VI
Well, it happened one day that the strongest player of Mons, who was called Paternostre, was found dead on the edge of a bunker. His head was broken, and near him was his niblick, red with blood.
They could not tell who had done this business, and as Paternostre often said that at golf he feared neither man nor devil, it occurred to them that he had challenged Mynheer van Belzébuth, and that as a punishment for this he had knocked him on the head. Mynheer van Belzébuth is, as every one knows, the greatest gamester that there is upon or under the earth, but the game he particularly affects is golf. When he goes his round in Flanders one always meets him, club in hand, like a true Fleming.
The wheelwright of Coq was very fond of Paternostre, who, next to himself, was the best golfer in the country. He went to his funeral with some golfers from the hamlets of Coq, La Cigogne, and La Queue de l’Ayache.
On returning from the cemetery they went to the tavern to drink, as they say, to the memory of the dead,[21] and there they lost themselves in talk about the noble game of golf. When they separated, in the dusk of evening:
“A good journey to you,” said the Belgian players, “and may St. Antony, the patron of golfers, preserve you from meeting the devil on the way!”
“What do I care for the devil?” replied Roger. “If he challenged me I should soon beat him!”
The companions trotted from tavern to tavern without misadventure; but the wolf-bell had long tolled for retiring in the belfry of Condé when they returned each one to his own den.