Spirit of the links

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LEFT BEHIND
1
33
ing to add to the comfort and the pleasure of this
expedition.
On the first morning afterwards it does really
seem that all the people who had stayed there had
gone also, and not merely the three who had come
with you. You breakfast perhaps alone in a vast
apartment. The head waiter seems to mix a great
sympathy with his attentions, suggesting that he
appreciates the loneliness and the misery of your
bereavement. Out of this wretched place to the
clubhouse, and there is no one there, and the obliging
secretary or steward is unable to give any definite
information as to the prospects of a morning match.
You take out a young professional, and, well though
he plays, a poor thing is this match with him in
comparison with those that were of the days before,
when you knew always the thoughts and fears that
were passing through the mind of your opponent,
and knew almost as well as your own, the clubs with
which he played his shots, and exactly how they did
their work. The ghosts of your friends seem to walk
in front of you down the fairway leading to every
hole, and as you leave the putting green and go
forward moodily to the next tee, there is the shadow
form of one of them pointing with his club to the
exact spot where you remember his ball was teed
yesterday, and you feel momentarily a happier man
as you think you can see his characteristic swing and
the glint of joy that comes into his eyes as he finds
he has made the carry that it needed a strong heart
to attempt with this wind blowing back from the
green. You do not wish to appear inconsiderate, and
not to show yourself as a man of proper feeling and
a good sportsman in the presence of another who can
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