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 à 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.