HOW A HUNTER SHOULD GO IN QUEST BY THE SIGHT
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)]