In some months, I too had made great progress at the game, and our fame, travelling beyond our native city, had reached other golfing centres. One day - it was during our school vacation, and I was holidaying in the country - my brother came on a visit. He pulled a letter out of his pocket, which he gave me to read. It was as follows: -

"Dear Sirs, - We hereby challenge you to a match at golf on - Links any Saturday that is convenient for you. We are, yours faithfully,

"G. & H. FlNLAY."

It can be imagined that this communication stirred us to our inmost depths. We knew the brothers Finlay by reputation as formidable players, almost professionals, who belonged to a mechanics' Club in - . They were the best players in their native town, and older and more experienced men, who had played at St. Andrews and other famous links which we had never seen. Could we dare to accept their challenge ? My brother was in practice, but I had not played for more than a month. We discussed the matter thoroughly, and though we were somewhat doubtful as to the result, our eagerness to see a new green decided the issue, and my brother wrote accepting the match and fixing a date.

Several other letters passed. A small sum, such as we could afford, was staked on the result, and one morning we arrived on the scene of action. The match was not to take place till two in the afternoon, and we devoted the morning to a practice round, and to making ourselves acquainted with the course. We took out the local professional, and played our ball against his. We both played shockingly, and he beat us by five up and four to play. In the course of the game he informed us that he played each of the Finlays level, and that we would have to play better than that, if we wanted to win in the afternoon. Much depressed, we went up to the hotel to get some lunch. My brother suggested some champagne, and as we found our resources would admit of it, we cracked a bottle of Moët and Chandon.

Lunch finished, we ordered a cab, as it was close upon two, and proceeded to the links. As we drove along the road, which commanded a view of the first tee, we became aware of a huge crowd gathered round it. It was a Saturday afternoon, and all the golfers in the neighbourhood and a good many of the townsfolk had assembled to see the match. There was also a rope and three policemen!

We were aghast, and almost repented our temerity in coming. However, the matter had to be gone through with, and we descended from the cab, the cynosure of every eye, and shook hands with our antagonists. Workmen-like golfers they were, of short but sturdy build, to which our stripling figures must have offered a striking contrast. Two bearded friends carried for them the implements of war. We advanced together to the first tee. The odds were six to four against us, for our friend of the morning had spread the report of our game, and was laying against us freely. My brother drove against the elder Finlay, and as we were the visitors, he drove first. All the morning he had hardly hit a good shot. His first now was a "screamer." Far and sure it flew, straight on the hole. The elder Finlay played a good stroke in reply, but not as long as my brother's. The younger Finlay played an indifferent second, and I played a very long brassy on to the green. We won the hole in four to our opponents' five.

I do not know what came to us. Whether it was the effect of the champagne, or the sudden shock of the crowd and the policemen with the rope, that nerved us to the task, I cannot say, but we simply sailed away from our challengers. We never missed anything. We drove like Trojans, our iron shots were pictures, and we holed phenomenal putts. I am ashamed to say how many holes we beat them by. The local crowd were sore dismayed, and Willie Gow, the professional, with whom I had a small bet, said to me as he paid it: "Ye - fowks is rale deceivers!"

Having successfully upheld the honour of our native town, we returned to our studies of the autumn and winter, and our pursuit of golf, with renewed ardour. I entered the University in the autumn; and my brother and myself, making a few golfing converts among the students, and securing the patronage of the Lord Rector, who gave us a cup, started a University Golf Club. But whether it was the severe drubbing which I gave one of my professors, in a match against the local club, or whether the University authorities thought that the game had a dangerous and unsettling tendency, and was likely to interfere with due application and attendance at college, this institution did not long survive, and I am not aware that it has ever been resuscitated.

About this period, a Highland regiment was quartered in the town, and several of the officers were enthusiastic and fine players. I had by this time also joined the golf club, and many keen matches were made, in which I took part. Large sums were staked by these young bloods on the results, though, of course, a modest ball or half-crown, at the outside, was all I could afford to bet. One day a very important foursome was arranged, in which I had as my partner an Irish captain, against the professional and one of the lieutenants of the regiment. For the purposes of the match I was "skipping college," as we termed it, and about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, when 1 ought to have been engaged in the study of Greek, I was on the links enjoying the fresh air, and the game of golf, in the society of these agreeable gentlemen.

Now, if there was one set of men in the town that my father reprobated more than another, it was the officers of the garrison. They were idle fellows, with plenty of money, who carried themselves in the streets of the provincial town with a good deal of swagger. My father was a shy and reserved man, and their manners, coupled with the sundry reports of their extravagance and wildness, which had reached his ears, had led him to form the worst opinion of their characters. Certainly if he had known that any of us boys associated with them, he would have concluded that we were on the high road to perdition.

Conceive then, my horror, when, at the 8th hole, which was situated some distance from the town, I perceived my father about two hundred yards away, and walking in our direction. Wild thoughts of flight, or of hiding behind a whin bush, flashed through my mind, but I reflected that probably he had already seen me, and besides, I was ashamed to betray the situation to my companions. There was nothing for it but to await the course of events. My partner had to drive, and seeing my father, whom he did not know even by sight, right in the line of fire, he gave a wild Irish whoop, and shouted out "Fore!" in imperious tones. My father looked up, and, seeing the golfers, moved aside, and as we came up, we passed him at about twenty paces.

He never looked at us!

What he was doing on the links, where I had never before known him to go, I am unable to say. Whether his inveterate hatred of the military, whom he recognised, caused him to pass on without further regarding them, I cannot tell. I only know that he made no reference to the matter at the dinner-table, where I next met him, after some hours of agonising suspense. Perhaps the crime of neglecting my studies, to keep such company, was in his eyes so heinous and so paralysing that he could not contemplate it. I incline to think, however, that he never saw me at all, and I always look upon the affair as one of the most hairbreadth escapes of my life.

These were happy golfing days. A new golf club, in all its bravery of new leather and shining varnish, was our most coveted possession. With what care we tended it, and how its personality became engraved on our minds! In twenty years of golf, one must have run through some scores of wooden clubs, yet how few of those does one remember with any accuracy or distinctness. Our first possessions, on the other hand, their shape, their colour, the strokes we played with them, are abiding memories, that the lapse of time is powerless to efface.

And the gay insouciance with which we played ! The fearless accuracy of our driving, and the inevitable simplicity of our putting, born of nerves untouched, as yet, by the struggle and hard experience of life! A friend reminded me the other day of how, in these years, I drove my tee shot, after a simple shout of "Fore!" over the heads of a whole battalion of volunteers, who were drawn up between us and the hole! That fearless confidence has, alas! departed, but enough of skill remains to satisfy a modest ambition; and the other delights of the game seem but to intensify as time goes on. The wild seaside spaces are sweeter and more restful than ever, the benty hillocks and the grassy hollows, the sights of the open landscape and the high, spreading sky, in which the lark is always singing -

"So, still beside the tee, We meet in storm or calm, Lady, and worship thee; While the loud lark sings free; Piping his matin psalm Above the grey sad sea."