io8 THE MASTER OF GAME 



but they will not open ^ nor quest while he is 

 among the change, for dread to envoyse ^ and do 

 amiss, but when they have dissevered ^ him, then 

 they will open and hunt him and should over- 

 come 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,* 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.^ Of this kind of 

 hound have I seen many a one. There be other 



1 Challenge — i.e. the noise the hounds make on finding the 

 scent of an animal. 



2 Get off the line. 



' Separated him from the other deer. 



* From here to the middle of the 13th line on the next page 

 the text is copied from the Shirley MS., the scribe who wrote 

 the Vespasian B. XII. MS. having made a mistake in his 

 transcript, copying on folio 65 the folio 64, which therefore 

 appears twice over, to the exclusion of the matter here copied 

 from the Shirley MS. 



^ This sentence is difficult to understand without consulting 

 G. de F. (p. no), who says : "as the hound does not challenge 

 when the stag is with change, one does not know where he is 

 going unless one sees him, and one cannot always see him." 



