Where they shall fortune to leave the Chase.

How a Huntsman shall go to find a Hart again, when he has been hunted and lost the night before.

It happens very often men fail of killing the Hart at force divers kinds of ways; sometimes by occasion of the great heat, or they be overtaken with night, and many other kinds of ways which should be tedious to rehearse.

When such chance happens, you shall thus do.

First, they who follow the hounds shall cast a mark at the last path or way where they shall fortune to leave the chase, that they may thither return to seek him on the morrow by the break of day with the Bloodhound, the hounds of the kennel behind them; for when there is occasion to seek a Hart again, you must not tarry for report nor assembly, because it is uncertain if the chase will long continue, nor into what coast he should be gone. Therewithal, Harts which have been hunted most commonly run endways as far as they have force; then, if they find any water or soil, they stay long therein, and so stiffen their joints that at their coming out, they cannot go far nor stand up long, and they are constrained to take harbour in any place they may find, so they may be in covert and feed as they lie, of such as they may find about them. 

When the huntsman shall come unto the place they left marks overnight, they should part in sunder, and he who has the best hound and most tender-nosed should undertake to draw with him endways in the tracks and ways where he sees most likelihood, holding his hound short and yet never fearing to make him lappise or call on. The other huntsmen ought to take them to the outside of the covert, alongst the most commodious places for them to mark, and for their hounds to vent in; and if any of them chance to find where he has lept or gone, he shall put his hound to it, whooping twice or blowing two motes with his horn, to call in his fellows and to cause the rest of the kennel to approach. The rest, having heard him, shall straightways go to him, and look altogether whether it be the Hart they seek, and if it be, shall they put thereunto the hound which best desires to draw and stick there, and the rest shall part every man a sundry way to the outside and skirt of the covert; if they find where he has gone, into some likely covert or grove, then shall they draw their hounds near unto them, and beat cross through it. If there they renew their slot or view, let them first well consider whether it be right or not; but if he who draws perceives it is right, let him blow two motes to call his companions, and to advertise the horsemen that they take heed, because his hound makes it out better and better. If he chance to rouse him, or he find five or six lairs together one after another, let him not think it strange, for Harts which have been run and spent oftentimes make many lairs together, because they cannot well stand on foot to feed, nut feed lying. Many young hunters are oftentimes begulied, for when they find so many lairs, they think it should be some herd of Deer have lain there, and therefore they ought to look well about them.

How a Huntsman may seek in the High Wood.

When a huntsman shall seek for a Hart in a high wood, let him first have respect to two things, that is, the season and the thickets or other coverts of the forest. For if it be in the heat of the year, horseflies, gnats and such like will drive the Deer out of the high wood, and they disperse themselves into little thickets or groves near unto good feed. 

There are forests of sundry sorts.

Some be strong of holts of holm trees. Some others have thick tufts of whitethorn. Some are environed with springs and coppices. Wherefore, the huntsman must be governed according to the coverts he finds, for somewhile Harts lie in the tufts of whitethorn, under some little tree in manner wide open, sometimes under the great trees in the high wood, and sometimes in the borders or skirts of the forest, in some little groves or coppices. 

Therefore, in such great coverts or high wood, a huntsman must make his ring walk great or little, according to the holds; for if a man drive a Hart into the high wood, it will be hard to harbour him or to come near him. If the huntsman do well, he shall never make report of a Stag or Hart harboured in such places.

But I will speak no more of high woods, for methinks men take such order for high wood nowadays that before many years pass, a huntsman shall not be cumbered with seeking or harbouring a Hart in high wood.