[Illustration: RACHES OR RUNNING HOUNDS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY (From MS. f. fr. 616, _Bib. Nat_., Paris)] And at the beginning they have shown their best. Other manners of running hounds there are which hunt a good deal more slowly and heavily, but as they begin, so they hold on all the day. These hounds force not so soon a hart as the other, but they bring him best by mastery and strength to his end, for they retrieve and scent the line better and farther, because they are somewhat slow. They must hunt the hart from farther off, and therefore they scent the fues better than the other that goes so hastily without stopping until the time that they be weary. A bold hound should never complain or howl, unless if he were out of the rights. And also he should again seek the rights, for a hart flieth and ruseth. Commonly a bold hound hunteth with the wind when he seeth his time. He dreads his master and understands him and does as he bids him. A bold hound should not leave the hart neither for rain, nor for heat, nor for cold, nor for any evil weather, but at this time there be few such, and also should he hunt the hart well by himself without help of man, as if the man were always with him. _But alas! I know not now any such hounds._ Hounds there are which be bold and brave; and be called bold for they are bold and good for the hart, for when the hart comes in danger[145] they will chase him, but they will not open[146] nor quest while he is among the change, for dread to envoyse[147] and do amiss, but when they have dissevered[148] him, then they will open and hunt him and should overcome the hart well, and perfectly and masterfully throughout all the change. These hounds be not so good nor so perfect as be the bold hounds before said _to most men_ for two reasons[149], that one reason is for they hunt not at men's best pleasure for they hunt nought but the hart, and the first bold hound hunts all manner of beasts that his master will uncouple him to. He opens always through all the changes, and a bold hound for the hart opens not for the hart, as I have said when the hart is amid the changes. He dreadeth where he goeth that men see him lest he do amiss or envoise, but men cannot always see him[150]. Of this kind of hound have I seen many a one. There be other kinds of hounds which men _beyond the sea call_ hart hounds, good and restrained hart hounds.[151] They hunt no other beast but the hart, and therefore they are called hart hounds and bold hounds, for they be bold and good and wise for the hart; they be called restrained, because if the hart fall among the change they should abide still[152] until the hunter come, and when they see their master they make him welcome, and wag their tails upon him, and will by-piss the way and the bushes, _but in England men make them not so_. These be good hounds _of our land_, but not so good as the bold hounds aforesaid. They be well wise, for they know well that they should not