BLIND JACK OF KNARESBOROUGH. 53 



huge athletic fellow, of such great strength and ferocious temper 

 that he was specially employed to serve writs whenever resist- 

 ance was expected. One day Metcalf and a friend of his met 

 this big bully at an inn. They joined in a game of cards, in the 

 course of which Bake tried to collar some money which did not 

 belong to him. Metcalf's friend remonstrated, and received a 

 violent blow in the face from the bully. Metcalf then inter- 

 posed, and also got a hot one in the face. He at once pulled off 

 his coat, and challenged Bake to fight like a man. They had a 

 desperate set-to ; but Jack hit so hard and straight and measured 

 his distance so well that, after six rounds. Bake gave in. Of 

 course the confined space in which they fought was greatly in 

 Metcalf's favour ; but the fact that he, a blind man, fairly 

 thrashed a man as big as himself, and reckoned the champion of 

 the neighbourhood, is certainly one to which we doubt if the 

 history of the Ring can afford any parallel. And here we must 

 close our brief sketch of this extraordinary sportsman, though 

 his sporting adventures would suffice to fill a volume. It was 

 not, however, as a sportsman that he gained his chief celebrity. 

 He became a soldier, and subsequently served all through the 

 campaign of 1745 against the Jacobite Pretender. He played 

 his fiddle at the head of his company after the fashion of a 

 Highland piper ; and his regiment (Pulteney's) was the only one, 

 except the ' Old Buffs,' that had anything in the shape of a band 

 attached to it. On his return from the wars he became a trader. 

 In 175 1 he started the first stage-coach, or 'stage-wagon,' as they 

 called it then, between York and Knaresborough, driving it him- 

 self, twice a week in summer, and once in winter. Eventually he 

 became a contractor for road-making, and it was in this capacity 

 he made his fame and fortune, for his engineering skill and 

 sagacity were remarkable. Finally he died at Spofforth, near 

 Wetherby, on the 27th of April 18 10, aged ninety-three years, 

 leaving behind him four children, twenty grandchildren, and 

 ninety great and great-great grand-children. So ends our 

 memoir, too brief to do justice to the subject of it, but enough, 

 we feel sure, to convince our readers that the annals of sport 

 chronicle no more extraordinary character than Blind Jack of 

 Knaresborough. 



