ii2 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



that apartment, and, in point of fact, no one ever did dis- 

 cover the originators of Stevenson's ghost. Many fellows 

 thought they heard it in various other parts of the house 

 for long afterwards. Such is the power of imagination. 



It was, no doubt, thoughtless and unkind to do this 

 thing, but what boy is not thoughtless and unkind ? 

 The ghost was certainly one of the best I ever heard of, 

 and it was worth anything to see good old " Mindar " 

 skip in alarm when he had come to lay it. Better still 

 was the defeat of Lee- Warner, who was supercilious in his 

 confidence that he would soon find out all about it. 



There is a fascination about these ancient reminiscences 

 of life at Rugby which I fear may be leading to prolixity, 

 but who is there without an abiding delight in his old 

 school ? Never has one taken such pleasure in seeing 

 cricket as when we used to watch the school Eleven playing 

 against I. Zingari or other elevens, and very fresh in 

 memory is the effective left-hand bowling of David 

 Buchanan, a famous old Rugbeian, who was great in 

 those days. The cricket ground, at the far end of the 

 Close, was and doubtless still is a first-rate one, and 

 there, away beyond the left corner, was the racket court, 

 to the walls of which I saw Pauncefote hit a ball not once 

 but several times. On the near left-hand side the Pavilion 

 showed its record of past elevens painted on the match- 

 boarding ; and one used to look with special interest at 

 the name of Hughes (" Tom Brown "). Close to the 

 Pavilion, the Island, with high trees and a few inferior 

 swings and gymnastic arrangements. 



Then, nearer to the School House, was the Big Side 

 ground, devoted in summer to numerous minor cricket 

 matches, and in winter sacred to football. On the right 

 of that, the lower ground called the Pontine Marshes, 

 where punt-about with numerous footballs was the 

 favourite form of brief exercise between schools or before 

 dinner, and here it was, and on the ground nearer the 

 Chapel, that " Below Caps " and other unimportant football 

 games used to be played in the afternoons. Then, too, 



