John Henry Smith Part 8

ENTRY NO. VI

I PLAY WITH MISS HARDING

I regret that lack of intimacy with the muses prevents me from recording this entry in verse. I have been playing golf with Miss Harding!

Not until this afternoon did I realise that constant a.s.sociation with Marshall, Carter, Chilvers, and other hardened golfers has dulled my finer sensibilities and deadened my appreciation of the wonderful scenic beauties of the Woodvale golf course.

Like the fool bicycle scorcher who tears past beautiful bits of landscape, his eyes fixed on the dusty path spurned by his whirring wheel, or like the goggled maniac who steers an automobile, I now find that I have played hundreds of times over this course without once having seen it.

When I was a boy my foolish parents took me on a tour of the continent, for the reason, I presume, that they did not dare leave me at home. My impression of the colossal splendour beneath the vaulted heights of Saint Peter's was that a certain smooth s.p.a.ce on the tiled floor offered unequalled facilities for playing marbles. I marvelled that baseball grounds were not laid out in the n.o.ble open s.p.a.ces surrounding the palaces of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. The Swiss Alps had a fascination for me by reason of their unsurpa.s.sed opportunities for coasting.

It never occurred to me until to-day that nature had any motive in planning Woodvale other than to provide a sporty golf course. Miss Harding has opened my eyes to the fact that it is one of the most beautiful spots on the face of the earth.

When I told Carter I was to play with Miss Harding, he looked sort of queer for a moment, and then bet me a box of b.a.l.l.s I would not make eighty-five. This was the only thing he could think to say. He tried hard to conceal his surprise, but I could see that he was hard hit.

He wins the box of b.a.l.l.s, all right. As a matter of fact we did not finish the round, but I did not tell Carter that. I simply grinned happily and told him that he had won.

There is no reason why I should attempt to write an account of this game in this diary. I shall never forget the slightest detail of it as long as I live.

The night is black as a raven's wing, but I am certain that I can start from the first tee and retrace every step made by Miss Harding over the fourteen holes played, and I will admit that it was far from a straight line. I will wager that I can place my hand on every place where her club tore up the turf, and can locate the exact spots where she drove out of bounds.

The day was beautiful, the weather perfect. A few fleecy clouds drifted across a deep sky. The rich green of the slopes blended into the darker shades of the encompa.s.sing forests. As a rule, the only thing I can recall after a golf game, so far as weather is concerned, is whether it rained or if a high wind were blowing. It was different to-day.

I noted that the breeze was just strong enough to ruffle the lace at her throat, and that the blue of her gown matched perfectly with cloud, sky, and the dominating tones of the undulating carpet on which she tread.

I might play with Marshall or Chilvers a thousand times and not know or care if the links were garbed in green or yellow, or if the clouds were pink or Van d.y.k.e brown, but as I said before, the only sentiment aroused by a.s.sociation with these vindictive golf fiends is a wild and unreasoning desire to beat the life out of them at their own game. I dislike to say it, but they have never inspired in me one sentiment of which I am proud.

At my suggestion we decided to start at the third tee. The first one requires a long drive to carry the lane, and on the second it is necessary to negotiate the old graveyard, and I disliked to put Miss Harding to so severe a test on the start.

As I made a tee for her and carefully placed a new white ball on it, I could not help think of the many times I have sneered and laughed at Thomas, who is the only good player in the club who has really seemed to enjoy a game of golf with one of the opposite s.e.x.

I can see now that I have been very unfair to Thomas.

The man who refuses to play golf with a woman, or who even hesitates, and who justifies such conduct on the plea that she cannot play well enough to make the contest an equal one--well, he has none of the finer instincts of a gentleman.

I told Marshall and Chilvers so this evening, and they laughed at me.

Both of these men are married, and both used to play golf with their sweethearts when they were engaged. Once in a great while they now play a round with the alleged partners of their joys and sorrows, but they do it as if it were a penance, and seem immensely relieved when the ordeal is over. It is pitiful to watch these two ladies forced to play together, while their lords and masters indulge in fierce foursomes, waged for the brute love of victory--and incidentally, perhaps for a ball a hole.

If I ever marry I shall play with the habitual golfer only when Mrs.

Smith is disinclined to favour me with her society on the links.

Chilvers and Marshall say that they made the same resolution--and kept it nearly six months. Let them watch me.

Miss Harding missed the ball entirely the first time she swung at it, and both of us laughed heartily.

Now that I come to think of it, nothing used to infuriate me more than to have to wait on a tee for a woman who was wildly striking at a ball.

But one must learn, and it is no disgrace for a lady to miss so small an object as a golf ball.

She hit the ball on the second attempt. It did not go far, it is true, but it went gracefully, describing a parabolic curve considerably to the right of the line of the green.

Then I drove a long, straight ball, and felt just a little bit ashamed of myself. It seemed like taking an unfair advantage of my fair opponent. In fact it seemed a brutal thing to do, but she expressed delight.

"That was splendid, Mr. Smith!" she declared, as my ball stopped rolling, more than two hundred yards away. "I know that my poor little game will bore you to death, but you invited this calamity."

"I only wish that--that I----" and then I stopped in time to keep from saying something foolish.

"Well?" she said, a smile hovering on her lips.

"I only wish that I could drive as far as that every time," I continued, "and--and that you could drive twice as far."

"What an absurd wish!" declared Miss Harding.

It was worse than absurd; it was stupid! Imagine a woman driving a ball four hundred yards! I would never dare marry such a woman, and I came near making some idiotic remark to that effect, but luckily at that moment we came to her ball. I selected the proper club for her, jabbered something about how to play the shot, and thus got safely out of an awkward situation.

At my suggestion we were playing without caddies. There are times when these little terrors take all of the romance out of a situation, and I did not wish to be bothered with them.

On her fourth shot Miss Harding landed her ball in the brook, and it took quite a time to find it. While we were looking for it Boyd and LaHume arrived on the tee, and I motioned them to drive ahead.

I have seen this brook a thousand times. It was my greatest source of amus.e.m.e.nt and mischief when a boy, but never until this afternoon did I observe its perfect beauty. Heretofore it has been no more nor less than a ribbon of water with weed-lined banks and tall rushes, into which a poor player is likely to drive a ball and lose one or more strokes. It is one of our "natural hazards," and I have thought no more of it than I would of the cushion on a billiard table.

I shall never cross that brook again without thinking of her face as I saw it mirrored in the shadows of the old stone bridge. The reflection was framed with delicate interfacings of water cress, while in the bed of the stream the smooth pebbles gleamed like pearls. The pointed reeds nodded and waved in the gentle breeze.

Now that I think of it, I have cursed those reeds many, many times while hunting for a lost ball.

"Is it not beautiful?" I exclaimed to Miss Harding.

"That drive of Mr. Boyd's?" she asked in reply. Boyd had made a ripper, which went sailing over our heads. "It was a lovely drive! He has beaten you by several yards."

"I meant the brook," I said.

"The brook?" she exclaimed. "I am surprised, Mr. Smith! I had no idea that a confirmed golfer could find beauty in anything outside of a drive, bra.s.sie, approach or putt."

"You malign us, Miss Harding," I declared, looking first in her eyes and then in her mirrored image in the water. "From where I stand that brook is the most lovely thing in the world, except--except----"

"Mr. LaHume has put his ball square on the green on his second shot!"

interrupted Miss Harding, clapping her hands in excitement.

I do not know whether she knew what I was going to say or not. I wish I had the nerve to finish some of the fine speeches and compliments I plan and begin, but as a rule I end them without a climax.

We found the ball and I dropped it a few yards back of the brook. She promptly drove it into the brook a second time, and what became of it will always remain a mystery to me. It did not go more than fifteen feet, and we looked and looked but could not find it, so I smiled and dropped another one, and this time she made a really good shot.

Counting all of the strokes and penalties it took Miss Harding fifteen to make that hole, the bogy for which is four, but I a.s.sured her that I have known men to do worse, and I believe the statement a fact, though I cannot recall at this moment who did it in such woeful figures.

Miss Harding insisted in trying to drive over the pond on the fourth hole, and said she would gladly pay for all the b.a.l.l.s that went into it, but of course I would not listen to that. The pond is very shallow at this season of the year, and in fact is a mud hole in most places, and it is therefore impossible to recover a ball which fails to carry less than eighty yards.

She barely touched the ball on her first attempt, and I got it after wading in the mud to my shoe tops. Then she hit it nicely, but it failed to carry the pond by a few yards, and disappeared in the ooze.

"I thought I could do it, but I give it up," she said, and I could see that she was disappointed.