HOUNDS AND THEIR NATURE 107 



And at the beginning they have shown their best. 

 Other manners of running hounds there are which 

 hunt a good deal more slowly and heavily, but as 

 they begin, so they hold on all the day. These 

 hounds force not so soon a hart as the other, but 

 they bring him best by mastery and strength to 

 his end, for they retrieve and scent the line better 

 and farther, because they are somewhat slow. 

 They must hunt the hart from farther off, and 

 therefore they scent the fues better than the other 

 that goes so hastily without stopping until the 

 time that they be weary. A bold hound should 

 never complain or howl, unless if he were out of 

 the rights. And also he should again seek the 

 rights, for a hart flieth and ruseth. Commonly 

 a bold hound hunteth with the wind when he seeth 

 his time. He dreads his master and understands 

 him and does as he bids him. A bold hound 

 should not leave the hart neither for rain, nor for 

 heat, nor for cold, nor for any evil weather, but 

 at this time there be few such, and also should 

 he hunt the hart well by himself without help of 

 man, as if the man were always with him. But alas! 

 I know not now any such hounds. Hounds there 

 are which be bold and brave; and be called bold 

 for they are bold and good for the hart, for when 

 the hart comes in danger 1 they will chase him, 



1 Danger of his being lost to the hounds. 



