But Ralph, directly he saw what had happened, thought no more of the tilt, and how he ought to have ridden round and saluted the judges and spectators. He only saw Bowerman on the ground, bleeding from the severe wound under the eye, which looked worse than it really was. He instantly reined in his horse, threw down his spear, and leaped to the ground. "Oh, Bowerman, I am so sorry!" he cried, as he stooped down to help to raise him. "Get up, you fool!" answered Bowerman, in furious wrath. "Do you think I am a girl, that I want your whinings and whimperings? Get away, you viper you, had my lance not gone all to pieces, you’d have been lying on your back instead of me. Tom ought to have given me a new one. He should have known it was sprung in the first course." So saying, and fiercely wrathful, Bowerman spurned all offer of assistance from Ralph, and rose from the ground. The others had now come forward, seeing the blood flowing from the wound, and Bowerman was taken to Lady Trenchard to have the cut attended to. The bell was now tolling, and the other pages had no time to doff their armour. Hastily walking their horses over to the stables, they hurried into chapel. When the service was over they withdrew to their common room, in the north-west side of the Captain’s apartments, and talked over the events of their first trial at real tilting in armour, while they ate their meal. Newenhall was very sulky. He complained of severe pains in his head, and said it was a great shame he was not allowed to go to the sick-room,--that Bowerman was no worse than he was, and he was always treated unfairly. Dicky and Maurice nearly had their harmony spoilt by bickering over their contest; and Ralph was very much distressed at the accident that had happened to Bowerman, and of which he was the unwilling cause, while he was still more grieved at the evident animosity with which Bowerman regarded him. "I tell thee what, Lisle," said Dicky, who was in a very rasping mood, "it was lucky for thee that Bowerman’s spear went all to pieces, or he would have had thee out of the saddle as roughly as he knocked over ’Pig’s Eyes.’" "No he wouldn’t," said Maurice. "I saw it all, and it would have gone just the same had Bowerman’s spear kept sound. Lisle had got him neatly in the beaver--nothing could have kept him in his seat." "That’s all you know about it! Why, couldn’t he have held on to the reins?" "And what’d be the use of that, when he was being knocked over sideways?" And so the boys wrangled until they were set to work by the chaplain. After they had been working rather less steadily than usual, and Dicky had drawn down upon his head some very severe rebukes from Sir Simon Halberd, while "Pig’s Eyes" was so very much more stupid than ordinary that even the gentle Sir Simon’s commonly placid spirit was ruffled, and he complained loudly of his dulness, a message came that Ralph Lisle was wanted in the Captain’s room.