had more than enough to do to hold their
own against the superior hosts of England
—James the Fourth revived the edict
against golf. The Scotch are a "dour"
and stubborn people, even in their sports.
What they do they do with all their
strength. Whether they fight, or make
love, or drink, or make money, or amuse
themselves, they do it "with a will."
It was their will to play golf, and they
played it. As might have been foreseen by
a wiser king than James, the fulminating
edict became, for the second time, a dead
letter. James the Fifth, the next king, was
a hearty good fellow, loved to enjoy himself,
as may be surmised from his ballad of
We'll gang nae mair a Roving, and his
poems of Christ's Kirk on the Green, and
Peblis to the Play. Besides, he was not
involved with England. Under his merry
rule, golf took fresh root in popular
favour throughout the whole of Eastern
and Middle Scotland. James the Sixth
—who wrote the Book of Sports (afterwards
ordered to be burned by the hands
of the common hangman), and was anxious
that labouring men, condemned to a life of
toil during six days of the week, should,
after going to church on the Sunday forenoon,
take a bout at some athletic sport
on the Sunday afternoon—was a friend of
golf, football, and cricket, and established
the Golf Club that still carries on the sport
at Blackheath. His son, Charles the First,
played golf on the links of Leith, and his
grandson, the Duke of York, afterwards
James the Second of England and Seventh
of Scotland, wishing, in one of his visits to
Edinburgh, to ingratiate himself with the
Scottish people, thought no means more
efficient than to play golf publicly among
them. A dispute having arisen among some
of the English nobles who accompanied him,
whether golf were not the same game as the
English hockey, the result was a challenge
between two of the Englishmen to the Duke
of York and any Scotsman he might select,
to play a match upon the links of Leith.
Tradition has failed to record the amount of
the stake, but it appears to have been
considerable. Golf is a democratic game, as all
games of skill and strength must be, and,
there being no great nobleman or gentleman
of rank to be found on the Scottish side to
contend against the southerners for the
honour of Scotland, one John Patersone, a
shoemaker, of Edinburgh, a noted golfer
himself, and descended of a family in which
proficiency in golf was hereditary, was
prevailed upon, after some difficulty, to be the
duke's partner. The duke and John
Patersone won the match triumphantly.
It was the duke's first victory, and he was
proud of it, but it was John Patersone's
ninth, and he was prouder still. With one
half of the stakes the doughty shoemaker
built himself a fine new house in the Canongate
of Edinburgh, and placed over the
door the anagrammatic motto, "I hate no
persone," derived from the transposition of
the letters of his name. The duke, equally
pleased, caused a tablet to be inserted in the
wall, bearing the arms of the Patersone
family, together with the motto of the
golfers, " Far and Sure."

"Far and sure" is not alone the motto,
but the rule of golf. Strike the ball that it
may fly far; strike it also so that it may fly
sure towards the hole, which is its ultimate
destination; such is the whole theory and
practice of the sport. At St. Andrews
people seem only to eat and drink that they
may play golf. They sleep at night that
they may rise refreshed for golf in the
morning. They make money that they
may have leisure to play golf in their
holidays, and in the afternoons of their busy
lives. No position is too high in life to
prevent its occupant from playing golf,
none is too low to debar him from the
privilege. All ages, ranks, and classes,
and both sexes, give way to the fascination
of the game.

If it wasna lawful,
   Lawyers wadna allow it.
If it was na holy,
   Ministers wadna do it.
If it was na modest,
   Maidens wadna tak it.
If it was na plenty,
   Puir folk wadna get it!

Nothing stops golf in St. Andrews except
snow and darkness, and these only
because the one fills up the holes, and the
other renders them invisible. Wind, rain,
and sleet have no effect, unless the wind
blows such a hurricane as to interfere
with the course of the ball.

The Golf Club at St. Andrews, overlooking
the links, consists of about six
hundred members, of whom not above a
third, if so many, are permanent residents
of the city and neighbourhood. Society in
Great Golfington is not an "upper ten
thousand," but a small and very select
body of two or three hundred, including
the professors of the university, the
lawyers, the doctors, the bankers, and the
country gentlemen of the district, with
their wives and families. These, it is
evident, do not afford a public sufficiently