The poor fellow was almost fainting with pain when they at last laid him on the bed. The two friends looked at him helplessly for a minute or two. "That barber said there was nothing amiss with your leg," said one, as he noticed how white and drawn his face was.
"I suppose there ought not to be," said the patient, "but—" And then the stout oak door was pushed open, and an elderly man said, in a cheery voice, "Doth Master Miles Paton dwell here?"
In a moment the colour returned to the pale face of the lad on the bed, and he tried to raise himself as he said, "Aye, aye, Roger. It is our reeve," he said to his companions, "the one I was in search of when they began the fray at the fair."
The man, who was dressed in a well-made leather jerkin, stepped to the bedside, but he looked very much alarmed when he saw the pale face of Miles; for the effort to sit up had cost the lad dearly, and he now lay fainting on the hard straw pillow upon which he had fallen back.
His friends were scarcely less alarmed, as they explained to the steward what had happened at the fair.
"And why should he call himself a Greek, and another lad a Trojan? Ye all be English, I trow," said the man, sharply.
"Yes, yes, we are all English, but some of us are for the new learning, and some would have things go on as they are. Miles now has got a Greek New Testament which he reads every day, and so, of course, he is a Greek, but there are just as many who say the new learning will bring nothing but trouble, and turn things upside down at Oxford," said one lad.
"Well, it is a pretty quarrel," said the steward, "but lads of twenty, like my master there, might leave such questions for greybeards to settle, and not seek to do it with cudgel and stones. Poor lad! poor lad! as if there was not trouble enough before. How am I to get him home to Woodstock?" he asked, looking at his friends, who were staring helplessly at the fainting lad.
Miles Paton was a favourite among his companions, and the news that he had been hurt in the fray at the fair had spread from one to another, and now they began to arrive to make enquiries as to how the patient was going on.
One of these young fellows, when he came into the little room and saw how things were, dashed off at once to his own cell to fetch a cordial to revive the exhausted patient. He had learned something of the healing art from his uncle, who was a monk at the monastery where he went to school; and under his care Miles soon began to revive. "It was us Trojans who did it, I trow," he said, as he proceeded to examine his friend's leg. "It is badly sprained, and he will have to stay here for a month at least," said the young surgeon.