It chanced, on an October day of the year of grace Fourteen hundred and twenty-eight, that I was playing myself at this accursed sport with one Richard Melville, a student of like age with myself.  We were evenly matched, though Dickon was tall and weighty, being great of growth for his age, whereas I was of but scant inches, slim, and, as men said, of a girlish countenance.  Yet I was well skilled in the game of the Golf, and have driven a Holland ball the length of an arrow-flight, there or thereby.  But wherefore should my sinful soul be now in mind of these old vanities, repented of, I trust, long ago?

As we twain, Dickon and I, were known for fell champions at this unholy sport, many of the other scholars followed us, laying wagers on our heads.  They were but a wild set of lads, for, as then, there was not, as now there is, a house appointed for scholars to dwell in together under authority.  We wore coloured clothes, and our hair long; gold chains, and whingers {3} in our belts, all of which things are now most righteously forbidden.  But I carried no whinger on the links, as considering that it hampered a man in his play.  So the game went on, now Dickon leading “by a hole,” as they say, and now myself, and great wagers were laid on us.

Now, at the hole that is set high above the Eden, whence you see far over the country, and the river-mouth, and the shipping, it chanced that my ball lay between Dickon’s and the hole, so that he could in no manner win past it.

“You laid me that stimy of set purpose,” cried Dickon, throwing down his club in a rage; “and this is the third time you have done it in this game.”

“It is clean against common luck,” quoth one of his party, “and the game and the money laid on it should be ours.”

“By the blessed bones of the Apostle,” I said, “no luck is more common.  To-day to me, to-morrow to thee!  Lay it of purpose, I could not if I would.”

“You lie!” he shouted in a rage, and gripped to his whinger.

It was ever my father’s counsel that I must take the lie from none.  Therefore, as his steel was out, and I carried none, I made no more ado, and the word of shame had scarce left his lips when I felled him with the iron club that we use in sand.

“He is dead!” cried they of his party, while the lads of my own looked askance on me, and had manifestly no mind to be partakers in my deed.

Now, Melville came of a great house, and, partly in fear of their feud, partly like one amazed and without any counsel, I ran and leaped into a boat that chanced to lie convenient on the sand, and pulled out into the Eden.  Thence I saw them raise up Melville, and bear him towards the town, his friends lifting their hands against me, with threats and malisons.  His legs trailed and his head wagged like the legs and the head of a dead man, and I was without hope in the world.