s of
which we spoke earlier. They are already out of the house when a true
Christmas thought flashes into the mind of one of them.

_1st Shepherd._ Gaf ye the chyld any thyng?

_2nd Shepherd._ I trow not oone farthyng.

_3rd Shepherd._ Fast agayne wille I flyng,
Abyde ye me there.

[_He returns to the house, the others following._]

Mak, take it no grefe if I com to thi barne.

_Mak._ Nay, thou dos me greatt reprefe, and fowlle has thou
farne.[32]

_3rd Shepherd._ The child wille it not grefe, that lytylle day
starne[33]?
Mak, with youre leyfe, let me gyf youre barne
Bot vj pence.

_Mak._ Nay, do way: he slepys.

_3rd Shepherd._ Me thynk he pepys.

_Mak._ When he wakyns he wepys.
I pray you go hence.

_3rd Shepherd._ Gyf me lefe hym to kys, and lyft up the clowtt.
What the dewille is this? he has a long snowte.

The cat is out of the bag. Mak, with an assurance worthy of a better
cause, declines to believe their report of the cradle's contents, and
his wife comes nimbly to his aid with the startling explanation that it
is her son without doubt, for she saw him transformed by a fairy into
this misshapen changeling precisely on the stroke of twelve. Not so,
however, are the shepherds to be persuaded to disbelieve their eyes.
Instead Mak gets a good tossing in a blanket for his pains, the
exertion of which sentence reduces the three to such drowsiness that
soon they are fast asleep again. From their slumber they are awakened by
the Angel's Song; upon which follows their journey with gifts to the
newborn King.

Peculiar to the Coventry Miracle Play is the introduction of a new type
of character, unhuman, unreal, a mere embodied quality. In _Scene 9_,
where Mary is handed over by her parents to the care of the High Priest
at the Temple, she finds provided for her as companions the five
maidens, Meditation, Contrition, Compassion, Cleanness and Fruition,
while near by await her seven teachers, Discretion, Devotion, Dilection,
Deliberation, Declaration, Determination and Divination, a goodly
company of Doctors indeed. Of all these intangible figures one only,
Milton's 'cherub Contemplation', speaks, but the rest are quite
obviously represented on the stage, though wheth