The onlookers greeted this mishap with a roar of laughter, and their instructor, with whom Willie Newenhall was no favourite, scoffingly bid him pick himself up, and "not lie there like a trussed pullet."
Ruefully the sleepy page, now rudely awakened, got up, and came limping back.
"Pick up thy lance, stupid, and go after thy nag. Beshrew me, but an I were the Captain, I'd as lief have a turnip for a page as thee. For you both grow, and that's all; saving that a turnip is good to eat, which is more than can be said o' thee." Then turning to Ralph, Tom o' Kingston said, "Now, Master Lisle, do thou show them how to do the matter."
Ralph dearly loved these exercises, and had become an apt pupil. Sticking spurs to his horse, he cantered eagerly forward. As he neared the post, with knees and voice he encouraged his horse, and with loose reins and gathering speed he struck the quintain a vigorous blow; then, raising his lance aloft, galloped on, untouched by the swiftly-revolving club.
"By my faith, 'twas well done, young master! You'll make the best lance of them all. But, when all's said and done, that's not much praise neither."
"You're a bit grumpy this morning--Tom," said Dicky Cheke. "What's gone wrong? Has Polly Bremeskate been unkind to thee?"
"Now, Master Cheke, mind your work, and let me have none of your sauce," said Tom o' Kingston, who was supposed to cherish a fatal passion for this very buxom and florid spinster, who was the inheritor of certain lands and tenements sufficient to be a powerful attraction, over and above her other charms, to the yeomen of the island. Her suitors therefore were numerous, and she gave herself airs of importance becoming in one so happily placed.
Dicky and Maurice went through the performance very well, and after the exercise had been repeated several times, the little group was joined by the Breton knight and Sir John Trenchard.
The arrival of these important spectators caused the performers to try their best, and even the stolid Willie was roused into something like emulation.
"How do they tackle to their work, Master Tom?" asked Sir John.
"There's naught amiss, Sir John, with Master Bowerman and Lisle; they'll bear themselves well enough--leastways the last-named gentleman will; and so, for their size, will the other two young masters. But as for Master Newenhall, you'd as well mount Betty the scullery wench on Jenny the donkey, and give her a broomstick, as let him ride among press of knights."