he should meet in the fields anything that pleaseth him, he should draw towards his covert, for to make him draw the sooner to his stronghold, and when he findeth where he goeth in, then he should break a bough towards the place where the hart is gone, and take the scantilon, and follow him no further in the wood. Then he should make a long turn and cast round about by some ways or by-paths, and if he sees that he hath not passed out of his turn, he may return again to the gathering, and make them his report, and if it be so that he pass there where he would umbicast (cast round) and make his turn, and his lymer before him, then he should look if it is the same hart he had umbicast (cast round), and if he cannot well see at his ease, then he should reconnoitre the country till he can see easily and plainly, but have a care that his lymer open not, _and if his lymer be dislave[203]_ (be wild), _let him investigate it with his eye_. And if he seeth that it is his first hart he should not follow him, but then he should take another turn and umbicast. He must look that he go not along the ways, for it is the worst sueing that is: for the lymer commonly overshoots. But he should go a little way off the paths on one side or the other, until he (the hart) be within his turn, for then he is most securely harboured and the search shall be shorter. But if he see that it be too late to run him with strength, and if he see that the hart goes but softly pacing towards his stronghold he need not do all these things. And I pray him where he hath met with the hart, or harboured him in his stronghold or in coppices or in other thickets, that he take all his blenches (tricks) and his ruses before said, to be more secure, and to make a shorter search, if he hath time to do as I have said. Thus I have rehearsed the readiness that belongs to the harbouring of the hart. _And now will I devise where men will best find them in bellowing time. It is known that they begin to bellow fifteen days before grease time[204] ends, especially old deer, and also if the end of August and the beginning of September be wet and rainy._ [199] The scribe who copied the Vespasian MS. omitted the bracketed words. [200] See Appendix: Hart. [201] The explanation of this sentence is that a stag which entre-marched or sur-marched, or in other words placed the hind foot on the track or beyond the track made by the front foot, was a thin or light deer, and therefore not a fat stag, which latter was what the hunter would be looking for. [202] Lappet of his coat. [203] Shirley MS. _Dislavee_--obsolete word meaning going beyond bounds, immoderate. [204] _After_ grease time. See Appendix: Grease Time. CHAPTER XXXII HOW A GOOD HUNTER SHALL GO IN QUEST TO HEAR THE HARTS BELLOW