A ROMAN IN WELLINGTON

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 115, 16 May 1936, Page 29

A ROMAN IN WELLINGTON

lII—THE SCOTS GAME

(Written for "The Post" by J". Wilson Hogg.) My guide and I stood hard by a small platform of beaten earth raised perhaps a span from.the level of the ground. About us stood a throng of people most strangely clad. Stout sandals die men wore and bright hose, upon their lower legs, but from the knees up to the waist hey were enveloped in a great, shapeless garment of coarse cloth, which, though drawn severely about the waist sagged loosely around the knees. Their upper parts were decked in all manner of bright colours so that them 5"" their glory and the eye winked in beholding I noticed that each man was closely attended by an avms-bearer carrying^ about his shoulder an exceeding great quiver. These fellows appeared to be slaves, buf poorer looking than any I have seen, nor did tney wear the hvery of their masters, but were clad most sorrowfully. said my guide, "is an ancient game of the Scots." . \ nave^seen," I replied, "the Picts and Scots charging savagely a§amst the Emperor Hadrian's, great wall in Britain, but these men appear more formidable. Nor did the woad with which the Britons themselves were painted lend them a more fearsome aspect." My Guide continued in his explanation of the game, saying that each, combatant must strike a ball from the raised platform and4enee belabour it along the sward by means of a series of strangely-wrought clubs, towards a distant pennant which fluttered redly above a small hole in *he ground. Into this hole must the, ball finally be thrust, imagine my astonishment when he further informed me that the warrior now upon the platform was expected to perform this feat with but four strikes.-. >'; .-.■■• .■. ■ ■ • ■ ■- ■ .■. .'•. . ■ ■ ■ spoke, t00 ' of a cerla'n famous military man, a centurion called, Bogey, .who never failed to circle the course in: exceeding few Strikes and whom all who played this game strove to emulate; He spoke, too, of Birdies and Eagles, doubtless in reference to some augury tor success by the entrails of fowls such as we practised in Rome. ■ :? .. Selecting a weapon from the quiver of his slave the combatant upon the platform stepped forward and placed a small white ball upon the ground., A deathly stillness fell'upon the crowd. A certain low fellow Ot the baser coughed, and, for a space I feared for his life, so terrible was the look bent upon him by the pliiyer. But he stayed his hand^ albeit, the crowd did look so exceeding wroth upon the fellow that he seemed nigh weeping and immediately departed from out of that place. . ~;; ■-■'-- '• Ult n tnis lh^ player took up a most threatening posture over the ■ball and made a number of remarkable passes at it with-a "strangely taa proportioned clubV Abruptly he stiffened and began Wtreinblc so .Violently that it seemed he, was like to fall foaming In spnie fit or iseisurer when* he relaxed, pivoted: lightly from the; waist, khd. smote ba";3 l> n an exactness and power wondrous to behold. The winged .ball , sped forth, and dropping afar, rolled arid slipped into a sandy n?nment not a great way fwmthVscar^ pennant. I could not wonder but the player's tongue-was loosened and he called afipi^Jtrange gods- to he-had; reachedrfthe;. entrenchment, ISl^B^ likijwise smote the, ball cuhningjyj ialling -sitert^t- the otherlibut ?jputtinga brave face upon his Worse fortune:; ■ ■/-?;■:' •«-■:-' ""-••.■ -. With that we all moved off, both the players and the spectators. -Now nigh unto us was a poor wretch strangely distraught. His keepers carried poles to which he was attached by fine bin exceeding strorigcord, so .that he might move with freedom but could in no wise escape. This lunatic babbled unceasingly and in a demented minner into a small box in which, no doubt, he believed some god to dwell. I was unable to comprehend the explanation my Guide gave of this sad insanity except that the form of possession was called "Running Commentary" which did seem apt enough a name. .;'.' : ' ■ The second player, reaching his ball, lightly smote it forth that it fell upon the sward ten paces from the fluttering pennant. Hi? opponent, however, finding himself, deep within the entrenchment, did take forth a .curiously wrought club and did descend into the pit and thereupon igf eat gouts of sand flew now here, now there. Finally the man ceased and, standing with downcast eyes and tragic mien over the still unmoved ball, addressed to it a flow of Personification unrivalled by any I have heard. He likened this inanimate object to some poor, fatherless wretch born in poverty and shame and,'in this guise, attributed to it all the little weaknesses and. great vices known to men. The introduction of the Drama into the Games seems peculiar to this strange civilisation, and I am compelled to admit that, for power and rhythm, I have jiot heard the like of this soliloquy since I attended, at the great theatre at Epidauros, a tragedy of Euripides. V Thus »nd thus we proceeded, about the course and, albeit a great weariness spread over-my erstwhile., eager mind, the throng about the two combatants never ceased-in concentrated.attention, now silent as if stricken with death, nov applauding and crying aloud. ; . . "And^to what conclusion will all this come?" I asked. And my Guide answered and said, "In the nineteenth •will it end." ' ' "The nineteenth," I questioned, 'is of a surety a sacred number denoting some temple?" ■ "Even so; the'temple of Bacchus." . And we removed ourselves from that place, I musing that m*tn had, perchance, altered in no great degree. ,