“Then back will I go,” says the third shepherd, “abide ye there.”

And back he goes full of his kindly thought.  “Mak,” he says, “with your leave let me give your bairn but sixpence.”

But Mak still pretends to be sulky, and will not let him come near the child.  By this time all the shepherds have come back.  One wants to kiss the baby, and bends over the cradle.  Suddenly he starts back.  What a nose!  The deceit is found out and the shepherds are very angry.  Yet even in their anger they can hardly help laughing.  Mak and Gill, however, are ready of wit.  They will not own to the theft.  It is a changeling child, they say.

    “He was taken with an elf,
    I saw it myself,
    When the clock struck twelve was he foreshapen,”

says Gill.

But the shepherds will not be deceived a second time.  They resolve to punish Mak, but let him off after having tossed him in a blanket until they are tired and he is sore and sorry for himself.

This sheepstealing scene shows how those who wrote the play tried to catch the interest of the people.  For every one who saw this scene could understand it.  Sheepstealing was a very common crime in England in those days, and was often punished by death.  Probably every one who saw the play knew of such cases, and the writers used this scene as a link between the everyday life, which was near at hand and easy to understand, and the story of the birth of Christ, which was so far off and hard to understand.

And it is now, when the shepherds are resting from their hard work of beating Mak, that they hear the angels sing “Glory to God in the highest.”  From this point on all the jesting ceases, and in its rough way the play is reverent and loving.

The angel speaks.

    “Rise, herdmen, quickly, for now is he born
    That shall take from the fiend what Adam was lorn;
    That demon to spoil this night is he born,
    God is made your friend now at this morn. 
        He behests
    At Bethlehem go see,
    There lies that fre*
    In a crib full poorly
        Betwixt two beasties.”

    Noble.

The shepherds hear the words of the angel, and looking upward see the guiding star.  Wondering at the music, talking of the prophecies of David and Isaiah, they hasten to Bethlehem and find the lowly stable.  Here, with a mixture of awe and tenderness, the shepherds greet the Holy Child.  It is half as if they spoke to the God they feared, half as if they played with some little helpless baby who was their very own.  They mingle simple things of everyday life with their awe.  They give him gifts, but their simple minds can imagine no other than those they might give to their own children.

The first shepherd greets the child with words:—­

    “Hail, comely and clean!  Hail, young child! 
    Hail, maker as methinks of a maiden so mild. 
    Thou hast warred, I ween, the demon so wild.”