Jonah strolled up. "Hullo!" he said, "making a new bunker, old man? Good idea. Only a cleek's no good. Send the boy for a turf-cutter. Quicker in the long run."
My brother-in-law regarded us scornfully. Then:
"What I want to know," he said, "is how the Punch office can spare you both at the same time."
Daphne, Berry and I were playing a three-ball match, while Jill and Jonah—who had sprained his wrist—were walking round with us. Berry is rather good really, but just now he was wearing a patch over one eye, which made him hopeless.
It was glorious spring weather on the coast of Devon. A little village is Feth. Over and round about it the wind blows always, but the cluster of white cottages and the old brown inn themselves lie close in a hollow of the moorland, flanked by the great cliffs. Only the grey church, set up on the heights, half a mile distant, endures the tempests. The wind passes over Feth and is gone. A busy fellow, the wind. He has no time to stop. Not so the sunshine. That lingers with Feth all day, decking: the place gloriously. It is good to be a pet of the sun. So are the gardens of Feth bright with flowers, the white walls dazzling, the stream, that scrambles over brown pebbles to the little bay, merry water.
Except for the natives, we had the place to ourselves. But then Feth sees few visitors at any season. Sixteen miles from a station is its salvation. True, there is Mote Abbey hard by—a fine old place with an ancient deer-park and deep, rolling woods. Ruins, too, we had heard. A roofless quire, a few grass-grown yards of cloister and the like. Only the Abbot's kitchen was at all preserved. There's irony for you. We were going to see them before we left. We were told that in summer at the house itself parties assembled. But the family was away now.
The round of golf proceeded. "How many is that?" said Berry, as he sliced into the sea.
"Seven," said I. "Not seven into the sea, you know. Seven strokes. You've only hit three into the sea altogether."
"Isn't he clever with his sums? Here, give me another ball. Where's Henry?"
I handed him the last-named—a favourite cleek. The caddie had gone to collect the flotsam.