Chapter VII: The Shepherds’ Play

Many were the exclamations of wonder and delight at the performance, and many the congratulations to the parents of the little actor, when _The Sacrifice of Isaac_ passed on its way to the next halting-place. Indeed so excited and talkative were the guests at the house of Master Harpham, that the four following pageants received little attention from them.

“The poor child will be worn out before evening comes!” declared the women again and again, and Giles’ mother agreed. “Though he so loves playing,” she said, “that I don’t think he feels the fatigue as much as one might imagine. I know who _will_ be worn out, though!” she exclaimed, turning to Mistress Short. “Your little ones ought to go and rest awhile. It’s altogether too long a day for them.”

Colin and Margery protested, but their mother was firm, and they were obliged to follow her to Mistress Harpham’s guest-room, the grandest they had ever seen, where Margery was placed on the big four-posted bed of oak, and Colin, grumbling a great deal, was forced to lie down on a little truckle-bed at its foot.

“You’ll be all the fresher, and enjoy the plays all the better for a bit of a sleep,” Mistress Harpham assured them. “And you shall be called in time for the Shepherds’ play—that I promise you.”

Margery brightened at this, for she had heard that the Shepherds’ play was the most popular of all the pageants, and she had been afraid of missing it. Though she and Colin had laughed at the idea of “a bit of a sleep,” each found a strange feeling of drowsiness creeping nearer, and considering that they had been up since daybreak, and it was now past noon, this was not so surprising as they considered it. At any rate, when their mother softly entered the room an hour later, she roused both children from sleep.

The Shepherds’ play, she told them, was expected in a few minutes; and they ran eagerly into the front room to take their old places at the window.

“Do tell us what they’ve been acting!” begged Margery, as their friend Master Gyseburn welcomed them with a smile.

“Well! we’ve had _Moses lifting up the Serpent in the Wilderness_. That was the Hosiers’ pageant. Then came the Grocers with the _Salutation of Mary to Elisabeth_. Next came _Mary and Joseph with an angel commanding them to go to Bethlehem_, acted by the Pewterers; and the last one was the Tylers’ (Thatchers’) pageant of the _Stable at Bethlehem, with the Child Jesus in the Manger_.”

“Oh! we wanted to see that!” exclaimed both the children, very disappointed.

“You will,” Master Gyseburn assured them. “After this pageant, the Shepherds go to the stable to worship the Child, so the manger scene appears again; in fact it appears several times.”

By the stir and noise in the crowd below, it was evident that the Shepherds’ play was awaited with great eagerness. There was a pushing and scrambling in the throng, which had greatly increased in numbers. Many people who had strolled away to get something to eat and drink had returned, and were trying to recover their lost places.

“Is this a funny play?” asked Colin.

“Yes,” said Master Gyseburn. “The Shepherds’ play, or at any rate the first part of it, is always expected to be amusing. It is an old custom, and the people would be very disappointed, and perhaps angry, if it were changed. This particular play is one that is always acted at Wakefield, but our Chandlers have borrowed it this year, because it is such a good one.”

“Oh! this is the Chandlers’ pageant, then?” asked Margery.

Master Gyseburn nodded. “Here it comes,” said he. “You will find that it has very little to do with the Bible story about the Shepherds.”

“Just a made-up play, I suppose?” said Colin.

“That’s it. Just a funny story to make people laugh.”

By this time the pageant stood in its place before the Harphams’ window, and the children noticed that the big stage was divided into two parts. One part represented a field, in which three shepherds were seated with their sheep huddled round them; and next to this scene, on a line with it, there was a sort of separate compartment, at present covered by curtains.

The shepherds began at once to grumble about the weather. They complained of the cold, which one of them said made his legs cramped, and his hands all chapped.

Neither Margery nor Colin, nor indeed any of the simple people who watched the play, found anything strange in this. Indeed very few of them realized that all the events they were watching, took place in an Eastern country, whose scenery and climate were very different from anything that was represented by the pageant. They imagined all the scenes as happening in a country very like England—if not in England itself! So the shepherds talked about the “moors,” which, as you know, spread through Yorkshire, and of “bannocks,” which are special cakes made in the North of England, and of “ale,” the usual English drink; and no one criticized nor found fault, because scarcely anybody knew, or remembered, if they knew, that Christ’s life was spent in a warm far-away Eastern land, whose manners, customs, and language were as different as possible from those of England.

The shepherds talked about many things familiar in the every-day life of most of the people in the crowd. They grumbled about the taxes they had to pay, and they gossiped about their wives, who they said were always scolding and nagging; and they complained bitterly about their hard work, and their low wages. And the listening people laughed and were delighted, because all they heard came home to them and was thoroughly well understood.

Presently another shepherd entered, dressed like the rest in a linen smock, though over it he had thrown a heavy cloak. His appearance was hailed by a shout of delight from the audience, for he was a favourite actor, and the part he was going to play was well known.

His name was Mac, and with the shepherds he evidently had the reputation of a thief, for directly he arrived one of them warned the others.

“Is he come?” he asked. “Then each one take heed to his things!” And to make sure of him when they thought of going to sleep, the men forced him to lie down in the midst of them, so that if he stirred they would be warned.

But no sooner did his companions begin to snore than Mac got up, and walking round the men, he worked a spell upon them to make them sleep heavily, chanting these words:

“Be about you a circle as round as the moon
Till I have done that I will, till that it be noon,
That ye lie stone-still till that I have done.
Over your heads my hand I lift, ...
Out go your eyes, fore to do your sight....”

Then seeing that they were all motionless, he crept to the flock, and taking a fat sheep, put it under his cloak.

At this moment the curtains in front of the other division of the stage were pulled aside, showing a poor cottage room, in which sat Mac’s wife spinning. A little wicket-gate in front of the cottage was locked, and Mac (who was supposed to have walked some distance to his home) began to knock upon it, and to beg his wife to let him in. At first she was angry with him, saying that one day he would be hanged for sheep-stealing. But the first question after all was to decide how they were to hide the sheep during the search which was sure to be made by its owners. And here Mac’s wife showed her quick wits, for she suggested a splendid way out of the difficulty. This was to dress the creature up as a baby, and put it in the cradle!

Mac agreed, and there were roars of laughter as the poor struggling sheep was wrapped in flannels and robes, and at last tucked so securely in the cradle that it could not move.

When this was at last accomplished, Mac went back to the field, and lying down quietly in his old place, pretended to be fast asleep. Then one by one the shepherds awoke, and began to tell their dreams. All of them except Mac had dreamt that a sheep had been carried off; and _Mac_, so he said, had dreamt that his wife was very ill. He pretended to be much concerned and, telling the men he must go and see whether anything had happened to her, he got up and once more went home. Meanwhile the shepherds began to count their flock, and presently found that a sheep was missing. It was Mac, of course!—who else could have stolen it?—and at once in a body they rushed to his house, and insisted upon searching it.

No sheep could they find, and Mac and his wife pretended to be so angry at being disturbed, that at last the shepherds were leaving the cottage in despair, when an idea occurred to one of them.

He suddenly exclaimed that he would like to give something to the little baby.

“_Mac, by your leave, let me give your bairn but sixpence_,” he said.

“_Nay, go ’way, he sleeps_,” returned Mac. “_When he wakens he weeps_,” he added. “_I pray you go hence._”

“_Give me leave him to kiss, and lift up the clout_,” begged one of the other men. And before Mac’s wife could prevent him he had pulled down the blanket.

“_He has a long snout!_” exclaimed the shepherd, who had only caught one glimpse of the strange “baby” in the cradle.

But Mac’s wife was most indignant, and at once declared that it was a beautiful baby:

“A pretty child is he
As sits upon a woman’s knee;
A dylly-downe, perdie,
To make a man laugh!”

But all she could say was useless, for by this time of course the shepherds were very suspicious, and the sheep was pulled out from the cradle, while the market-place rang with laughter. The angry shepherds, seizing a blanket, now forced Mac into it, and to the huge delight of the crowd, before returning to their field they tossed him violently, as a punishment for his evil-doing.

The laughter caused by this farce had scarcely died away when the serious part of the performance began. A second stage had been drawn meanwhile to the market-place, and was stationed at a little distance from the first one, where to the shepherds, once more quietly guarding their flock, there suddenly appeared an angel. The simple countrymen gazed in awe, while in a sweet voice he sang _Gloria in Excelsis_, and then, as he came closer, they sank on their knees, while he addressed them:

“Rise, gracious hired-men, for now is He born
That shall take from the fiend that Adam had lorn [lost] ...
God is made your friend: now at this morn
He behests [commands]
To Bedlem go see
There lies that free [Divine One]
In a crib full poorly,
Betwixt two beasts.”

In amaze the shepherds listened, and in amaze they talked together when the shining angel had gone.

Pointing to a brilliant star, one of them declared it was a token to guide them “where the young Child lay.”

“Hie we thither quickly;
If we be wet and weary,
To that Child and that Lady,”

another urged. And so descending from the stage-field, they began their journey to Bethlehem, a journey represented by the space between the two pageants.

On the other platform meanwhile a charming scene was disclosed. There was the stable at Bethlehem, with its broken roof, and within the stable Mary in a long blue robe knelt beside the manger, at which, with their kind, patient eyes, an ox and an ass were also gazing.

Now the shepherds had arrived, and finding themselves in the presence of “that Child and that Lady,” they bent low their knees, and began to talk to the Baby Jesus as though they loved Him, and as though He were a child of their own to whom they had brought tiny presents.

“Hail, comely and clean; hail, young child!”

said the first shepherd.

“Lo, He merry is;
Lo, He laughs, my sweeting,
A welcome meeting!
I have given my greeting,
Have a bob of cherries?”

Then in the same homely, delightful way, the second shepherd greeted the Baby:

“Hail, Sovereign Saviour, for Thou hast us sought!
Hail! I kneel and I cower.... A bird have I brought
To my bairn.
Hail, little tiny mop [little tiny pate] ...
Little day-starn [star].”

And the third shepherd said:

“Hail, darling dear, full of Godheed!
I pray Thee be near when that I have need....
Hail, put forth Thy dall [hand],
I bring Thee but a ball:
Have and play Thee with all,
And go to the tennis.”

Mary, bending down to the shepherds, then spoke to them gently, telling them that she would pray her Son to keep them from woe, and bidding them spread the glad tidings of His birth. After a while the shepherds left her presence, singing glad songs in honour of the new-born King.

“I like that best of all, except Abraham and Isaac!” Margery exclaimed, as the pageants were drawn away. “And _now_ we shall see the wicked King Herod, shan’t we?”