I found Wallace's ball. It was on a soggy spot of ground, with tall slush grass in front of it, but luckily there was room to swing a club back of it. He studied it a moment intently. It was a villainous lie. I did not wish to give advice, but could not restrain myself.
"Better play safe," I said. "It will cost you only one stroke."
"I think I can take it out," he said, reaching in the bag for a heavy, old-fashioned lofting iron.
He took one glance at the green, and then came down on that ball as if he intended to drive it into the bowels of the earth. I saw nothing but a shower of mud and a huge divot hurled up by the club-head as the wrists relaxed to save breaking the shaft.
Others saw the ball as it flicked the tips of the menacing grass and soared high in the air. It struck on the near edge of the green.
"A bonny shot, mon; a guede clean shot as ere were made out thot muck!" exclaimed Kirkaldy, his face mantled with a grin of frank admiration.
It was a glorious recovery! Miss Lawrence was fairly dancing for joy. Kirkaldy laid his ball within a foot of the hole, and won it with a three against four for Wallace, the latter making bogy. Wallace is unable to explain how he made a fluke of that first shot, and I am sure I have no idea.
On the second hole both drove perfect balls over the old graveyard, but Wallace had a shade the best of it in distance and direction. Both were nicely on the green in two, and Wallace missed a putt for a three by a hair, while his opponent was lucky, running down in a long lag for four, halving it in bogy.
Timid players drive short on the third so as to avoid dropping in the brook, but both drove smashing balls far over it.
"I don't know much about this game," chuckled Harding, overtaking me at the foot-bridge, "but so far as I can see, this man of Bishop's isn't exactly what you folks call a duffer."
[Illustration: "It struck on the near edge of the green"]
Both took this hole in bogy fours, and both drove the duck pond on the next hole, and we found their balls fair on the green, 220 yards away and slightly up hill. Wallace rimmed the cup for a two, and both made threes, one stroke better than bogy. It was lightning golf. LaHume's face was a study.