The chief was shepherd for some years, and it was only by the odd accident of dwelling fondly for a few minutes, as he laid himself down in bed, upon the fine things he had done in one great match that day that he came by a change of nightly occupation. With the links laid out before him on the inner side of his eyelids, he played every shot again, and if the truth must be told, he played some of them twice, and in this way he proved to his own immense satisfaction that, soul-satisfying as had been his play that day, his round was morally at least three strokes better than it had worked out. He played his round from the first tee to the eighteenth green on the eyelid links once, and so pleasant was the play that, like the gourmand golfer, he must needs play it again, shot by shot; and a third time he set out with his clubs. But this time he was tiring. The two mental rounds that had gone before had told their tale, and he was constantly finding his wayward ball in the rough, and making sometimes fine recoveries with his iron clubs, and sometimes taking two to get clear again. You see he always played the game. Perfection in golf is not given to any man, and even in the eyelid game one must pull and slice at times, must now and again socket with the irons, and take one’s eye off the little white ball. And so it happened that at last the tired brain surrendered, and upon the fifteenth green, with the match still unfinished--one up and three to go--he fell asleep. Thenceforth the shepherdry was given up, and he took on the eyelid golf instead. Two rounds he played every night, and every time he played the game, refusing to allow himself things he had not clearly seen himself do, and not taking unto himself the power of doing miracles or of always playing the perfect golf. In that there would have been great monotony, just as there would be if we always played perfect golf in our real life upon the links. He never made a carry in this nightly imagination that he had not made in daylight, never laid an iron shot dead, or holed a putt the like of which he had not done with real club and ball. Some nights he would be off his game, and his score would run far up into the nineties, and he would be badly beaten. On those nights he might go to sleep a little sooner than usual. On others he would be playing the best game of his youth. In general he found the occupation much more pleasant and agreeable to his tastes than the shepherdry, and it is a curious thing, which one must believe since he said so, that these night rounds, with all their thoughts and their minor anxieties, actually did something towards the improvement of the real game that was played in the daytime. The player now and then obtained new and good ideas, and he was taught to be a little more thoughtful than perhaps he had been in the past. By and by the secret of this play became too much for him to keep, so he unfolded the story of his eyelid games to the lady partner