Rugby Days. 61 



and that was when Allan MacDonough was 

 riding his own horse, Sir William, over a 

 gate into a lane, in the Cheltenham steeple- 

 chase. But I must hark back. When 

 steeplechases became general, Rugby, as a 

 matter of course, could not rest without one 

 of its own, the town standing £15 and the 

 Rugby boys £15, to the sincere mortifi- 

 cation of their head master, who contrasted 

 the amount mournfully with the solitary 

 sixpences and pennies which found their 

 way into the alms box of the chapel, along 

 with innumerable buttons and ' orders for 

 ,£1,000,' upon the 'Bank of Elegance.' Races 

 within reach there were none, and the only 

 time I ever saw young blood stock in the 

 town was when a locomotive ran into a horse 

 box, which was conveying two of the Mar- 

 quis of Westminster's young things from his 

 stud farm at Rickmansworth to John Scott, 

 his trainer's, quarters at Whitewall, in York- 

 shire. The steam scalded them dreadfully, 

 and they were brought to the Rugby Inn, to 

 be placed under a Veterinary Surgeon. A 

 more painful sight cannot be imagined, as the 

 skin was burnt off in large patches as well as 



