"Is't truth tha'rt speaking, Griff Lummax?"
"Truth? Ay, bitter truth."
"I believe thee. Thowts come thranging back now; I niver thowt to pitch on Laverack, for all th' lass war busy wi' his name while she lay a-child-bed. But I see it now, I see it now." She sprang up in bed and clutched him by the arm. "Griff, if tha's getten ony love for thy own mother, think on me; think what it meäns, lad, to lose a daughter an' see th' man what killed her go free. Kill him, Griff; he's not aboon three mile away this very minute, an' there's no snaw to stop thee. Run hot an' fast, an' tak him by t' throat, an' say Mother Strangeways sent ye."
She was growing delirious now. Still Griff could not throw off the full weight of his stupor. Instinctive stubbornness was his only ally.
"I won't," he said bluntly.
"Tha might ha' childer o' thy own, lad—bonny wenches 'at war biding th' time of a gooid man's coming; think what it meäns, an' if tha's getten ony bowels o' compassion, help a deeing woman to her rights."
"I won't, curse you!"
Her voice grew coaxing. Death might win her, to have and to hold, in a very few moments; but meanwhile the ruling passion would let her take no rest.
"I'm reckoned poor, Griff, because I lives i' a poor way. But wend to th' cupboard once again, an' tha'll find summat worth heving—summat bright an' gold, fastened up i' a worsted stocking. Tak it all, lad, if tha'll wend to Frender's Folly, an' do what mun be done."
At last Griff awoke to reality. He saw it all now. This woman on the bed had murdered his father; why was he dallying with justice? The hatred that had kept up Mother Strangeways for close on five and thirty years, the quick lust for vengeance that had sent Joshua Lomax to his grave—they had Joshua's son in their grasp now. He made a step towards the bed, then stopped; between him and his father's murderess sounded the death-rattle in the woman's throat, driving him back, stunning him with a sense of some power beyond his ken.