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 it has lengthened your life, for what is done is done and can’t be undone.”

Then she handed Martin some golden ducats as a christening present, took the baby again in her arms, and said:

“Now let us go home and give this young man back to his mother.”

At the cottage she made the sick woman comfortable and talked to her about her son. Martin went out to the tavern and bought a jug of ale. Then he spread the table with food, the best he could afford, and Godmother Death sat down on the bench and they ate and drank together.

“Martin,” she said to him at last, “you are very poor and I must do something for you. I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll make you into a great physician. I will spread sickness in the world and you will cure it. Your fame will go abroad and people will send for you and pay you handsomely. This is how we’ll work together: when you hear of a person taken sick, go to his house and offer to cure him. I will be there invisible to every one but you. If I stand at the foot of the sick man’s bed, you will know that he’s going to get well. So then you can prescribe salves and medicines, and when he recovers he’ll think you have