Many's the time I've seen him on it expecting death as little as yourself, and he refused twenty pound for it the Tuesday fortnight before he was killed.

But I was with his wife that's now his widow when the body was brought." By the time that I heard this anecdote I was happily too good a rider to be frightened by it; but I did wish that Mrs.Bundle's relative had died any other death than that which formed so melancholy a precedent in her mind.
The strongest obstacle, however, to any chance of my nurse's looking with favour on my new pet was her profound ignorance of horses and ponies in general.

Except as to colour or length of tail, she recognized no difference between one and another.

As to any distinctions between "play" and "vice," a fidgety animal and a determined kicker, a friendly nose-rub and a malicious resolve to bite, they were not discernible by Mrs.Bundle's unaccustomed eyes.
"I've seen plenty of ponies," she would repeat; "I know what they are, my dear," and she invariably followed up this statement by rehearsing the fate of her brother-in-law's cousin, sometimes adding-- "He was very much giving to racing, and being about horses.

He was a little man, and suffered a deal from the quinsies in the autumn." "What a pity he didn't die of a quinsy instead of breaking his neck!" I felt compelled to say one day.
"He might have lived to have done that if it hadn't a been for the pony," said Mrs.Bundle emphatically..