neighbouring villages, but within the last fifty years it had seen the
establishment of the cloth trade in its midst, and the population had
considerably increased. Round about the market-place stone-paved streets
had branched off in all directions, and two-storied stone houses had
been built, in which the rooms on the ground floor served for kitchen
and bedroom, while in the long, low room above hand-looms had been
erected, and wool was spun and woven into cloth.
The shouts of the farm people in the market-place at once brought the
weavers to their windows and doors. Ever eager for any excitement which
should relieve the drab monotony of their lives, they rushed into the
streets and elbowed their way to the market-place.
"What's up?" asked one of them of a farmer's man, as he followed the
sound of the hubbub.
"It's Sam Learoyd," the man replied, "and he wants to know if onybody's
wantin' to buy his dowter."
"Black Sam o' Fieldhead Farm! By Gow! I reckon he's bin crazed sin his
missus left him for t' barman. But he hasn't gotten no dowters, nor sons
nowther. It'll be his stepdowter, Mary Whittaker, that he's browt to
market."
The speakers were now approaching the spot where the father and the
haltered stepdaughter were standing. The former, a hard-featured, sullen
man of about forty-five, was addressing the crowd. The latter, hiding as
much of her face as she could beneath her grey shawl, stood with her
hands clasped before her and her eyes fixed on the ground. Mute
resignation was written on every line of her face. Whatever indignation
or shame she might feel at the degrading situation in which she was
placed seemed repressed, either by the humility that comes from long
suffering or by a supreme effort of the will, of which the tightly
closed lips gave some indication.
The spot chosen by Sam Learoyd for his traffic in human flesh was not
without significance. Behind him, and approached by steps, on which the
farmers' wives exposed for sale their baskets of poultry and eggs, stood
what was left of the market cross. It was one of those old Saxon crosses
of Irish design which may still be seen in some of the towns and
villages of England, and are said to mark the spot where the early
Christian missionaries, long before the churches were built, preached
their gospel of peace and good will to a pagan audience. Close at hand
were the stocks, where, until quite recently, the bullies and scolds of
the town had been set by their fellow-citizens and suhjected to the
missiles and taunts of every passer-by. Here, then, between these two
symbols--the one of Divine mercy and the other of the vindication of
popular justice--Mary Whittaker was exposed for sale.
It took some time for the crowd to realise that Learoyd was in earnest.
This sale by public auction of a young woman whom many of the bystanders
had known for years seemed little better than a grim jest. Yet most were
aware that sales like this had taken place in the town before, and deep
down in their minds there survived the old primitive idea that the head
of a family had a right to do what he liked with the members of his
household. There were muttered protests from the few women and some of
the older men who were present, but most of the young men, in whom a
sense of chivalry had been blunted by hard lahour and penury, found a
pleasure in goading the farmer on. No magistrate was at hand to put a
stop to the traffic in human life, and the single policeman, realising
that he had no written instructions to deal with such a case as this,
had discreetly withdrawn himself to the remotest quarter of the town. So
Learoyd was left free to conduct his infamous auction.
"Shoo's for sale," he cried, "same as if shoo were a cauf; and shoo goes
to t' highest bidder." A roar of laughter greeted these words, but
nobody had the courage to make a bid. Seeing that purchasers held back,
Learoyd after the manner of an auctioneer, proceeded to announce his
stepdaughter's "points."
"Shoo's a gradely lass, I tell you, for all shoo looks sae dowly. Shoo
can bak an' shoo can brew, and I've taen care that shoo'll noan speyk
while shoo's spoken to."
"If shoo can do all that," asked a bystander, "why doesta want to sell
her?"
The farmer eyed the questioner narrowly, and then, in a sullen voice,
answered: "I'm sellin' her because I want to get shut on her. Happen
that'll be reason enough for the likes o' thee, Timothy."
After more of this altercation one of the younger men, urged on by his
comrades, summoned up courage to make a bid.
"Sithee, I'll gie thee threepence for her, farmer."
The girl, hearing the insulting offer that was made, raised her eyes for
a moment to glance at the speaker, then shuddered, and, after a pleading
look at her stepfather, lowered them again.
Learoyd, taking no notice of the girl, looked the bidder steadily in the
face for a moment, in order to discover whether the offer was seriously
made, and, apparently satisfied that such was not the case, replied:
"I'll noan sell her for threepence. Shoo's worth more nor that, let
alone the clothes shoo stands in." But when no further offer was
forthcoming he turned again to the speaker and said: "Well, threepence
is t' price o' a pint o' beer; mak it a quart an' t' lass is thine."
But the bargainer, seeing that the offer which he made in jest was taken
in earnest, slunk away to the rear of the crowd, and it seemed as though
the girl would remain unsold. Then it was that a ragged, out-at-heel
weaver of diminutive size slowly elbowed his way to the front, and,
holding up six pennies, said, with a shamefaced look on his face:
"There's thy brass. I'll tak t' lass."
The farmer eyed him curiously, while the crowd, realising that a serious
offer had at last been made, held their breath to see what would follow.
"Sixpence is it," said Learoyd, "an' what mak o' man art thou that want
to buy her?"
The weaver made no reply, but the bystanders, to whom the bidder was
well known, gave the necessary information.
"It's Tom Parfitt o' Mill Lane; he's lossen his wife a while sin and
he'll happen be wantin' a lass to look after t' barns."
There was something in the shabby dress and down-cast mien of the little
weaver that appealed to the farmer's saturnine humour. He measured with
his eye first of all the man, and next the girl; then, slapping his knee
with his right hand, exclaimed: "Well, Tom, t' lass is thine; an' thou's
gotten her muck-cheap."
Without more ado he unloosed the halter from the girl's neck, led her
roughly by the arm to where the weaver was standing, pocketed the six
pennies, and, followed by a crowd of rowdies, made his way to the
nearest inn. Meanwhile the weaver and the girl he had bought were facing
each other in silence, neither having the courage to utter a word. Those
of the crowd who had not followed Learoyd began a fire of questions, to
all of which Parfitt made no reply. At last he turned to the girl, and
in as kindly a voice as he could command, said: "Coom thy ways home,
lass," and leading the way, with the girl at his heels, strode through
the crowd and out of the market-place. A number of people proceeded to
follow him, but as they received no answer to all their questions they
gradually fell off, and by the time that Parfitt's cottage was reached
purchaser and purchase were alone.
Closing the front door behind him the weaver led the girl through the
kitchen, where his three young children were playing at cat's cradle,
into the adjoining bedroom. Here he left her to herself, and,
re-entering the kitchen, got ready a meal of tea and buttered oat-cake,
which he sent in to Mary Whittaker by the hands of his eldest child, a
girl of seven. Then, without further intrusion on the girl's privacy, he
climbed the rickety staircase to the upper chamber and set to work at
his loom. Eager to make up for the time he had lost, he worked with
energy, but every sound from the rooms below came up through the cracks
in the raftered floor. He could hear the voices of the children and,
when the loom was silent for a few moments, the half-suppressed sobs of
the outraged girl were distinctly audible. These drew tears to his eyes,
but he wisely refrained from descending the staircase and attempting to
comfort her.
After a time the sobbing ceased, and then one by one the children stole
quietly into the bedroom, and a hum of conversation was heard, in which
Mary Whittaker was taking her part.
"Arta baan to stop wi' us?" he heard his eldest girl, Annie, ask.
"I don't know," Mary replied. "Happen I'll be goin' back home to-morn."
"I wish thou'd coom an' live wi' us an' mind Jimmy, so as I can help
father wi' t' loom," Annie continued.
"Aye, an' thou can laik at cat's cradle wi' me," interposed the younger
girl, Ruth.
Jimmy, aged three, was silent, but he climbed into Mary's lap, and, with
a grimy finger, made watercourses down her cheeks for the tears that
still filled her eyes.
"Give ower, Jimmy, or I'll warm thy jacket," exclaimed Annie, fearful
lest the boy should hurt Mary's feelings.
"Nay, let him be," replied Mary, and wiping the tears from her face she
drew Jimmy closer to herself and mothered him.
A hole in one of the rafters, caused by the dropping out of a knot in
the wood, enabled Parfitt to see something of what was going on below,
and with a sigh of relief he realised that the worst was now over and
that the children had effected what he himself could not have done. When
six o'clock came he called to Annie to bring him his tea and light his
benzoline lamp. When she appeared he gave orders that the evening meal
should be got ready in the kitchen, and that when it was over she should
ask Mary to wash Jimmy and put him to bed. Anxiously the weaver listened
to the carrying out of his instructions, and when he descended the
staircase at half-past seven he found the kitchen neatly tidied up and
Mary Whittaker seated at the fireside with the two girls on stools at
her feet. Until all the children were in bed he made no attempt to get
the girl to tell him her story, but sought by tactful means to win her
confidence. At first she shrank from him and cast anxious eyes towards
the inner room where the three children were asleep. But the weaver's
gentle voice gradually stilled her fears.
"Thou'll be tired, lass," he said at length, "and wantin' to get to bed.
Thou can sleep wi' Jimmy in yonder anent t' wall."
A frightened look came into Mary's eyes as she answered: "But that'll be
thy bed."
"Nay," replied the weaver, "it'll be thy bed so lang as thou bides wi'
me. I'll mak up a bed for misen i' t' kitchen on t' lang-settle."
A grateful expression came over the girl's face, but she made no move in
the direction of the inner room. Silence prevailed for some time until
the weaver asked: "Is there owt I can do for thee, or owt that thou's
gotten to tell me, lass? It's been a dree day for thee, to-day; ay, an'
mony a day afore to-day, I reckon."
This reference to the happenings of the morning brought tears to the
girl's eyes, and it was some time before she could summon up courage to
speak.
"Don't mind me," she said at last; "I'll be better to-morn. But he
didn't ought to hae browt shame on me i' t' way he's done. It wasn't my
fault mother left him. I'd allus been a gooid lass to him, choose what
fowks say."
Step by step the weaver led her on to tell him the story of what had led
up to the shameful transaction in the market-place. It was no mere
curiosity that moved him, but a realisation that there could be no peace
of mind for Mary Whittaker until she had found relief by unburdening her
tortured soul. The weaver's gentle ways and tactful bearing were slowly
winning her heart, and, painful though the recital of her past history
was for her, Parfitt knew that it would bring relief. It was a long
story that Mary had to tell. She had little art of narrative, and her
endeavours to shield both her mother and stepfather as far as possible
from blame impeded the flow of her words. Reduced to plain terms, her
story ran as follows:--
Mary Whittaker was a girl of fourteen when her mother had married Samuel
Learoyd. Of her father she knew nothing. He had died when she was a
baby. From the first the Learoyds had proved an ill-matched pair. Anne
Learoyd, her mother, had been brought up in Leeds, and having been used
to all the excitements of life in a big town, found the solitary farm
lonesome. Samuel Learoyd, though genial enough at times in the society
of his male friends, was capricious. His temper was often sullen, and
when in one of his gloomy moods he would spend the whole evening in his
farm kitchen in morose silence. This state of mind was in part due to
physical infirmity. As a child he had been subject to epileptic fits,
and though these grew less frequent as he advanced to manhood, he never
entirely shook them off, and during his married life a long spell of
gloomy misanthropy would sometimes end in the return of one of these
attacks. He was, too, a proud man, and his pride bred in him a morbid
sensibility towards any slight, real or fanciful, that was practised on
him. He treated his stepdaughter not unkindly, but never accepted any
parental responsibility towards her.
Meanwhile Anne Learoyd, finding no congenial society in her own home,
spent much of her time in neighbours' houses. Her chief friend was the
landlady of the Woolpack Inn, a public-house situated midway between the
farm-house and Holmton. Here whole afternoons and evenings were spent,
and the work of the farm-house was left in the hands of Mary Whittaker,
towards whom her mother had never shown any real affection. Years passed
away and the relations between husband and wife grew steadily worse,
till at length the crisis came. A new barman was appointed at the
Woolpack, a man whom Anne Learoyd had known during her early life in
Leeds. Rumour was soon busy with the relations which existed between the
barman and the farmer's wife, and after a time suspicious stories
reached the ears of Samuel Learoyd. A violent scene between husband and
wife took place in the farm kitchen, but, in spite of this, Anne's
visits to the public-house continued as before. One afternoon, when her
husband was attending a cattle-mart in a neighbouring town, Anne
Learoyd, without saying a word to her daughter, left the house and was
still absent when her husband returned for supper. Mary Whittaker was at
once dispatched to the Woolpack Inn, and, after an hour, returned with
the news that her mother was not there and that the barman was also
missing. With an oath, Learoyd saddled his mare and rode in all haste to
Holmton. Finding no news of the missing couple in the town he made his
way to the nearest station, where he found that a man and woman
answering to his description had left by train for Liverpool four hours
before. Learoyd, his heart raging with fury and wounded pride, followed
in pursuit. He arrived at Liverpool in the early hours of the next
morning, and, making his way to the docks, discovered that the fugitives
had sailed at midnight for America. Further pursuit was impossible. He
returned home, and late that same evening was found lying dead drunk on
the road-side within a hundred yards of the local railway station. He
was brought home and put to bed, and next day was seized with a severe
fit of epilepsy. For weeks his life was in danger, and when at last he
recovered strength of body, his mind remained in a state of moroseness
that at times bordered on insanity. He became a fierce hater of women,
and the chief victim of his frenzy was his stepdaughter, Mary Whittaker.
She bore his harshness with a Griselda patience, but this seemed only to
add provocation to his anger. In her he saw the daughter of the woman
who had trodden his pride in the dust, and he marked her out as the
object of his vengeance. Finding that bitter words and deeds of cruelty
left her seemingly unmoved, his morose and wounded spirit devised other
and darker plans of revenge. At first he conceived the idea of driving
her penniless from his doors, but, realising that the girl would find no
difficulty in obtaining a place as servant on one of the neighbouring
farms, he abandoned it as furnishing insufficient satisfaction for his
tortured heart. One day he heard how a farmer had some years before
ignominiously sold by public auction the wife of whom he had grown
tired, and Learoyd gloated over the story with malicious glee. Here was
a means of satisfying his vengeance to the full. To his warped
imagination it mattered little that Mary Whittaker was entirely innocent
of her mother's desertion of him, or that Anne Learoyd, far away in
America, would probably never hear of her daughter's shame. Inasmuch as
the guilty wife was out of his clutch, he was content with the vicarious
sacrifice that he could demand from her daughter.
For some days he brooded over his cruel purpose, and it found ever more
favour in his eyes. Market day came and the time was ripe for action.
Roughly informing his stepdaughter that she must go with him to market,
he left the house with her on foot, carrying a halter in his hand. On
the road he brutally informed her of his purpose. A chill of horror
seized the girl when she heard the news, but her tears and entreaties,
so far from melting his heart, filled him with an unholy joy. As they
passed a farm-house on the road Mary screamed out for help, but Learoyd
silenced her with a blow on the mouth, and then, leaving the high road,
took the path through the fields in order to avoid company. Arriving at
the outskirts of the town, he slipped the halter over her head and
dragged her through the by-streets to the market-place.
Such was Mary's story as told to the weaver that evening in his cottage.
Tom Parfitt was a man of few words, but the tears that rolled down his
cheek showed his sympathy. "Poor lass, poor lass" was his frequent
comment as he listened to the harrowing details and thought of the agony
of the market-place; and when she had ended her tale his voice was
broken with sobs.
"Thou sal niver want for a home, lass, so lang as I can addle a bite an'
a sup wi' my weyvin'."
"Happen Learoyd will be wantin' me back agean when he's gotten ower
things a bit."
"Then he'll noan get thee," and the weaver struck his fist on the table
with unusual vehemence. "A wilful man mun have his way, fowks say; an' I
reckon Sam Learoyd has had it; but he'll noan have it twice ower, if I
know owt about justice."
"But he's bin sadly tewed wi' mother leavin' him an' all," replied Mary,
"and there's them fits that he has to contend wi'. If he wants me I mun
go. There's nobody left on t' farm to fend for him."
"If he cooms here he'll find t' door sparred agean him," exclaimed
Parfitt, in his indignation.
Mary shook her head sadly, but made no reply.
They sat awhile in silence, gazing into the dying fire, and then the
girl, with a timid "I thank thee for what thou's done for me," withdrew
to the inner room and cried herself to sleep. The weaver lit his clay
pipe and, bending forwards over the grey ashes of his peat-fire, buried
himself in his thoughts till the clock, striking eleven, roused him from
his reverie. He slowly rose, placed a cushion on the settle, and without
undressing, flung himself on the hard boards and fell asleep.
Days and weeks passed and Mary Whittaker still remained in the weaver's
cottage. The cowed look in her eyes passed gradually away, though it
would come back whenever a man's footfall was heard in the street
outside, and a cold fear seized her at the thought that Learoyd was at
hand to demand her return to the farm. But he never came, and Mary grew
more and more at ease in her new surroundings. The change from the roomy
farmstead, with its wide horizons of moors and woods, to the narrow
cottage in the sunless back street was a strange one for her. She
missed, too, the farm work: the churning of the butter and the feeding
of the calves and poultry. But youth was on her side and she soon learnt
to adapt herself to her new life. Soon after six in the morning she
would mount with Parfitt to the upper room and spin the wool, which he
would then weave into cloth. The work was hard, and some of the
processes of cleaning the wool were repulsive to her nature at first,
but in time she accustomed herself to this as to so much else. It was
easy for her gentle nature to win the hearts of the three children; she
quickly learnt the duties of a mother, nursed them in their childish
ailments, and when the loom was still, joined with them in their games.
Six months Tom Parfitt waited to see whether Learoyd would make any
attempt to recover the stepdaughter whom he had wronged, and then, as
the farmer made no move, he quietly married Mary Whittaker at the
Primitive Methodist Chapel.
II
Years passed away and a gradual change came over the character of the
social and economic life of Holmton. The town became linked up by rail
with Leeds and Bradford, and in this way it lost its isolation and
caught an echo of the ideas and views of life of the people in the big
towns. Elementary education was introduced, and the printed book slowly
found its way into the weavers' cottages. Most important change of all,
the hand-loom gave place to the power-loom. Factories were built by the
side of the beck, and while a certain amount of weaving continued to be
done by the old people in their cottages, the younger generation sought
employment in the mills, and payment for piecework gave way to
time-wages. Most of the younger weavers welcomed this change when it was
fully understood. They found that the hours of work, though still
terribly long, were shorter than those spent by their parents over their
hand-looms, and the social intercourse of the mill, where the youths and
girls met their equals in age, was deemed preferable to the family
labours in the upper story of the cottages. Moreover, if the overseers
and foremen in the mills were often brutal, the workers could, at any
rate, get away from the atmosphere of the weaving-shed when the hooters
sounded at six o'clock in the evening.
When this revolution in industrial life took place Tom Parfitt found
himself too old to adapt himself to the change.
"T' hand-loom's gooid enough for me," were his words. "If I went to work
i' t' mill I'd feel like givin' up an owd friend, just because he'd
grown owd-feshioned. I'll stick to cottage wark, choose-what other fowks
may do."
Hearing this decision, his wife at once decided to remain with him; but
the three children of Parfitt's former marriage, the youngest of whom
was now seventeen, determined to seek work in the factories. The family
was thus split up, and the younger generation brought back into the
house at night new ideas gained amid the social intercourse of the mill.
Mary Whittaker's position in the town after her marriage to Parfitt was
quietly accepted by the community of weavers. They still called her by
her maiden name, but there was nothing unusual in that. Often, too, she
was referred to as "Mary that was selled for sixpence," but here again,
at least as far as the older generation was concerned, no stigma was
implied. It was simply a frank statement of fact. With the younger
generation, however, who were quicker than their elders in absorbing new
ideas and new codes of social convention, "Mary that was selled for
sixpence" was a name that aroused curiosity, and sometimes derision.
Occasionally Mary's stepdaughters would be twitted about the name at the
mill, and their faces would burn as they realised that a dark shadow
hung over the woman whom they had been taught to call mother, and who
had won their hearts from the day on which she first set foot in their
father's house. Once they spoke of the matter to their father, anxious
to learn the exact truth from his lips.
"Aye, I bowt her for sixpence afore I wed her," he said, looking them
steadily in the face, "an' t' man that selled her to me said I'd gotten
her muck-cheap. Them was t' truest words he iver spak, an' shoo would
hae been muck-cheap if I'd gien a million pund for her."