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._
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