in love are supposed to talk--it isn't in
me. All I can do is to make you a fair offer like this--a sort of
challenge to single combat, you know. If I win, you give in to me; if
you win, well, I shall have to chuck it, that's all."
"But Pip," said Elsie, "supposing I...."
Then she checked herself suddenly, leaving Pip to wonder what she had
meant to say. He himself could see no flaw in the scheme. His own
natural modesty prevented him from believing that Elsie, glorious
creature, could ever desire to take him of her own free will, and
consequently his simple mind had reverted to the primitive notion,
inherent in most men, of marriage by conquest. His challenge to a
golf-match struck him as an eminently sporting offer.
"I figured it out this way," he went on after a pause. "I said to
myself, 'She will never marry me simply for the asking, of course';
so--what did you say?"
"Nothing." Elsie had suddenly ceased plaiting and parted her lips.
"So," continued Pip, "I said, 'The only way to make her give in will be
to get the better of her in something--to show superiority over her in
some way. It will be no use my trying to persuade her by arguments. I'm
slow of speech, especially with women, and Elsie would simply talk me
downstairs and into the street in about two minutes. A girl like her
won't surrender without a struggle. Quite right too. I shall have to
try something else. It mustn't be too one-sided either way, for if it's
in her favour I shall lose, and if it's in mine she won't accept. It
must be a fair match.'"
And so he continued, simply, honestly, laying bare to her all the mighty
scheme whereby he proposed to overcome her stubborn resistance. He had
first thought, he told her, of a single-wicket cricket-match, but had
abandoned the project as being too greatly in his favour. "You keep a
very straight bat for a girl," he said, "but you can never resist my
slow curly one, that looks as if it were going to pitch outside the off
stump, and doesn't. I know your weaknesses, you see," he added with a
friendly smile.
"Yes, Pip," said Elsie, in a rather subdued tone, "some of them."
Pip then proceeded to enumerate the other tests of skill that had
occurred to him. "I thought of croquet," he said, "but really croquet is
such d--Well, anyhow, I don't think croquet would have done. Billiards
is too fluky. Chess is piffle. There are lots of other games, but you
are so--so weak!" (Elsie's slight frame stiffened indignantly at this.)
"Then I thought of the golf-match, and I saw at once that that was the
ticket. So I packed up my bag and wired for rooms at the hotel here, and
have been waiting for you to arrive ever since the first of August."
There was a pause--a long pause. Elsie was thinking--of what, she hardly
knew. Pip was watching her, anxious to see how she received his great
idea. Presently he continued,--
"Of course the golf-match is all in your favour. The chances are about
three to one on your winning."
Suddenly Elsie flared up with a curious little spirit of anger. Her
mind, highly trained though it was in these matters, could not quite
appreciate Pip's Quixotic consideration for an opponent.
"Pip," she said, "I don't believe you _want_ to win! The whole thing is
simply a joke on your part--your idea of a joke. I don't think it's a
very nice one: you know you can't beat me. If you really want to marry
me you wouldn't--"
"I shall beat you all right," said Pip simply.
"Why?"
"I know I shall, that's all."
"Why?"
"Because I _know_."
A new idea occurred to Elsie.
"You dare to insinuate," she said, "that I would--would purposely let
you--"
"Should I want to marry a girl of that sort?" asked Pip gravely.
Elsie softened again at this genuine compliment, but she still felt
rather doubtful as to whether this extraordinary young man really and
truly believed that she was to be won, and won only, by being beaten in
a golf-match. In any case the situation was becoming difficult. She
began to dust the sand from her skirt and to make other preparations for
departure. Pip regarded her with some concern.
"You're not going yet, are you?" he said.
"Yes. It's getting late."
"Well, will you play me?"
"On those terms?"
"Yes."
"Of course not, Pip. You're not serious."
Pip leaned forward, and put his hand on her arm. She had half risen, but
she now found herself sitting down again, rather astonished and
rebellious, listening to what he was saying.
"Elsie, what is the date to-morrow?"
"I don't know," petulantly. "Girls never know dates."
"I forgot that. Well, it is the fourteenth of August. Do you know what
is going to happen at Old Trafford to-morrow?"
"Why--the Australians! Fancy forgetting a Test Match! That comes of
playing golf all day. But, Pip,"--she stared at him in dismayed
surprise,--"why aren't you there? Surely you were chosen?"
"Yes, I was chosen."
"Then, why aren't you there?"
"Because I'm here."
"But, Pip, you ought to be playing cricket."
"I prefer to play golf."
"But it's a Test Match."
"I'm going to play in a Test Match of my own--here."
Elsie was silent again, and gazed at him, open-eyed. Pip saw that he had
struck the right note.
"I gave up the cricket-match to play with you," he said. "Will you play
with me?"
Elsie was defenceless against this appeal. She knew, better than most
girls, perhaps, what it must cost a man to decline an invitation to play
for England.
"All right, Pip," she said gently, getting up and shaking her skirt,
"I'll play you. Nine o'clock to-morrow morning. I shall beat you,
though," she added.
Pip said nothing. It is always politic to make a virtue of necessity.
That is why one allows a woman the last word.
* * * * *
They were very silent as they walked home in the twilight. Pip, having
achieved the object with which he had set out, had no further remarks to
make. Elsie seemed less at ease, and kept shooting half-amused,
half-angry glances at the obtuse young man beside her. She objected to
being treated as something between a Prehistoric Peep and a Scratch
Medal.
Presently they came to Raven Innes's cottage.
"Are you coming in, Pip?" inquired Elsie as she stood at the door.
"No, thanks. Raven would keep me up all hours, and I'm going to bed
_very_ early. Good-night."
"Pip--" began Elsie rather unsteadily.
Pip turned quickly, and beheld her standing on the step, framed by the
open doorway. The setting sun glinted on her hair, and there was a
curious and unfamiliar note in her voice as she addressed him.
"Pip," she said, "I don't like the idea of this match. It's--it's
contrary to Nature, somehow. Golf wasn't intended to settle such
questions."
Pip made no reply, but gazed upon her. In matters of this kind he was
not very "quick in the uptake," as they say in Scotland. Elsie made a
curious little grimace to herself, and continued--
"Pip, supposing you wanted, _very_ much, to get something that lay
across a stream which looked rather deep, would you make a jump and risk
a ducking, or would you walk miles on the off-chance of finding a
bridge?"
They looked at each other steadily for a minute, while Pip worked out
the answer to this conundrum.
"I should probably jump," he replied,--"that is, if--"
And then at last light seemed to break upon him. The blood surged to his
brain, and he stepped forward impetuously.
"Elsie!" he cried.
But the door was shut.
* * * * *
"Serve him right, too!" you say. Well, perhaps; but lack of presumption
is a rare and not unmanly virtue.