Landmarks of Romance page 2

Those were the days of the new turnpike trusts and the riots they occasioned. Making a centre of the Marquis of Granby, his father-in-law's house, Metcalfe set up as a stableman and wholesale carrier and linked up his native district with one big town after another. When half Scotland rose in "the '45," he turned recruiter for the Hanoverian side, rode his men into the North himself, and was present at the battle of Culloden, which broke the Jacobite cause to pieces.

Previously he had fought at and escaped from the battle of Falkirk, fought some months earlier in the year in the same campaign, and was present at the famous ball given by the Duke of Cumberland at Aberdeen.

But war was not Metcalfe's line. Tramping and riding had given him the instinct of the highway, and he started to make roads for himself, and justified himself against all rivals. His road from Knaresborough to Harrogate, the first he ever made, is working well to-day, after a century and a half of steady wear. But "Blind Jack" himself told the story of his career in the "Life" that he dictated at close on eighty. He died at ninety-three on his own farm at Spofforth, a progenitor with nearly a hundred grandchildren, and his monument in the parish church is a landmark for Yorkshire to be proud of.