252 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



this stupendous walk from thirteen stone four pounds 

 to eleven stones. Bets amounting to a hundred 

 thousand pounds depended on the result. 



As fresh as ever, and in perfect health, the Captain, 

 his ^Yalk ended on the 12th, started on the 17th with 

 his regiment on the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition, 

 and returned in due course safe and sound. A year 

 or two earlier he had given proof of his extraordinary 

 physical powers by doing without sleep for two nights 

 and three days, and in the interval walking a hundred 

 and thirty miles, dancing at balls, shooting on grouse- 

 moors, and dining at friends' houses. He would have 

 exactty fitted the requirements of the Post-Oftice at 

 the transfer of the telegraphs in 1870, but, unhappily, 

 he died in 1854, the very year in which the depart- 

 ment began a new lease of vigorous life. 



Barclay does not stand alone in my memor}^ of 

 famous sportsmen who sometimes mounted the box of 

 the mail-coach, for besides him and the renowned 

 rifle-shot. Captain Horatio Pioss (whose son won the 

 first Queen's Prize at "Wimbledon), there Avas the 

 beau-ideal of sporting men, Squire George Osbal- 

 deston. 



Sholto and Pieuben Percy, in their ' Anecdotes of 

 Sport and Eccentricity,' published in 1826, make 

 mention of a remarkable Osbaldeston of their time, 

 who, turned out of doors in early manhood by his 

 father, contrived, as an attorney's clerk, to support 

 on sixty pounds a year a wife and several children, 

 some couples of hounds, and two hunters, getting 



