“He wasn’t hurt, was he?”
“A trifle scratched. I hope no lasting scars.”
“Lord, that’s bad!” Martin said. “I daresay you don’t want my advice, but if I were you I would apply hot fomentations. They may bring up his legs like bladders, but that won’t last, and ten to one you’ll never see a mark once the cuts have healed.”
“I agree with you, and it is being done.”
The Dowager broke in at this point to favour the company with a recital of all the tosses which the Earl’s father had taken, coupled with an account of her own sentiments upon these occasions, and some recollections of rattling falls suffered by her dear Papa, a very bruising rider. “Not that my dear father was not an excellent horseman, for I am sure there can never have been a better one,” she said. “I am not fond of the exercise myself, but I daresay I should have ridden very well, had I taken to it, for I should have had the benefit of my father’s teaching. Indeed, I recall to this day many of the maxims which he laid down for my brother’s guidance. ‘Hold him steady by the head’ was one of them; and if he had been alive when Martin broke his collar-bone at one of the bullfinches in Ashby Pastures, he would have said, ‘You should have held him steady by the head.’
‘Throw your heart over,’ was another of his sayings, and ‘Take your own line,’ as well, and ‘Get over the ground if you break your neck’.”
The Earl was standing beside Martin, and said in a soft undervoice: “Were you — er — acquainted with your grandfather, Martin?”
“No, I thank God!” returned Martin, grinning. “I’d be willing to lay you odds he was the kind of fellow who would head a fox!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t take you!” Gervase said. “There cannot be the least doubt of it!”
It was fortunate that Abney entered the drawing-room at that moment, to announce dinner, for the sudden crack of laughter which escaped Martin attracted his mother’s attention, and she demanded to be told what it was that had amused him. She did not forget that she desired to be admitted into his confidence, for her mind was of a tenacious order, but by the time she was seated at the foot of the dinner-table, and could repeat her demand, he had had leisure to think of a suitable and an unexceptionable answer.