There is no mention made of raised stands in our text, but with or without such erections the position taken up by the shooters to await the game was called his _standing_ or _tryste_, and a bower of branches was made, to shelter the occupant from sun and rain, as well as to hide him from the game. Such arbours were called _Berceau_ or _Berceil_ in Old French, from the word _berser_, to shoot with a bow and arrow; they were also called _ramiers_ and _folies_, from rames or branches, and folia, leaves, with which they were made or disguised (Noir., iii. p. 354).
Manwood tells us that _Stable-stand_ was one of four "manners in which if a man were found, in the forest, he could be arrested as a poacher or trespasser," and says: "Stable-stand is where one is found at his standing ready to shoot at any Deer, or standing close by a tree with Greyhounds in his leash ready to let slip" (Man., p. 193).
STANKES, or layes; tanks or pools, large meers. Gaston says: _Estancs et autres mares ou marrhés_ (G. de F., p. 21). Stank house was a moated house. A ditch or moat filled with water was called a tank.
TACHE, or tecche, Mid. Eng. for a habit, especially a bad habit, vice, freak, caprice, behaviour, from the O. F. _tache_, a spot, a stain, or blemish; also a disgrace, a blot on a man's good name. In the older use it was applied both to good as well as bad qualities, as in our text.
TAW, to makes hides into leather; tawer, the maker of white leather. In the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, in the days of the strict guilds, a sharp line was drawn between tawers and tanners, and a tawer was not allowed to tan nor a tanner to taw (Wylie, vol. iii. p. 195). No tawers were allowed to live in the Forest according to the ancient forest laws.
"If any white Tawer live in a Forest, he shall be removed and pay a Fine, for they are the common dressers of skins of stolen deer" (Itin. Lanc. fol. 7, quoted by Manwood, p. 161).
TEAZER, or _teaser_. "A kind of mongrel greyhound whose business is to drive away the deer before the Greyhounds are slipt," is the definition given by Blome (p. 96). These dogs were used to hunt up the game also when the deer was to be shot with the bow. The sportsmen would be standing at their trysts or stable-stand in some alley or glade of the wood, and the hounds be put into the covert or park "_to tease them forth_."