“It’s nothing to make a fuss about. Only I’m bandaged up so that I feel like a mummy, and I don’t know how I’m going to get a bath. That’s what worries me.”
Next day Arthur Branderton came to see him. “You’ve found your match at last, Craddock.”
“Me? Not much! I shall be all right in a month, and then out I go again.”
“I wouldn’t ride him again, if I were you. It’s not worth it. With that trick of his of swinging his leg, you’ll break your neck.”
“Bah,” said Edward, scornfully. “The horse hasn’t been built that I can’t ride.”
“You’re a good weight now, and your bones aren’t as supple as when you were twenty. The next fall you have will be a bad one.”
“Rot, man! One would think I was eighty; I’ve never funked a horse yet, and I’m not going to begin now.”
Branderton shrugged his shoulders, and said nothing more at the time, but afterwards spoke to Bertha privately.
“You know, I think, if I were you, I’d persuade Edward to get rid of that horse. I don’t think he ought to ride it again. It’s not safe. However well he rides, it won’t save him if the beast has got a bad trick.”
Bertha had in this particular great faith in her husband’s skill. Whatever he could not do, he was certainly one of the finest riders in the county; but she spoke to him notwithstanding.