Metcalf's skill in constructing his roads over boggy ground was very great; and the following may be cited as an instance. When the high-road from Huddersfield to Manchester was determined on, he agreed to make it at so much a rood, though at that time the line had not been marked out. When this was done, Metcalf, to his dismay, found that the surveyor had laid it out across some deep marshy ground on Pule and Standish Commons. On this he expostulated with the trustees, alleging the much greater expense that he must necessarily incur in carrying out the work after their surveyor's plan. They told him, however, that if he succeeded in making a complete road to their satisfaction, he should not be a loser; but they pointed out that, according to their surveyor's views, it would be requisite for him to dig out the bog until he came to a solid bottom. Metcalf, on making his calculations, found that in that case he would have to dig a trench some nine feet deep and fourteen yards broad on the average, making about two hundred and ninety-four solid yards of bog in every rood, to be excavated and carried away. This, he naturally conceived, would have proved both tedious as well as costly, and, after all, the road would in wet weather have been no better than a broad ditch, and in winter liable to be blocked up with snow. He strongly represented this view to the trustees as well as the surveyor, but they were immovable. It was, therefore, necessary for him to surmount the difficulty 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.