The biggest boy in school rode me, as a rule, but he was not at all a bad bully, so I was lucky.

He never spurred me, and he boasted of my willingness and good paces.

I am sure he did not know, I don't suppose he ever stopped to think, how bad it was for me, or what an aching lump of prostration I felt when it was over.

The day I fainted after winning a steeplechase, he turned a bucket of cold water over me, and as this roused me into a tingling vitality of pain, he was quite proud of his treatment, and told me nothing brought a really good horse round after a hard day like a bucket of clean water.

And (so much are we the creatures of our conditions!) I remember feeling something approaching to satisfaction at the reflection that I had "gone till I dropped," and had been brought round after the manner of the best-conducted stables.
It was not that that made Jem and me run away.