IN DAYS OF YORE 



great lord, with his companions, refresh themselves : 



i 

 and if there is an attractive lady within reach, she 



should be brought thither likewise, to help pass the 

 time till the harbourers return and make their report. 

 This heard, the great personage will decide which of 

 the stags he will hunt, and will inform the favoured 

 harbourer accordingly ; 'then will all the harbourers go 

 and drink,' for as the author sorrowfully remarks in 

 the next chapter, ' nowadays they take more delight 

 in the bottle than in their duty.' 



The stag selected was not roused either by tufters 

 or by the pack, but by the harbouiers with their 

 lymers, which seem to have been sleuth hounds, or 

 what the Americans call ' smell dogs,' trained to hunt 

 in a leash, without speaking. The preliminaries 

 having been settled, and relays of hounds posted 

 at likely spots, the field with the pack in couples 

 followed the harbourer to the place where he 

 had broken off branches high and low to mark 

 where the stag had entered the cover in which 

 he had lain down for the day. There the 

 'piqueurs,' who survive in the yeomen prickers of 

 Her Majesty's Buckhounds, were to dismount and 

 examine the slot, so as to grasp its characteristics, and 

 know if later they changed deer. This done, they 

 should go to points where they might best see the 



