212 .10I1X METCALF, ROAD MAKKH. PART ITT. 



dition that he might choose his ground. This was agreed 

 to, but there was to be neither hedge nor wall in the dis- 

 tance. Metcalf forthwith proceeded to the neighbourhood 

 of the large bog near the Harrogate Old Spa, and having 

 placed a person on the line in which he proposed to ride, 

 who was to sing a song to guide him by its sound, he 

 mounted and rode straight into the bog, where lie had 

 the horse effectually stopped within the stipulated two 

 hundred yards, stuck up to his saddle-girths in the mire. 

 Metcalf scrambled out and claimed his wager ; but it 

 was with the greatest difficulty that the horse could be 

 extricated. 



The blind man also played at bowls very successfully, 

 receiving the odds of a bowl extra for the deficiency of 

 each eye. He had thus three bowls for the other's one ; 

 and he took care to place one friend at the jack and 

 another midway, who, keeping up a constant discourse 

 with him, enabled him readily to judge of the distance. 

 In athletic sports, such as wrestling and boxing, he was 

 also a great adept ; and being now a full-grown, man, 

 of great strength and robustness, about six feet two in 

 height, few durst try upon him the practical jokes which 

 cowardly persons are sometimes disposed to play upon 

 the blind. 



Notwithstanding his mischievous tricks and youthful 

 wildness, there must have been something exceedingly 

 winning about the man, possessed of a strong, daring, 

 manly, and affectionate nature; and we are not, there- 

 fore, surprised to learn that the daughter of the landlord 

 of the Granby fairly fell in love with Blind Jack and 

 married him, much to the disgust of her relatives. When 

 asked how it was that she could marry such a man, her 

 woman-like reply was, " Because I could not be happy 

 without him : his actions are so singular, and his spirit 

 so manly and enterprising, that I could not help loving 

 him." But, after all, Dolly was not so far wrong in her 

 choice as her parents thought her. As the result pro\ < < 1 . 



