214 JOHN METCALF, KOA1) MAKER. PART III. 



Harrogate, offering him a seat behind his coach. Metcalf 

 thanked him, but declined the offer, observing that he 

 could, with great ease, walk as far in a day as he, the 

 Colonel, was likely to travel in his carriage ; besides, he 

 preferred the walking. That a blind man should under- 

 take to walk a distance of two hundred miles over an 

 unknown road, in the same time that it took a gentleman 

 to perform the same distance in his coach, dragged by 

 post-horses, seems almost incredible ; yet Metcalf actually 

 arrived at Harrogate before the Colonel, and that without 

 hurrying by the way. The circumstance is at once 

 accounted for by the deplorable state of the roads, which 

 made travelling by foot on the whole considerably more 

 expeditious than travelling by coach. The story is even 

 extant of a man with a wooden leg being once offered a 

 lift upon a stage coach ; but he declined, with " Thank'ee, 

 I can't wait ; I'm in a hurry." And he stumped on, 

 ahead of the stage-coach. 



The account of Metcalf 's journey on foot from London 

 to Harrogate is not without a special bearing on our 

 subject, as illustrative of the state of the roads at that 

 time. He started on a Monday morning, about an hour 

 before the Colonel in his carriage, and his suite, which 

 consisted of sixteen servants on horseback. It was 

 arranged that they should sleep that night at Welwyn, 

 in Hertfordshire. Metcalf made his way to Barnet ; but 

 a little north of that town, where the road branches off 

 to St. Albans, he took the wrong way, and thus made a 

 considerable detour. Nevertheless he arrived at Welwyn 

 first, to the surprise of the Colonel. Next morning he 

 set off as before, and reached Biggleswade ; but there he 

 found the river swollen and no bridge provided to enable 

 travellers to cross to the further side. He made a con- 

 siderable circuit, in the hope of finding some method of 

 crossing the stream, and was so fortunate as to fall in 

 with a fellow wayfarer, who led the way across some 

 planks, Metcalf following the sound of his feet. Arrived 



