Devil Stories Part 19

"My dear," said Dr. Hic.o.k, "I do so like that bonnet of yours! I don't wonder it puzzled him. It would puzzle the Devil himself. I firmly believe I shall call it your Devil-puzzler."

But he never told her what the puzzle had been.

THE DEVIL'S ROUND[20]

A TALE OF FLEMISH GOLF

BY CHARLES DEULIN

[20] From _Longman's Magazine_, vol. xiv. [Copyright 1889 by Longmans, Green & Co., London & New York. By permission of the Publishers.]

[The following story, translated by Miss Isabel Bruce from _Le Grand Choleur_ of M. Charles Deulin (_Contes du Roi Gambrinus_), gives a great deal of information about French and Flemish golf. As any reader will see, this ancient game represents a stage of evolution between golf and hockey. The object is to strike a ball, in as few strokes as possible, to a given point; but, after every three strokes, the opponent is allowed to _decholer_, or make one stroke back, or into a hazard. Here the element of hockey comes in. Get rid of this element, let each man hit his own ball, and, in place of striking to a point--say, the cemetery gate--let men "putt" into holes, and the Flemish game becomes golf. It is of great antiquity. Ducange, in his Lexicon of Low Latin, gives _Choulla_, French _choule_ = "Globulus ligneus qui clava propellitur"--a wooden ball struck with a club. The head of the club was of iron (cf. _crossare_). This is borne out by a miniature in a missal of 1504, which represents peasants playing _choule_ with clubs very like niblicks.

Ducange quotes various MS. references of 1353, 1357, and other dates older by a century than our earliest Scotch references to golf. At present the game is played in Belgium with a strangely-shaped lofting-iron and a ball of beechwood. M. Zola (_Germinal_, p. 310) represents his miners playing _chole_, or _choulle_, and says that they hit drives of more than 500 yards. Experiments made at Wimbledon with a Belgian club sent over by M. Charles Michel suggest that M. Zola has over-estimated the distance. But M. Zola and M. Deulin agree in making the players _run_ after the ball. M. Henri Gaidoz adds that a similar game, called _soule_, is played in various departments of France. He refers to Laisnel de la Salle. The name _chole_ may be connected with German _Kolbe_, and _golf_ may be the form which this word would a.s.sume in a Celtic language. All this makes golf very old; but the question arises, Are the "holes" to which golfers play of Scotch or of Dutch origin?

There are several old Flemish pictures of golf; do any of them show players in the act of "holing out"? There is said to be such a picture at Neuchatel.

A. LANG.]

I

Once upon a time there lived at the hamlet of Coq, near Conde-sur-l'Escaut, a wheelwright called Roger. He was a good fellow, untiring both at his sport and at his toil, and as skilful in lofting a ball with a stroke of his club as in putting together a cartwheel.

Every one knows that the game of golf consists in driving towards a given point a ball of cherrywood with a club which has for head a sort of little iron shoe without a heel.

For my part, I do not know a more amusing game; and when the country is almost cleared of the harvest, men, women, children, everybody, drives his ball as you please, and there is nothing cheerier than to see them filing on a Sunday like a flight of starlings across potato fields and ploughed lands.

II

Well, one Tuesday, it was a Shrove Tuesday, the wheelwright of Coq laid aside his plane, and was slipping on his blouse to go and drink his can of beer at Conde, when two strangers came in, club in hand.

"Would you put a new shaft to my club, master?" said one of them.

"What are you asking me, friends? A day like this! I wouldn't give the smallest stroke of the chisel for a brick of gold. Besides, does any one play golf on Shrove Tuesday? You had much better go and see the mummers tumbling in the high street of Conde."

"We take no interest in the tumbling of mummers," replied the stranger. "We have challenged each other at golf and we want to play it out. Come, you won't refuse to help us, you who are said to be one of the finest players of the country?"

"If it is a match, that is different," said Roger.

He turned up his sleeves, hooked on his ap.r.o.n, and in the twinkling of an eye had adjusted the shaft.

"How much do I owe you?" asked the unknown, drawing out his purse.

"Nothing at all, faith; it is not worth while."

The stranger insisted, but in vain.

III

"You are too honest, i'faith," said he to the wheelwright, "for me to be in your debt. I will grant you the fulfilment of three wishes."

"Don't forget to wish what is _best_," added his companion.

At these words the wheelwright smiled incredulously.

"Are you not a couple of the loafers of Capelette?" he asked, with a wink.

The idlers of the crossways of Capelette were considered the wildest wags in Conde.

"Whom do you take us for?" replied the unknown in a tone of severity, and with his club he touched an axle, made of iron, which instantly changed into one of pure silver.

"Who are you, then," cried Roger, "that your word is as good as ready money?"

"I am St. Peter, and my companion is St. Antony, the patron of golfers."

"Take the trouble to walk in, gentlemen," said the wheelwright of Coq; and he ushered the two saints into the back parlour. He offered them chairs, and went to draw a jug of beer in the cellar. They clinked their gla.s.ses together, and after each had lit his pipe:

"Since you are so good, sir saints," said Roger, "as to grant me the accomplishment of three wishes, know that for a long while I have desired three things. I wish, first of all, that whoever seats himself upon the elm-trunk at my door may not be able to rise without my permission. I like company and it bores me to be always alone."

St. Peter shook his head and St. Antony nudged his client.

IV

"When I play a game of cards, on Sunday evening, at the 'Fighting c.o.c.k,'" continued the wheelwright, "it is no sooner nine o'clock than the garde-champetre comes to chuck us out. I desire that whoever shall have his feet on my leathern ap.r.o.n cannot be driven from the place where I shall have spread it."

St. Peter shook his head, and St. Antony, with a solemn air, repeated:

"Don't forget what is _best_."

"What is best," replied the wheelwright of Coq, n.o.bly, "is to be the first golfer in the world. Every time I find my master at golf it turns my blood as black as the inside of the chimney. So I want a club that will carry the ball as high as the belfry of Conde, and will infallibly win me my match."

"So be it," said St. Peter.

"You would have done better," said St. Antony, "to have asked for your eternal salvation."

"Bah!" replied the other. "I have plenty of time to think of that; I am not yet greasing my boots for the long journey."

The two saints went out and Roger followed them, curious to be present at such a rare game; but suddenly, near the Chapel of St. Antony, they disappeared.

The wheelwright then went to see the mummers tumbling in the high street of Conde.

When he returned, towards midnight, he found at the corner of his door the desired club. To his great surprise it was only a bad little iron head attached to a wretched worn-out shaft. Nevertheless he took the gift of St. Peter and put it carefully away.