BLIND SPORTSMEN 339 



thought a fatal bar to his ever attaining pugilistic laurels. 

 Yet it was not so, and among other feats with his fists, he 

 fairly thrashed in six hard-fought rounds, a man as big as 

 himself, and reckoned the champion of the neighbourhood. 



Metcalf was a soldier too, and served all through the 

 campaign of 1745 against the Jacobite Pretender, playing 

 the fiddle at the head of his company after the fashion of 

 the Highland pipers. On his return from the wars he 

 became a trader. In 175 1 he started the first stage-coach 

 or " stage- wagon," as they called it then, between York 

 and Knaresborough, driving it himself, twice a week in 

 summer and once in winter. Eventually he became a 

 contractor for road-making, and made his fame and fortune, 

 for his engineering skill was remarkable. He died at 

 Spofiforth, near Wetherby, on 27th April 18 10, in the 

 ninety-fourth year of his age. 



Jack Metcalfs exploits, however, were rivalled by a 

 Scotsman named M'Giivray, who, despite his blindness, was 

 a first-rate jockey and an excellent judge of horses. When 

 examining a horse he was guided entirely by feeling, but 

 so well did he know the points of a horse that he never 

 made a mistake. 



Mr Birnie, an owner of racehorses and a coach proprietor 

 in the south of Scotland, picked up a fine bargain at 

 Edinburgh Hallow Fair. On his way home he put up at 

 the Blackshiels Inn, Fala, kept by M'Gilvray's father. Mr 

 Birnie, while sitting at his dinner, asked Willie M'Giivray 

 to examine his purchase. In half an hour or so young 

 M'Giivray returned, and said the horse was everything 

 that could be wished for had he been able to see with both 

 eyes. " How do you know he does not see with both 

 eyes ? " the owner asked. " I have passed my hand over 

 and over the right side of his head," was the reply, " and 

 his eyelids never flinch, but when I do so on the other side 

 they close instantly." The horse was really blind on the 

 right side, and the blind jockey had discovered an im- 

 perfection which the purchaser, a first-rate judge, had failed 

 to detect. 



As a jockey, M'Giivray was guided, when he rode a 

 race, by his knowledge of two or three race-courses, and, as 



