More Tales of the Ridings

by F. W. Moorman

Next morning, with tears in her eyes, she told the doctor of the change that had come over his patient. The doctor tried his pulse and looked puzzled. He ordered Learoyd a soothing draught, but it had no effect. All through the day his agony was frightful to witness. He sat with glowering eyes gazing at the verse which had destroyed his peace of mind. Mary tried to take the Bible from him but, with an oath, he refused to give it up. The day was a busy one for her. Learoyd's man-servant had gone with a flock of sheep and lambs to a distant moor, and the duties of feeding the stock and milking the cows fell to her. The farmer preserved a sullen silence while she was in the house, but no sooner was she outside than his muttering began.

"Coals o' fire, aye, that's what shoo's heapin' on me, coals o' hell fire; they're burnin' my heart to a cinder. It's vengeance shoo's after; shoo favours her mother. All women are just t' same. She-devils, that's what they are. Shoo sal have her vengeance, sure enough, an' then mebbe t' coals o' fire will burn her as they're burnin' me." A red-hot cinder fell into the grate as he spoke, and Learoyd gazed at it with curious intentness until it had lost all its glow.

"I'll fotch t' halter out o' t' kist, an' I'll do it," he began once more. "Shoo san't torment me no longer: t' coals o' fire sal be upon her own heead."

Here he lapsed into morose silence, and Mary, re-entering the farm kitchen shortly afterwards, found him, as she had left him, gazing intently into the fire with the Bible open on his knees. She got tea ready, but Learoyd stubbornly refused to eat or drink anything, and when at last ten o'clock came the farmer roused himself from his lethargy and stole off to bed, casting furtive glances at Mary as he passed through the door. She wisely refrained from intruding herself upon him that night, but, climbing the stairs to her bedroom, listened for sounds in the adjoining chamber. She could hear Learoyd muttering to himself, and she noticed that he was quicker in getting into bed than usual. A suspicion crossed her mind that he had not undressed, and this confirmed the idea which she had formed earlier in the evening that some secret purpose was maturing in his mind. Sleep was not to be thought of, and so, without taking off her clothes, she got into bed and listened.

Two hours passed, and all the time she heard Learoyd groaning in his bed. Then he got up, struck a light, and remained still for a moment as though he were listening for any sound that might come from her room. Then she heard him open the door of his bedroom and creep, candle in hand, along the passage. As he passed her door he stopped, and Mary held her breath lest he should discover that she was awake and listening for every sound. Apparently satisfied that she was asleep, the farmer descended the stairs to the kitchen. Mary noiselessly crept out of bed and, lifting the latch of her bedroom door, stood in the shadow of the passage and watched every movement of her stepfather in the kitchen below. He had opened the old oak chest by the wall and was fumbling among its contents. At last he found what he was looking for and drew it forth. It was a long rope, and, with a shudder, Mary recognised the halter which had once been round her neck. Her head swam as the thought came to her that Samuel Learoyd was going to sell her again, and groping her way back to her room she locked the door and threw herself on her bed. Anxiously she listened for the farmer's step on the staircase, but it did not come. Instead, she heard him moving about in the kitchen, and then came the sound of the bolts being withdrawn from the front door. A moment later his footsteps were heard on the gravel path. Rousing herself with an effort, she once more unlocked the door and crept to the head of the stairs. Come what may, she resolved to follow her stepfather and discover what were his plans. She made her way down into the kitchen and, without striking a light, moved towards the front door. It was ajar, and, opening it, she stared out into the starry night. All was still, and no sound of Learoyd's footsteps came to her from the farmyard.

Drawing her shawl tightly round her, she stepped out into the darkness. Once she fancied that she heard the farmer muttering to himself in the croft below and the harrowing thought crossed her mind that this was all some cunning plan on his part to lure her out of the house and slip the halter round her neck under cover of night. Her fears counselled her to return to the house and seek shelter from his mad frenzy behind lock and key, but the thought that Learoyd, if seized with a fit while exposed to the chill night air, would certainly meet his death overcame her fears and urged her on.

After more than two hours of fruitless search she returned to the farm, cherishing the hope that her stepfather might have returned too. But the house was empty and the door still stood ajar. Realising that further search in the darkness was unavailing, she waited for the dawn and determined that, as soon as the clock struck four, she would wake up the farm labourer at his cottage and get him to search the moors while she made her way down to Holmton to engage her husband and his son in the task of tracking the fugitive. The dreary night passed at last, the larks burst into song above her head, and the cry of the curlew was heard on the moors. She closed the farm door behind her, roused the hind, and then made her way as swiftly as possible to the town. Here everybody was still asleep, and her footfalls waked echoes in the stone-paved streets. Her nearest way to the weaver's cottage lay through the market-place, and for a moment she hesitated whether she should pass that way or take the more circuitous route by the beck-side. Realising that there was no time to lose, she summoned up all her courage, and, making her way past the church, entered the market-place. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, as though to avoid beholding the scene of her humiliation; but the market-cross and the stocks, now that she was within a few yards of them, exerted a strange fascination over her. Do what she might, she could not refrain from gazing upon them once more, and as she did so a cry of horror escaped her. In front of the cross hung the lifeless figure of a man. About his neck was a halter, the other end of which was securely fastened to the broken arms of the cross.

It was Learoyd. The wretched man, tortured by a sense of guilt, and obsessed with the idea that Mary Whittaker's act of sacrifice was a cold-blooded device to shame him and aggravate his misery, had hanged himself, choosing as the scene of his death the spot where, fifteen years before, he had exposed his stepdaughter for sale. In so doing, his warped imagination assured him that the coals of fire which seared his brain would henceforth be poured upon the head of Mary Whittaker.

Such was the end of Samuel Learoyd. If there was stern retribution in his death so was there also malign mockery. The chalice of pardon and peace was filled for him, but before he could raise the cup to his lips a fiendish hand had dashed it to the ground and substituted in its place a draught of venomous hemlock.