_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.