the rights" when they see her. This is reasonable enough, but unfortunately it is not all. "Also they [the men of the long rod] shall keep [take care] that none hound follow after sheep or other beasts, and if they do they shall ascry them sore, and alight and take them up and belash them well, saying loud, 'War, war, ha, ha, war,' and lash them forth to their fellows." What a scene one can conjure up here: the long rods plying busily in every tuft of grass; Puss jumping up out of her form and scudding away amid a storm of blowings and rechasings and halloos, and the pack breaking straight away after the nearest heifer; and then a tempest of galloping and rating, the slow clumsy horses plunging among the peccant pack, and the men pulling them up with a jerk to alight and chastise some flagrant offender; and finally a babel of dismal howls and angry ascrying, as the long rods are shortened to a convenient length and the process of belashing begins.

With all the praise of hounds it is dispiriting to learn that they were sadly degenerate. "A bold hound," we are told, "should not leave the hart neither for wind, nor for rain, neither for heat, neither for cold, neither for none evil weather"; and indeed we should imagine not, "but in this time there are few such." Gaston de Foix, when he saw the hounds of his old age and thought on those that he had seen in his youth, averred that there was no comparison between them; and every man that had any good reason,' " of which class, of course, the English translator was bound to reckon himself to be one, declared that he spoke truth. But we must not take this too literally, for Gaston's was a sorrowful old age, since the day when he quarrelled, through another man's treachery, with his son. For one day men brought him word, after the close of a terrible

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But if the rules for training hounds were imperfect, those for the training of men were most thorough and sound. If a man is to become a good hunter he must be caught up at the age of seven; it is none too for young, the craft requireth all a man's life, or he be perfect thereof," and what a man has learned in his youth he will best retain in his age. Two things, then, must first be impressed upon the child, to love his master and to take care of his hounds; and his earliest lesson must be to learn the names and the hues of hounds by rote until he knows them every one. Mr. Jorrocks, it will be remembered, took Benjamin into the kennel and made him call every hound by name, double-thonging him whenever he made a mistake; and so too in the fourteenth century it is ordained that a master must take his pupil and beat him if he will not learn, "into the time that the child shall be adread for to fail." Then he may be taught to clean out the kennel, and when he knows how to take care of hounds at home, he may go abroad with them to field and forest, where he must be deliberate and well-eyed, well advised of his speech and of his terms, and ever glad to learn. Above all, he must be no boaster or jangler, for no hunter should be a herald of his craft. Evidently there were Dick Braggs in the earliest days of sport.

We shall not trouble our readers with a list of the technical terms which the youthful sportsman was expected to master, for they were many and various. It is, however,

satisfactory to find that the word "rights" was used, as it still is, to express the three lowest branches of a stag's head, and that, contrary to the modern French practice, the rights were not taken for granted in summing the number of the points. We look in vain, however, for the words brow, bay, and trey, and we are distressed to find that the foot of both hart and buck is called, not the slot, but the trace. And this, it seems, was the true English word, for our author disclaims all intention of foisting French expressions upon the chase of his native land. "I would," he says, "that English hunters should know something of the terms that hunters use beyond the sea, but not to that intent to call it SO in England."

Next the young sportsman must be initiated into the mysteries of harbouring a deer; and to this end his master should have by him the slots of an old stag, a young stag, and a hind, and should imprint them upon the ground, sometimes gently as though the deer was moving slow, sometimes hard as though he were travelling apace, sometimes on dry ground and sometimes on wet, that the pupil may learn the difference between them. So shall he grasp the initial principle that roundness is the characteristic of a male deer's slot, and length of the female's; and that in any case of doubt between a hind and a young male deer, similarity of the sole of the foot must be overlooked, and distinction sought in the breadth of the heel and the inclination of the dew-claws. Moreover, hinds have, like other creatures of their sex, a mincing uncertain gait and a tendency to walk on their toes, while a hart of ten (what we now call a warrantable deer) treads firm and full as becomes his dignity. Lastly the signs of a big stag are a great heel and a broad, a

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blunt toe and large, and blunt dewclaws wide apart. There is nothing that we can add after five centuries to the chapter on slots, except that in old deer the claws of the hind feet are generally uneven in length. But the lesson is not yet quite complete. the pupil after he has learned all these signs must be able to describe them correctly; and even if he has found them all in perfection, he may only say, when questioned at the meet, that " they betoken a great hart and an old." "This is all that he may say of the hart," affirms our author, for a hunter, as aforesaid, must be no boaster nor jangler, nor should he endanger the worth of his opinion by incontinence of speech.

The tokens of the slot once mastered, the pupil is taught next the other marks of a great deer, and learns why it is that old stags choose old trees against which to fray their heads, and break off the branches above them in the process, whereas young stags break off those below them only. Next he must study the lairs of deer and note the size and breadth of their beds, and whether the ground be much indented, or the contrary, by their knees and feet when they rose from them, for by these signs too he may judge if a stag be great or small, heavy or light. small, heavy or light. Then he must follow the track from the empty bed and note if the "gladness" (glade?) made by the passage of the deer be broad, and the branches broken by his horns high up and wide apart. And if he would know how long it is since the deer passed and have no hound with him to show him, then he may use this pretty little bit of woodcraft : "Set your visage in the midst of the gladness, and keep your breath in the best wise that ye may, and if ye find that the areyn [spider] hath made her web by the middle of them, it is a token that it is of no long time or at

least it is at the middle overcome [afternoon] of the day before."

Finally the young hunter may be sent out with hound in leash, called a lymer (limier), to harbour a deer for his lord to chase, a most difficult and delicate task which will tax all his knowledge of woodcraft. For no stag less than a hart of ten may lawfully be hunted; all younger than that age being known as rascal or folly, and a simple encumbrance to the chase; and therefore a good deer must be found by his slot, the track of him followed with the lymer as far as may be without danger of disturbing him, and his whereabouts ascertained by casting all round, to be sure that he has not gone beyond a certain distance. The lymer is never used in harbouring nowadays in England though he is still employed in France; but in all other respects the proceedings remain the same, and no better directions can be given than those in the pages of this old unprinted book.

1

Then comes the description of the chase itself with all the well-known tricks and wiles of the wild red deer, as well set forth as it ever has been or will be. "And then," says the writer, warming to his subject, "then hath the hunter joy and great liking when he leapeth on an horseback with a great haste for to follow his hounds; and by chance he shall see the hart pass by him and shall halloo and rout mightily and he shall see which hounds come in the van chase [avant chasse] and in the middle, and which be profitours (?), and when his hounds have passed before him, then he shall ride after them, and he shall rout and blow as loud as he may with great joy and great liking." Here is the reward

1 The systems differed in the two countries from very early days. An English envoy, Fitzwilliam, discussed them with Francis the First of France in 1521.-CAL. S. P., vol. iv., I., No. 1160.

for the lesson learned in early days in the kennel at the double-thong's end, for the man who knows every hound and the capacity of each derives far more pleasure from hunting than other men, nay, is the only man who knows the full measure of its enjoyment. The packs of those days were doubtless slow, but men did not object to that, for they were of opinion (and not unrightly) that "hounds that be something slow scent the hart better than others that go hastily, without abiding unto the time that they grow weary," and though a stag, not being hard pressed, could stand up the longer, yet that only prolonged the delight of the chase.2 Moreover there was always plenty of tongue, and men loved the "gallant chiding which so enraptured Shakespeare.

Last of all, after endless doubles and beating of the water and all the thousand stratagems of the hunted deer, the pursuers by slotting and relaying, but mainly by honest hunting, run up to their stag, and he turns to bay. And then comes such a hullabaloo of horns and halloos and baying hounds as never was heard,all of it prolonged to the utmost, that every hound and every sportsman may come up before the dealing of the death-stroke. And then the horns changed their note and blew the hart, which etiquette forbade to be blown. till that supreme moment; and therewith followed elaborate ceremonies for cleaning the deer and preparing for the worry or, as it was called quarry (curée). Finally the master and the gentleman next in rank to him held up the deer's head above the hounds' portion, and "skilfully loud" the master cried out "Dedow" (? Dead ho!), which was the signal for blooding the hounds and for a fresh out

2 Francis the First of France once hunted one for nine hours.-CAL. S. P., vol. iv., I., No. 2136.

burst of noise. "Halloo every wight and every man blow the death" is the order in the book and they kept on hallooing and blowing, for it was the rule that as often as any man began to blow, the rest should bear him fellowship. Then came a fresh blast for the coupling of the hounds, with a pause of an "Ave Maria while" between the notes, yet another blast when the hounds went home, and a final concert led by the master on arriving at the hall. Thus the whole country-side knew when their lord had killed his deer, and rejoiced accordingly.

Lastly come directions to guide the good hunter when he reaches home. When he has seen to the welfare of his hounds, "he shall do off his clothes and do off his shoon and his hosen, and he shall wash his thighs and his feet and his legs, and peradventure all his body." Peradventure we take to indicate special occasions only, for our author does not add, according to his wont, that the process of washing is "great joy and liking." The ablutions ended, however, whether partial or complete, the hunter may look to his supper, and having well eaten and drunk may take a short turn in the air, and then " go lie in his bed in fair fresh clothes, where he shall sleep well and steadfastly all the

night without any evil thought of any sin."

Such is the simple close of the day's sport, to sleep, lulled by the remembered music of horn and hound. And how those old sportsmen loved that music! Gaston de Foix, who was a great musician, attempts in the poem that closes his treatise to reduce it to a kind of vocal score. And we, too, will essay to turn it into doggerel rhyme, which, bad as it may be, we can honestly assure our readers can be no worse than Gaston's.

Therewith there rose up such a cry
That ne'er man heard such melody.
Not in the chapel of the king,
Whenas his choirs their anthems sing
With introit and antiphon—
Sweetest of human music known-
Can men such joyful chorus hear
As at the hunting of the deer.
For every hound sings in his place :
The greatest hounds intone the bass;
The next sing out, with all their hearts,
Tenor and counter-tenor parts;

They next, that have their voices shrill,
Pipe treble forth with right good will;
And loud the little bitches chant
Octave of fourth and dominant.
By semitones they rise and fall,
And all join in the chorus, all.
The king he heard their cry upborne,
Swift to his lips he clapped his horn,
And sparing neither wind nor pain
He blew and blew and blew again.
Oh, merriest of all merry sounds,
The diapason of the hounds!

"Dost forget, brother, that it is the Fast?" said Raheem, as with gentle, determined hand he pushed the leafcup of sweets further from the board on which his tools lay. There were not many of them, though the inlaid work upon the sandal-wood comb he was making showed delicate as lace. It suited the delicate hands employed upon it; in a way also it suited the delicate brain behind the high narrow forehead, which had a look of illhealth about the temples, where the thick, coarse black hair was also delicately streaked with silver, sure sign, in a land where grayness is long deferred, of a troubled body or mind. Raheem had barely touched middle age; in his case the trouble seemed in both body and mind, to judge by his hollow eyes and the expression in them as they rested on a younger man, who sate, as a visitor, on the plinth of the comb-maker's shop. His feet were in the gutter, and his handsome head was nodding gaily to various acquaintances in the steady stream of passers-by, for the odd little shop was wedged into the outer angle of a sharp bend in the narrow bazaar, so that as Raheem sate working at his scented combs he could see both ways, could see all the world coming and going from dawn till dark.

Hoshyar laughed, nodding his handsome head once more: "Yea! I forgot that thou dost fast for both of us, and pray for both of us. Mayhap in the end, brother, thou mayest have to go to Paradise for both of us, despite all thy pains."

The busy hand ceased to work in a gesture of negation. "Say not such

things, Hoshyar. We go together, or go not at all. Thou knowest that was my promise to the dead."

Hoshyar ate another comfit before replying with a shrug of the shoulders : "Twas not on stamped paper, though, and promises are naught nowadays without it. "Tis bad policy to be overpious, brother. As all know, the saint's beard goes in relics, and to tell truth, I would be better pleased to leave Paradise to those who wish for it. The world suits me. I was not born to be religious, as thou wert.”

The comb-maker looked at him with a sort of perplexed patience. "God knows His own work," he said in a low voice. "The Potter makes; the World fills. I remember when thou first wentest to school, Hoshyar, how thou didst weep because it prevented thee from prayer-time. And at the festivals, dost remember, brother, thou hadst a little coat of brocade? Mother cut it from our father's old one she cherished so

festivals,-dost

"Old tales, old tales!" interrupted Hoshyar, rising with another shrug of his shoulders. "If thou hadst wished me to continue in them, why didst send me to school to learn new ones? Why didst not make me a comb-carver instead of a clerk? Then might I have saved money, as thou hast, gone on the great pilgrimage, as thou hast, and worn a green turban like thine to show it, as thou dost

A sharp spasm of pain swept over the older man's face, but there was anger also in his voice. "As thou wouldst have done also, clerk though thou art, if"

"Yea, I know, I know!" inter