we dropped upon the green.
Twa bonny strokes as e'er were seen.
Stane dead I lay, he ten feet aff,
He missed his putt--wi' careless laugh,
'First blood,' cried I, 'the hole is mine.'
'Yes,' quo' he, 'the Devil's luck is thine.'

So cocky was I with this fine beginnin',
I offered straight to play him even.
'No, no,' he said, 'to that I can't agree,
You'll need your odds before you've done wi' me.'
He looked and said this with a wicked leer,
I felt my flesh to creep with sudden fear.
Such confidence and pluck, I could not understand,
And funkit something strange, uncanny, underhand.

But spite of funk and fancy, all the same
I played weel up a rattlin' game;
Holes three and four they fell to me,
The taen at four, the tither at three.
His Highness meanwhile skipped alang,
Whiles he whistled and whiles he sang;
But whenever I turned, his leerin' e'e
Was glarin', glowerin', lookin' at me!

[Illustration]

At 'Hole Across,' the bunker of H--l,
To my surprise he kent it well;
He girned and cackled and looked excited
As if wi' secret thoughts delighted.
I drove weel o'er, wi' grand precision,
And lay serene on sod Elysian.
Clootie on purpose missed his ba',
And landed slap intil its maw.
Then, Jock, a sicht I saw, so strange and awfie,
Unseen, unheard o', and unlawfie!
Loud laughter rose from H--l within,
Wild shouts and cries o' welcomin';
While over the edge, peepin' and peerin'
Through the long grass, and disappearin',
Were seen strange forms, like horned apes,
And other brutes wi' fearsome shapes,
Goblins grinning wi' blazing een,
Bogles or ghaists, or a cross between.
But strange, when we the bunker neared,
They'd vanished all and disappeared.
And nocht remained but an infernal smell
Of brimstone reek, true stink o' H--l.
Clootie gaed smilin' in, rejoiced to be
At hame, his bonny bairns to see;
His ball he found, both safe and playable.
'Play quick,' cried I, 'this smell is d--able.'
'Pause, Skipper, 'tis my favourite scent,' says he,
'Bouquet d'Enfer, a perfume sweet to me.
You lack good taste, you drunken sot,
To me this is a charming spot;
But play I must,' and, as he spoke,
He drove forthwith a splendid stroke;
But of little good it proved to be,
For again I took the hole in three.

'Four up,' I said, 'my gallant foe;
If this goes on you'll come to woe.'
'All right,' says he, 'm