"Pip" Part 44

Both gave an exceedingly moderate exhibition at the seventeenth tee, Pip because he not infrequently did so, and Elsie because her nerve was going. Their second shots were better, though Pip as usual got farther with his cleek than Elsie with her bra.s.sie. Elsie therefore had to play the odd in approaching the green. This time she did herself justice. It was a perfect shot. The ball rose quickly, fell plump upon the green, checked itself with a little back-spin, and staggered uncertainly towards the hole. Finally it stopped, eighteen inches beyond the pin.

Elsie heaved a sigh of the most profound relief. In all human probability she was sure of a "half" now, and unless Pip laid his approach dead she would win the hole outright, and so make the match safe, safe, safe! She involuntarily clasped her hands together over her beating heart.

Pip, impa.s.sive as ever, said nothing, but took his mas.h.i.+e and succeeded in reaching the green. Since his ball lay a good ten yards short, his chances of a half looked meagre, but he grasped his putter with determination and "went for" the hole. The ball rolled smoothly over the green, but suddenly turned off a little and just rolled past the lip of the hole.

"Bad luck!" said Elsie, with ready sympathy.

Bad luck indeed, but not for Pip. The ball, as she spoke, suddenly slowed down and stopped dead, midway, to a hair's-breadth, between the ball and the hole. Elsie required only a short putt to win the hole and make herself "dormy," and Pip had laid her a dead stymie.

Involuntarily they looked at each other. Then Pip said quickly,--

"I'll pick up my ball while you putt. We aren't having any stymies in this match, of course."

All the sportswoman in Elsie revolted at this. "No, Pip," she said; "certainly not. We arranged nothing about stymies before we started, so stymies must stand. I must just play it."

She took her mas.h.i.+e, and made a gallant but unsuccessful effort to jump her ball over Pip's. Each holed the next putt, and the match remained square--with one to play. Ye G.o.ds!

They were very silent as they prepared to drive off for the last time.

Absolutely alone, far out on the course, they were now approaching what was properly "the turn," more than a mile from the clubhouse.

"I shall put down a new ball here," said Pip, "just for luck."

"So shall I," said Elsie.

"We mustn't mix them on the green, then. What is yours?"

"A 'Haskell.'"

"Right. Mine's a 'Springvale Kite.'"

Elsie had the honour, and drove as good a ball as any that afternoon.

Pip, determined to take as few risks as possible, used his cleek, and lay just beside her.

The ninth hole on the Links of Eric is known as "The Crater." The green lies in a curious hollow on the top of a conical hill. An average drive leaves your ball at the hill-foot in a good lie. After this only one stroke is of the slightest use. You take your farthest-laid-back mas.h.i.+e, commend your soul to Providence, and smite. The ball, if struck as desired, will rise up, tower, and drop into the basin at the top of the hill. Should you play too strongly you will fly over the oasis of green turf and fall into a howling wilderness of bents, sand, and whins on the far side; should you play short, your ball will bury itself in the slopes of s.h.i.+fting sand that guard the approach, and your doom is sealed. It is credibly reported that all four players in a four-ball match--scratch men, every one--once arrived upon the Crater green, ball in hand, each having given up the struggle under the despairing impression that no opponent could possibly have played more strokes than himself.

On paper, this was just the sort of hole that Elsie should have won from Pip. But in practice the conditions were even. Pip's Herculean wrists made it possible for him to force the ball up to the necessary height with a half-mas.h.i.+e-shot, but for Elsie the task involved a full swing--and to keep your ball under absolute control in such circ.u.mstances is about the most difficult shot in golf. Pip's approaching was at its worst unspeakable, but on this occasion he was at his best. The ball sailed grandly into the air and dropped in a rea.s.suringly perpendicular fas.h.i.+on into the Crater. Elsie's effort was almost as good, though her ball curled slightly to the left before dropping.

They tramped up the long flight of wooden steps which facilitated the ascent to the summit with bated breath. A glance at the green would decide the match.

Elsie reached the top first. Pip heard her give a little gasp.

One ball, new, white, and glistening, lay on the green ten or twelve yards from the hole. The other was nowhere to be seen.

"Whose ball, I wonder?" said Pip calmly.

They stooped together and examined the ball as it lay on the green. So close were they that Pip was conscious of a flutter that pa.s.sed through Elsie's body.

The ball was a "Springvale Kite."

Pip maintained an absolutely unmoved countenance. The ball was his, and so, unless a miracle intervened, was the hole. And the match.

And--Elsie!

But that mysterious quality which, for want of a better name, we call "sportsmans.h.i.+p," under whose benign influence we learn to win with equanimity and lose with cheerfulness, prevented him from so much as turning an eye upon his beaten opponent. He merely remarked briskly--

"We must find your pill, Elsie. It can't be far off."

Elsie made no reply, but took her niblick and began to search rather perfunctorily for the lost ball. She could not speak: the strain of the match had told upon her. After all she was a woman, and a girl at that.

Pip's iron immobility made her feel worse. She was beginning to realise that he was stronger than she was--a state of affairs which had never appeared possible to her before. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to go home. She wanted to beat Pip, and now that feat appeared to be impossible. Half an hour ago she could have abandoned the match with good grace. She might have surrendered with all the honours of war. Now she would be dragged home at the wheels of Pip's chariot.

Meanwhile her opponent, that tender-hearted and unconscious ogre, was diligently poking about among the bents and whins for the missing Haskell. He was genuinely distressed that the match should end thus.

Elsie had had cruel luck. She should have won the last hole, and at any rate halved this one. He took no pleasure in his prospective victory. He had wild thoughts of offering to play the hole again, but dismissed them at once. Elsie might be only a girl, but she had the right instincts, and would very properly regard such an offer as an insult. If only her ball could be found, though, Pip flattered himself that he could go on missing putts after Elsie had reached the green until she had pulled the match out of the fire. Happy thought! he would so manipulate the game as to halve the hole and the match. Then Box _and_ c.o.x would be satisfied.

Beat Elsie, plucky little Elsie? Perish the thought! Pip's sentimental heart overflowed. What a game she had played!

But, sentiment or no sentiment, a lost ball is a lost hole, and unless the ball could be found Pip would be a victor _malgre lui_.

Coming round the face of the hill, Pip suddenly found himself a few yards from Elsie. She stood with her back to him, unaware of his presence. What was she doing? Certainly not looking for her ball. Was she--could she--really--was Elsie, the proud, the scornful, the unbending, actually cr--? Certainly that flimsy article in her hand looked like a handkerchief. Perhaps it was only a fly in her eye, or something.

No. Pip watched Elsie for a moment longer. It was _not_ a fly in her eye. His heart, already liquescent, melted entirely. He tiptoed away back to the green.

Once there, he took three b.a.l.l.s from his pocket and examined them. One was an old and battered "guttie," the others were "Kites," with Pip's trade-mark indelibly stamped upon their long-suffering skins. None of these were suitable for his fell purpose. Nothing daunted, the conspirator stole across to Elsie's bag, which lay on the edge of the green, and selected from the pocket a new Haskell. Carefully fastening up the pocket again, he walked to the middle of the green, and after a furtive glance all round him--dropped the ball into the hole.

Then he uplifted his voice in a full-throated yell, and hurried towards the spot where he had last seen Elsie. As he emerged from the hollow green he met her face to face, coming slowly up to the ridge. Her cheeks were rather flushed and her eyes shone, but her handkerchief was resolutely tucked away in her blouse, and she greeted Pip with a ready smile.

"Elsie," said Pip excitedly, "I've found your ball."

"My ball? Nonsense! Why, I've--"

She checked herself suddenly and followed Pip. That well-meaning but misguided philanthropist, heedless of the danger-signals in Elsie's eyes, walked to the hole, and there, rather with the air of an amateur conjurer who is not quite certain whether his audience know "how it's done" or not, picked out the ball.

"There's your ball," he said. "Good hole, in two! Congratters!"

He handed her the ball with a clumsy gesture of good-will.

Elsie regarded the unoffending Haskell in a dazed manner for a moment, turned white and then red, and finally looked Pip squarely in the face without speaking. Then she flung the ball down upon the green, turned on her heel with a pa.s.sionate whirl of her skirt, and stalked off, leaving Pip staring dejectedly after her.

CHAPTER XII

"_... TAMEN USQUE RECURRET_"

ELSIE walked on. Her face was set, and her blue-grey eyes had a steely look. In her hand she carried a golf-ball--not the one which poor Pip had "discovered" in the hole, but another, her own, the genuine article.

She had spied it, lying in an absolutely unplayable position under a stone, almost immediately after Pip had left her to her handkerchief.

She had picked it up, and was on her way back to the green to inform her opponent that the match was his, when she was startled by a mighty shout, and arrived in time to witness the whole of Pip's elaborate conjuring-trick. She grasped the situation at once, and all the woman in her blazed up at this monstrous piece of impertinence. Her anger caused her to overlook the fact that Pip, in his desire to save her from mortification, had deliberately sacrificed his chances and thrown away the spoils of victory. For the moment, all she realised was that he had "patronised" her, treated her like a spoiled child, and allowed her to win. Her blood boiled at the idea. She walked on quickly.

It was not until she had proceeded for a couple of hundred yards that she discovered that she was going in the wrong direction. The ninth hole was situated at the extreme end of the links, and as she had turned on her heel and swung off more with the idea of abandoning her present locality than of reaching another, she realised that, if she continued on her present course, every step would take her farther from the hotel.

The discovery added to her wrath. She was making herself ridiculous now.