Part 15 (1/2)

_Mac._ Go away: I am worthy of my meat, For in a strait can I get More than they that swinck[132] and sweat All the long day, Thus it fell to my lot, Gill, I had such grace.

_Wife._ It were a foul blot to be hanged for the case.

_Mac._ I have scaped, Jelott, oft as hard as gla.s.s.

_Wife._ ”But so long goes the pot to the water,” men says, ”At last comes it home broken.”

_Mac._ Well know I the token, But let it never be spoken; But come and help fast.

I would he were flayn;[133] I list we'll eat: This twelvemonth was I not so fain of one sheep-meat.

_Wife._ Come they if he be slain, and hear the sheep bleat?

_Mac._ Then might I be ta'en: that were a cold sweat.

Go bar The gate door.

_Wife._ Yes, Mac, For and they come at thy back.

_Mac._ Then might I pay for all the pack: The devil of them war![134]

_Wife._ A good bowrde[135] have I spied, since thou can none: Here shall we him hide, till they be gone; In my cradle abide. Let me alone, And I shall lie beside in childbed and groan.

_Mac._ Thou red?[136]

And I shall say thou wast light Of a knave child this night.

_Wife._ Now well is my day bright, That ever I was bred.

This is a good guise and a far cast; Yet a woman's advice helps at the last.

I care never who spies: again go thou fast.

_Mac._ But I come or they rise; else blows a cold blast-- I will go sleep. [_Mac goes back to the field._ Yet sleep all this menye,[137]

And I shall go stalk privily, As it had never been I That carried their sheep.

_1st Shepherd._ _Resurrex a mortrius_: have hold my hand.

_Judas carnas dominus_, I may not well stand: My foot sleeps, by Jesus, and I water fastand!

I thought that we laid us full near England.

_2nd Shepherd._ Ah ye!

Lord, how I have slept weel!

As fresh as an eel, As light I me feel As leaf on a tree.

_3rd Shepherd._ Benste![138] be herein! So my head quakes My heart is out of skin, what so it makes.

Who makes all this din? So my brow aches, To the door will I win. Hark fellows, wakes!

We were four: See ye anything of Mac now?

_1st Shepherd._ We were up ere thou.

_2nd Shepherd._ Man, I give G.o.d a vow, Yet heed he nowhere.

_3rd Shepherd._ Methought he was wrapped in a wolf's-skin.

_1st Shepherd._ So are many happed, now namely within.

_2nd Shepherd._ When we had long napped; methought with a gin A fat sheep he trapped, but he made no din.