“Pooh, that’s all rot!” he said. “I tell you what, on the 11th of next month we go over pretty well the same ground; and I’m going out, and I swear he’s going over that post and rail in Coulter’s field.”
“You’re very incautious.”
“No, I’m not. I know exactly what a horse can do. And I know that horse can jump if he wants to, and by George, I’ll make him. Why, if I funked it now I could never ride again. When a chap gets to be near forty and has a bad fall, the only thing is to go for it again at once, or he’ll lose his nerve and never get it back. I’ve seen that over and over again.”
Miss Glover later on, when Edward’s bandages were removed and he was fairly well, begged Bertha to use her influence with him.
“I’ve heard he’s a most dangerous horse, Bertha. I think it would be madness for Edward to ride him.”
“I’ve begged him to sell it, but he merely laughs at me,” said Bertha. “He’s extremely obstinate and I have very little power over him.”
“Aren’t you dreadfully frightened?”
Bertha laughed. “No, I’m really not. You know he always has ridden dangerous horses and he’s never come to any harm. When we were first married I used to go through agonies. Every time he hunted I used to think he’d be brought home dead on a stretcher. But he never was, and I calmed down by degrees.”
“I wonder you could.”
“My dear, no one can keep on being frightfully agitated for ten years. People who live on volcanoes forget all about it; and you’d soon get used to sitting on barrels of gunpowder if you had no armchair.”