“Farewell,” said the physician, “and may it be to thee as thy heart desireth.”

They embraced accordingly, and departed on their several roads. The crippled peasant remained for some time looking after them.

“These dog-Jews!” said he; “to take no more notice of a free guild-brother, than if I were a bond slave or a Turk, or a circumcised Hebrew like themselves! They might have flung me a mancus or two, however. I was not obliged to bring their unhallowed scrawls, and run the risk of being bewitched, as more folks than one told me. And what care I for the bit of gold that the wench gave me, if I am to come to harm from the priest next Easter at confession, and be obliged to give him twice as much to make it up with him, and be called the Jew’s flying post all my life, as it may hap, into the bargain? I think I was bewitched in earnest when I was beside that girl!⁠—But it was always so with Jew or Gentile, whosoever came near her⁠—none could stay when she had an errand to go⁠—and still, whenever I think of her, I would give shop and tools to save her life.”