The public indignation at these discreditable incidents found a vent in the columns of the Times; and although Lord Hastings denied that there was “one single circumstance mentioned as regards the two horses, correctly stated,” and offered a frank explanation in both cases, the public refused to be appeased, and the stigma remained.

So overwhelmed was he by this combination of assaults on his fortune and his good name that his health—­undermined no doubt by excesses—­broke down.  He spent the summer months of 1868 in his yacht, cruising among the northern seas in search of health; but no sea-breezes could bring back colour to his cheeks or hope to his heart.  He was a broken man before he had reached his prime, and he realised that his sun was near its setting.  When he returned to England no one who saw him could doubt that the end was at hand.  But his ruling passion remained strong to the last.  He was advised by his friends to stay away from the Doncaster races; but he would go, though he could only with difficulty hobble on crutches.

The last pathetic glimpse the world caught of this former idol of the Turf was as, from a basket-carriage, with pale, haggard face and straining eyes, he watched Athena, a beautiful mare which had once been his, win a race.  As she was being led to the weighing-house he struggled from his carriage, hobbled on his crutches up to the beautiful animal, and lovingly patted her glossy neck.

Such was the last appearance of the ill-fated Marquess on a scene of his former triumphs.  For a few months longer he made a gallant fight for life.  He even contemplated another voyage, and a winter in Egypt; but, almost before winter had set in, on the 11th November 1868, he gave up the struggle and drew his last breath—­“leaving neither heir to his honours nor the smallest vestige of his ruined fortune; but leaving, in spite of his final failure, the memory of a true sportsman, and of a perfect gentleman who was no man’s enemy but his own.”

* * * * *

Before the Marquess of Hastings had mounted his first pony another meteor of the Turf, equally dazzling, had flashed across the sky, and been merged in a darkness even more tragic than his own.

Lord William George Frederick Cavendish Bentinck, commonly known and loved as “Lord George,” who was cradled at Welbeck in February 1802, was the second son of the fourth Duke of Portland, a keen sportsman who won the Derby of 1809 with Teresias.  The boy thus had the love of sport in his veins; and a passion for racing was the dominant note in his too brief life from the day, in 1833, when he started a small stud of his own, to that fatal day on which, piqued by his repeated failure to win the coveted “blue riband,” he sold every horse in his stables at a word, and abandoned the Turf in despair.