Afterwards I shall show you how a man should go in quest for the hart with his lymer or by himself. _This word quest for the hart is a term of hunters beyond the sea, and means when a man goeth to find a deer and to harbour him, and it is a fair term and shorter said than our term of England to my seeming._ And then shall the groom quest in the country that shall be devised to him the night before, and he shall rise in the dawning, and then he must go to the meating (pasturing) of the deer to look if he may see anything to his liking, and leave his lymer in a certain place where he may not alarm them. And thence he should go to the newly hewn wood of the forest or other places where he hopes best to see a hart, and keep always from coming into the wind of the hart, he should also climb upon a tree so that the hart shall wind nothing of him, and that he can see him further. And if he sees a hart standing stably he must look well in what country he shall go to his lair, and privily repair to some place where he can best see him and there break a bough for a mark. But he must remain a great while after, for some time a hart will stall and look about a great while before he will go to his lair, and specially when a great dew is falling, or else sometimes he cometh out again to look about, and to listen and to dry himself, and therefore he should stay long, so as not to frighten him. Then he should fetch his lymer and cast round _as it is before said in the chapter of the harbouring of a hart_, and take care that neither he nor his hounds make but little noise for dread lest he void. [Illustration: HOW THE HUNTER SHOULD VIEW THE HART (From MS. f. fr. 616, _Bib. Nat._, Paris)] CHAPTER XXVIII HOW AN HUNTER SHOULD GO IN QUEST BETWEEN THE PLAINS AND THE WOOD Also a man may go in quest in the fields in corn, in vines, in gardens, and in other places, where the harts go to their pasture in the fields out of the wood, and he must go forth right early so that he may look at the ground and judge well, and if he sees anything that pleases him he can break boughs and lay his mark and cast round as before is said. CHAPTER XXIX HOW A HUNTER SHOULD GO IN QUEST IN THE COPPICE AND THE YOUNG WOOD Also a man may go in quest among young wood, and although he has been in the morning and (seen) nought, nevertheless he should not neglect to quest with his lymer when it is high day when all the deer have gone to their lairs, for peradventure the hart will sometimes have gone into the wood before the hunter and lymer came to quest for him. CHAPTER XXX HOW AN HUNTER SHOULD GO IN QUEST IN GREAT COVERTS AND STRENGTHS