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his first public pedestrian feat took place. For 100 guineas level 

 he backed himself to walk six miles in the hour, fair heel aad toe. 

 This he won without difficulty and in the shortest time then on record. 

 The exact time is not given, but it was considered a wonderful per- 

 formance for a lad of seventeen. 



In the April following his father died and he succeeded to the family 

 estates, which remained under guardians till he came of age. His 

 second match was against Ferguson, the celebrated City Walking Clerk. 

 It was a seventy miles ran, from Fenchurcli Street, London, to ten 

 miles beyond Windsor and back. The Captain performed the distance 

 in fourteen hours on a very hot day in August, 1798, the clerk being 

 " nowhere." The amount of the stakes is not given. 



Captain Allardice then went to Cambridge, but stayed only a year 

 and did not graduate. Beyond taking " constitutionals " of sixty and 

 seventy miles to and from London, Oxford, Birmingham, etc., he does 

 not appear to have made any matches while at College. 



In the fall of 1800 he made the first of four celebrated bet? with 

 Mr. Fletcher of Ballingshoe, a gentleman well known on the Turf. 

 The first was for a level 2,500 guineas that Mr, F. did not do sixty 

 miles in fourteen hours, go as he pleased. This he just managed to do 

 at Doncaster ; but so knocked up was he that he expressed himself 

 certain that no one could achieve another thirty miles at comparatively 

 the same rate. The Captain at once backed himself for 500 guineas 

 to go ninety miles in 21^ hours. The affair was fixed for December, 

 1800. He ran a good trial of sixty-four miles in twelve hours, but 

 caught a chill and had to give up the match and pay the stake. In 

 the following spring the Captain's unceasing perseverance nerved him 

 to have another shy at Mr. Fletcher, so " 90 in 21^ " was again booked ; 

 but this time for no less than 2,000 guineas a-side. The match came 

 off over a measured mile on the high road between Brechin and Forfar. 

 He ran his first sixty-seven miles in thirteen hours ; but then, owing 

 to having taken some bad brandy, he suddenly became ill, and 

 thinking his chance hopeless, gave up the match. Two hours after- 

 wards he was all right and could have easily run the other twenty- 

 three miles in the remaining five and a half hours had he not previously 

 given up and the umpires accordingly left. Here, therefore, was our 

 hero, within six months, at the wrong side of his book to the tune of 

 5,000 guineas — exclusive of expenses. 



At this early age young Allardice seems to have got hold of the 

 dogged perseverance which characterised him all through life, for next 

 year we find him tackling Fletcher again over the " 90 in 2U." This 

 time the stakes were for 5,000 guineas, and so confident was he that 

 he allowed November to be chosen for the match to come off in, just 

 about the worst month of the year, he to choose the ground. Allardice 

 went into strict training in September under a knowing old tenant of 

 Lord Fauconberg's in Yorkshire. In a " dark" trial, which came off in his 

 lordship's demesne of Newburgh Priory at the end of October, the Cap- 



