shall be kepte,
My children and thou; I would in ye lepte.

_Noyes Wiffe._ In fayth, Noye, I hade as leffe thou slepte!
For all thy frynishe[24] fare,
I will not doe after thy reade[25].

_Noye._ Good wyffe, doe nowe as I thee bydde.

_Noyes Wiffe._ Be Christe! not or I see more neede,
Though thou stande all the daye and stare.

_Noye._ Lorde, that wemen be crabbed aye,
And non are meke, I dare well saye;
This is well seene by me to daye,
In witnesse of you ichone[26].

(2)

_Jeffate._ Mother, we praye you all together,
For we are heare, youer owne childer,
Come into the shippe for feare of the weither,
For his love that you boughte!

_Noyes Wiffe._ That will not I, for all youer call,
But I have my gossippes all.

_Sem._ In faith, mother, yett you shalle,
Wheither thou wylte or [nought].

_Noye._ Welckome, wiffe, into this botte.

_Noyes Wiffe._ Have thou that for thy note!

_Noye._ Ha, ha! marye, this is hotte!
It is good for to be still.

[The reader will easily supply for himself appropriate
stage-directions.]

But of all these comic characters none developed so excellent a genius
for winning laughter as the Shepherds who 'watched their flocks by
night, all seated on the ground'. To see them at their best we must turn
to the _Wakefield_ (or _Towneley_) _Miracle Play_ and read the pastoral
scene (or, rather, two scenes) there. Here we come face to face with
rustics pure and simple, downright moorland shepherds, homely,
grumbling, coarsely clad, warm-hearted, abashed by a woman's tongue,
rough in their sports. The real old Yorkshire stock of nearly six
hundred years ago rises into life as we read.

In the first scene a beginning is made by the entrance of a single
shepherd, grumpy, frost-bitten, and growling rebelliously against the
probably widely resented practice of purveyance whereby a nobleman might
exact from his farm-tenantry provisions and service for his needs, even
though the farmer's own land should suffer from neglect in consequence.
Thus he says,

No wonder, as it standys, if we be poore,