228 JOHN METCALF, ROAD MAKKK. PART Til. 



was, therefore, necessary for him to surmount the diffi- 

 culty in some other way, though he remained firm in 

 his resolution not to adopt the plan proposed by the 

 surveyor. After much cogitation he appeared again 

 before the trustees, and made this proposal to them : 

 that he should make the road across the marshes after 

 his own plan, and then, if it should be found not to 

 answer, he would be at the expense of making it over 

 again after the surveyor's proposed method. This was 

 agreed to ; and as he had undertaken to make nine 

 miles of the road within ten months, he immediately set 

 to work with all despatch. 



Nearly four hundred men were employed upon the 

 work at six different points, and their first operation was 

 to cut a deep ditch along either side of the intended 

 road, and throw the excavated stuff inwards so as to 

 raise it to a circular form. His greatest difficulty was 

 in .getting the stones laid to make the drains, there 

 being no firm footing for a horse in the more boggy 

 places. The Yorkshire clothiers, who passed that way 

 to Huddersfield market by no means a soft-spoken 

 race ridiculed Metcalf s proceedings, and declared that 

 he and his men would some day have to be dragged out 

 of the bog by the hair of their heads ! Undeterred, 

 however, by sarcasm, he persistently pursued his plan 

 of making the road practicable for laden vehicles ; but 

 he strictly enjoined his men for the present to keep his 

 manner of proceeding a secret. 



His plan was this. He ordered heather and ling to 

 be pulled from the adjacent ground, and after binding it 

 together in little round bundles, which could be grasped 

 with the hand, these bundles were placed close together 

 in rows in the direction of the line of road, after which 

 other similar bundles were placed transversely over 

 I hciii; and when all had been pressed well down, stone 

 and gravel were led on in broad-wheeled wagons, and 

 spread over the bundles, so as 1o make a linn and level 



