se.

_Mac._ I have scaped, Jelott, oft as hard as glass.

_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 God 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.

_3rd Shepherd._ Be still:
Thy dream makes thee wood:[139]
It is but phantom, by the rood.

_1st Shepherd._ Now God turn all to good,
If it be his will.

_2nd Shepherd._ Rise, Mac, for shame! thou ly'st right long.

_Mac._