"
So they talk until the third shepherd comes. He, too, grumbles.
"Was never syne Noah's floods such floods seen;
Winds and rains so rude, and storms so keen."
The first two ask the third shepherd where the sheep are. "Sir,"
he replies,
"This same day at morn
I left them i the corn
When they rang lauds.
They had pasture good they cannot go wrong."
That is all right, say the others, and so they settle to sing a
song, when a neighbor named Mak comes along. They greet the
newcomer with jests. But the second shepherd is suspicious of
him.
"Thus late as thou goes,
What will men suppose?
And thou hast no ill nose
For stealing of sheep."
"I am true as steel," says Mak. "All men wot it. But a sickness
I feel that holds me full hot," and so, he says, he is obliged to
walk about at night for coolness.
The shepherds are all very weary and want to sleep. But just to
make things quite safe, they bid Mak lie down between them so
that he cannot move without awaking them.
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