BUT in the winter of that very year Edward, while hunting, had an accident. For years he had made a practice of riding unmanageable horses, and he never heard of a vicious beast without wishing to try it. He knew that he was a fine rider, and since he was never shy of parading his powers, nor to others on the score of inferior skill or courage, he preferred difficult animals. It gratified him to see people point to him and say, “There’s a good rider:” and his best joke with some person on a horse that pulled or refused, was to cry: “You don’t seem friends with your ; would you like to try mine?” And then, its sides with his spurs, he set it . He was merciless with the cautious hunters who looked for low parts of a hedge or tried to get through a gate instead of over it; and when any one said a jump was dangerous, Edward with a laugh went for it, shouting as he did so—  
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you. You might fall off.”
 
He had just bought a roan for a song, because it jumped uncertainly, and had a trick of swinging a fore-leg as it rose. He took it out on the earliest opportunity, and the first two hedges and a ditch the horse cleared easily. Edward thought that once again he had got for almost nothing a hunter that merely wanted riding properly to behave like a lamb. They rode on, and came to a post and rail fence.
 
“Now, my beauty, this’ll show what you’re made of.”
 
He took the horse up in a canter, and pressed his legs; the horse did not rise, but round suddenly.
 
“No, you don’t,” said Edward, taking him back.
 
He dug his spurs in, and the horse cantered up, and refused again. This time Edward grew angry. Arthur Branderton came flying by, and having many old scores to pay, laughed loudly.
 
“Why don’t you get down and walk over?” he shouted, as he passed Edward and took the jump.
 
“I’ll either get over or break my neck,” said Edward, setting his teeth.
 
But he did neither. He set the roan at the jump for the fourth time, hitting him with his crop; the beast rose, and then letting the fore-leg swing, came down with a crash.
 
Edward fell heavily, and for a minute was . When he recovered consciousness, he found some one pouring brandy down his neck.
 
“Is the horse hurt?” he asked, not thinking of himself.
 
“No; he’s all right. How d’you feel?”
 
A young surgeon was in the field, and rode up. “What’s the matter? Any one injured?”
 
“No,” said Edward, struggling to his feet, somewhat annoyed at the exhibition he thought he was making of himself. “One would think none of you fellows had ever seen a man come down before. I’ve seen most of you come off often enough.”
 
He walked up to the horse, and put his foot in the stirrup.
 
“You’d better go home, Craddock,” said the surgeon. “I expect you’re a bit shaken up.”
 
“Go home be damned. Confound!” As he tried to mount, Edward felt a pain at the top of his chest. “I believe I’ve broken something.”
 
The surgeon went up and helped him off with his coat. He twisted Edward’s arm.
 
“Does that hurt?”
 
“A bit.”
 
“You’ve broken your collar-bone,” said the surgeon, after a moment’s examination.
 
“I thought I’d smashed something. How long will it take to mend?”
 
“Only three weeks. You needn’t be alarmed.”
 
“I’m not alarmed, but I suppose I shall have to give up hunting for at least a month.”
 
Edward was driven to Dr. Ramsay, who bandaged him and sent him back to Court Leys. Bertha was surprised to see him in a dogcart. Edward by now had recovered his good temper, and explained the occurrence, laughing.
 
“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 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 his shoulders, and said nothing more at the time, but afterwards to Bertha .
 
“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.
 
“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 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 for ten years. People who live on volcanoes forget all about it; and you’d soon get used to sitting on barrels of if you had no armchair.”
 
“Never!” said Miss Glover, with conviction, seeing a vivid picture of herself in such a position.
 
Miss Glover was unaltered. Time passed over her head powerlessly; she still looked anything between five-and-twenty and forty, her hair was no more washed-out, her figure in its of black cloth was as as ever; and not a new idea nor a thought had entered her mind. She was like Alice’s queen, who ran at the top of her speed and remained in the same place; but with Miss Glover the process was reversed: the world moved on, faster and faster as the century drew near its end, but she remained fixed—an incarnation of the eighteen-eighties.
 
The day before the 11th arrived. The hounds were to meet at the Share and Coulter, as when Edward had been thrown. He sent for Dr. Ramsay to assure Bertha that he was quite fit; and after the examination, brought him into the drawing-room.
 
“Dr. Ramsay says my collar-bone is stronger than ever.”
 
“But I don’t think he ought to ride the roan notwithstanding. Can’t you persuade Edward not to, Bertha?”
 
Bertha looked from the doctor to Edward, smiling. “I’ve done my best.”
 
“Bertha knows better than to bother,” said Edward. “She don’t think much of me as a churchwarden, but when a horse is concerned, she does trust me; don’t you, dear?”
 
“I really do.”
 
“There,” said Edward, much pleased, “that’s what I call a good wife.”
 
Next day the horse was brought round and Bertha filled Edward’s .
 
“You’ll bury me nicely if I break my neck, won’t you?” he said, laughing. “You’ll order a handsome tombstone.”
 
“My dear, you’ll never come to a violent end. I feel certain you will die in your bed when you’re a hundred and two, with a crowd of descendants weeping round you. You’re just that sort of man.”
 
“Ha, ha!” he laughed. “I don’t know where the descendants are coming in.”
 
“I have a that I am to make way for Fanny Glover. I’m sure there’s a about it. I’ve felt for years that you will eventually marry her, and it’s of me to have kept you waiting so long—especially as she pines for ............