‘I’ve no objection to oblige you so far,’ said Mrs. Death; ‘only you must mind and be quite ready by the time I do come back.’
‘Never fear,’ said the host; and Mrs. Death climbed up the fig-tree.
‘Now stick there!’ said the host, and for all her struggling Mrs. Death could by no means extricate herself any more.
‘I can’t stay here, so take off your spell; I have my business to attend to,’ said she.
‘So have I,’ answered the host; ‘and if you want to go about your business, you must promise me, on your honour, you will leave me to attend to mine.’
‘I can’t do it, my man! What are you asking? It’s more than my place is worth. Every man alive has to pass through my hands. I can’t let any of them off.’
‘Well, at all events, leave me alone another four hundred years, and then I’ll come with you. If you’ll promise that, I’ll let you out of the fig-tree.’
‘I don’t mind another four hundred years, if you so particularly wish for them; but mind you give me your word of honour you come then, without giving me all this trouble again.’
‘Yes! and here’s my hand upon it,’ said the host, as he handed Mrs. Death down from the fig-tree.
And so he went on to live another four hundred years. (‘For you know in those times men lived to a very great age,’ was the running gloss of the narrator.)