We ran the auto into the sheep pasture, and I presume it was the first invasion of those haunts by this modern vehicle. At least the sheep seemed to so regard it, and ran bleating in every direction. It is an ideal spot for an exhibition of the long game, and Bishop has had many offers from golf clubs seeking a location for links. That farmer gentleman appeared shortly after we arrived at the crest of a gentle hill.
"No trespassin' on these here premises!" he grinned.
"How are ye, everybody? Miss Lawrence tells me that my man Wallace, here, is a crackerjack drivin' one of them golf balls. You'd ought to see him drive a team when he first come here. Took him two weeks to learn the difference between 'gee' and 'haw,' and to tell the 'nigh' from the 'off' boss, but I suppose drivin' a golf ball is a sight easier. But I won't bother ye. I'll just stand here and watch. Perhaps I might learn somethin'."
It was a warm afternoon and Wallace laid aside his thin jacket. He was dressed in a tennis suit which fitted him perfectly. Bishop called me aside.
"That chap has two or three trunks full of all kinds of clothes," he said in a whisper, "but this is the first time I ever saw this one. What do you call it?"
"Tennis!" he grunted. "That's worse than golf, isn't it, Jack?"
I laughed, and then we turned our attention to the young Scotchman.
The moment he grasped my driver and swung it with an easy but powerful wrist movement I knew he was an expert. You can almost pick the good golfer by the way he takes a club from a bag. His skill is shown in his manner of teeing a ball, and no duffer ever "addressed" the sphere or "waggled" his club so as to deceive those who know the game.
Wallace did not tee the ball on any raised inequality of the turf, but simply placed it on a smooth spot, such as one would select as the average brassie lie. If I had any lingering doubt as to his ability, this one preliminary act dispelled it.
Now that I calmly recall this scene in that sheep pasture, its dramatic grotesqueness rather appeals to me. Here were three young ladies, all of them pretty, all wealthy and holding high social positions, watching with bated breath a farmhand of unknown birth in the act of striking a golf ball. Surely golf is the great leveller! Perhaps it is the hope of the ultimate democracy; the germ of the ideal brotherhood of man.