He made himself come to the bedside, and stooped to hear what she had to say. In a twinkling her fingers were clawing at his throat. Death-ridden as she was, the old hatred gave the woman a nervous strength of grip. Half-strangled, Griff felt for her hands, and seized them, and forced them down. "So that's your game, is it?" he laughed. "A pretty specimen of a dying woman you are, Mother Strangeways." Just that touch of fight had strung up his nerves to their normal pitch. She lay back on the bed, a little stream of red trickling from her mouth. Griff stood and watched her, not knowing what to say or do, until at last she spoke in a quavering voice. "It war truth I spoke, Griff Lummax, when I said I war deeing. Another hour--a half-hour, mebbe--'ull see me ready for th' coffin. I tried to kill thee, then, lad, but tha worsted me. Tha'd best be going thy ways, an' leave me to it." Surely, Griff thought, there was no pretence this time. The pallor on her face, with the bluish tint dusting it here and there, could mean nothing short of death. How could he leave her there to wrestle with the end? "Mother Strangeways," he said roughly, "I bear you no malice. What's done is done, and you must square the reckoning when you get to the other side. Can I ease the journey for you a bit?" She turned over on her side and looked at the rushlight, which, like herself, was sputtering to an end. She pointed to the cupboard, then to the candle and back again. Griff, obeying her gesture, took a bundle of rushlights from the bottom shelf of the cupboard, lit one and rammed it tight in the bottle-neck. "Ay," muttered the old woman, "that's th' tale, fro' generation to generation. Th' owd light dees, an' out it's chucked, an' in goes th' smooth-faced young un. An' it's little fowk think o' th' light that's gone, so only they've getten a fresh un to show 'em their way. But there's summat wrang, Griff Lummax--ay, grievous wrang--when th' young uns is ta'en first, an' th' owd uns fizzle on to th' last drop o' greäse. It's nigh on five an' thirty year sin' th' bonny lass went under-sod; why warn't it me that war ta'en? Why warn't it me, I say?" she screamed. "Doan't come to me an' crack o' thy God A'mighty, what taks young lassies i' their prime an' leaves th' owd 'uns to rot i' their skins for grief an' worry." She sank back, weak with the effort, and the ooze ran faster from her mouth. She lay quiet for awhile, but the workings of her face showed that she was thinking hard. And her thoughts were with the daughter who had died in childbirth--childbirth to a nameless father. The memory roused her old set purpose, forgotten for the moment. The cunning came into her eyes again, and the twitching of her hands began afresh. "I'm sooin gone," she said; "tha can keep me a two or three minutes longer, if tha will." "Ay, that I will! What have I to do?" "Wend to th' cupboard again. Tha'll find a green bottle there; fetch it."