Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/706

696 crowd we saw before, ladies, &c., &c., and all kinds of cads, are drawn up in two parallel rows, leaving a vista of certainly not more than five yards. Through this narrow opening the two wretched men before us, on whom the lot has fallen, have to hit their balls, going neither to the right nor left.

There will certainly be manslaughter or cad-slaughter committed before long, if the vista does not widen.

The victims are trying hard to look cool. The younger one has just lighted a weed and is trying to smoke it with unconcern. The elder, in the scarlet coat (uniform of the club), is badgering the boy who is carrying his clubs.

Now then, gentlemen.

The young fellow throws away his weed, and taking a most genteel, thin-shafted club, straddles—the word explains itself—straddles to his ball. Three or four times he looks earnestly up the vista, then at his ball, the club in the meantime wagging like a demented pendulum.

At last he addresses his ball.

What a charming word! Addresses is used to express the final, affectionate, and accurate adjustment of the face of the head of the club to the ball previously to uplifting the club for the last time.

Up goes the club with a mighty sweep, and down it comes, down on the top of the ball, which, instead of bounding into the air, tumbles tipsily off the tee, and rolls gently into a little hole! The exclamations of the crowd are appalling.

“Eh, see till the muff; he canna caw a ba’ a yard,” hoot the rabble.

“Is that considered a good hit, papa?” says a young lady, in the vicinity, with cruel innocence. The victim rushes upon the boy who is carrying his clubs, and snatches from him a short, stumpy, resolute-looking little club, the face of which is scooped out for the purpose of taking balls out of any difficult place, and retires to allow his senior to strike off.

There is no nervousness about this at all events; no more there should be, considering that the gentleman has played golf more or less every day for the last ten years. The same look at the vista, the same waggling, the same straddling and addressing, a short jerky swing, a little curtsey to the ball and—whack, off goes the ball hit as clean as a whistle, and falls on the other side of the road; a very fair stroke.

The young fellow now goes at the ball for the second time, and to some purpose; the ball is well hit, and flies out of the hole into which it had rolled, but, as bad luck will have it, lights in the road.

Well, I don’t think we need accompany that party. The next party must wait till they have crossed the burn, about 250 yards on, before they strike off.

By-the-by, while we were playing billiards, we missed the inauguration of the meeting. I do not remember whether I told you that the Prince of Wales had consented to be captain of the club. Unfortunately he has not been able to come here. I hear some one saying that his wine has come; ten dozen, too. But do not imagine that the young man is in the habit of travelling about with ten dozen of champagne all handy in the van. As captain of the club he is expected to provide champagne for the ball which you are going to to-morrow night. That’s all.

Now, if he had been here, he would have had to go through the ceremony which, in his absence, was performed for him by that gentlemanly looking little man in a red coat. He would have had to strike a ball (anywhere—it did not matter where—probably into the legs of the mob), and thereafter an entry would have been made in the books of the club to the effect that H.R.H. the Prince of Wales had won the Adelaide medal and the silver club by doing the round of the links in ninety strokes. This solemn announcement will doubtless be received by posterity a century after this with awe and wonder, but implicit belief; and men will sigh over the good old days when Great Britain had a prince athletic enough to thrash all his subjects at the game of golf; ninety strokes, be it known, is a wonderfully small number to go round the course of eighteen holes in.

The day is rather cold, and one feels chilled with hanging about here. I think when we see a really good pair of players strike off, we had better go round with them. I observe (and with all respect and dismay I observe), that the noses of some of the fair spectators are positively assuming a bluish tinge. Still the vista is not widened a yard; quite the contrary. It is really a wonder that no one has been hit.—Ah, there at last! A whack, a shriek, a sharp cry, a fall, a rushing to and fro of the crowd; some one has been hit. It is only a little boy who has been hit on the shoulder, one of the players through nervousness having struck his ball askew. Now all is right again; the boy’s ears have been boxed for being in the way by a loving but sternly just parent; and one good result of this accident is, that the vista is now widened, and there is plenty of room to strike.

Now is our time. The pair who are about to strike off now are two of the best players on the green. They have hit their balls clear and true, and they have both fallen some way over the road. With their second strokes, if they hit the balls fairly they ought to send them over the burn, into which if he gets, the traveller will have to return with the loss of a stroke. But the safer plan is to play the ball gently up to the edge of the burn with a short club, and then, with your third stroke, you can send it over with an easy blow, which if straight ought to land the ball within a few yards of the hole. Both our players are well over. And here let me mention, once for all, that in speaking of the ball you confer on it the name of the individual who strikes it.

“Where’s Jones?”

“He’s in the burn.”

“Where’s Thompson?”

“He’s lying dead.”

This alarming statement means that Thompson’s ball is so near the hole that he cannot fail to put it in. One of the strokes was a very good one, and the ball is lying about seven yards from the hole. The other player (short little man in knickerbockers) would have gone too far if it had