9
_The Rough Stuff_
Into the basking warmth of the day there had crept, with the approachof evening, that heartening crispness which heralds the advent ofautumn. Already, in the valley by the ninth tee, some of the trees hadbegun to try on strange colours, in tentative experiment against thecoming of nature's annual fancy dress ball, when the soberest treecasts off its workaday suit of green and plunges into a riot of redsand yellows. On the terrace in front of the club-house an occasionalwithered leaf fluttered down on the table where the Oldest Member sat,sipping a thoughtful seltzer and lemon and listening with courteousgravity to a young man in a sweater and golf breeches who occupied theneighbouring chair.
"She is a dear girl," said the young man a little moodily, "a dear girlin every respect. But somehow--I don't know--when I see her playinggolf I can't help thinking that woman's place is in the home."
The Oldest Member inclined his frosted head.
"You think," he said, "that lovely woman loses in queenly dignity whenshe fails to slam the ball squarely on the meat?"
"I don't mind her missing the pill," said the young man. "But I thinkher attitude toward the game is too light-hearted."
"Perhaps it cloaks a deeper feeling. One of the noblest women I everknew used to laugh merrily when she foozled a short putt. It was onlylater, when I learned that in the privacy of her home she would weepbitterly and bite holes in the sofa cushions, that I realized that shedid but wear the mask. Continue to encourage your _fiancee_ toplay the game, my boy. Much happiness will reward you. I could tell youa story----"
A young woman of singular beauty and rather statuesque appearance cameout of the club-house carrying a baby swaddled in flannel. As she drewnear the table she said to the baby:
"Chicketty wicketty wicketty wipsey pop!"
In other respects her intelligence appeared to be above the ordinary.
"Isn't he a darling!" she said, addressing the Oldest Member.
The Sage cast a meditative eye upon the infant. Except to the eye oflove, it looked like a skinned poached egg.
"Unquestionably so," he replied.
"Don't you think he looks more like his father every day?"
For a brief instant the Oldest Member seemed to hesitate.
"Assuredly!" he said. "Is your husband out on the links today?"
"Not today. He had to see Wilberforce off on the train to Scotland."
"Your brother is going to Scotland?"
"Yes. Ramsden has such a high opinion of the schools up there. I didsay that Scotland was a long way off, and he said yes, that hadoccurred to him, but that we must make sacrifices for Willie's good. Hewas very brave and cheerful about it. Well, I mustn't stay. There'squite a nip in the air, and Rammikins will get a nasty cold in hisprecious little button of a nose if I don't walk him about. Say'Bye-bye' to the gentleman, Rammy!"
The Oldest Member watched her go thoughtfully.
"There is a nip in the air," he said, "and, unlike our lateacquaintance in the flannel, I am not in my first youth. Come with me,I want to show you something."
He led the way into the club-house, and paused before the wall of thesmoking-room. This was decorated from top to bottom with boldcaricatures of members of the club.
"These," he said, "are the work of a young newspaper artist who belongshere. A clever fellow. He has caught the expressions of these menwonderfully. His only failure, indeed, is that picture of myself." Heregarded it with distaste, and a touch of asperity crept into hismanner. "I don't know why the committee lets it stay there," he said,irritably. "It isn't a bit like." He recovered himself. "But all theothers are excellent, excellent, though I believe many of the subjectsare under the erroneous impression that they bear no resemblance to theoriginals. Here is the picture I wished to show you. That is RamsdenWaters, the husband of the lady who has just left us."
The portrait which he indicated was that of a man in the earlythirties. Pale saffron hair surmounted a receding forehead. Pale blueeyes looked out over a mouth which wore a pale, weak smile, from thecentre of which protruded two teeth of a rabbit-like character.
"Golly! What a map!" exclaimed the young man at his side.
"Precisely!" said the Oldest Member. "You now understand my momentaryhesitation in agreeing with Mrs. Waters that the baby was like itsfather. I was torn by conflicting emotions. On the one hand, politenessdemanded that I confirm any statement made by a lady. Common humanity,on the other hand, made it repugnant to me to knock an innocent child.Yes, that is Ramsden Waters. Sit down and take the weight off yourfeet, and I will tell you about him. The story illustrates a favouritetheory of mine, that it is an excellent thing that women should beencouraged to take up golf. There are, I admit, certain drawbacksattendant on their presence on the links. I shall not readily forgetthe occasion on which a low, raking drive of mine at the eleventhstruck the ladies' tee box squarely and came back and stunned mycaddie, causing me to lose stroke and distance. Nevertheless, I holdthat the advantages outnumber the drawbacks. Golf humanizes women,humbles their haughty natures, tends, in short, to knock out of theirsystems a certain modicum of that superciliousness, that swank, whichmakes wooing a tough proposition for the diffident male. You may havefound this yourself?"
"Well, as a matter of fact," admitted the young man, "now I come tothink of it I have noticed that Genevieve has shown me a bit morerespect since she took up the game. When I drive 230 yards after shehad taken six sloshes to cover fifty, I sometimes think that a newlight comes into her eyes."
"Exactly," said the Sage.
* * * * *
From earliest youth (said the Oldest Member) Ramsden Waters had alwaysbeen of a shrinking nature. He seemed permanently scared. Possibly hisnurse had frightened him with tales of horror in his babyhood. If so,she must have been the Edgar Allan Poe of her sex, for, by the time hereached men's estate, Ramsden Waters had about as much ferocity andself-assertion as a blanc mange. Even with other men he was noticeablytimid, and with women he comported himself in a manner that rousedtheir immediate scorn and antagonism. He was one of those men who fallover their feet and start apologizing for themselves the moment theysee a woman. His idea of conversing with a girl was to perspire and tiehimself into knots, making the while a strange gurgling sound like thelanguage of some primitive tribe. If ever a remark of any coherenceemerged from his tangled vocal cords it dealt with the weather, and heimmediately apologized and qualified it. To such a man women aremerciless, and it speedily became an article of faith with the femininepopulation of this locality that Ramsden Waters was an unfortunateincident and did not belong. Finally, after struggling for a time tokeep up a connection in social circles, he gave it up and became a sortof hermit.
I think that caricature I just showed you weighed rather heavily on thepoor fellow. Just as he was nerving himself to make another attempt toenter society, he would catch sight of it and say to himself, "Whathope is there for a man with a face like that?" These caricaturists aretoo ready to wound people simply in order to raise a laugh. PersonallyI am broad-minded enough to smile at that portrait of myself. It hasgiven me great enjoyment, though why the committee permits it to--Butthen, of course, it isn't a bit like, whereas that of Ramsden Watersnot only gave the man's exact appearance, very little exaggerated, butlaid bare his very soul. That portrait is the portrait of a chump, andsuch Ramsden Waters undeniably was.
By the end of the first year in the neighbourhood, Ramsden, as I say,had become practically a hermit. He lived all by himself in a housenear the fifteenth green, seeing nobody, going nowhere. His only solacewas golf. His late father had given him an excellent education, and,even as early as his seventeenth year, I believe, he was going rounddifficult courses in par. Yet even this admirable gift, which mighthave done him social service, was rendered negligible by the fact thathe was too shy and shrinking to play often with other men. As a rule,he confined himself to golfing by himself in the mornings and lateevenings when the links were more
or less deserted. Yes, in histwenty-ninth year, Ramsden Waters had sunk to the depth of becoming asecret golfer.
One lovely morning in summer, a scented morning of green and blue andgold, when the birds sang in the trees and the air had that limpidclearness which makes the first hole look about 100 yards long insteadof 345, Ramsden Waters, alone as ever, stood on the first teeaddressing his ball. For a space he waggled masterfully, then, drawinghis club back with a crisp swish, brought it down. And, as he did so, avoice behind him cried:
"Bing!"
Ramsden's driver wabbled at the last moment. The ball flopped weaklyamong the trees on the right of the course. Ramsden turned to perceive,standing close beside him, a small fat boy in a sailor suit. There wasa pause.
"Rotten!" said the boy austerely.
Ramsden gulped. And then suddenly he saw that the boy was not alone.About a medium approach-putt distance, moving gracefully and languidlytowards him, was a girl of such pronounced beauty that Ramsden Waters'sheart looped the loop twice in rapid succession. It was the first timethat he had seen Eunice Bray, and, like most men who saw her for thefirst time, he experienced the sensations of one in an express lift atthe tenth floor going down who has left the majority of his internalorgans up on the twenty-second. He felt a dazed emptiness. The worldswam before his eyes.
You yourself saw Eunice just now: and, though you are in a senseimmune, being engaged to a charming girl of your own, I noticed thatyou unconsciously braced yourself up and tried to look twice ashandsome as nature ever intended you to. You smirked and, if you had amoustache, you would have twiddled it. You can imagine, then, theeffect which this vision of loveliness had on lonely, diffident RamsdenWaters. It got right in amongst him.
"I'm afraid my little brother spoiled your stroke," said Eunice. Shedid not speak at all apologetically, but rather as a goddess might havespoken to a swineherd.
Ramsden yammered noiselessly. As always in the presence of the oppositesex, and more than ever now, his vocal cords appeared to have tiedthemselves in a knot which would have baffled a sailor and might haveperplexed Houdini. He could not even gargle.
"He is very fond of watching golf," said the girl.
She took the boy by the hand, and was about to lead him off, whenRamsden miraculously recovered speech.
"Would he like to come round with me?" he croaked. How he had managedto acquire the nerve to make the suggestion he could never understand.I suppose that in certain supreme moments a sort of desperaterecklessness descends on nervous men.
"How very kind of you!" said the girl indifferently. "But I'm afraid----"
"I want to go!" shrilled the boy. "I want to go!"
Fond as Eunice Bray was of her little brother, I imagine that theprospect of having him taken off her hands on a fine summer morning,when all nature urged her to sit in the shade on the terrace and read abook, was not unwelcome.
"It would be very kind of you if you would let him," said Eunice. "Hewasn't able to go to the circus last week, and it was a greatdisappointment; this will do instead."
She turned toward the terrace, and Ramsden, his head buzzing, totteredinto the jungle to find his ball, followed by the boy.
I have never been able to extract full particulars of that morning'sround from Ramsden. If you speak of it to him, he will wince and changethe subject. Yet he seems to have had the presence of mind to pumpWilberforce as to the details of his home life, and by the end of theround he had learned that Eunice and her brother had just come to visitan aunt who lived in the neighbourhood. Their house was not far fromthe links; Eunice was not engaged to be married; and the aunt made ahobby of collecting dry seaweed, which she pressed and pasted in analbum. One sometimes thinks that aunts live entirely for pleasure.
At the end of the round Ramsden staggered on to the terrace, trippingover his feet, and handed Wilberforce back in good condition. Eunice,who had just reached the chapter where the hero decides to give up allfor love, thanked him perfunctorily without looking up from her book;and so ended the first spasm of Ramsden Waters's life romance.
* * * * *
There are few things more tragic than the desire of the moth for thestar; and it is a curious fact that the spectacle of a star almostinvariably fills the most sensible moth with thoughts above hisstation. No doubt, if Ramsden Waters had stuck around and waited longenough there might have come his way in the fullness of time some nice,homely girl with a squint and a good disposition who would have beenabout his form. In his modest day dreams he had aspired to nothinghigher. But the sight of Eunice Bray seemed to have knocked all thesense out of the man. He must have known that he stood no chance ofbecoming anything to her other than a handy means of getting rid oflittle Wilberforce now and again. Why, the very instant that Euniceappeared in the place, every eligible bachelor for miles around hertossed his head with a loud, snorting sound, and galloped madly in herdirection. Dashing young devils they were, handsome, well-knit fellowswith the figures of Greek gods and the faces of movie heroes. Any oneof them could have named his own price from the advertisers of collars.They were the sort of young men you see standing grandly beside thefull-page picture of the seven-seater Magnifico car in the magazines.And it was against this field that Ramsden Waters, the man with theunshuffled face, dared to pit his feeble personality. One weeps.
Something of the magnitude of the task he had undertaken must have comehome to Ramsden at a very early point in the proceedings. At Eunice'shome, at the hour when women receive callers, he was from the start amere unconsidered unit in the mob scene. While his rivals clusteredthickly about the girl, he was invariably somewhere on the outskirtslistening limply to the aunt. I imagine that seldom has any young manhad such golden opportunities of learning all about dried seaweed.Indeed, by the end of the month Ramsden Waters could not have knownmore about seaweed if he had been a deep sea fish. And yet he was nothappy. He was in a position, if he had been at a dinner party andthings had got a bit slow, to have held the table spellbound with thefirst hand information about dried seaweed, straight from the stable;yet nevertheless he chafed. His soul writhed and sickened within him.He lost weight and went right off his approach shots. I confess that myheart bled for the man.
His only consolation was that nobody else, not even the fellows whoworked their way right through the jam and got seats in the front rowwhere they could glare into her eyes and hang on her lips and all thatsort of thing, seemed to be making any better progress.
And so matters went on till one day Eunice decided to take up golf. Hermotive for doing this was, I believe, simply because Kitty Manders, whohad won a small silver cup at a monthly handicap, receiving thirty-six,was always dragging the conversation round to this trophy, and if therewas one firm article in Eunice Bray's simple creed it was that shewould be hanged if she let Kitty, who was by way of being a rival on asmall scale, put anything over on her. I do not defend Eunice, butwomen are women, and I doubt if any of them really take up golf in thatholy, quest-of-the-grail spirit which animates men. I have known girlsto become golfers as an excuse for wearing pink jumpers, and one atleast who did it because she had read in the beauty hints in theevening paper that it made you lissome. Girls will be girls.
Her first lessons Eunice received from the professional, but after thatshe saved money by distributing herself among her hordes of admirers,who were only too willing to give up good matches to devote themselvesto her tuition. By degrees she acquired a fair skill and a confidencein her game which was not altogether borne out by results. From RamsdenWaters she did not demand a lesson. For one thing it never occurred toher that so poor-spirited a man could be of any use at the game, andfor another Ramsden was always busy tooling round with littleWilberforce.
Yet it was with Ramsden that she was paired in the first competitionfor which she entered, the annual mixed foursomes. And it was on thesame evening that the list of the draw went up on the notice board thatRamsden proposed.
The mind of a man in love works in
strange ways. To you and to me therewould seem to be no reason why the fact that Eunice's name and his ownhad been drawn out of a hat together should so impress Ramsden, but helooked on it as an act of God. It seemed to him to draw them closetogether, to set up a sort of spiritual affinity. In a word, it actedon the poor fellow like a tonic, and that very night he went around toher house, and having, after a long and extremely interestingconversation with her aunt, contrived to get her alone, coughed eleventimes in a strangled sort of way, and suggested that the wedding bellsshould ring out.
Eunice was more startled than angry.
"Of course, I'm tremendously complimented, Mr.----" She had to pause torecall the name. "Mr.----"
"Waters," said Ramsden, humbly.
"Of course, yes. Mr. Waters. As I say, it's a great compliment----"
"Not at all!"
"A great compliment----"
"No, no!" murmured Ramsden obsequiously.
"I wish you wouldn't interrupt!" snapped Eunice with irritation. Nogirl likes to have to keep going back and trying over her speeches."It's a great compliment, but it is quite impossible."
"Just as you say, of course," agreed Ramsden.
"What," demanded Eunice, "have you to offer me? I don't mean money. Imean something more spiritual. What is there in you, Mr. Walter----"
"Waters."
"Mr. Waters. What is there in you that would repay a girl for giving upthe priceless boon of freedom?"
"I know a lot about dried seaweed," suggested Ramsden hopefully.
Eunice shook her head.
"No," she said, "it is quite impossible. You have paid me the greatestcompliment a man can pay a woman, Mr. Waterson----"
"Waters," said Ramsden. "I'll write it down for you."
"Please don't trouble. I am afraid we shall never meet again----"
"But we are partners in the mixed foursomes tomorrow."
"Oh, yes, so we are!" said Eunice. "Well, mind you play up. I want towin a cup more than anything on earth."
"Ah!" said Ramsden, "if only I could win what I want to win more thananything else on earth! You, I mean," he added, to make his meaningclear. "If I could win you----" His tongue tied itself in a bow knotround his uvula, and he could say no more. He moved slowly to the door,paused with his fingers on the handle for one last look over hisshoulder, and walked silently into the cupboard where Eunice's auntkept her collection of dried seaweed.
His second start was favoured with greater luck, and he found himselfout in the hall, and presently in the cool air of the night, with thestars shining down on him. Had those silent stars ever shone down on amore broken-hearted man? Had the cool air of the night ever fanned amore fevered brow? Ah, yes! Or, rather, ah no!
There was not a very large entry for the mixed foursomes competition.In my experience there seldom is. Men are as a rule idealists, and wishto keep their illusions regarding women intact, and it is difficult forthe most broad-minded man to preserve a chivalrous veneration for thesex after a woman has repeatedly sliced into the rough and left him adifficult recovery. Women, too--I am not speaking of the occasionalchampions, but of the average woman, the one with the handicap of 33,who plays in high-heeled shoes--are apt to giggle when they foozle outof a perfect lie, and this makes for misogyny. Only eight couplesassembled on the tenth tee (where our foursomes matches start) on themorning after Ramsden Waters had proposed to Eunice. Six of these werenegligible, consisting of males of average skill and young women whoplayed golf because it kept them out in the fresh air. Looking over thefield, Ramsden felt that the only serious rivalry was to be feared fromMarcella Bingley and her colleague, a 16-handicap youth named GeorgePerkins, with whom they were paired for the opening round. George was apretty indifferent performer, but Marcella, a weather-beaten femalewith bobbed hair and the wrists of a welterweight pugilist, had onceappeared in the women's open championship and swung a nasty iron.
Ramsden watched her drive a nice, clean shot down the middle of thefairway, and spoke earnestly to Eunice. His heart was in thiscompetition, for, though the first prize in the mixed foursomes doesnot perhaps entitle the winners to a place in the hall of fame, Ramsdenhad the soul of the true golfer. And the true golfer wants to winwhenever he starts, whether he is playing in a friendly round or in theopen championship.
"What we've got to do is to play steadily," he said. "Don't try anyfancy shots. Go for safety. Miss Bingley is a tough proposition, butGeorge Perkins is sure to foozle a few, and if we play safe we've got'em cold. The others don't count."
You notice something odd about this speech. Something in it strikes youas curious. Precisely. It affected Eunice Bray in the same fashion. Inthe first place, it contains forty-four words, some of them of twosyllables, others of even greater length. In the second place, it wasspoken crisply, almost commandingly, without any of that hesitation andstammering which usually characterized Ramsden Waters's utterances.Eunice was puzzled. She was also faintly resentful. True, there was nota word in what he had said that was calculated to bring the blush ofshame to the cheek of modesty; nevertheless, she felt vaguely thatRamsden Waters had exceeded the limits. She had been prepared for agurgling Ramsden Waters, a Ramsden Waters who fell over his large feetand perspired; but here was a Ramsden Waters who addressed her notmerely as an equal, but with more than a touch of superiority. She eyedhim coldly, but he had turned to speak to little Wilberforce, who wasto accompany them on the round.
"And you, my lad," said Ramsden curtly, "you kindly remember that thisis a competition, and keep your merry flow of conversation as much aspossible to yourself. You've got a bad habit of breaking into smalltalk when a man's addressing the ball."
"If you think that my brother will be in the way----" began Eunicecoldly.
"Oh, I don't mind him coming round," said Ramsden, "if he keeps quiet."
Eunice gasped. She had not played enough golf to understand how thatnoblest of games changes a man's whole nature when on the links. Shewas thinking of something crushing to say to him, when he advanced tothe tee to drive off.
He drove a perfect ball, hard and low with a lot of roll. Even Eunicewas impressed.
"Good shot, partner!" she said.
Ramsden was apparently unaware that she had spoken. He was gazing downthe fairway with his club over his left shoulder in an attitude almostidentical with that of Sandy McBean in the plate labelled "TheDrive--Correct Finish", to face page twenty-four of his monumentalwork, "How to Become a Scratch Player Your First Season by StudyingPhotographs". Eunice bit her lip. She was piqued. She felt as if shehad patted the head of a pet lamb, and the lamb had turned and bittenher in the finger.
"I said, 'Good shot, partner!'" she repeated coldly.
"Yes," said Ramsden, "but don't talk. It prevents one concentrating."He turned to Wilberforce. "And don't let me have to tell you thatagain!" he said.
"Wilberforce has been like a mouse!"
"That is what I complain of," said Ramsden. "Mice make a beastlyscratching sound, and that's what he was doing when I drove that ball."
"He was only playing with the sand in the tee box."
"Well, if he does it again, I shall be reluctantly compelled to takesteps."
They walked in silence to where the ball had stopped. It was nicelyperched up on the grass, and to have plunked it on to the green with aniron should have been for any reasonable golfer the work of a moment.Eunice, however, only succeeded in slicing it feebly into the rough.
Ramsden reached for his niblick and plunged into the bushes. And,presently, as if it had been shot up by some convulsion of nature, theball, accompanied on the early stages of its journey by about a poundof mixed mud, grass, and pebbles, soared through the air and fell onthe green. But the mischief had been done. Miss Bingley, puttingforcefully, put the opposition ball down for a four and won the hole.
Eunice now began to play better, and, as Ramsden was on the top of hisgame, a ding-dong race ensued for the remainder of the first nineholes. The Bingley-Perkins combination, owing to
some inspired work bythe female of the species, managed to keep their lead up to the trickyravine hole, but there George Perkins, as might have been expected ofhim, deposited the ball right in among the rocks, and Ramsden andEunice drew level. The next four holes were halved and they reached theclub-house with no advantage to either side. Here there was a pausewhile Miss Bingley went to the professional's shop to have a tack putinto the leather of her mashie, which had worked loose. George Perkinsand little Wilberforce, who believed in keeping up their strength,melted silently away in the direction of the refreshment bar, andRamsden and Eunice were alone.
* * * * *
The pique which Eunice had felt at the beginning of the game hadvanished by now. She was feeling extremely pleased with her performanceon the last few holes, and would have been glad to go into the matterfully. Also, she was conscious of a feeling not perhaps of respect somuch as condescending tolerance towards Ramsden. He might be a prettyminus quantity in a drawing-room or at a dance, but in a bunker or outin the open with a cleek, Eunice felt, you'd be surprised. She was justabout to address him in a spirit of kindliness, when he spoke.
"Better keep your brassey in the bag on the next nine," he said. "Stickto the iron. The great thing is to keep 'em straight!"
Eunice gasped. Indeed, had she been of a less remarkable beauty onewould have said that she snorted. The sky turned black, and all heramiability was swept away in a flood of fury. The blood left her faceand surged back in a rush of crimson. You are engaged to be married andI take it that there exists between you and your _fiancee_ theutmost love and trust and understanding; but would you have the nerve,could you summon up the cold, callous gall to tell your Genevieve thatshe wasn't capable of using her wooden clubs? I think not. Yet this waswhat Ramsden Waters had told Eunice, and the delicately nurtured girlstaggered before the coarse insult. Her refined, sensitive nature wasall churned up.
Ever since she had made her first drive at golf, she had prided herselfon her use of the wood. Her brother and her brassey were the onlythings she loved. And here was this man deliberately.... Eunice choked.
"Mr. Waters!"
Before they could have further speech George Perkins and littleWilberforce ambled in a bloated way out of the clubhouse.
"I've had three ginger ales," observed the boy. "Where do we go fromhere?"
"Our honour," said Ramsden. "Shoot!"
Eunice took out her driver without a word. Her little figure was tensewith emotion. She swung vigorously, and pulled the ball far out on tothe fairway of the ninth hole.
"Even off the tee," said Ramsden, "you had better use an iron. You mustkeep 'em straight."
Their eyes met. Hers were glittering with the fury of a woman scorned.His were cold and hard. And, suddenly, as she looked at his awful,pale, set golf face, something seemed to snap in Eunice. A strangesensation of weakness and humility swept over her. So might the cavewoman have felt when, with her back against a cliff and unable tododge, she watched her suitor take his club in the interlocking grip,and, after a preliminary waggle, start his back swing.
The fact was that, all her life, Eunice had been accustomed to thehomage of men. From the time she had put her hair up every man she hadmet had grovelled before her, and she had acquired a mental attitudetoward the other sex which was a blend of indifference and contempt.For the cringing specimens who curled up and died all over thehearthrug if she spoke a cold word to them she had nothing but scorn.She dreamed wistfully of those brusque cavemen of whom she read in thenovels which she took out of the village circulating library. Thefemale novelist who was at that time her favourite always supplied witheach chunk of wholesome and invigorating fiction one beetle-browed herowith a grouch and a scowl, who rode wild horses over the countrysidetill they foamed at the mouth, and treated women like dirt. That,Eunice had thought yearningly, as she talked to youths whose spinesturned to gelatine at one glance from her bright eyes, was the sort ofman she wanted to meet and never seemed to come across.
Of all the men whose acquaintance she had made recently she haddespised Ramsden Waters most. Where others had grovelled he had tiedhimself into knots. Where others had gazed at her like sheep he hadgoggled at her like a kicked spaniel. She had only permitted him tohang round because he seemed so fond of little Wilberforce. And here hewas, ordering her about and piercing her with gimlet eyes, for all theworld as if he were Claude Delamere, in the thirty-second chapter of"The Man of Chilled Steel", the one where Claude drags Lady Matildaaround the smoking-room by her hair because she gave the rose from herbouquet to the Italian count.
She was half-cowed, half-resentful.
"Mr Winklethorpe told me I was very good with the wooden clubs," shesaid defiantly.
"He's a great kidder," said Ramsden.
He went down the hill to where his ball lay. Eunice proceeded directfor the green. Much as she told herself that she hated this man, shenever questioned his ability to get there with his next shot.
George Perkins, who had long since forfeited any confidence which hispartner might have reposed in him, had topped his drive, leaving MissBingley a difficult second out of a sandy ditch. The hole was halved.
The match went on. Ramsden won the short hole, laying his ball deadwith a perfect iron shot, but at the next, the long dog-leg hole, MissBingley regained the honour. They came to the last all square.
As the match had started on the tenth tee, the last hole to benegotiated was, of course, what in the ordinary run of human affairs isthe ninth, possibly the trickiest on the course. As you know, it isnecessary to carry with one's initial wallop that combination of streamand lake into which so many well meant drives have flopped. This done,the player proceeds up the face of a steep slope, to find himselfultimately on a green which looks like the sea in the storm scene of amelodrama. It heaves and undulates, and is altogether a nasty thing tohave happen to one at the end of a gruelling match. But it is the firstshot, the drive, which is the real test, for the water and the treesform a mental hazard of unquestionable toughness.
George Perkins, as he addressed his ball for the vital stroke,manifestly wabbled. He was scared to the depths of his craven soul. Hetried to pray, but all he could remember was the hymn for those inperil on the deep, into which category, he feared, his ball wouldshortly fall. Breathing a few bars of this, he swung. There was amusical click, and the ball, singing over the water like a bird,breasted the hill like a homing aeroplane and fell in the centre of thefairway within easy distance of the plateau green.
"Nice work, partner," said Miss Bingley, speaking for the first andlast time in the course of the proceedings.
George unravelled himself with a modest simper. He felt like a gamblerwho has placed his all on a number at roulette and sees the white balltumble into the correct compartment.
Eunice moved to the tee. In the course of the last eight holes thegirl's haughty soul had been rudely harrowed. She had foozled twodrives and three approach shots and had missed a short putt on the lastgreen but three. She had that consciousness of sin which afflicts thegolfer off his game, that curious self-loathing which humbles theproudest. Her knees felt weak and all nature seemed to bellow at herthat this was where she was going to blow up with a loud report.
Even as her driver rose above her shoulder she was acutely aware thatshe was making eighteen out of the twenty-three errors which complicatethe drive at golf. She knew that her head had swayed like somebeautiful flower in a stiff breeze. The heel of her left foot waspointing down the course. Her grip had shifted, and her wrists feltlike sticks of boiled asparagus. As the club began to descend sheperceived that she had underestimated the total of her errors. And whenthe ball, badly topped, bounded down the slope and entered the muddywater like a timid diver on a cold morning she realized that she had afull hand. There are twenty-three things which it is possible to dowrong in the drive, and she had done them all.
Silently Ramsden Waters made a tee and placed thereon a new ball. Hewas a golfer who rarely des
paired, but he was playing three, and hisopponents' ball would undoubtedly be on the green, possibly even dead,in two. Nevertheless, perhaps, by a supreme drive, and one or twomiracles later on, the game might be saved. He concentrated his wholesoul on the ball.
I need scarcely tell you that Ramsden Waters pressed....
Swish came the driver. The ball, fanned by the wind, rocked a little onthe tee, then settled down in its original position. Ramsden Waters,usually the most careful of players, had missed the globe.
For a moment there was a silence--a silence which Ramsden had to strivewith an effort almost physically painful not to break. Rich oathssurged to his lips, and blistering maledictions crashed against theback of his clenched teeth.
The silence was broken by little Wilberforce.
One can only gather that there lurks in the supposedly innocuous amberof ginger ale an elevating something which the temperance reformershave overlooked. Wilberforce Bray had, if you remember, tucked away nofewer than three in the spot where they would do most good. Onepresumes that the child, with all that stuff surging about inside him,had become thoroughly above himself. He uttered a merry laugh.
"Never hit it!" said little Wilberforce.
He was kneeling beside the tee box as he spoke, and now, as one who hasseen all that there is to be seen and turns, sated, to otheramusements, he moved round and began to play with the sand. Thespectacle of his alluring trouser seat was one which a stronger manwould have found it hard to resist. To Ramsden Waters it had the aspectof a formal invitation. For one moment his number II golf shoe, assupplied to all the leading professionals, wavered in mid-air, thencrashed home.
Eunice screamed.
"How dare you kick my brother!"
Ramsden faced her, stern and pale.
"Madam," he said, "in similar circumstances I would have kicked theArchangel Gabriel!"
Then, stooping to his ball, he picked it up.
"The match is yours," he said to Miss Bingley, who, having paid noattention at all to the drama which had just concluded, was practisingshort chip shots with her mashie-niblick.
He bowed coldly to Eunice, cast one look of sombre satisfaction atlittle Wilberforce, who was painfully extricating himself from a bed ofnettles into which he had rolled, and strode off. He crossed the bridgeover the water and stalked up the hill.
Eunice watched him go, spellbound. Her momentary spurt of wrath at thekicking of her brother had died away, and she wished she had thought ofdoing it herself.
How splendid he looked, she felt, as she watched Ramsden striding up tothe club-house--just like Carruthers Mordyke after he had flungErmyntrude Vanstone from him in chapter forty-one of "Gray Eyes ThatGleam". Her whole soul went out to him. This was the sort of man shewanted as a partner in life. How grandly he would teach her to playgolf. It had sickened her when her former instructors, prefacing theircriticism with glutinous praise, had mildly suggested that some peoplefound it a good thing to keep the head still when driving and thatthough her methods were splendid it might be worth trying. They hadspoken of her keeping her eye on the ball as if she were doing the balla favour. What she wanted was a great, strong, rough brute of a fellowwho would tell her not to move her damned head; a rugged Viking of achap who, if she did not keep her eye on the ball, would black it forher. And Ramsden Waters was such a one. He might not look like aViking, but after all it is the soul that counts and, as thisafternoon's experience had taught her, Ramsden Waters had a soul thatseemed to combine in equal proportions the outstanding characteristicsof Nero, a wildcat, and the second mate of a tramp steamer.
* * * * *
That night Ramsden Walters sat in his study, a prey to the gloomiestemotions. The gold had died out of him by now, and he was reproachinghimself bitterly for having ruined for ever his chance of winning theonly girl he had ever loved. How could she forgive him for hisbrutality? How could she overlook treatment which would have causedcomment in the stokehold of a cattle ship? He groaned and tried toforget his sorrows by forcing himself to read.
But the choicest thoughts of the greatest writers had no power to griphim. He tried Vardon "On the Swing", and the words swam before hiseyes. He turned to Taylor "On the Chip Shot", and the master's purestyle seemed laboured and involved. He found solace neither in Braid"On the Pivot" nor in Duncan "On the Divot". He was just about to giveit up and go to bed though it was only nine o'clock, when the telephonebell rang.
"Hello!"
"Is that you, Mr. Waters? This is Eunice Bray." The receiver shook inRamsden's hand. "I've just remembered. Weren't we talking aboutsomething last night? Didn't you ask me to marry you or something? Iknow it was something."
Ramsden gulped three times.
"I did," he replied hollowly.
"We didn't settle anything, did we?"
"Eh?"
"I say, we sort of left it kind of open."
"Yuk!"
"Well, would it bore you awfully," said Eunice's soft voice, "to comeround now and go on talking it over?"
Ramsden tottered.
"We shall be quite alone," said Eunice. "Little Wilberforce has gone tobed with a headache."
Ramsden paused a moment to disentangle his tongue from the back of hisneck.
"I'll be right over!" he said huskily.
10
_The Coming of Gowf_
PROLOGUE
After we had sent in our card and waited for a few hours in the marbledante-room, a bell rang and the major-domo, parting the pricelesscurtains, ushered us in to where the editor sat writing at his desk. Weadvanced on all fours, knocking our head reverently on the Aubussoncarpet.
"Well?" he said at length, laying down his jewelled pen.
"We just looked in," we said, humbly, "to ask if it would be all rightif we sent you an historical story."
"The public does not want historical stories," he said, frowningcoldly.
"Ah, but the public hasn't seen one of ours!" we replied.
The editor placed a cigarette in a holder presented to him by areigning monarch, and lit it with a match from a golden box, the giftof the millionaire president of the Amalgamated League of WorkingPlumbers.
"What this magazine requires," he said, "is red-blooded,one-hundred-per-cent dynamic stuff, palpitating with warm humaninterest and containing a strong, poignant love-motive."
"That," we replied, "is us all over, Mabel."
"What I need at the moment, however, is a golf story."
"By a singular coincidence, ours is a golf story."
"Ha! say you so?" said the editor, a flicker of interest passing overhis finely-chiselled features. "Then you may let me see it."
He kicked us in the face, and we withdrew.
THE STORY
On the broad terrace outside his palace, overlooking the fair expanseof the Royal gardens, King Merolchazzar of Oom stood leaning on the lowparapet, his chin in his hand and a frown on his noble face. The daywas fine, and a light breeze bore up to him from the garden below afragrant scent of flowers. But, for all the pleasure it seemed to givehim, it might have been bone-fertilizer.
The fact is, King Merolchazzar was in love, and his suit was notprospering. Enough to upset any man.
Royal love affairs in those days were conducted on the correspondencesystem. A monarch, hearing good reports of a neighbouring princess,would despatch messengers with gifts to her Court, beseeching aninterview. The Princess would name a date, and a formal meeting wouldtake place; after which everything usually buzzed along prettysmoothly. But in the case of King Merolchazzar's courtship of thePrincess of the Outer Isles there had been a regrettable hitch. She hadacknowledged the gifts, saying that they were just what she had wantedand how had he guessed, and had added that, as regarded a meeting, shewould let him know later. Since that day no word had come from her, anda gloomy spirit prevailed in the capital. At the Courtiers' Club, themeeting-place of the aristocracy of Oom, five to one in _pazazas_was freely offered against Merolchazzar's chance
s, but found no takers;while in the taverns of the common people, where less conservative oddswere always to be had, you could get a snappy hundred to eight. "For ingood sooth," writes a chronicler of the time on a half-brick and acouple of paving-stones which have survived to this day, "it did indeedbegin to appear as though our beloved monarch, the son of the sun andthe nephew of the moon, had been handed the bitter fruit of thecitron."
The quaint old idiom is almost untranslatable, but one sees what hemeans.
* * * * *
As the King stood sombrely surveying the garden, his attention wasattracted by a small, bearded man with bushy eyebrows and a face like awalnut, who stood not far away on a gravelled path flanked by rosebushes. For some minutes he eyed this man in silence, then he called tothe Grand Vizier, who was standing in the little group of courtiers andofficials at the other end of the terrace. The bearded man, apparentlyunconscious of the Royal scrutiny, had placed a rounded stone on thegravel, and was standing beside it making curious passes over it withhis hoe. It was this singular behaviour that had attracted the King'sattention. Superficially it seemed silly, and yet Merolchazzar had acurious feeling that there was a deep, even a holy, meaning behind theaction.
"Who," he inquired, "is that?"
"He is one of your Majesty's gardeners," replied the Vizier.
"I don't remember seeing him before. Who is he?"
The Vizier was a kind-hearted man, and he hesitated for a moment.
"It seems a hard thing to say of anyone, your Majesty," he replied,"but he is a Scotsman. One of your Majesty's invincible admiralsrecently made a raid on the inhospitable coast of that country at aspot known to the natives as S'nandrews and brought away this man."
"What does he think he's doing?" asked the King, as the bearded oneslowly raised the hoe above his right shoulder, slightly bending theleft knee as he did so.
"It is some species of savage religious ceremony, your Majesty.According to the admiral, the dunes by the seashore where he landedwere covered with a multitude of men behaving just as this man isdoing. They had sticks in their hands and they struck with these atsmall round objects. And every now and again----"
"Fo-o-ore!" called a gruff voice from below.
"And every now and again," went on the Vizier, "they would utter thestrange melancholy cry which you have just heard. It is a species ofchant."
The Vizier broke off. The hoe had descended on the stone, and thestone, rising in a graceful arc, had sailed through the air and fallenwithin a foot of where the King stood.
"Hi!" exclaimed the Vizier.
The man looked up.
"You mustn't do that! You nearly hit his serene graciousness the King!"
"Mphm!" said the bearded man, nonchalantly, and began to wave his hoemystically over another stone.
Into the King's careworn face there had crept a look of interest,almost of excitement.
"What god does he hope to propitiate by these rites?" he asked.
"The deity, I learn from your Majesty's admiral is called Gowf."
"Gowf? Gowf?" King Merolchazzar ran over in his mind the muster-roll ofthe gods of Oom. There were sixty-seven of them, but Gowf was not oftheir number. "It is a strange religion," he murmured. "A strangereligion, indeed. But, by Belus, distinctly attractive. I have an ideathat Oom could do with a religion like that. It has a zip to it. A sortof fascination, if you know what I mean. It looks to me extraordinarilylike what the Court physician ordered. I will talk to this fellow andlearn more of these holy ceremonies."
And, followed by the Vizier, the King made his way into the garden. TheVizier was now in a state of some apprehension. He was exercised in hismind as to the effect which the embracing of a new religion by the Kingmight have on the formidable Church party. It would be certain to causedispleasure among the priesthood; and in those days it was a ticklishbusiness to offend the priesthood, even for a monarch. And, ifMerolchazzar had a fault, it was a tendency to be a little tactless inhis dealings with that powerful body. Only a few mornings back the HighPriest of Hec had taken the Vizier aside to complain about the qualityof the meat which the King had been using lately for his sacrifices. Hemight be a child in worldly matters, said the High Priest, but if theKing supposed that he did not know the difference between home-growndomestic and frozen imported foreign, it was time his Majesty wasdisabused of the idea. If, on top of this little unpleasantness, KingMerolchazzar were to become an adherent of this new Gowf, the Vizierdid not know what might not happen.
The King stood beside the bearded foreigner, watching him closely. Thesecond stone soared neatly on to the terrace. Merolchazzar uttered anexcited cry. His eyes were glowing, and he breathed quickly.
"It doesn't look difficult," he muttered.
"Hoo's!" said the bearded man.
"I believe I could do it," went on the King, feverishly. "By the eightgreen gods of the mountain, I believe I could! By the holy fire thatburns night and day before the altar of Belus, I'm _sure_ I could!By Hec, I'm going to do it now! Gimme that hoe!"
"Toots!" said the bearded man.
It seemed to the King that the fellow spoke derisively, and his bloodboiled angrily. He seized the hoe and raised it above his shoulder,bracing himself solidly on widely-parted feet. His pose was an exactreproduction of the one in which the Court sculptor had depicted himwhen working on the life-size statue ("Our Athletic King") which stoodin the principal square of the city; but it did not impress thestranger. He uttered a discordant laugh.
"Ye puir gonuph!" he cried, "whitkin' o' a staunce is that?"
The King was hurt. Hitherto the attitude had been generally admired.
"It's the way I always stand when killing lions," he said. "'In killinglions,'" he added, quoting from the well-known treatise of Nimrod, therecognized text-book on the sport, "'the weight at the top of the swingshould be evenly balanced on both feet.'"
"Ah, weel, ye're no killing lions the noo. Ye're gowfing."
A sudden humility descended upon the King. He felt, as so many men wereto feel in similar circumstances in ages to come, as though he were achild looking eagerly for guidance to an all-wise master--a child,moreover, handicapped by water on the brain, feet three sizes too largefor him, and hands consisting mainly of thumbs.
"O thou of noble ancestors and agreeable disposition!" he said, humbly."Teach me the true way."
"Use the interlocking grup and keep the staunce a wee bit open and slowback, and dinna press or sway the heid and keep yer e'e on the ba'."
"My which on the what?" said the King, bewildered.
"I fancy, your Majesty," hazarded the Vizier, "that he is respectfullysuggesting that your serene graciousness should deign to keep your eyeon the ball."
"Oh, ah!" said the King.
The first golf lesson ever seen in the kingdom of Oom had begun.
* * * * *
Up on the terrace, meanwhile, in the little group of courtiers andofficials, a whispered consultation was in progress. Officially, theKing's unfortunate love affair was supposed to be a strict secret. Butyou know how it is. These things get about. The Grand Vizier tells theLord High Chamberlain; the Lord High Chamberlain whispers it inconfidence to the Supreme Hereditary Custodian of the Royal Pet Dog;the Supreme Hereditary Custodian hands it on to the Exalted Overseer ofthe King's Wardrobe on the understanding that it is to go no farther;and, before you know where you are, the varlets and scurvy knaves aregossiping about it in the kitchens, and the Society journalists havestarted to carve it out on bricks for the next issue of _PalacePrattlings_.
"The long and short of it is," said the Exalted Overseer of the King'sWardrobe, "we must cheer him up."
There was a murmur of approval. In those days of easy executions it wasno light matter that a monarch should be a prey to gloom.
"But how?" queried the Lord High Chamberlain.
"I know," said the Supreme Hereditary Custodian of the Royal Pet Dog."Try him with the minstrels."
>
"Here! Why us?" protested the leader of the minstrels.
"Don't be silly!" said the Lord High Chamberlain. "It's for your goodjust as much as ours. He was asking only last night why he never gotany music nowadays. He told me to find out whether you supposed he paidyou simply to eat and sleep, because if so he knew what to do aboutit."
"Oh, in that case!" The leader of the minstrels started nervously.Collecting his assistants and tip-toeing down the garden, he took uphis stand a few feet in Merolchazzar's rear, just as that much-enduringmonarch, after twenty-five futile attempts, was once more addressinghis stone.
Lyric writers in those days had not reached the supreme pitch ofexcellence which has been produced by modern musical comedy. The artwas in its infancy then, and the best the minstrels could do wasthis--and they did it just as Merolchazzar, raising the hoe withpainful care, reached the top of his swing and started down:
_"Oh, tune the string and let us sing Our godlike, great, and glorious King! He's a bear! He's a bear! He's a bear!"_
There were sixteen more verses, touching on their ruler's prowess inthe realms of sport and war, but they were not destined to be sung onthat circuit. King Merolchazzar jumped like a stung bullock, lifted hishead, and missed the globe for the twenty-sixth time. He spun round onthe minstrels, who were working pluckily through their song of praise:
_"Oh, may his triumphs never cease! He has the strength of ten! First in war, first in peace, First in the hearts of his countrymen."_
"Get out!" roared the King.
"Your Majesty?" quavered the leader of the minstrels.
"Make a noise like an egg and beat it!" (Again one finds thechronicler's idiom impossible to reproduce in modern speech, and mustbe content with a literal translation.) "By the bones of my ancestors,it's a little hard! By the beard of the sacred goat, it's tough! Whatin the name of Belus and Hec do you mean, you yowling misfits, bystarting that sort of stuff when a man's swinging? I was just shapingto hit it right that time when you butted in, you----"
The minstrels melted away. The bearded man patted the fermentingmonarch paternally on the shoulder.
"Ma mannie," he said, "ye may no' be a gowfer yet, but hoots! ye'relearning the language fine!"
King Merolchazzar's fury died away. He simpered modestly at these wordsof commendation, the first his bearded preceptor had uttered. Withexemplary patience he turned to address the stone for thetwenty-seventh time.
That night it was all over the city that the King had gone crazy over anew religion, and the orthodox shook their heads.
* * * * *
We of the present day, living in the midst of a million marvels of acomplex civilization, have learned to adjust ourselves to conditionsand to take for granted phenomena which in an earlier and less advancedage would have caused the profoundest excitement and even alarm. Weaccept without comment the telephone, the automobile, and the wirelesstelegraph, and we are unmoved by the spectacle of our fellow humanbeings in the grip of the first stages of golf fever. Far otherwise wasit with the courtiers and officials about the Palace of Oom. Theobsession of the King was the sole topic of conversation.
Every day now, starting forth at dawn and returning only with thefalling of darkness, Merolchazzar was out on the Linx, as the outdoortemple of the new god was called. In a luxurious house adjoining thisexpanse the bearded Scotsman had been installed, and there he could befound at almost any hour of the day fashioning out of holy wood theweird implements indispensable to the new religion. As a recognition ofhis services, the King had bestowed upon him a large pension,innumerable _kaddiz_ or slaves, and the title of Promoter of theKing's Happiness, which for the sake of convenience was generallyshortened to The Pro.
At present, Oom being a conservative country, the worship of the newgod had not attracted the public in great numbers. In fact, except forthe Grand Vizier, who, always a faithful follower of his sovereign'sfortunes, had taken to Gowf from the start, the courtiers held aloof toa man. But the Vizier had thrown himself into the new worship with suchvigour and earnestness that it was not long before he won from the Kingthe title of Supreme Splendiferous Maintainer of the Twenty-FourHandicap Except on Windy Days when It Goes Up to Thirty--a title whichin ordinary conversation was usually abbreviated to The Dub.
All these new titles, it should be said, were, so far as the courtierswere concerned, a fruitful source of discontent. There were black looksand mutinous whispers. The laws of precedence were being disturbed, andthe courtiers did not like it. It jars a man who for years has had hissocial position all cut and dried--a man, to take an instance atrandom, who, as Second Deputy Shiner of the Royal Hunting Boots, knowsthat his place is just below the Keeper of the Eel-Hounds and justabove the Second Tenor of the Corps of Minstrels--it jars him, we say,to find suddenly that he has got to go down a step in favour of theHereditary Bearer of the King's Baffy.
But it was from the priesthood that the real, serious opposition was tobe expected. And the priests of the sixty-seven gods of Oom were up inarms. As the white-bearded High Priest of Hec, who by virtue of hisoffice was generally regarded as leader of the guild, remarked in aglowing speech at an extraordinary meeting of the Priests' EquityAssociation, he had always set his face against the principle of theClosed Shop hitherto, but there were moments when every thinking manhad to admit that enough was sufficient, and it was his opinion thatsuch a moment had now arrived. The cheers which greeted the wordsshowed how correctly he had voiced popular sentiment.
* * * * *
Of all those who had listened to the High Priest's speech, none hadlistened more intently than the King's half-brother, Ascobaruch. Asinister, disappointed man, this Ascobaruch, with mean eyes and acrafty smile. All his life he had been consumed with ambition, anduntil now it had looked as though he must go to his grave with thisambition unfulfilled. All his life he had wanted to be King of Oom, andnow he began to see daylight. He was sufficiently versed in Courtintrigues to be aware that the priests were the party that reallycounted, the source from which all successful revolutions sprang. Andof all the priests the one that mattered most was the venerable HighPriest of Hec.
It was to this prelate, therefore, that Ascobaruch made his way at theclose of the proceedings. The meeting had dispersed after passing aunanimous vote of censure on King Merolchazzar, and the High Priest wasrefreshing himself in the vestry--for the meeting had taken place inthe Temple of Hec--with a small milk and honey.
"Some speech!" began Ascobaruch in his unpleasant, crafty way. Noneknew better than he the art of appealing to human vanity.
The High Priest was plainly gratified.
"Oh, I don't know," he said, modestly.
"Yessir!" said Ascobaruch. "Considerable oration! What I can neverunderstand is how you think up all these things to say. I couldn't doit if you paid me. The other night I had to propose the Visitors at theOld Alumni dinner of Oom University, and my mind seemed to go allblank. But you just stand up and the words come fluttering out of youlike bees out of a barn. I simply cannot understand it. The thing getspast me."
"Oh, it's just a knack."
"A divine gift, I should call it."
"Perhaps you're right," said the High Priest, finishing his milk andhoney. He was wondering why he had never realized before what a capitalfellow Ascobaruch was.
"Of course," went on Ascobaruch, "you had an excellent subject. I meanto say, inspiring and all that. Why, by Hec, even I--though, of course,I couldn't have approached your level--even I could have done somethingwith a subject like that. I mean, going off and worshipping a new godno one has ever heard of. I tell you, my blood fairly boiled. Nobodyhas a greater respect and esteem for Merolchazzar than I have, but Imean to say, what! Not right, I mean, going off worshipping gods no onehas ever heard of! I'm a peaceable man, and I've made it a rule neverto mix in politics, but if you happened to say to me as we were sittinghere, just as one reasonable man to another--if y
ou happened to say,'Ascobaruch, I think it's time that definite steps were taken,' Ishould reply frankly, 'My dear old High Priest, I absolutely agree withyou, and I'm with you all the way.' You might even go so far as tosuggest that the only way out of the muddle was to assassinateMerolchazzar and start with a clean slate."
The High Priest stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"I am bound to say I never thought of going quite so far as that."
"Merely a suggestion, of course," said Ascobaruch. "Take it or leaveit. I shan't be offended. If you know a superior excavation, go to it.But as a sensible man--and I've always maintained that you are the mostsensible man in the country--you must see that it would be a solution.Merolchazzar has been a pretty good king, of course. No one deniesthat. A fair general, no doubt, and a plus-man at lion-hunting. But,after all--look at it fairly--is life all battles and lion-hunting?Isn't there a deeper side? Wouldn't it be better for the country tohave some good orthodox fellow who has worshipped Hec all his life, andcould be relied on to maintain the old beliefs--wouldn't the fact thata man like that was on the throne be likely to lead to more generalprosperity? There are dozens of men of that kind simply waiting to beasked. Let us say, purely for purposes of argument, that you approached_me_. I should reply, 'Unworthy though I know myself to be of suchan honour, I can tell you this. If you put me on the throne, you canbet your bottom _pazaza_ that there's one thing that won't suffer,and that is the worship of Hec!' That's the way I feel about it."
The High Priest pondered.
"O thou of unshuffled features but amiable disposition!" he said, "thydiscourse soundeth good to me. Could it be done?"
"Could it!" Ascobaruch uttered a hideous laugh. "Could it! Arouse me inthe night-watches and ask me! Question me on the matter, having stoppedme for that purpose on the public highway! What I would suggest--I'mnot dictating, mind you; merely trying to help you out--what I wouldsuggest is that you took that long, sharp knife of yours, the one youuse for the sacrifices, and toddled out to the Linx--you're sure tofind the King there; and just when he's raising that sacrilegious stickof his over his shoulder----"
"O man of infinite wisdom," cried the High Priest, warmly, "verily hastthem spoken a fullness of the mouth!"
"Is it a wager?" said Ascobaruch.
"It is a wager!" said the High Priest.
"That's that, then," said Ascobaruch. "Now, I don't want to be mixed upin any unpleasantness, so what I think I'll do while what you mightcall the preliminaries are being arranged is to go and take a littletrip abroad somewhere. The Middle Lakes are pleasant at this time ofyear. When I come back, it's possible that all the formalities willhave been completed, yes?"
"Rely on me, by Hec!" said the High Priest grimly, as he fingered hisweapon.
* * * * *
The High Priest was as good as his word. Early on the morrow he madehis way to the Linx, and found the King holing-out on the second green.Merolchazzar was in high good humour.
"Greetings, O venerable one!" he cried, jovially. "Hadst thou come amoment sooner, them wouldst have seen me lay my ball dead--aye, dead asmutton, with the sweetest little half-mashie-niblick chip-shot everseen outside the sacred domain of S'nandrew, on whom"--he bared hishead reverently--"be peace! In one under bogey did I do the hole--yea,and that despite the fact that, slicing my drive, I became ensnared inyonder undergrowth."
The High Priest had not the advantage of understanding one word of whatthe King was talking about, but he gathered with satisfaction thatMerolchazzar was pleased and wholly without suspicion. He clasped anunseen hand more firmly about the handle of his knife, and accompaniedthe monarch to the next altar. Merolchazzar stooped, and placed a smallround white object on a little mound of sand. In spite of his austereviews, the High Priest, always a keen student of ritual, becameinterested.
"Why does your Majesty do that?"
"I tee it up that it may fly the fairer. If I did not, then would it beapt to run a long the ground like a beetle instead of soaring like abird, and mayhap, for thou seest how rough and tangled is the grassbefore us, I should have to use a niblick for my second."
The High Priest groped for his meaning.
"It is a ceremony to propitiate the god and bring good luck?"
"You might call it that."
The High Priest shook his head.
"I may be old-fashioned," he said, "but I should have thought that, topropitiate a god, it would have been better to have sacrificed one ofthese _kaddiz_ on his altar."
"I confess," replied the King, thoughtfully, "that I have often feltthat it would be a relief to one's feelings to sacrifice one or two_kaddiz_, but The Pro for some reason or other has set his faceagainst it." He swung at the ball, and sent it forcefully down thefairway. "By Abe, the son of Mitchell," he cried, shading his eyes, "abird of a drive! How truly is it written in the book of the prophetVadun, 'The left hand applieth the force, the right doth but guide.Grip not, therefore, too closely with the right hand!' Yesterday I waspulling all the time."
The High Priest frowned.
"It is written in the sacred book of Hec, your Majesty, 'Thou shalt notfollow after strange gods'."
"Take thou this stick, O venerable one," said the King, paying noattention to the remark, "and have a shot thyself. True, thou art wellstricken in years, but many a man has so wrought that he was able togive his grandchildren a stroke a hole. It is never too late to begin."
The High Priest shrank back, horrified. The King frowned.
"It is our Royal wish," he said, coldly.
The High Priest was forced to comply. Had they been alone, it ispossible that he might have risked all on one swift stroke with hisknife, but by this time a group of _kaddiz_ had drifted up, andwere watching the proceedings with that supercilious detachment socharacteristic of them. He took the stick and arranged his limbs as theKing directed.
"Now," said Merolchazzar, "slow back and keep your e'e on the ba'!"
* * * * *
A month later, Ascobaruch returned from his trip. He had received noword from the High Priest announcing the success of the revolution, butthere might be many reasons for that. It was with unruffled contentmentthat he bade his charioteer drive him to the palace. He was glad to getback, for after all a holiday is hardly a holiday if you have left yourbusiness affairs unsettled.
As he drove, the chariot passed a fair open space, on the outskirts ofthe city. A sudden chill froze the serenity of Ascobaruch's mood. Heprodded the charioteer sharply in the small of the back.
"What is that?" he demanded, catching his breath.
All over the green expanse could be seen men in strange robes, movingto and fro in couples and bearing in their hands mystic wands. Somesearched restlessly in the bushes, others were walking briskly in thedirection of small red flags. A sickening foreboding of disaster fellupon Ascobaruch.
The charioteer seemed surprised at the question.
"Yon's the muneecipal linx," he replied.
"The what?"
"The muneecipal linx."
"Tell me, fellow, why do you talk that way?"
"Whitway?"
"Why, like that. The way you're talking."
"Hoots, mon!" said the charioteer. "His Majesty King Merolchazzar--mayhis handicap decrease!--hae passit a law that a' his soobjects shall doit. Aiblins, 'tis the language spoken by The Pro, on whom be peace!Mphm!"
Ascobaruch sat back limply, his head swimming. The chariot drove on,till now it took the road adjoining the royal Linx. A wall lined aportion of this road, and suddenly, from behind this wall, there rentthe air a great shout of laughter.
"Pull up!" cried Ascobaruch to the charioteer.
He had recognized that laugh. It was the laugh of Merolchazzar.
Ascobaruch crept to the wall and cautiously poked his head over it. Thesight he saw drove the blood from his face and left him white andhaggard.
The King and the Grand Vizier were playing a foursome against the
Proand the High Priest of Hec, and the Vizier had just laid the HighPriest a dead stymie.
Ascobaruch tottered to the chariot.
"Take me back," he muttered, pallidly. "I've forgotten something!"
* * * * *
And so golf came to Oom, and with it prosperity unequalled in the wholehistory of the land. Everybody was happy. There was no moreunemployment. Crime ceased. The chronicler repeatedly refers to it inhis memoirs as the Golden Age. And yet there remained one man on whomcomplete felicity had not descended. It was all right while he wasactually on the Linx, but there were blank, dreary stretches of thenight when King Merolchazzar lay sleepless on his couch and mournedthat he had nobody to love him.
Of course, his subjects loved him in a way. A new statue had beenerected in the palace square, showing him in the act of getting out ofcasual water. The minstrels had composed a whole cycle of up-to-datesongs, commemorating his prowess with the mashie. His handicap was downto twelve. But these things are not all. A golfer needs a loving wife,to whom he can describe the day's play through the long evenings. Andthis was just where Merolchazzar's life was empty. No word had comefrom the Princess of the Outer Isles, and, as he refused to be put offwith just-as-good substitutes, he remained a lonely man.
But one morning, in the early hours of a summer day, as he lay sleepingafter a disturbed night, Merolchazzar was awakened by the eager hand ofthe Lord High Chamberlain, shaking his shoulder.
"Now what?" said the King.
"Hoots, your Majesty! Glorious news! The Princess of the Outer Isleswaits without--I mean wi'oot!"
The King sprang from his couch.
"A messenger from the Princess at last!"
"Nay, sire, the Princess herself--that is to say," said the LordChamberlain, who was an old man and had found it hard to accustomhimself to the new tongue at his age, "her ain sel'! And believe me, orrather, mind ah'm telling ye," went on the honest man, joyfully, for hehad been deeply exercised by his monarch's troubles, "her Highness isthe easiest thing to look at these eyes hae ever seen. And you can sayI said it!"
"She is beautiful?"
"Your majesty, she is, in the best and deepest sense of the word, apippin!"
King Merolchazzar was groping wildly for his robes.
"Tell her to wait!" he cried. "Go and amuse her. Ask her riddles! Tellher anecdotes! Don't let her go. Say I'll be down in a moment. Where inthe name of Zoroaster is our imperial mesh-knit underwear?"
* * * * *
A fair and pleasing sight was the Princess of the Outer Isles as shestood on the terrace in the clear sunshine of the summer morning,looking over the King's gardens. With her delicate little nose shesniffed the fragrance of the flowers. Her blue eyes roamed over therose bushes, and the breeze ruffled the golden curls about her temples.Presently a sound behind her caused her to turn, and she perceived agodlike man hurrying across the terrace pulling up a sock. And at thesight of him the Princess's heart sang within her like the birds downin the garden.
"Hope I haven't kept you waiting," said Merolchazzar, apologetically.He, too, was conscious of a strange, wild exhilaration. Truly was thismaiden, as his Chamberlain had said, noticeably easy on the eyes. Herbeauty was as water in the desert, as fire on a frosty night, asdiamonds, rubies, pearls, sapphires, and amethysts.
"Oh, no!" said the princess, "I've been enjoying myself. How passingbeautiful are thy gardens, O King!"
"My gardens may be passing beautiful," said Merolchazzar, earnestly,"but they aren't half so passing beautiful as thy eyes. I have dreamedof thee by night and by day, and I will tell the world I was nowherenear it! My sluggish fancy came not within a hundred and fifty-sevenmiles of the reality. Now let the sun dim his face and the moon hideherself abashed. Now let the flowers bend their heads and the gazelleof the mountains confess itself a cripple. Princess, your slave!"
And King Merolchazzar, with that easy grace so characteristic ofRoyalty, took her hand in his and kissed it.
As he did so, he gave a start of surprise.
"By Hec!" he exclaimed. "What hast thou been doing to thyself? Thy handis all over little rough places inside. Has some malignant wizard laida spell upon thee, or what is it?"
The Princess blushed.
"If I make that clear to thee," she said, "I shall also make clear whyit was that I sent thee no message all this long while. My time was sooccupied, verily I did not seem to have a moment. The fact is, thesesorenesses are due to a strange, new religion to which I and mysubjects have but recently become converted. And O that I might makethee also of the true faith! 'Tis a wondrous tale, my lord. Some twomoons back there was brought to my Court by wandering pirates a captiveof an uncouth race who dwell in the north. And this man has taughtus----"
King Merolchazzar uttered a loud cry.
"By Tom, the son of Morris! Can this truly be so? What is thyhandicap?"
The Princess stared at him, wide-eyed.
"Truly this is a miracle! Art thou also a worshipper of the greatGowf?"
"Am I!" cried the King. "Am I!" He broke off. "Listen!"
From the minstrels' room high up in the palace there came the sound ofsinging. The minstrels were practising a new paean of praise--words bythe Grand Vizier, music by the High Priest of Hec--which they were torender at the next full moon at the banquet of the worshippers of Gowf.The words came clear and distinct through the still air:
_"Oh, praises let us utter To our most glorious King! It fairly makes you stutter To see him start his swing! Success attend his putter! And luck be with his drive! And may he do each hole in two, Although the bogey's five!"_
The voices died away. There was a silence.
"If I hadn't missed a two-foot putt, I'd have done the long fifteenthin four yesterday," said the King.
"I won the Ladies' Open Championship of the Outer Isles last week,"said the Princess.
They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment. And then, hand inhand, they walked slowly into the palace.
EPILOGUE
"Well?" we said, anxiously.
"I like it," said the editor.
"Good egg!" we murmured.
The editor pressed a bell, a single ruby set in a fold of the tapestryupon the wall. The major-domo appeared.
"Give this man a purse of gold," said the editor, "and throw him out."
THE END
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