Thus thay refe[56] us our rest, Our Lady theym wary![57]
These men that ar lord-fest,[58] they cause the ploghe tary.”
To these shepherds joins himself Mak, a thieving neighbour. Going to sleep, they make him lie between them, for they doubt his honesty. But for all their precautions he manages to steal a sheep, and carries it home to his wife. She thinks of an ingenious plan for concealing it from the shepherds if they visit the cottage seeking their lost property: she will pretend that she is in child-bed and that the sheep is the new-born infant. So it is wrapped up and laid in a cradle, and Mak sings a lullaby. The shepherds do suspect Mak, and come to search his house; his wife upbraids them and keeps them from the cradle. They depart, but suddenly an idea comes to one of them:—
“The First Shepherd. Gaf ye the chyld any thyng?
The Second. I trow not oone farthyng.
The Third. Fast agane will I flyng,
Abyde ye me there. [He goes back.]
Mak, take it to no grefe, if I com to thi barne.”
Mak tries to put him off, but the shepherd will have his way:—
“Gyf me lefe hym to kys, and lyft up the clowtt.
What the devill is this? he has a long snowte.”
So the secret is out. Mak's wife gives a desperate explanation:—
“He was takyn with an elfe,
I saw it myself.
When the clok stroke twelf
Was he forshapyn.”
[136]Naturally this avails nothing, and her husband is given a good tossing by the shepherds until they are tired out and lie down to rest. Then comes the “Gloria in excelsis” and the call of the angel:—
“Ryse, hyrd men heynd! for now is he borne
That shall take fro the feynd that Adam had lorne:
That warloo[59] to sheynd,[60] this nyght is he borne,
God is made youre freynd: now at this morne
He behestys,
At Bedlem go se,
Ther lygys that fre[61]
In a cryb fulle poorely,
Betwyx two bestys.”
The shepherds wonder at the song, and one of them tries to imitate it; then they go even unto Bethlehem, and there follows the quaintest and most delightful of Christmas carols:—