"_NATURAM FURCA EXPELLAS ..._"
ALAS!
When Pip slipped out of bed at six o'clock next morning the window-panes
were blurred and wet, and the Links of Eric were shrouded in driving
sheets of rain.
His pithy and apposite comments on the situation were, had he only known
it, being reproduced (in an expurgated form) by a damsel in a kimono at
a bedroom window not far down the road. Elsie surveyed the rain-washed
links reflectively, and sighed.
"What a pity!" she said to herself. "I would have given him such a
lesson! Now I suppose we shall both waste a day."
With which enigmatical conclusion she crept into bed again.
Pip arrived at Knocknaha after breakfast, but Elsie flatly refused to
stir outside until the rain had ceased. This was no more than her swain
had expected, and he returned resignedly to the hotel, where he passed
an exceedingly unprofitable morning smoking and playing billiards.
After luncheon an ancient mariner in a blue jersey and a high-crowned
bowler hat approached him on the hotel veranda and intimated that the
day was a good one for deep-sea fishing. It was certainly no day for
courting, and Pip, weary in spirit, was fain to accept the implied
invitation.
They walked to the beach together, and began to haul down the old man's
boat. This done, the oars and tackle were put in, and the expedition was
on the point of departure when Pip suddenly realised that it had stopped
raining.
"Hallo!" he said. "Rain over?"
"Aye," remarked the old man; "it will be a grand afternoon yet."
Pip turned upon him suddenly.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Aye."
"Certain?"
"'Deed aye," replied the old gentleman rather testily. "When the top of
yon ben is uncovered like so, and the wind--"
"In that case," remarked his employer suddenly, "I can't come fishing,
I'm afraid. I must go and--do something else. Another day, perhaps."
And handing the scandalised mariner half-a-crown, he departed over the
sand-hills at a rate which would certainly have brought about his
disqualification in any decently conducted walking-race.
An hour later two players approached the first tee. They were Elsie and
Pip.
Now the nerves of both these young people, although neither of them
would have admitted it, were tightly strung up by reason of the present
situation. Each side (as they say in the election reports) was confident
of success, but their reasons for confidence were widely dissimilar. Pip
meant to win, because in his opinion the only way to gain a woman's
affection is to show yourself her master at something. If he had moved
in another class of society he would have subdued his beloved with a
poker or a boot, and she on the whole would have respected him for it:
being a sportsman, he preferred to use a golf-club.
Elsie meant to win for a different reason. To begin with, her spirit
rebelled against the idea of becoming the captive of Pip's bow and
spear. She might or she might not intend to marry him,--that was her own
secret,--but she had not the slightest intention of marrying him because
he beat her at golf. Obviously, the first thing to do was to beat _him_;
then the situation would be in her hands and she could dictate her own
terms. What those terms were to be she had not quite settled. All she
knew was that Pip, if he were to have her at all, should have her as a
favour and not as a right.
Consequently the lust of battle was upon them both; and it was with
undisguised chagrin that they found three couples awaiting their turn at
the first tee. To be kept back through the green is irritating enough
under any circumstances, but when you are engaged in a life-and-death
struggle for the matrimonial stakes, absolute freedom of action is
essential.
Instinctively Pip and Elsie turned and looked at each other in dismay.
Then Pip said--
"Let's tramp out to the turn, and we'll play the last nine holes first.
It will come to the same thing in the end."
Elsie agreed, and they set off together across the links in the
direction of the ninth hole. They had no caddies, for each felt that on
this occasion witnesses were impossible.
Pip, indeed, offered to carry Elsie's clubs as well as his own, but he
was met with a very curt refusal.
"Nonsense! You would always be hammering your own ball a hundred yards
away in a bunker, while I was waiting for my mashie."
The rain had ceased, and a watery sun shone down upon them. There was no
wind, and the conditions for golf were almost perfect. The greens had
become a trifle fiery during the recent drought, and the morning's rain
had stiffened them finely.
Presently they found themselves on the tenth tee.
"You drive first," said Pip.
Elsie began to tee her ball.
"It's the last time you'll have the chance," he continued.
Elsie picked up her ball.
"For that," she remarked, "you shall drive first. I am not going to take
any favours from a duffer."
Pip rose from the tee-box on which he was sitting and took her ball from
her hand. Then he stooped down and teed it carefully.
"Ladies first," he remarked briefly.
Elsie, feeling curiously weak, said no more, but obeyed him. She made a
pretty drive, the ball keeping low, but towering suddenly before it
dropped. It lay, clean and white, in a good lie a hundred and fifty
yards away.
"Good beat!" said Pip appreciatively, and began to address his own ball.
His rigid stance and curious lifting swing were the exact opposite of
Elsie's supple movements, but for all that he outdrove her by nearly a
hundred yards. It was a Cyclopean effort, and the Haskell ball, as it
bounded over the hard ground, which had been little affected by the
rain, looked as if it would never stop.
"Lovely drive!" cried Elsie involuntarily.
"Yes, it was a hefty swipe," admitted Pip. "I get about two of those
each round. The rest average five yards."
The hole was a simple one. A good drive usually left the ball in a nice
lie, whence the green, which was guarded by a bunker, could be reached
with an iron. Pip's ball was lying well up, and only a chip with his
mashie was required to lay him dead. Elsie found herself faced by that
difficulty which confronts all females who essay masculine golf-courses.
Her ball, though well and truly struck, was farther from the hole than
her iron could carry it. A brassie-shot would get her over the bunker,
but would probably overrun the green, which lay immediately beyond;
while anything in the shape of a run-up ball would be trapped. She
decided to risk an iron shot. She did her best, but the distance was too
great for her. The ball dropped into the bunker with a soft thud; she
required two more to get out; and Pip, who had succeeded in clearing the
bunker with his second and running down a long putt, won the hole in an
unnecessarily perfect three.
"One down," said Elsie. "Too good a start, Pip. You'll lose now."
"Well begun is half done," retorted Pip sententiously, but he knew in
his heart that she spoke with some truth.
The next hole was over four hundred yards long, and as such should have
been a moral certainty for Pip. However, his tee-shot travelled exactly
two feet, and his second, played perforce with an iron, not much
farther. Elsie reached the green in three strokes and a pitch, and won
the hole in six.
At the next hole Pip sliced his drive, the ball flying an immense
distance and curling away out of sight to their left. (You must remember
that he was a left-handed player.) Elsie, as usual, drove a picture of a
ball, but just failed to reach the green with her second. Meanwhile Pip,
tramping at large amid the whin-bushes, found his ball in a fairly good
lie, and with a perfectly preposterous cleek-shot, which seemed to Elsie
to travel about a quarter of a mile, lay on the edge of the green. He
holed out in two putts, and won the hole in four to her five.
They were warming to their work, and each was playing a characteristic
game. The next two holes were short ones, across a high ridge of sand
and back again. In each case the green could be reached from the tee.
Pip, who had the honour, buried his ball in the face of the sand-hill,
and as Elsie cleared the summit and lay on the green, he gave up the
hole. Driving back again, Elsie carried the hill. Pip took his cleek
this time, and his ball followed hers straight over the guide-post. When
they reached the green they found the balls lying side by side ten
yards or so from the pin. Pip putted first, and lay dead, six inches
from the hole.
"This is the first half we'll have had," he said, as he stood over the
hole waiting for Elsie to putt.
"Wait a little," said Elsie.
She took the line of her putt with great care, and allowing nicely for
the undulations of the green, just found the hole, and again took the
lead, having won the hole in two to Pip's three.
"Don't talk to me any more about flukes," remarked Pip severely as he
replaced the flag.
"I won't," retorted Elsie, "if you won't talk to me about halves."
Pip made no mistake at the next two holes, the sixth and seventh. Both
were long and straight, and, though Elsie drove as sturdily as ever,
Pip's determined slogging brought him to the green before her each time,
and at the seventh hole he stood one up.
The next hole was uneventful. The course here ran straight along the
edge of the shore, with the sea on their right. Pip, unmindful of the
necessity for straightness, hit out with his usual blind ferocity, and
was rewarded by seeing his comparatively new Haskell fly off in a
determined and ambitious effort to reach the coast of Norway.
"The sea," remarked Elsie calmly, "is out of bounds. You drop another
and lose distance."
With the advantage derived from Pip's mishap, Elsie just won the hole.
The next, the ninth (the eighteenth and last if they had started from
the first tee), a dull and goose-greeny affair, as most home-holes are,
was halved, and the match stood "all square at the turn."
They sat down for a moment on a club-house seat on their way to the
first tee proper, to begin the second half of their round.
"By gum, this is a game!" said Pip, smacking his lips.
"Rather!" said Elsie as heartily.
And, at that, a little chill of silence fell upon them. In the sheer joy
of battle they had almost forgotten the great issues that hung on the
result. They were absolutely alone on the links. The few players who had
ventured out after the rain ceased were well on their way
round--somewhere near the ninth hole, probably; and the green-keeper had
taken advantage of slackness in business to go home to his tea. The sky
was overcast, and promised more rain.
Suddenly Elsie sprang up.
"Come on," she said briskly. "My honour, I think?"
"Yes," replied Pip.
For the tenth time that afternoon Elsie drove the ball far and sure,
straight for the green. Pip's heart smote him. Who was he that his crass
and brutal masculine muscle should be permitted to annul the effects of
Elsie's delicate precision and indomitable pluck?
"Elsie," he said suddenly, "if you don't win this match--you deserve
to!"
Elsie looked up at him. For a moment her heart softened. She felt
inclined to tell him something--that she did not want to win after all,
that the game was his for the asking, that she would surrender
unconditionally. But, even as she wavered, Pip unconsciously settled the
matter by driving his ball just about twice the distance of hers.
Without another word she picked up her clubs and set off to play her
second. But her brassie-shot found a bunker, and as her skill lay in
avoiding difficulties rather than in getting out of them, she soon found
it necessary to give up the hole.
The stars in their courses now began to fight for Pip. His ball from the
next tee, badly topped, ran merrily into a bunker, hopped out, and lay
on fair turf five yards beyond. Upset, perhaps, by this fluke, Elsie for
the first time bungled her tee-shot, sliced her second into a bad lie,
and arrived at the green to find that Pip, who had been playing a kind
of glorified croquet-match against an invisible opponent, with his iron
for a mallet and whin-bushes for hoops, was still a stroke to the good.
She lost the hole.
Pip was now two up, with seven to play. But Elsie's cup was not yet
full. Her next drive was caught most unfairly in an aggressively fresh
rabbit-scrape, which lay right in the fairway to the hole. Pip offered
to allow her to lift it, but she declined. Pip's good luck also
continued, for though he pulled his drive over some sand-hills to the
right, he found his ball lying teed up "on the only blade of grass for
miles," as he explained on reappearing. He reached the green in two,
Elsie taking three, and won the hole.
Three down, and six to play!
There was no question of giving in in Elsie's heart now. She had
hesitated, and was lost, or at any rate committed to a life-and-death
struggle. There can be no graceful concessions when one is three down.
Under such circumstances a virtue is apt to be misconstrued into a
necessity.
The next hole was the longest in the course, and Elsie felt that it was
a gift for Pip. That erratic warrior, however, failed to carry the burn,
distant about fifteen yards from the tee, and was ignominiously
compelled to fish his ball out, drop, and lose a stroke. This gave Elsie
some much-needed encouragement. Her tee-shot took her well on her way,
and the ball lay so clean for her second that she was enabled to take
her driver to it. One more slashing stroke, with her brassie this time,
delivered with all the vigour and elasticity of which her lithe young
body was capable, and she lay only ten yards from the green. Pip,
despite some absolutely heroic work with his beloved cleek, was unable
to overcome the handicap of the burn, and reached the green a stroke
behind her. However, his luck stood by him once more, for he
accomplished a five-yard putt, and halved the hole.
"Good putt!" said Elsie bravely.
"All putts of over three feet," remarked Pip, sententiously quoting one
of his favourite golfing maxims, "are flukes."
Fluke or no fluke, Elsie was three down, with only five to play. Another
hole lost, and Pip would be "dormy." Fortunately the next three holes
were of the short and tricky variety, presenting difficulties more
easily to be overcome by a real golfer than a human battering-ram. Elsie
rose to the occasion. She set her small white teeth, squared her slim
shoulders, and applied herself to the task of reducing Pip's lead. And
she succeeded. The first hole she took in a perfect three, Pip, who had
encountered a whin-bush _en route_, requiring thirteen!
"One thing," he remarked philosophically as he mopped his brow, "I did
the job thoroughly. That whin-bush will never bother anybody again."
The next hole was a real triumph for Elsie. She was weak with her
approach, and arrived on the green in three to Pip's two. Pip played the
like, hit the back of the hole hard, hopped over, and lay a foot
beyond--dead.
"This for a half," said Elsie.
"This" was an exceedingly tricky putt of about eight yards over an
undulating green. She carefully examined the lie of the ground in both
directions, thrust her tongue out of one corner of her mouth--an
unladylike habit which intruded itself at moments of extreme
tension--and played. The ball left her putter sweetly, successfully
negotiated the various hills and dales of the green, and dropped into
the hole.
"Grand putt!" said Pip. "I mustn't miss this of mine."
He humped his shoulders, bent his knees, and addressed the ball with all
the intense elaboration usual in a player suddenly called upon to hole a
ball which, under ordinary circumstances, he would knock in with the
back of his putter. Whether his impossible posture or his recent unequal
encounter with the whin-bush was responsible will never be known, but
the fact remains that he missed the hole by inches, and so lost it by
one stroke.
Elsie stifled the scream of delight that rose to her lips.
"One down, and three to play," she remarked, in a voice that _would_
tremble a little.
She made no mistake with the next hole. For her it was a full drive over
a high bunker on to the green. Pip took his cleek, failed to carry the
bunker, and after one or two abortive attempts to get out of the shifty
sand with his niblick, gave up the hole, Elsie's drive having laid her a
few yards from the pin.
"All square," announced Elsie. "Two to play."
"My word, Elsie, this is a match!" repeated Pip.
Elsie replied by an ecstatic sigh.
Both had entirely forgotten the stake for which they were playing. For
the moment they were golfers pure and simple. They were no longer human
beings, much less male and female, less still lover and lass. The whole
soul of each was set on defeating the other.
But there are deeper passions than golf.
"_Naturam furca expellas, tamen usque recurret!_"
--which, being interpreted, means roughly that if a man and a maid set
out to dislodge Human Nature from their systems with, say, a niblick,
Human Nature will inevitably come home to roost. All of which is cold
truth, as the event proved.
Both gave an exceedingly moderate exhibition at the seventeenth tee, Pip
because he not infrequently did so, and Elsie because her nerve was
going. Their second shots were better, though Pip as usual got farther
with his cleek than Elsie with her brassie. Elsie therefore had to play
the odd in approaching the green. This time she did herself justice. It
was a perfect shot. The ball rose quickly, fell plump upon the green,
checked itself with a little back-spin, and staggered uncertainly
towards the hole. Finally it stopped, eighteen inches beyond the pin.
Elsie heaved a sigh of the most profound relief. In all human
probability she was sure of a "half" now, and unless Pip laid his
approach dead she would win the hole outright, and so make the match
safe, safe, safe! She involuntarily clasped her hands together over her
beating heart.
Pip, impassive as ever, said nothing, but took his mashie and succeeded
in reaching the green. Since his ball lay a good ten yards short, his
chances of a half looked meagre, but he grasped his putter with
determination and "went for" the hole. The ball rolled smoothly over the
green, but suddenly turned off a little and just rolled past the lip of
the hole.
"Bad luck!" said Elsie, with ready sympathy.
Bad luck indeed, but not for Pip. The ball, as she spoke, suddenly
slowed down and stopped dead, midway, to a hair's-breadth, between the
ball and the hole. Elsie required only a short putt to win the hole and
make herself "dormy," and Pip had laid her a dead stymie.
Involuntarily they looked at each other. Then Pip said quickly,--
"I'll pick up my ball while you putt. We aren't having any stymies in
this match, of course."
All the sportswoman in Elsie revolted at this. "No, Pip," she said;
"certainly not. We arranged nothing about stymies before we started, so
stymies must stand. I must just play it."
She took her mashie, and made a gallant but unsuccessful effort to jump
her ball over Pip's. Each holed the next putt, and the match remained
square--with one to play. Ye gods!
They were very silent as they prepared to drive off for the last time.
Absolutely alone, far out on the course, they were now approaching what
was properly "the turn," more than a mile from the clubhouse.
"I shall put down a new ball here," said Pip, "just for luck."
"So shall I," said Elsie.
"We mustn't mix them on the green, then. What is yours?"
"A 'Haskell.'"
"Right. Mine's a 'Springvale Kite.'"
Elsie had the honour, and drove as good a ball as any that afternoon.
Pip, determined to take as few risks as possible, used his cleek, and
lay just beside her.
The ninth hole on the Links of Eric is known as "The Crater." The green
lies in a curious hollow on the top of a conical hill. An average drive
leaves your ball at the hill-foot in a good lie. After this only one
stroke is of the slightest use. You take your farthest-laid-back mashie,
commend your soul to Providence, and smite. The ball, if struck as
desired, will rise up, tower, and drop into the basin at the top of the
hill. Should you play too strongly you will fly over the oasis of green
turf and fall into a howling wilderness of bents, sand, and whins on the
far side; should you play short, your ball will bury itself in the
slopes of shifting sand that guard the approach, and your doom is
sealed. It is credibly reported that all four players in a four-ball
match--scratch men, every one--once arrived upon the Crater green, ball
in hand, each having given up the struggle under the despairing
impression that no opponent could possibly have played more strokes than
himself.
On paper, this was just the sort of hole that Elsie should have won from
Pip. But in practice the conditions were even. Pip's Herculean wrists
made it possible for him to force the ball up to the necessary height
with a half-mashie-shot, but for Elsie the task involved a full
swing--and to keep your ball under absolute control in such
circumstances is about the most difficult shot in golf. Pip's
approaching was at its worst unspeakable, but on this occasion he was at
his best. The ball sailed grandly into the air and dropped in a
reassuringly perpendicular fashion into the Crater. Elsie's effort was
almost as good, though her ball curled slightly to the left before
dropping.
They tramped up the long flight of wooden steps which facilitated the
ascent to the summit with bated breath. A glance at the green would
decide the match.
Elsie reached the top first. Pip heard her give a little gasp.
One ball, new, white, and glistening, lay on the green ten or twelve
yards from the hole. The other was nowhere to be seen.
"Whose ball, I wonder?" said Pip calmly.
They stooped together and examined the ball as it lay on the green. So
close were they that Pip was conscious of a flutter that passed through
Elsie's body.
The ball was a "Springvale Kite."
Pip maintained an absolutely unmoved countenance. The ball was his, and
so, unless a miracle intervened, was the hole. And the match.
And--Elsie!
But that mysterious quality which, for want of a better name, we call
"sportsmanship," under whose benign influence we learn to win with
equanimity and lose with cheerfulness, prevented him from so much as
turning an eye upon his beaten opponent. He merely remarked briskly--
"We must find your pill, Elsie. It can't be far off."
Elsie made no reply, but took her niblick and began to search rather
perfunctorily for the lost ball. She could not speak: the strain of the
match had told upon her. After all she was a woman, and a girl at that.
Pip's iron immobility made her feel worse. She was beginning to realise
that he was stronger than she was--a state of affairs which had never
appeared possible to her before. She wanted to cry. She wanted to
scream. She wanted to go home. She wanted to beat Pip, and now that feat
appeared to be impossible. Half an hour ago she could have abandoned the
match with good grace. She might have surrendered with all the honours
of war. Now she would be dragged home at the wheels of Pip's chariot.
Meanwhile her opponent, that tender-hearted and unconscious ogre, was
diligently poking about among the bents and whins for the missing
Haskell. He was genuinely distressed that the match should end thus.
Elsie had had cruel luck. She should have won the last hole, and at any
rate halved this one. He took no pleasure in his prospective victory. He
had wild thoughts of offering to play the hole again, but dismissed them
at once. Elsie might be only a girl, but she had the right instincts,
and would very properly regard such an offer as an insult. If only her
ball could be found, though, Pip flattered himself that he could go on
missing putts after Elsie had reached the green until she had pulled the
match out of the fire. Happy thought! he would so manipulate the game as
to halve the hole and the match. Then Box _and_ Cox would be satisfied.
Beat Elsie, plucky little Elsie? Perish the thought! Pip's sentimental
heart overflowed. What a game she had played!
But, sentiment or no sentiment, a lost ball is a lost hole, and unless
the ball could be found Pip would be a victor _malgre lui_.
Coming round the face of the hill, Pip suddenly found himself a few
yards from Elsie. She stood with her back to him, unaware of his
presence. What was she doing? Certainly not looking for her ball. Was
she--could she--really--was Elsie, the proud, the scornful, the
unbending, actually cr--? Certainly that flimsy article in her hand
looked like a handkerchief. Perhaps it was only a fly in her eye, or
something.
No. Pip watched Elsie for a moment longer. It was _not_ a fly in her
eye. His heart, already liquescent, melted entirely. He tiptoed away
back to the green.
Once there, he took three balls from his pocket and examined them. One
was an old and battered "guttie," the others were "Kites," with Pip's
trade-mark indelibly stamped upon their long-suffering skins. None of
these were suitable for his fell purpose. Nothing daunted, the
conspirator stole across to Elsie's bag, which lay on the edge of the
green, and selected from the pocket a new Haskell. Carefully fastening
up the pocket again, he walked to the middle of the green, and after a
furtive glance all round him--dropped the ball into the hole.
Then he uplifted his voice in a full-throated yell, and hurried towards
the spot where he had last seen Elsie. As he emerged from the hollow
green he met her face to face, coming slowly up to the ridge. Her cheeks
were rather flushed and her eyes shone, but her handkerchief was
resolutely tucked away in her blouse, and she greeted Pip with a ready
smile.
"Elsie," said Pip excitedly, "I've found your ball."
"My ball? Nonsense! Why, I've--"
She checked herself suddenly and followed Pip. That well-meaning but
misguided philanthropist, heedless of the danger-signals in Elsie's
eyes, walked to the hole, and there, rather with the air of an amateur
conjurer who is not quite certain whether his audience know "how it's
done" or not, picked out the ball.
"There's your ball," he said. "Good hole, in two! Congratters!"
He handed her the ball with a clumsy gesture of good-will.
Elsie regarded the unoffending Haskell in a dazed manner for a moment,
turned white and then red, and finally looked Pip squarely in the face
without speaking. Then she flung the ball down upon the green, turned on
her heel with a passionate whirl of her skirt, and stalked off, leaving
Pip staring dejectedly after her.