Let Sleeping Vets Lie [112-066-4.8]

By: JAMES herriot

Synopsis:

To my Wife with love

Chapter One.

As the faint rumbling growl rolled up from the rib cage into the ear
pieces of my stethoscope the realisation burst upon me with
uncomfortable clarity that this was probably the biggest dog I had ever
seen. In my limited past experience some Irish Wolfhounds had
undoubtedly been taller and a certain number of Bull Mastiffs had
possibly been broader, but for sheer gross poundage this one had it. His
name was Clancy.

It was a good name for an Irishman's dog and Joe Mulligan was very Irish
despite his many years in Yorkshire. Joe had brought him in to the
afternoon surgery and as the huge hairy form ambled along, almost
filling the passage, I was reminded of the times I had seen him out in
the fields around Darrowby enduring the frisking attentions of smaller
animals with massive benignity. He looked like a nice friendly dog.

But now there was this ominous sound echoing round the great thorax like
a distant drum roll in a subterranean cavern, and as the chest piece of
the stethoscope bumped along the ribs the sound swelled in volume and
the lips fluttered over the enormous teeth as though a gentle breeze had
stirred them. It was then that I became aware not only that Clancy was
very big indeed but that my position, kneeling on the floor with my
right ear a few inches from his mouth, was infinitely vulnerable.

I got to my feet and as I dropped the stethoscope into my pocket the dog
gave me a cold look - a sideways glance without moving his head; and
there was a chilling menace in his very immobility. I didn't mind my
patients snapping at me but this one, I felt sure, wouldn't snap. If he
started something it would be on a spectacular scale.

I stepped back a pace. "Now what did you say his symptoms were, Mr.
Mulligan ?"

"Phwaat's that?" Joe cupped his ear with his hand. I took a deep breath.
"What's the trouble with him?" I shouted.

The old man looked at me with total incomprehension from beneath the
straightly adjusted cloth cap. He fingered the muffler knotted
immediately over his larynx and the pipe which grew from the dead centre
of his mouth puffed blue wisps of puzzlement.

Then, remembering something of Clancy's past history, I moved close to
Mr. Mulligan and bawled with all my power into his face. "Is he
vomiting?"

The response was immediate. Joe smiled in great relief and removed his
pipe. "Oh aye, he's womitin" sorr. He's womitin" bad." Clearly he was on
familiar ground.

Over the years Clancy's treatment had all been at long range. My young
boss, Siegfried Farnon, had told me on the first day I had arrived in
Darrowby two years ago that there was nothing wrong with the dog which
he had described as a cross between an Airedale and a donkey, but his
penchant for eating every bit of rubbish in his path had the inevitable
result. A large bottle of bismuth, mag carte mixture had been dispensed
at regular intervals. He had also told me that Clancy, when bored, used
occasionally to throw Joe to the ground and worry him like a rat just
for a bit of light relief. But his master still adored him.

Prickings of conscience told me I should carry out a full examination.
Take his temperature, for instance. All I had to do was to grab hold of
that tail, lift it and push a thermometer into his rectum. The dog
turned his head and met my eye with a blank stare; again I heard the low
booming drum roll and the upper lip lifted a fraction to show a quick
gleam of white.

"Yes, yes, right, Mr. Mulligan," I said briskly. "I'll get you a bottle
of the usual."

In the dispensary, under the rows of bottles with their Latin names and
glass stoppers I shook up the mixture in a ten ounce bottle, corked it,
stuck on a label and wrote the directions. Joe seemed well satisfied as
he pocketed the familiar white medicine but as he turned to go my
conscience smote me again. The dog did look perfectly fit but maybe he
ought to be seen again.

"Bring him back again on Thursday afternoon at two o'clock," I yelled
into the old man's ear. "And please come on time if you can. You were a
bit late today."

I watched Mr. Mulligan going down the street, preceded by his pipe from
which regular puffs rose upwards as though from a departing railway
engine. Behind him ambled Clancy, a picture of massive calm. With his
all-over covering of tight brown curls he did indeed look like a
gigantic Airedale.

Thursday afternoon, I ruminated. That was my half day and at two o'clock
I'd probably be watching the afternoon cinema show in Brawton.

The following Friday morning Siegfried was sitting behind his desk,
working out the morning rounds. He scribbled a list of visits on a pad,
tore out the sheet and handed it to me.

"Here you are, James, I think that'll just about keep you out of
mischief till lunch time." Then something in the previous day's entries
caught his eye and he turned to his younger brother who was at his
morning task of stoking the fire.

"Tristan, I see Joe Mulligan was in yesterday afternoon with his dog and
you saw it. What did you make of it?"

Tristan put down his bucket. "Oh, I gave him some of the bismuth
mixture."

"Yes, but what did your examination of the patient disclose?"

"Well now, let's see." Tristan rubbed his chin. "He looked pretty
lively. really."

"Is that all?"

"Yes ... yes ... I think so."

Siegfried turned back to me. "And how about you, James? You saw the dog
the day before. What were your findings?"

"Well it was a bit difficult," I said. "That dog's as big as an elephant
and; there's something creepy about him. He seemed to me to be just
waiting his chance and there was only old Joe to hold him. I'm afraid I
wasn't able to make a close examination but I must say I thought the
same as Tristan - he did look pretty lively."

Siegfried put down his pen wearily. On the previous night, fate had
dealt him one of the shattering blows which it occasionally reserves for
vets - a call at each end of his sleeping time. He had been dragged from
his bed at 1 a.m. and again at 6 a.m. and the fires of his personality
were temporarily damped.

He passed a hand across his eyes. "Well God help us. You, James, a
veterinary surgeon of two years experience and you, Tristan, a final
year student can't come up with anything better between you than the
phrase "pretty lively". It's a bloody poor thing! Hardly a worthy
description of clinical findings is it? When an animal comes in here I
expect you to record pulse, temperature and respiratory rate. To
auscultate the chest and thoroughly palpate the abdomen. To open his
mouth and examine teeth, gums and pharynx. To check the condition of the
skin. To catheterise him and examine the urine if necessary."

"Right," I said.

"OK," said Tristan.

My employer rose from his seat. "Have you fixed another appointment?"

"I have, yes." Tristan drew his packet of Woodbines from his pocket.
"For Monday. And since Mr. Mulligan's always late for the surgery I said
we'd visit the dog at his home in the evening."

"I see." Siegfried made a note on the pad, then he looked up suddenly.
"That's when you and James are going to the young farmers" meeting,
isn't it?"

The young man drew on his cigarette. "That's right. Good for the
practice for us to mix with the young clients."

"Very well," Siegfried said as he walked to the door. "I'll see the dog
myself."

On the following Tuesday I was fairly confident that Siegfried would
have something to say about Mulligan's dog, if only to point out the
benefits of a thorough clinical examination. But he was silent on the
subject.

It happened that I came upon old Joe in the market place sauntering over
the cobbles with Clancy inevitably trotting at his heels.

I went up to him and shouted in his ear. "How's your dog?"

Mr. Mulligan removed his pipe and smiled with slow benevolence. "Oh
foine, sorr, foine. Still womitin" a bit, but not bad."

"Mr. Farnon fixed him up, then?"

"Aye, gave him some more of the white medicine. It's wonderful stuff,
sorr, wonderful stuff."

"Good, good," I said. "He didn't find anything else when he examined
him?"

Joe took another suck at his pipe. "No he didn't now, he didn't. He's a
clever man, Mr. Farnon - I've niver seen a man work as fast, no I
haven't."

"What do you mean?"

"Well now he saw all he wanted in tree seconds, so he did."

I was mystified. "Three seconds?"

"Yis," said Mr. Mulligan firmly. "Not a moment more."

"Amazing. What happened?"

Joe tapped out his pipe on his heel and without haste took out a knife
and began to carve a refill from an evil looking coil of black twist.
"Well now I'll tell ye. Mr. Farnon is a man who moves awful sudden, and
that night he banged on our front door and jumped into the room." (I
knew those cottages. There was no hall or lobby - you walked straight
from the street into the living room.) "And as he came in he" was
pullin" his thermometer out of its case. Well now Clancy was lyin" by
the fire and he rose up in a flash and he gave a bit of a wuff, so he
did."

"A bit of a wuff, eh?" I could imagine the hairy monster leaping up and
baying into Siegfried's face. I could see the gaping jaws, the gleaming
teeth.

"Aye, just a bit of a wuff. Well, Mr. Farnon just put the thermometer
straight back in its case turned round and went out the door."

"Didn't he say anything?" I asked.

"No, civil a word. Just turned about like a soldier and marched out the
door, so he did."

It sounded authentic. Siegfried was a man of instant decision. I put my
hand out to pat Clancy but something in his eyes made me change my mind.

"Well, I'm glad he's better," I shouted.

The old man ignited his pipe with an ancient brass lighter, puffed a
cloud of choking blue smoke into my face and tapped a little metal lid
on to the bowl.

"Aye, Mr. Farnon sent round a big bottle of the white stuff and it's
done 'im good. Mind you,", he gave a beatific smile, "Clancy's allus
been one for the womitin", so he has."

Nothing more was said about the big dog for over a week, but Siegfried's
professional conscience must have been niggling at him because he came
into the dispensary one afternoon when Tristan and I were busy at the
tasks which have" passed into history - making up fever drinks, stomach
powders, boric acid pessaries. He was elaborately casual.

"Oh by the way, I dropped a note to Joe Mulligan. I'm not entirely
convinced that we have adequately explored the causes of his dog's
symptoms. This womiting ... er, vomiting is almost certainly due to
depraved appetite but I just want to make sure. So I have asked him to
bring him round tomorrow afternoon between two and two thirty when we'll
all be here."

No cries of joy greeted his statement, so he continued. "I suppose you
could say that this dog is to some degree a difficult animal and I think
we should plan accordingly." He turned to me. "James, when he arrives
you get hold of his back end, will you?"

"Right," I replied without enthusiasm.

He faced his brother. "And you, Tristan, can deal with the head. OK?"

"Fine, fine," the young man muttered, his face expressionless.

His brother continued. "I suggest you get a good grip with your arms
round his neck and I'll be ready to give him a shot of sedative."

"Splendid, splendid," said Tristan.

"Ah well, that's capital." My employer rubbed his hands together. "Once
I get the dope into him the rest will be easy. I do like to satisfy my
mind about these things."

It was a typical Dales practice at Darrowby; mainly large animal and we
didn't have packed waiting rooms at surgery times. But on the following
afternoon we had nobody in at all, and it added to the tension of
waiting. The three of us mooched about the office, making aimless
conversation, glancing with studied carelessness into the front street,
whistling little tunes to ourselves. By two twenty-five we had all
fallen silent. Over the next five minutes we consulted our watches about
every thirty seconds, then at exactly two thirty Siegfried spoke up.

"This is no damn good. I told Joe he had to be here before half past but
he's taken not a bit of notice. He's always late and there doesn't seem
to be any way to get him here on time." He took a last look out of the
window at the empty street. "Right we're not waiting any longer. You and
I James, have got that colt to cut and you, Tristan, have to see that
beast of Wilson's. So let's be off."

Up till then, Laurel and Hardy were the only people I had ever seen
getting jammed together in doorways but there was a moment when the
three of us gave a passable imitation of the famous comics as we all
fought our way into the passage at the same time. Within seconds we were
in the street and Tristan was roaring off in a cloud of exhaust smoke.
My employer and I proceeded almost as rapidly in the opposite direction.

At the end of Trengate we turned into the market place and I looked
around in vain for signs of Mr. Mulligan. It wasn't until we had reached
the outskirts of the town that we saw him. He had just left his house
and was pacing along under a moving pall of blue smoke with Clancy as
always bringing up the rear.

"There he is!" Siegfried exclaimed. "Would you believe it? At the rate
he's going he'll get to the surgery around three o'clock. Well we won't
be there and it's his own fault." He looked at the great curly-coated
animal tripping along,
a picture of health and energy. "Well, I suppose we'd have been wasting
our time examining that dog in any case. There's nothing really wrong
with him." For a moment he paused, lost in thought, then he turned to
me. "He does look pretty lively, doesn't he?"

Chapter Two.

This was my second spring m the Dales but it was like the one before and
all the springs after. The kind of spring, that is, that a country vet
knows; the din of the lambing pens, the bass rumble of the ewes and the
high, insistent bawling of the lambs. This, for me, has always heralded
the end of winter and the beginning of something new. This and the
piercing Yorkshire wind and the hard, bright sunshine flooding the bare
hillsides.

At the top of the grassy slope the pens, built of straw bales, formed a
long row of square cubicles each holding a ewe with her lambs and I
could see Rob Benson coming round the far end carrying two feeding
buckets. Rob was hard at it; at this time of the year he didn't go to
bed for about six weeks; he would maybe take off his boots and doze by
the kitchen fire at night but he was his own shepherd and never very far
from the scene of action.

"Ah've got a couple of cases for you today, Jim." His face, cracked and
purpled by the weather, broke into a grin, "It's not really you ah need,
it's that little lady's hand of yours and right sharpish, too."

He led the way to a bigger enclosure, holding several sheep. There was a
scurry as we went in but he caught expertly at the fleece of a darting
ewe. "This is the first one. You can see we haven't a deal o" time."

I lifted the woolly tail and gasped. The lamb's head was protruding from
the vagina, the lips of the vulva clamped tightly behind the ears, and
it had swollen enormously to more than twice its size. The eyes were
mere puffed slits in the great oedematous ball and the tongue, blue and
engorged, lolled from the mouth.

"Well I've seen a few big heads, Rob, but I think this takes the prize."

"Aye, the little beggar came with his legs back. Just beat me to it. Ah
was only away for an hour but he was up like a football. By hell it
doesn't take long. I know he wants his legs bringin" round but what can
I do with bloody great mitts like mine." He held out his huge hands,
rough and swollen with the years of work.

While he spoke I was stripping off my jacket and as I rolled my shirt
sleeves high the wind struck like a knife at my shrinking flesh. I
soaped my fingers quickly and began to feel for a space round the lamb's
neck. For a moment the little eyes opened and regarded me
disconsolately.

"He's alive, anyway," I said. "But he must feel terrible and he can't do
a thing about it."

Easing my way round, I found a space down by the throat where I thought
I might get through. This was where my 'lady's hand" came in useful and
I blessed it every spring; I could work inside the ewes with the minimum
of discomfort to them and this was all-important because sheep, despite
their outdoor hardiness, just won't stand rough treatment.

With the utmost care I inched my way along the curly wool of the neck to
~L the shoulder. Another push forward and I was able to hook a finger
round the leg and draw it forward until I could feel the flexure of the
knee; a little more twiddling and I had hold of the tiny cloven foot and
drew it gently out into the light of day.

Well that was half the job done. I got up from the sack where I was
kneeling and went over to the bucket of warm water; I'd use my left hand
for the other leg and began to soap it thoroughly while one of the ewes,
marshalling her lambs around her, glared at me indignantly and gave a
warning stamp of her foot.

Turning, I kneeled again and began the same procedure and as I once more
groped forward a tiny lamb dodged under my arm and began to suck at my
patient's udder. He was clearly enjoying it, too, if the little tail,
twirling inches from my face, meant anything.

"Where did this bloke come from?" I asked, still feeling round.

The farmer smiled. "Oh that's Herbert. Poor little youth's mother won't
have 'im at any price. Took a spite at him at birth though she thinks
world of her other lamb."

"Do you feed him, then?"

"Nay, I was going to put him himself. He pops from one ewe to ttother
and gets chance. I've never seen owl like it." with the pet lambs but I
saw he was fendin" for gets a quick drink whenever he "Only a week old
and an independent spirit, eh?"

"That's about the size of it, Jim. I notice 'is belly's full every
mornin" so I reckon his ma must let him have a do during the night. She
can't see him in the dark - it must be the look of him she can't stand."

I watched the little creature for a moment. To me he seemed as full of
knock-kneed charm as any of the others. Sheep were funny things.

I soon had the other leg out and once that obstruction was removed the
lamb followed easily. He was a grotesque sight Lying on the strewed
grass, his enormous head dwarfing his body, but his ribs were heaving
reassuringly and I knew the head would shrink back to normal as quickly
as it had expanded. I had another search round inside the ewe but the
uterus was empty.

"There's no more, Rob," I said.

The farmer grunted. "Aye, I thowt so, just a big single 'un. They're the
ones that cause the trouble."

Drying my arms, I watched Herbert He had left my patient when she moved
round to lick her lamb and he was moving speculatively among the other
ewes. Some of them warned him off with a shake of the head but
eventually he managed to sneak up on a big, wide-bodied sheep and pushed
his head underneath her. Immediately she swung round and with a fierce
upward butt of her hard skull she sent the little animal flying high in
the air in a whirl of flailing legs. He landed with a thud on his back
and as I hurried towards him he leaped to his feet and trotted away.

"Awd bitch!" shouted the farmer and as I turned to him in some concern
he shrugged. "I know, poor little sod, it's rough, but I've got a
feelin" he wants it this way rather than being in the pen with the pet
lambs. Look at 'im now."

Herbert, quite unabashed, was approaching another ewe and as she bent
over her feeding trough he nipped underneath her and his tail went into
action again. There was no doubt about it - that lamb had guts.

"Rob," I said as he caught my second patient,"why do you call him
Herbert?"

"Well that's my younger lad's name and that lamb's just like 'im the way
he puts his head down and gets stuck in, fearless like."

I put my hand into the second ewe. Here was a glorious mix up of three
lambs; little heads, legs, a tail, all fighting their way towards the
outside world and effectively stopping each other from moving an inch.

"She's been hanging about all morning and painin"," Rob said. "I knew
summat was wrong."

Moving a hand carefully around the uterus I began the fascinating
business of sorting out the tangle which is just about my favourite job
in practice. I had to bring a head and two legs up together in order to
deliver a lamb; but they had to belong to the same lamb or I was in
trouble. It was a matter of tracing each leg back to see if it was hind
or fore, to find if it joined the shoulder or disappeared into the
depths.

After a few minutes I had a lamb assembled inside with his proper
appendages but as I drew the legs into view the neck telescoped and the
head slipped back; there was barely room for it to come through the
pelvic bones along with the shoulders and I had to coax it through with
a finger in the eye socket. This was groaningly painful as the bones
squeezed my hand but only for a few seconds because the ewe gave a final
strain and the little nose was visible. After that it was easy and I had
him on the grass within seconds. The little creature gave a convulsive
shake of his head and the farmer wiped him down quickly with straw
before pushing him to his mother's head.

The ewe bent over him and began to lick his face and neck with little
quick darts of her tongue; and she gave the deep chuckle of satisfaction
that you hear from a sheep only at this time. The chuckling continued as
I produced another pair of lambs from inside her, one of them hind end
first, and, towelling my arms again, I watched her nosing round her
triplets delightedly.

Soon they began to answer her with wavering, high-pitched cries and as I
drew my coat thankfully over my cold-reddened arms, lamb number one
began to struggle to his knees; he couldn't quite make it to his feet
and kept toppling on to his face but he knew where he was going, all
right; he was headed for that udder with a singleness of purpose which
would soon be satisfied.

Despite the wind cutting over the straw bales into my face I found
myself grinning down at the scene; this was always the best part, the
wonder that was always fresh, the miracle you couldn't explain.

I heard from Rob Benson again a few days later. It was a Sunday
afternoon and his voice was strained, almost panic-stricken.

"Jim, I've had a dog in among me in-lamb ewes. There was some folk up
here with a car about dinner time and my neighbour said they had an
Alsatian and it was chasing the sheep all over the field. There's a hell
of a mess - I tell you I'm frightened to look."

"I'm on my way." I dropped the receiver and hurried out to the car. I
had a sinking dread of what would be waiting for me; the helpless
animals Lying with their throats torn, the terrifying lacerations of
limbs and abdomen. I had seen it all before. The ones which didn't have
to be slaughtered would need stitching and on the way I made a mental
check of the stock of suture silk in the boot.

The ewes were in a field by the roadside and my heart gave a
quick thump as I looked over the wall; arms resting on the rough loose
stones I gazed with sick dismay across the pasture. This was worse than
I had feared. The long slope of turf was dotted with prostrate sheep
there must have been about fifty of them, motionless woolly mounds
scattered at intervals on the green.

Rob was standing just inside the gate. He hardly looked at me. Just
gestured with his head.

"Tell me what you think. I daren't go in there."

I left him and began to walk among the stricken creatures, rolling them
over lifting their legs, parting the fleece of their necks to examine
them. Some were completely unconscious, others comatose, none of them
could stand up. But as I worked my way up the field I felt a growing
bewilderment. Finally I called back to the farmer.

"Rob, come over here. There's something very strange."

"Look," I said as the farmer approached hesitantly. "There's not a drop
of blood nor a wound anywhere and yet all the sheep are flat out. I
can't understand it."

Rob went over and gently raised a lolling head. "Aye, you're right. What
the hell's done it, then?"

At that moment I couldn't answer him, but a little bell was tinkling far
away in the back of my mind. There was something familiar about that ewe
the farmer had just handled. She was one of the few able to support
herself on her chest and she was Lying there, blank-eyed, oblivious of
everything; but ... that drunken nodding of the head, that watery nasal
discharge ... I had seen it before. I knelt down and as I put my face
close to hers I heard a faint bubbling - almost a rattling - in her
breathing. I knew then.

"It's calcium deficiency," I cried and began to gallop down the slope
towards the car.

Rob trotted alongside me. "But what the 'elf? They get that after
lambin", don't they?"

"Yes, usually," I puffed. "But sudden exertion and stress can bring it
on."

"Well ah never knew that," panted Rob. "How does it happen?"

I saved my breath. I wasn't going to start an exposition on the effects
of sudden derangement of the parathyroid. I was more concerned with
wondering if I had enough calcium in the boot for fifty ewes. It was
reassuring to see the long row of round tin caps peeping from their
cardboard box; I must have filled up recently.

I injected the first ewe in the vein just to check my diagnosis calcium
works as quickly as that in sheep - and felt a quiet elation as the
unconscious animal began to blink and tremble, then tried to struggle on
to its chest.

"We'll inject the others under the skin," I said. "It'll save time."

I began to work my way up the field. Rob pulled forward the fore leg of
each sheep so that I could insert the needle under the convenient patch
of unwoolled skin just behind the elbow; and by the time I was half way
up the slope the ones at the bottom were walking about and getting their
heads into the food troughs and hay racks.

It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my working life. Not
clever, but a magical transfiguration; from despair to hope, from death
to life within minutes.

I was throwing the empty bottles into the boot when Rob spoke. He was
looking wonderingly up at the last of the ewes getting to its feet at
the far end of the field.

"Well Jim, I'll tell you. I've never seen owl like that afore. But
there's one thing bothers me." He turned to me and his weathered
features screwed up in puzzlement. "Ah can understand how gettin" chased
by a dog could affect some of them ewes, but why should the whole bloody
lot go down?"

"Rob," I said. "I don't know."

And, thirty years later, I still wonder. I still don't know why the
whole bloody lot went down.

I thought Rob had enough to worry about at the time, so I didn't point
out to him that other complications could be expected after the Alsatian
episode. I wasn't surprised when I had a call to the Benson farm within
days.

I met him again on the hillside with the same wind whipping over the
straw bale pens. The lambs had been arriving in a torrent and the noise
was louder than ever. He led me to my patient.

"There's one with a bellyful of dead lambs, I reckon," he said, pointing
to a ewe with her head drooping, ribs heaving. She stood quite
motionless and made no attempt to move away when I went up to her; this
one was really sick and as the stink of decomposition came up to me I
knew the farmer's diagnosis was right.

"Well I suppose it had to happen to one at least after that chasing
round," I said. "Let's see what we can do, anyway."

This kind of lambing is without charm but it has to be done to save the
ewe. The lambs were putrid and distended with gas and I used a sharp
scalpel to skin the legs to the shoulders so that I could remove them
and deliver the little bodies with the least discomfort to the mother.
When I had finished, the ewe's head was almost touching the ground, she
was panting rapidly and grating her teeth. I had nothing to offer her no
wriggling new creature for her to lick and revive her interest in life.
What she needed was an injection of penicillin, but this was 1939 and
the antibiotics were still a little way round the corner.

"Well I wouldn't give much for her," Rob grunted. "Is there owl more you
can do ?"

"Oh, I'll put some pessaries in her and give her an injection, but what
she needs most is a lamb to look after. You know as well as I do that
ewes in this condition usually give up if they've nothing to occupy
them. You haven't a spare lamb to put to her, have you?"

"Not right now, I haven't. And it's now she needs it. Tomorrow'll be too
late."

Just at that moment a familiar figure wandered into view. It was
Herbert, the unwanted lamb, easily recognisable as he prowled from sheep
to sheep in search of nourishment.

"Hey, do you think she'd take that little chap?" I asked the farmer.

He looked doubtful. "Well I don't know - he's a bit old. Nearly a
fortnight and they like 'em newly born."

"But it's worth a try isn't it? Why not try the old trick on her?"

Rob grinned. "OK, we'll do that. There's nowt to lose. Anyway the little
youth isn't much bigger than a new-born 'un. He hasn't grown as fast as
his mates." He took out his penknife and quickly skinned one of the dead
lambs, then he tied the skin over Herbert's back and round his jutting
ribs.

"Poor little bugger, there's nowt on 'im," he muttered. "If this doesn't
work he's going in with the pet lambs."

When he had finished he set Herbert on the grass and the lamb, resolute
little character that he was, bored straight in under the sick ewe and
began to suck. It seemed he wasn't having much success because he gave
the udder a few peremptory thumps with his hard little head; then his
tail began to wiggle.

"She's lettin" him have a drop, any road," Rob laughed.

Herbert was a type you couldn't ignore and the big sheep, sick as she
was, just had to turn her head for a look at him. She sniffed along the
tied-on skin in a non-committal way, then after a few seconds she gave a
few quick licks and the merest beginning of the familiar deep chuckle.

I began to gather up my gear. "I hope he makes it," I said. "Those two
need each other." As I left the pen Herbert, in his new jacket, was
still working away.

For the next week I hardly seemed to have my coat on. The flood of sheep
work was at its peak and I spent hours of every day with my arms in and
out of buckets of water in all corners of the district - in the pens, in
dark nooks in farm buildings or very often in the open fields, because
the farmers of those days
didn't find anything disturbing in the sight of a vet kneeling in his
shirt sleeves for an hour in the rain.

I had one more visit to Rob Benson's place. To a ewe with a prolapsed
uterus after lambing - a job whose chief delight was comparing it with
the sweat of replacing a uterus in a cow.

It was so beautifully easy. Rob rolled the animal on to her side then
held her more or less upside down by tying a length of rope to her hind
legs and passing it round his neck. In that position she couldn't strain
and I disinfected the organ and pushed it back with the minimum of
effort, gently inserting an arm at the finish to work it properly into
place.

Afterwards the ewe trotted away unperturbed with her family to join the
rapidly growing flock whose din was all around us.

"Look!" Rob cried. "There's that awd ewe with Herbert. Over there on
ttright!in the middle of that bunch." They all looked the same to me but
to Rob, like all shepherds, they were as different as people and he
picked out these two effortlessly.

The were near the top of the field and as I wanted to have a close look
at them we manoeuvred them into a corner. The ewe, fiercely possessive,
stamped her foot at us as we approached, and Herbert, who had discarded
his woolly jacket, held close to the flank of his new mother. He was, I
noticed, faintly obese in appearance.

"You couldn't call him a runt now, Rob," I said.

The farmer laughed. "Nay, t'awd lass has a bag like a cow and Herbert's
gettin" the lot. By yaw, he's in clover is that little youth and I
reckon he saved the ewe's lifeshe'd have pegged out all right, but she
never looked back once he came along."

I looked away, over the noisy pens, over the hundreds of sheep moving
across the fields. I turned to the farmer. "I'm afraid you've seen a lot
of me lately, Rob. I hope this is the last visit."

"Aye well it could be. We're getting well through now ... but it's a
hell of a time, lambin" isn't it?"

"It is that. Well I must be offi'll leave you to it." I turned and made
my way down the hillside, my arms raw and chafing in my sleeves, my
cheeks whipped by the eternal wind gusting over the grass. At the gate I
stopped and gazed back at the wide landscape, ribbed and streaked by the
last of the winter's snow, and at the dark grey banks of cloud riding
across on the wind followed by lakes of brightest blue; and in seconds
the fields and walls and woods burst into vivid life and I had to close
my eyes against the sun's glare. As I stood there the distant uproar
came faintly down to me, the tumultuous harmony from deepest bass to
highest treble; demanding, anxious, angry, loving.

The sound of the sheep, the sound of spring.

Chapter Three.

"Them masticks," said Mr. Pickersgill judicially, 'is a proper bugger."

I nodded my head in agreement that his mastitis problem was indeed
giving cause for concern; and reflected at the same time that while most
farmers would have been content with the local word 'felon" it was
typical that Mr. Pickersgill should make a determined if somewhat
inaccurate attempt at the scientific term.

Sometimes he got very wide of the mark as one time long after this when
Artificial Insemination or AI was gaining a foothold in the Dales he
made my day by telling me he had a cow in calf to the ICI.

However he usually did better than this - most of his efforts were near
misses or bore obvious evidence of their derivation - but I could never
really fathom where he got the masticks. I did know that once he
fastened on to an expression it never changed; mastitis had always been
'them masticks" with him and it always would be. And I knew, too, that
nothing would ever stop him doggedly trying to be right.

Because Mr. Pickersgill had what he considered to be a scholastic
background. He was a man of about sixty and when in his teens he had
attended a two week course of instruction for agricultural workers at
Leeds University. This brief glimpse of the academic life had left an
indelible impression on his mind, and it was as if the intimation of
something deep and true behind the facts of his everyday work had
kindled a flame in him which had illumined his subsequent life.

No capped and gowned don ever looked back to his years among the spires
of Oxford with more nostalgia than did Mr. Pickersgill to his fortnight
at Leeds and his conversation was usually laced with references to a
godlike Professor Malleson who had apparently been in charge of the
course.

"Ah don't know what to make of it," he continued. "In ma college days I
was allus told that you got a big swollen bag and dirty milk with them
masticks but this must be another kind. Just little bits of flakes in
the milk off and on neither nowt nor something, but I'm right fed up
with it, I'll tell you."

I took a sip from the cup of tea which Mrs. Pickersgill had placed in
front of me on the kitchen table. "Yes, it's very worrying the way it
keeps going on and on. I'm sure there's a definite factor behind it all
- I wish I could put my finger on it."

But in fact I had a good idea what was behind it. I had happened in at
the little byre late one afternoon when Mr. Pickersgill and his daughter
Olive were milking their ten cows. I had watched the two at work as they
crouched under the row of roan and red backs ,and one thing was
immediately obvious; while Olive drew the milk by almost imperceptible
movements of her fingers and with a motionless wrist, her father hauled
away at the teats as though he was trying to ring in the new year.

This insight coupled with the fact that it was always the cows Mr.
Pickersgill milked that gave trouble was enough to convince me that the
chronic mastitis was of traumatic origin.

But how to tell the farmer that he wasn't doing his job right and that
the only solution was to learn a more gentle technique or let Olive take
over all the milking?

It wouldn't be easy because Mr. Pickersgill was an impressive man. I
don't suppose he had a spare penny in the world but even as he sat there
in the kitchen in his tattered, collarless flannel shirt and braces he
looked, as always, like an industrial tycoon. You could imagine that
massive head with its fleshy cheeks, noble brow and serene eyes looking
out from the financial pages of The Times. Put him in a bowler and
striped trousers and you'd have the perfect chairman of the board.

I was very chary of affronting such natural dignity and anyway, Mr.
Pickersgill was fundamentally a fine stocksman. His few cows, like all
the animals of that fast-dying breed of small farmer, were fat and sleek
and clean. You had to look after your beasts when they were your only
source of income and somehow Mr. Pickersgill had brought up a family by
milk production eked out by selling a few pigs and the eggs from his
wife's fifty hens.

I could never quite work out how they did it but they lived, and they
lived graciously. All the family but Olive had married and left home but
there was still a rich decorum and harmony in that house. The present
scene was typical The farmer expounding gravely, Mrs. Pickersgill
bustling about in the back ground, listening to him with quiet pride.
Olive too, was happy. Though in her late thirties, she had no fears of
spinsterhood because she had been assiduously courted for fifteen years
by Charlie Hudson from the Darrowby fish shop and though Charlie was not
a tempestuous suitor there was nothing flighty about him and he was
confidently expected to pop the question over the next ten years or so.

Mr. Pickersgill offered me another buttered scone and when I declined he
cleared his throat a few times as though trying to find words. "Mr.
Herriot," he said at last, "I don't like to tell nobody his job, but
we've tried all your remedies for them masticks and we've still got
trouble. Now when I studied under Professor Malleson I noted down a lot
of good cures and I'd like to try this 'un. Have a look at it."

He put his hand in his hip pocket and produced a yellowed slip of
paper:~ almost falling apart at the folds. "It's an udder salve. Maybe
if we gave the bags a good rub with it it'd do "'trick."

I read the prescription in the fine copperplate writing. Camphor,
eucalyptus, ~ zinc oxide - a long list of the old familiar names. I
couldn't help feeling a hint.` of affection for them but it was tempered
by a growing disillusion. I was about to say that I didn't think rubbing
anything on the udder would make the slightest ~ difference when the
farmer groaned loudly. ~:

The action of reaching into his hip pocket had brought on a twinge of
his lumbago and he sat very upright, grimacing with pain.

"This bloody old back of mine! By yaw, it does give me some stick, and
doctor can't do nowt about it. I've had enough pills to make me rattle
but ah get no relief."

I'm not brilliant but I do get the odd blinding flash and I had one now.

"Mr. Pickersgill," I said solemnly, 'you've suffered from that lumbago
ever since I've known you and I've just thought of something. I believe
I know how to cure it."

The farmer's eyes widened and he stared at me with a childlike trust in
which there was no trace of scepticism. This could be expected, because
just as people place more reliance on the words of knacker men and meal
travellers than their vets" when their animals are concerned it was
natural that they would believe the vet rather than their doctor with
their own ailments.

"You know how to put me right?" he said faintly.

"I think so, and it has nothing to do with medicine. You'll have to
stop: milking."

"Stop milking! What the 'elf ... ?"

"Of course. Don't you see, it's sitting crouched on that little stool
night and morning every day of the week that's doing it. You're a big
chap and you've got to bend to get down there - I'm sure it's bad for
you."

Mr. Pickersgill gazed into space as though he bad seen a vision. "You
really think ... '

"Yes, I do. You ought to give it a try, anyway. Olive can do the
milking. She's always saying she ought to do it all."

"That's right, Dad," Olive chimed in. "I like milking, you know I do,
and it's time you gave it up - you've done it ever since you were a
lad."

"Dang it, young man, I believe you're right! I'll pack it in, now - I've
made my decision!" Mr. Pickersgill threw up his fine head, looked
imperiously around:

him and crashed his fist on the table as though he had just concluded a
merge. between two oil companies I stood up. "Fine, fine I'll take this
prescription with me and make up the udder salve. It'll be ready for you
tonight and I should start using it immediately."

It was about a month later that I saw Mr. Pickersgill. He was on a
bicycle pedalling majestically across the market place and he dismounted
when he saw me.

"Now then, Mr. Herriot," he said, puffing slightly. "I'm glad I've met
you. I've been meaning to come and tell you that we don't have no flakes
in the milk now.

Ever since we started with t'salve they began to disappear and milk's as
clear as it can be now."

"Oh, great. And how's your lumbago?"

"Well I'll tell you, you've really capped it and I'm grateful. Ah've
never milked since that day and I hardly get a twinge now." He paused
and smiled indulgently. you gave me some good advice for me back, but we
had to go back to awd Professor Malleson to cure them masticks, didn't
we?"

My next encounter with Mr. Pickersgill was on the telephone.

"I'm speaking from the cossack," he said in a subdued shout.

"From the what?"

"The cossack, the telephone cossack in "'village."

"Yes, indeed," I said, 'and what can I do for you?"

"I want you to come out as soon as possible, to treat a calf for
semolina."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'ave a calf with semolina."

"Semolina?"

"Aye, that's right. A feller was on about it on "'wireless the other
morning."

"Oh! Ah yes, I see." I too had heard a bit of the farming talk on
Salmonella infection in calves. "What makes you think you've got this
trouble?"

"Well it's just like that feller said. Me calf's bleeding from the
rectrum."

"From the ... ? Yes, yes, of course. Well I'd better have a look at him
- I won't be long."

The calf was pretty ill when I saw him and he did have rectal bleeding,
but it wasn't like Salmonella.

"There's no diarrhoea, you see, Mr. Pickersgill," I said. "In fact, he
seems to be constipated. This is almost pure blood coming away from him.
And he hasn't got a very high temperature."

The farmer seemed a little disappointed. "Dang, I thowt it was just same
as that feller was talking about. He said you could send samples off to
the Labrador."

"Eh? To the what?"

"The investigation labrador - you know."

"Oh yes, quite, but I don't think the lab would be of any help in this
case."

"Aye well, what's wrong with him, then? Is something the matter with his
rectrum ?"

"No, no," I said. "But there seems to be some obstruction high up his
bowel which is causing this haemorrhage." I looked at the little animal
standing motionless with his back up. He was totally preoccupied with
some internal discomfort and now and then he strained and grunted
softly.

And of course I should have known straight away - it was so obvious. But
I Suppose we all have blind spells when we can't see what is pushed in
front of our eyes, and for a few days I played around with that calf in
a haze of ~ignorance, giving it this and that medicine which I'd rather
not talk about.

But I was lucky. He recovered in spite of my treatment. It wasn't until
Mr. Pickersgill showed me the little roll of necrotic tissue which the
calf had passed that the thing dawned on me.

I turned, shame-faced, to the farmer. "This is a bit of dead bowel all
telescoped together - an intussusception. It's usually a fatal condition
but fortunately in this case the obstruction has sloughed away and your
calf should be all right now."

"What was it you called it?"

"An intussusception."

Mr. Pickersgill's lips moved tentatively and for a moment I thought he
was going to have a shot at it. But he apparently decided against it.
"Oh," he said "That's what it was, was it?"

"Yes, and it's difficult to say just what caused it."

The farmer sniffed. "I'll bet I know what was behind it. I always said
this one 'ud be a weakly calf. When he was born he bled a lot from his
biblical cord."

Mr. Pickersgill hadn't finished with me yet. It was only a week later
that I heard him on the phone again.

"Get out here, quick. There's one of me pigs going bezique."

"Bezique?" With an effort I put away from me a mental picture of two
porkers facing each other over a green baize table. "I'm afraid I don't
quite ... '

"Aye, ah gave him a dose of worm medicine and he started jumpin" about
and: rollin" on his back. I tell you he's going proper bezique."

"Ah! Yes, yes I see, right. I'll be with you in a few minutes."

The pig had quietened down a bit when I arrived but was still in
considerable pain, getting up, lying down, trotting in spurts round the
pen. I gave him half a grain of morphine hydrochloride as a sedative and
within a few minutes he began to relax and finally curled up in the
straw.

"Looks as though he's going to be all right," I said. "But what's this
worm medicine you gave him?"

Mr. Pickersgill produced the bottle sheepishly.

"Bloke was coming round sellin" them. Said it would shift any worms you
cared to name."

"It nearly shifted your pig, didn't it?" I sniffed at the mixture. "And
no wonder. It smells almost like pure turpentine."

"Turpentine! Well by gaw is that all it is? And bloke said it was summat
new. Charged me an absorbent price for it too."

I gave him back the bottle. "Well never mind, I don't think there's any
harm done, but I think the dustbin's the best place for that."

As I was getting into my car I looked up at the farmer. "You must be
about; sick of the sight of me. First the mastitis, then the calf and
now your pig. You've had a bad run."

Mr. Pickersgill squared his shoulders and gazed at me with massive
composure Again I was conscious of the sheer presence of the man.

"Young feller," he said. "That don't bother me. Where there's stock
there" trouble and ah know from exderience that trouble~ comes in
cyclones."

~:

Chapter Four.

I knew I shouldn't do it, but the old Drovers" Road beckoned to me
irresistibly. I ought to be hurrying back to the surgery after my
morning call but the broad green path wound beguilingly over the moor
top between its crumbling walls and almost before I knew, I was out of
the car and treading the wiry grass.

The wall skirted the hill's edge and as I looked across and away to
where Darrowby huddled far below between its folding green fells the
wind thundered in my ears; but when I squatted in the shelter of the
grey stones the wind was only a whisper and the spring sunshine hot on
my face. The best kind of sunshine - not heavy or cloying but clear and
bright and clean as you find it down behind a wall in Yorkshire with the
wind singing over the top.

I slid lower till I was stretched on the turf, gazing with half closed
eyes into the bright sky, luxuriating in the sensation of being detached
from the world and its problems.

This form of self-indulgence had become part of my life and still is; a
reluctance to come down from the high country; a penchant for stepping
out of the stream of life and loitering on the brink for a few minutes
as an uninvolved spectator.

And it was easy to escape, Lying up here quite alone with no sound but
the wind sighing and gusting over the empty miles and, far up in the
wide blue, the endless brave trilling of the larks.

Not that there was anything unpleasant about going back down the hill to
Darrowby. I had worked there for two years now and Skeldale House had
become home and the two bright minds in it my friends. It didn't bother
me that both the brothers were cleverer than I was. Siegfried
unpredictable, explosive, generous; I had been lucky to have him as a
boss. As a city bred youth trying to tell expert stock farmers how to
treat their animals I had needed all his skill and guidance behind me.
And Tristan; a rum lad as they said, but very sound. His humour and zest
for life had lightened my days.

And all the time I was adding practical experience to my theory. The
mass of facts I had learned at college were all coming to life, and
there was the growing realisation, deep and warm, that this was for me.
There was nothing else I'd rather do.

It must have been fifteen minutes later when I finally rose, stretched
pleasurably, took a last deep gulp of the crisp air and pottered slowly
back to the car for the six mile journey back down the hill to Darrowby.

When I drew up by the railings with Siegfried's brass plate hanging
lopsidedly by the fine Georgian doorway I looked up at the tall old
house with the ivy Swarming untidily over the weathered brick. The white
paint on windows and doors was flaking and that ivy needed trimming but
the whole place had style, a serene unchangeable grace.

But I had other things on my mind at the moment. I went inside, stepping
quietly over the coloured tiles which covered the floor of the long
passage till I reached the long offshoot at the back of the house. And I
felt as I always did the Subdued excitement as I breathed the smell of
our trade which always hung there; ether, carbolic and pulv aromas. The
latter was the spicy powder which we mixed with the cattle medicines to
make them more palatable and it had a distinctive bouquet which even now
can take me back thirty years with a single sniff.

And today the thrill was stronger than usual because my visit was of a
surreptitious nature. I almost tiptoed along the last stretch of
passage, dodged quickly round the corner and into the dispensary.
Gingerly I opened the cupboard door at one end and pulled out a little
drawer. I was pretty sure Siegfried had a spare hoof knife hidden away
within and I had to suppress a cackle of triumph when I saw it Lying
there; almost brand new with a nicely turned gleaming blade and a
polished wooden handle.

My hand was outstretched to remove it when a cry of anger exploded in my
right ear.

"Caught in the act! Bloody red-handed, by God!" Siegfried, who had
apparently shot up through the floorboards was breathing fire into my
face.

The shock was so tremendous that the instrument dropped from my
trembling fingers and I cowered back against a row of bottles of
formalin bloat mixture.

"Oh hello, Siegfried," I said with a ghastly attempt at nonchalance.
"Just on my way to that horse of Thompson's. You know - the one with the
pus in the foot. I seem to have mislaid my knife so I thought I'd borrow
this one."

"Thought you'd nick it, you mean! My spare hoof knife! By heaven, is
nothing sacred, James."

I smiled sheepishly. "Oh you're wrong. I'd have given it back to you
straight away."

"A likely story!" Siegfried said with a bitter smile. "I'd never have
seen it again and you know damn well I wouldn't. Anyway, where's your
own knife? You've left it on some farm, haven't you?"

"Well as a matter of fact I laid it down at Willie Denholm's place after
I'd finished trimming his cow's overgrown foot and I must have forgotten
to pick it up." I gave a light laugh.

"But God help us, James, you're always forgetting to pick things up. And
you're always making up the deficiency by purloining my equipment." He
stuck his chin out. "Have you any idea how much all this is costing me?"

"Oh but I'm sure Mr. Denholm will drop the knife in at the surgery the
first time he's in town."

Siegfried nodded gravely. "He may, I'll admit that, he may. But on the
other hand he might think it is the ideal tool for cutting up his plug
tobacco. Remember when you left your calving overall at old Fred
Dobson's place? The next time I saw it was six months later and Fred was
wearing it. He said it was the best thing he'd ever found for stooking
corn in wet weather."

"Yes, I remember. I'm really sorry about it all." I fell silent,
breathing in the pungency of the pulv aromas. Somebody had let a bagful
burst on the floor and the smell was stronger than ever.

My employer kept his fiery gaze fixed on me for a few moments more then
he shrugged his shoulders. "Ah well, there's none of us perfect, James.
And I'm sorry I shouted at you. But you know I'm deeply attached to that
knife and this business of leaving things around is getting under my
skin." He took down a Winchester of his favourite colic draught and
polished it with his handkerchief before replacing it carefully on its
shelf. "I tell you what, let's go and sit down for a few minutes and
talk about this problem."

We went back along the passage and as I followed him into the big
sitting room Tristan got up from his favourite chair and yawned deeply.
His face looked as boyish and innocent as ever but the lines of
exhaustion round his eyes and mouth told an eloquent story. Last night
he had travelled with the darts team from the Lord Nelson and had taken
part in a gruelling match against the Dog and Gun at Drayton. The
contest had been followed by a pie and peas supper and the consumption
of something like twelve pints of bitter a man. Tristan had crawled into
bed at 3 a.m. and was clearly in a delicate condition.

"Ah, Tristan," Siegfried said. "I'm glad you're here because what I have
to say concerns you just as much as James. It's about leaving
instruments on farms and you're as guilty as he is." (It must be
remembered that before the Veterinary Surgeons" act of 1948 it was quite
legal for students to treat cases and they regularly did so. Tristan in
fact had done much sterling work when called on and was very popular
with the farmers.)

"Now I mean this very seriously," my employer said, leaning his elbow on
the mantelpiece and looking from one of us to the other. "You two are
bringing me to the brink of ruin by losing expensive equipment. Some of
it is returned but a lot of it is never seen again. What's the use of
sending you to visits when you come back without your artery forceps or
scissors or something else? The profit's gone, you see?"

We nodded silently.

"After all, there's nothing difficult about bringing your instruments
away, is there? You may wonder why I never leave anything behind - well
I can tell you it's just a matter of concentration. When I lay a thing
down I always impress on my mind that I've got to lift it up again.
That's all there is to it."

The lecture over, he became very brisk. "Right, let's get on. There's
nothing much doing, James, so I'd like you to come with me to Kendall's
of Brookside. He's got a few jobs including a cow with a tumour to
remove. I don't know the details but we may have to cast her. You can go
on to Thompson's later." He turned to his brother. "And you'd better
come too, Tristan. I don't know if we'll need you but an extra man might
come in handy."

We made quite a procession as we trooped into the farm yard and Mr.
Kendall met us with his customary ebullience.

"Hello, 'ello, we've got plenty of man power today, I see. We'll be able
to tackle owl with this regiment."

Mr. Kendall had the reputatian in the district of being a 'bit clever"
and the phrase has a different meaning in Yorkshire from elsewhere. It
meant he was something of a know-all; and the fact that he considered
himself a wag and legpuller of the first degree didn't endear him to his
fellow farmers either.

I always felt he was a good-hearted man, but his conviction that he knew
everything and had seen it all before made him a difficult man to
impress.

"Well what d'you want to see first, Mr. Farnon?" he asked. He was a
thickset little man with a round, smooth-skinned face and mischievous
eyes.

"I believe you have a cow with a bad eye," Siegfried said. "Better begin
with that."

"Right squire," the farmer cried, then he put his hand in his pocket.
"But before we start, here's something for you." He pulled forth a
stethoscope. "You left it last time you were 'ere."

There was a silence, then Siegfried grunted a word of thanks and grabbed
it hastily from his hand.

Mr. Kendall continued. "And the time afore that you left your bloodless
castrators. We did a swop over, didn't we? I gave you back the nippers
and you left me the earphones." He burst into a peal of laughter.

"Yes, yes, quite," Siegfried snapped, glancing uneasily round at us,
'but we must be getting on. Where is ... ?"

"You know lads," chuckled the farmer, turning to us. "Ah don't think
I've ever known 'im come here without leaving summa"."

"Really?" said Tristan interestedly.

;1

"Aye, if I'd wanted to keep 'em all I'd have had a drawerful by now."

"Is that so?" I said.

"Aye it is, young man. And it's the same with all me neighbours. One
feller said to me ttother day. "He's a kind man is Mr. Farnon - never
calls without leavin" a souvenir."' He threw back his head and laughed
again.

We were enjoying the conversation but my employer was stalking up the
byre. "Where's this damn cow, Mr. Kendall? We haven't got all day."

The patient wasn't hard to find, a nice light roan cow which looked
round at us carefully, one eye almost closed. From between the lashes a
trickle of tears made a dark stain down the hair of the face, and there
was an eloquent story of pain in the cautious movement of the quivering
lids.

"There's something in there," murmured Siegfried.

"Aye, ah know!" Mr. Kendall always knew. "She's got a flippin" great
lump of chaff stuck on her eyeball but I can't get to it. Look here." He
grabbed the cow's nose with one hand and tried to prise the eyelids
apart with the fingers of the other, but the third eyelid came across
and the whole orbit rolled effortlessly out of sight leaving only a
blank expanse of white sclera.

"There!" he cried. "Nowt to see. You can't make her keep her eye still."

"I can, though." Siegfried turned to his brother. "Tristan, get the
chloroform muzzle from the car. Look sharp!"

The young man was back in seconds and Siegfried quickly drew the canvas
bag over the cow's face and buckled it behind the ears. From a bottle of
spirit he produced a small pair of forceps of an unusual type with tiny
jaws operated by a spring. He poised them just over the closed eye.

"James," he said, "Give her about an ounce."

I dribbled the chloroform on to the sponge in the front of the muzzle.
Nothing happened for a few moments while the animal took a few breaths
then her eyes opened wide in surprise as the strange numbing vapour
rolled into her lungs.

The whole area of the affected eye was displayed, with a broad golden
piece of chaff splayed out across the dark cornea. I only had a glimpse
of it before Siegfried's little forceps had seized it and whisked it
away.

"Squeeze in some of that ointment, Tristan," said my employer. "And get
the muzzle off, James, before she starts to rock."

With the bag away from her face and the tormenting little object gone
from her eye the cow looked around her, vastly relieved. The whole thing
had taken only a minute or two and was as slick a little exhibition as
you'd wish to see, but Mr. Kendall didn't seem to think a great deal of
it.

"Aye right," he grunted. "Let's get on with t'next job."

As we went down the byre I looked out and saw a horse being led across
the yard. Siegfried pointed to it.

"Is that the gelding I operated on for fistulous withers?" he asked.

"That's the one." The farmer's voice was airy.

We went out and Siegfried ran his hand over the horse's shoulders. The
broad; fibrous scar over the withers was all that was left of the
discharging, stinking sinus of a few weeks back. Healing was perfect.
These cases were desperately difficult to treat and I remembered my boss
cutting and chiselling at the mass of necrotic tissue, curetting deeply
till only healthy flesh and bone remained), His efforts had been
rewarded; it was a brilliant success. ~

Siegfried gave the gelding a final pat on the neck. "That's done rather
well.

Mr. Kendall shrugged and turned back towards the byre. "Aye, not so bad,
suppose." But he really wasn't impressed.

The cow with the tumour was standing just inside the door. The growth w
in the perineal region, a smooth round object like an apple projecting
from the animal's rear end, clearly visible an inch to the right of the
tail.

Mr. Kendall was in full cry again. "Now we'll see what you're made of.
How are you chaps going to get that thing off, eh? It's a big 'un you'll
need a carving knife or a hack saw for t'job. And are you going" to put
her to sleep or tie her up or what?" He Grinned and his hrieh" little
eves darted at each of us in turn.

Siegfried reached out and grasped the tumour, feeling round the base
with his fingers. "Hmm ... yes ... hmm ... bring me some soap and water
and a towel, will you please?"

"I have it just outside "'door." The farmer scuttled into the yard and
back again with the bucket.

"Thank you very much," Siegfried said. He washed his hands and gave them
a leisurely towelling. "Now I believe you have another case to see. A
scouring calf, wasn't it?"

The farmer's eyes widened. "Yes, I 'ave. But how about getting this big
lump off the cow first ?"

Siegfried folded the towel and hung it over the half door. "Oh, I've
removed the tumour," he said quietly.

"What's that?" Mr. Kendall stared at the cow's backside. We all stared
at it. And there was no doubt about it - the growth was gone. And there
was another funny thing - there wasn't even a scar or mark remaining. I
was standing quite close to the animal and I could see exactly to a
fraction of an inch where that big ugly projection had been; and there
was nothing, not a drop of blood, nothing.

"Aye," Mr. Kendall said irresolutely. "You've er ... you've removed  ...
you've removed it, aye, that's right." The smile had vanished from his
face and his entire personality seemed suddenly deflated. Being a man
who knew everything and was surprised by nothing he was unable to say,
"When the devil did you do it? And how? And what on earth have you done
with it?" He had to maintain face at all costs, but he was rattled. He
darted little glances around the byre, along the channel. The cow was
standing in a clean-swept stall with no straw and there was nothing
Lying on the floor there or anywhere. Casually, as though by accident,
he pushed a milkirtg stool to one side with his foot - still nothing.

"Well now, perhaps we can see the calf." Siegfried began to move away.

Mr. Kendall nodded. "Yes ... yes ... the calf. He's in "'corner there.
I'll just lift bucket first."

It was a blatant excuse. He went over to the bucket and as he passed
behind the cow he whipped out his spectacles, jammed them on his nose
and directed a piercing glare at the cow's bottom. He only took an
instant because he didn't want to show undue concern, but when he turned
back towards us his face registered utter despair and he put his
spectacles away with a weary gesture of defeat.

As he approached I turned and brushed against my employer.

"Where the hell is it?" I hissed.

"Up my sleeve," murmured Siegfried without moving his lips or changing
expression.

"What ... ?" I began, but Siegfried was climbing over a gate into the
makeshift pen where the calf was cornered.

He was in expansive mood as he examined the little creature and injected
it. He kept up a steady flow of light conversation and Mr. Kendall,
showing great character, managed to get his smile back on and answer
back. But his preoccupied manner" the tortured eyes and the repeated
incredulous glances back along the byre floor in the direction of the
cow betrayed the fact that he was under ~immense strain.

Siegfried didn't hurry over the calf and when he had finished he
lingered a " _ _c, , while in the yard, chatting about the weather, the
way the grass was springing, the price of fat bullocks.

Mr. Kendall hung on grimly but by the time Siegfried finally waved
farewell the farmer's eyes were popping and his face was an anguished
mask. He bolted back into the byre and as the car backed round I could
see him bent double with his glasses on again, peering into the corners.

"Poor fellow," I said. "He's still looking for that thing. And for God's
sake where is it, anyway?"

"I told you, didn't I?" Siegfried removed one arm from the wheel and
shook it. A round fleshy ball rolled down into his hand.

I stared at it in amazement. "But ... I never saw you take it off  ...
what happened ?"

"I'll tell you." My employer smiled indulgently. "I was fingering it
over to see how deeply it was attached when I felt it begin to move. The
back of it was merely encapsulated by the skin and when I gave another
squeeze it just popped out and shot up my sleeve. And after it had gone
the lips of the skin sprang back together again so that you couldn't see
where it had been. Extraordinary thing."

Tristan reached over from the back seat. "Give it to me," he said. "I'll
take it back to college with me and get it sectioned. We'll find out
what kind of tumour it is."

His brother smiled. "Yes, I expect they'll give it some fancy name, but
I'll always remember it as the only thing that shook Mr. Kendall."

"That was an interesting session in there," I said. "And I must say I
admired the way you dealt with that eye, Siegfried. Very smooth indeed."

"You're very kind, James," my boss murmured. "That was just one of my
little tricks - and of course the forceps helped a lot."

I nodded. "Yes, wonderful little things. I've never seen anything like
them. Where did you get them?"

"Picked them up on an instrument stall at the last Veterinary Congress.
They cost me a packet but they've been worth it. Here, let me show them
to you." He put his hand in his breast pocket, then his side pockets,
and as he continued to rummage all over his person a look of sick dismay
spread slowly across his face.

Finally he abandoned the search, cleared his throat and fixed his eyes
on the road ahead.

"I'll er ... I'll show you them some other time, James," he said
huskily.

I didn't say anything but I knew and Siegfried knew and Tristan knew..
He'd left them on the farm.

Chapter Five.

"Well, it's a good sign." Tristan reluctantly expelled a lungful of
Woodbine~ smoke and looked at me with wide, encouraging eyes.

"You think so?" I said doubtfully Tristan nodded. "Sure of it. Helen
just rang you up, did she?"

"Yes, out of the blue. I haven't seen her since I took her to the
pictures that night and it's been hectic ever since with the lambing and
suddenly there she was asking me to tea on Sunday.

"I like the sound of it," Tristan said. "But of course you don't want to
get the idea you're home and dry or anything like that. You know there
are others in the field?"

"Hell, yes, I suppose I'm one of a crowd."

"Not exactly, but Helen Alderson is really something. Not just a looker
but .. mm-mm, very nice. There's a touch of class about that girl."

"Oh I know, I know. There's bound to be a mob of blokes after her. Like
young Richard Edmundson - I hear he's very well placed."

"That's right," Tristan said. "Old friends of the family, big farmers,
rolling in brass. I understand old man Alderson fancies Richard strongly
as a son-in-law."

I dug my hands into my pockets. "Can't blame him. A ragged-arced young
vet isn't much competition."

"Well, don't be gloomy, "In a way," I said with old lad, you've made a
bit of progress, haven't you?" a wry smile. "I've taken her out twice to
a dinner dance which wasn't on and to a cinema showing the wrong film. A
dead loss the first time and not much better the second. I just don't
seem to have any luck there - something goes wrong every time. Maybe
this invitation is just a polite gesture - returning hospitality or
something like that."

"Nonsense!" Tristan laughed and patted me on the shoulder. "This is the
beginning of better things. You'll see - nothing will go wrong this
time."

And on Sunday afternoon as I got out of the car to open the gate to
Heston Grange it did seem as if all was right with the world. The rough
track snaked down from the gate through the fields to Helen's home
slumbering in the sunshine by the curving river, and the grey-stoned old
building was like a restful haven against the stark backcloth of the
fells beyond.

I leaned on the gate for a moment, breathing in the sweet air. There had
been a change during the last week; the harsh winds had dropped,
everything had softened and greened and the warming land gave off its
scents. On the lower slopes of the fell, in the shade of the pine woods,
a pale mist of bluebells drifted among the dead bronze of the bracken
and their fragrance came up to me on the breeze.

I drove down the track among the cows relishing the tender young grass
after their long winter in the byres and as I knocked on the farmhouse
door I felt a surge of optimism and well-being. Helen's younger sister
answered and it wasn't until I walked into the big flagged kitchen that
I experienced a qualm. Maybe it was because it was so like that first
disastrous time I had called for Helen; Mr. Alderson was there by the
fireside, deep in the Farmer and Stockbreeder as before, while above his
head the cows in the vast oil painting still paddled in the lake of
startling blue under the shattered peaks. On the whitewashed wall the
clock still tick-tocked inexorably.

Helen's father looked up over his spectacles just as he had done before.
"Good afternoon, young man, come and sit down." And as I dropped into
the chair Opposite to him he looked at me uncertainly for a few seconds.
"It's a better day," he murmured, then his eyes were drawn back
irresistibly to the pages on his knee As he bent his head and started to
read again I gained the strong impression that he hadn't the slightest
idea who I was.

It came back to me forcibly that there was a big difference in coming to
a farm as a vet and visiting socially. I was often in farm kitchens on
my rounds, washing my hands in the sink after kicking my boots off in
the porch, chatting effortlessly to the farmer's wife about the sick
beast. But here I was in my good suit sitting stiffly across from a
silent little man whose daughter I had come to Court. It wasn't the same
at all.

I was relieved when Helen came in carrying a cake which she placed on
the big table. This wasn't easy as the table was already loaded; ham and
egg pies rubbing shoulders with snowy scones, a pickled tongue cheek by
jowl with a bowl of mixed salad, luscious-looking custard tarts
jockeying for position with sausage rolls, tomato sandwiches, fairy
cakes. In a clearing near the centre a vast trifle reared its
cream-topped head. It was a real Yorkshire tea.

Helen came over to me. "Hello, Jim, it's nice to see you - you're quite
a stranger." She smiled her slow, friendly smile.

"Hello, Helen. Yes, you know what lambing time's like. I hope things
will ease up a bit now."

"Well I hope so too. Hard work's all right up to a point but you need a
break some time. Anyway, come and have some tea. Are you hungry?"

"I am now," I said, gazing at the packed foodstuffs. Helen laughed.
"Well come on, sit in. Dad, leave your precious Farmer and Stockbreeder
and come over here. We were going to sit you in the dining room, Jim,
but Dad won't have his tea anywhere but in here, so that's all about
it."

I took my place along with Helen, young Tommy and Mary her brother and
sister, and Auntie Lucy, Mr. Alderson's widowed sister who had recently
come to live with the family. Mr. Alderson groaned his way over the
flags, collapsed on to a high-backed wooden chair and began to saw
phlegmatically at the tongue.

As I accepted my laden plate I can't say I felt entirely at ease. In the
course of my work I had eaten many meals in the homes of the hospitable
Dalesmen and I had discovered that light chatter was not welcomed at
table. The accepted thing, particularly among the more old-fashioned
types, was to put the food away in silence and get back on the job, but
maybe this was different. Sunday tea might be a more social occasion; I
looked round the table, waiting for somebody to lead the way.

Helen spoke up. "Jim's had a busy time among the sheep since we saw him
last."

"Oh yes?" auntie Lucy put her head on one side and smiled. She was a
little bird-like woman, very like her brother and the way she looked at
me made me feel she was on my side.

The young people regarded me fixedly with twitching mouths. The only
other time I had met them they had found me an object of some amusement
and things didn't seem to have changed. Mr. Alderson sprinkled some salt
on a radish, conveyed it to his mouth and crunched it impassively.

"Did you have much twin lamb disease this time, Jim?" Helen asked,
trying again.

- "Quite a bit," I replied brightly. "Haven't had much luck with
treatment, though. I tried dosing the ewes with glucose this year and I
think it did a bit of good."

Mr. Alderson swallowed the last of his radish. "I think nowt to
glucose," he grunted. "I've had a go with it and I think nowt to it."

"Really?" I said. "Well now that's interesting. Yes ... yes ... quite."

I buried myself in my salad for a spell before offering a further
contribution.

"There's been a lot of sudden deaths in the lambs," I said. "Seems to be
more Pulpy Kidney about."

"Fancy that," said Auntie Lucy, smiling encouragingly.

"Yes," I went on, getting into my stride. "It's a good job we've got a
vaccine against it now."

"Wonderful things, those vaccines," Helen chipped in. "You'll soon be
able to prevent a lot of the sheep diseases that way." The conversation
was warming up.

Mr. Alderson finished his tongue and pushed his plate away. "I think
nowt to the vaccines. And those sudden deaths you're on about - they're
caused by wool ball on "'stomach. Nowt to do wi" the kidneys."

"Ah yes, wool ball eh? I see, wool ball." I subsided and decided to
concentrate on the food.

And it was worth concentrating on. As I worked my way through I was
aware of a growing sense of wonder that Helen had probably baked the
entire spread It was when my teeth were sinking into a poem of a curd
tart that I really began to appreciate the miracle that somebody of
Helen's radiant attractiveness should be capable of this.

I looked across at her. She was a big girl, nothing like her little wisp
of a father. She must have taken after her mother. Mrs. Alderson had
been dead for many years and I wondered if she had had that same wide,
generous mouth that smiled so easily, those same warm blue eyes under
the soft mass of black-brown hair.

A spluttering from Tommy and Mary showed that they had been
appreciatively observing me gawping at their sister.

"That's enough, you two," Auntie Lucy reproved. "Anyway you can go now,
we're going to clear the table."

Helen and she began to move the dishes to the scullery beyond the door
while Mr. Alderson and I returned to our chairs by the fireside.

The little man ushered me to mine with a vague wave of the hand. "Here
...  take a seat, er ... young man."

A clattering issued from the kitchen as the washing-up began. We were
alone.

Mr. Alderson's hand strayed automatically towards his Farmer and
Stockbreeder, but he withdrew it after a single hunted glance in my
direction and began to drum his fingers on the arm of the chair,
whistling softly under his breath.

I groped desperately for an opening gambit but came up with nothing. The
ticking of the clock boomed out into the silence. I was beginning to
break out into a sweat when the little man cleared his throat.

"Pigs were a good trade on Monday," he vouchsafed.

"They were, eh? Well, that's (the - jolly good."

Mr. Alderson nodded, fixed his gaze somewhere above my left shoulder and
started drumming his fingers again. Once more the heavy silence
blanketed us and the clock continued to hammer out its message.

After several years Mr. Alderson stirred in his seat and gave a little
cough. I looked at him eagerly.

"Store cattle were down, though," he said.

"Ah, too bad, what a pity," I babbled. "But that's how it goes, I
suppose, eh?"

Helen's father shrugged and we settled down again. This time I knew it
was hopeless. My mind was a void and my companion had the defeated look
of a man who has shot his conversational bolt. I lay back and studied
the hams and sides of bacon hanging from their hooks in the ceiling,
then I worked my way along the row of plates on the big oak dresser to a
gaudy calendar from a cattle cake firm which dangled from a nail on the
wall. I took a chance then an] stole a glance at Mr. Alderson out of the
corner of my eye and my toes curled as I saw he had chosen that precise
moment to have a sideways peep at me. We both looked away hurriedly.

By shifting round in my seat and craning my neck I was able to get a
view of the other side of the kitchen where there was an old-fashioned
roll top desk Surmounted by a wartime picture of Mr. Alderson looking
very stern in the uniform of the Yorkshire Yeomanry, and I was
proceeding along the wall from there when Helen opened the door and came
quickly into the room.

"Dad," she said, a little breathlessly. "Stan's here. He says one of the
cows is down with staggers." ~i Her father jumped up in obvious relief.
I think he was delighted he had a sick cow and 1, too, felt like a
released prisoner as I hurried out with him.

Stan, one of the cowmen, was waiting in the yard.

"She's at t'top of t'field, boss," he said. "I just spotted 'er when I
went to get ~ them in for milkin"." .".!

Mr. Alderson looked at me questioningly and I nodded at him as I opened
the car door.

"I've got the stuff with me," I said. "We'd better drive straight up."

The three of us piled in and I set course to where I could see the
stretched out form of a cow near the wall in the top corner. My bottles
and instruments rattled and clattered as we bumped over the rig and
furrow.

This was something every vet gets used to in early summer; the urgent
call to milk cows which have collapsed suddenly a week or two after
being turned out to grass. The farmers called it grass staggers and as
its scientific name of hypomagesaemia implied it was associated with
lowered magnesium level in the blood. An alarming and highly fatal
condition but fortunately curable by injection of magnesium in most
cases.

Despite the seriousness of the occasion I couldn't repress a twinge of
satisfaction. It had got me out of the house and it gave me a chance to
prove myself by doing something useful. Helen's father and I hadn't
established anything like a rapport as yet, but maybe when I gave his
unconscious cow my magic injection and it leaped to its feet and walked
away he might look at me in a different light. And it often happened
that way; some of the cures were really dramatic.

"She's still alive, any road," Stan said as we roared over the grass. "I
saw her legs move then."

He was right, but as I pulled up and jumped from the car I felt a tingle
of apprehension. Those legs were moving too much.

This was the kind that often died; the convulsive type. The animal,
prone on her side, was pedalling frantically at the air with all four
feet, her head stretched backwards, eyes staring, foam bubbling from her
mouth. As I hurriedly unscrewed the cap from the bottle of magnesium
lactate she stopped and went into a long, shuddering spasm, legs stiffly
extended, eyes screwed tightly shut; then she relaxed and lay inert for
a frightening few seconds before recommencing the wild thrashing with
her legs.

My mouth had gone dry. This was a bad one. The strain on the heart
during these spasms was enormous and each one could be her last.

I crouched by her side, my needle poised over the milk vein. My usual
practice was to inject straight into the bloodstream to achieve the
quickest possible effect, but in this case I hesitated. Any interference
with the heart's action could kill this cow; best to play safe - I
reached over and pushed the needle under the skin of the neck.

As the fluid ran in, bulging the subcutaneous tissues and starting a
widening swelling under the roan-coloured hide, the cow went into
another spasm. For an agonising few seconds she lay there, the quivering
limbs reaching desperately out at nothing, the eyes disappearing deep
down under tight-twisted lids.: Helplessly I watched her, my heart
thudding, and this time as she came out of the rigor and started to move
again it wasn't with the purposeful pedalling of, before; it was an
aimless laboured pawing and as even this grew weaker her eyes slowly
opened and gazed outwards with a vacant stare.

I bent and touched the cornea with my finger, there was no response.

The farmer and cowman looked at me in silence as the animal gave a final
jerk then lay still.

"I'm afraid she'd dead, Mr. Alderson," I said.

The farmer nodded and his eyes moved slowly over the still form, over
the graceful limbs, the fine dark roan flanks, the big, turgid udder
that would give no more milk.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm afraid her heart must have given out before
the magnesium had a chance to work."

"It's a bloody shame," grunted Stan. "She was a right good cow, that
'un."

Mr. Alderson turned quietly back to the car. "Aye well, these things
happen," he muttered.

We drove down the field to the house.

Inside, the work was over and the family was collected in the parlour. I
sat with them for a while but my overriding emotion was an urgent desire
to be elsewhere Helen's father had been silent before but now he sat
hunched miserably in an armchair taking no part in the conversation. I
wondered whether he thought I had actually killed his cow. It certainly
hadn't looked very good, the vet walking up to the sick animal, the
quick injection and hey presto, dead. No, I had been blameless but it
hadn't looked good.

On an impulse I jumped to my feet.

"Thank you very much for the lovely tea," I said, 'but I really must be
off. I'm on duty this evening."

Helen came with me to the door. "Well it's been nice seeing you again,
Jim." She paused and looked at me doubtfully. "I wish you'd stop
worrying about that cow. It's a pity but you couldn't help it. There was
nothing you could do."

"Thanks, Helen, I know. But it's a nasty smack for your father isn't
it?"

She shrugged and smiled her kind smile. Helen was always kind.

Driving back through the pastures up to the farm gate I could see the
motionless body of my patient with her companions sniffing around her
curiously in the gentle evening sunshine. Any time now the knacker man
would be along to winch the carcass on to his wagon. It was the grim
epilogue to every vet's failure.

I closed the gate behind me and looked back at Heston Grange. I had
thought everything would be all right this time but it hadn't worked out
that way.

The jinx was still on.

;

;

.~

Chapter Six.

"Monday morning disease" they used to call it. The almost unbelievably
gross thickening of the hind limb in cart horses which had stood in the
stable over the weekend It seemed that the sudden suspension of their
normal work and exercise produced the massive lymphangitis and swelling
which gave many a farmer a nasty jolt right at the beginning of the
week.

But it was Wednesday evening now and Mr. Crump's big Shire gelding was
greatly improved.

"That leg's less than half the size it was," I said, running my hand
over the inside of the hock feeling the remains of the oedema pitting
under my fingers. "I can see you've put in some hard work here.~

"Aye, ah did as you said." Mr. Crump's reply was typically laconic, but
I knew _ ~ _

he must have spent hours fomenting and massaging the limb and forcibly
exercising the horse as I had told him when I gave the arecoline
injection on Monday.

I began to fill the syringe for a repeat injection. "He's having no
corn, is he?"

"Nay, nowt but bran."

"That's fine. I think he'll be back to normal in a day or two if you
keep up the treatment."

The farmer grunted and no sign of approval showed in the big, purple-red
face with its perpetually surprised expression. But I knew he was
pleased all right; he was fond of the horse and had been unable to hide
his concern at the animal's pain and distress on my first visit.

I went into the house to wash my hands and Mr. Crump led the way into
the kitchen, his big frame lumbering clumsily ahead of me. He proffered
soap and towel in his slow-moving way and stood back in silence as I
leaned over the long shallow sink of brown earthenware.

As I dried my hands he cleared his throat and spoke hesitantly. "Would
you like a drink of ma wine?"

Before I could answer, Mrs. Crump came bustling through from an inner
room. She was pulling on her hat and behind her her teenage son and
daughter followed, dressed ready to go out.

"Oh Albert, stop it!" she snapped, looking up at her husband. "Mr.
Herriot doesn't want your wine. I wish you wouldn't pester people so
with it!"

The boy grinned. "Dad and his wine, he's always looking for a victim."

His sister joined in the general laughter and I had an uncomfortable
feeling that Mr. Crump was the odd man out in his own home.

"We're going down "'village institute to see a school play, Mr.
Herriot," the wife said briskly. "We're late now so we must be off." She
hurried away with her children, leaving the big man looking after her
sheepishly.

There was a silence while I finished drying my hands, then I turned to
the farmer. "Well, how about that drink, Mr. Crump?"

He hesitated for a moment and the surprised look deepened. "Would you ..
. you'd really like to try some?"

"I'd love to. I haven't had my evening meal yet - I could just do with
an aperitif."

"Right, I'll be back in a minute." He disappeared into the large pantry
at the end of the kitchen and came back with a bottle of amber liquid
and glasses.

"This is ma rhubarb," he said, tipping out two good measures.

I took a sip and then a good swallow, and gasped as the liquid blazed a
fiery trail down to my stomach.

"It's strong stuff," I said a little breathlessly, 'but the taste is
very pleasant. Very pleasant indeed."

Mr. Crump watched approvingly as I took another drink. "Aye, it's just
right. Nearly two years old."

I drained the glass and this time the wine didn't burn so much on its
way down but seemed to wash around the walls of my empty stomach and
send glowing tendrils creeping along my limbs.

"Delicious," I said. "Absolutely delicious."

The farmer expanded visibly. He refilled the glasses and watched with
rapt attention as I drank. When we had finished the second glass he
jumped to his feet.

"Now for a change I want you to try summat different." He almost trotted
to the pantry and produced another bottle, this time of colourless
fluid. "Elderflower," he said, panting slightly.

When I tasted it I was amazed at the delicate flavour, the bubbles
sparkling and dancing on my tongue.

"Gosh, this is terrific! It's just like champagne. You know, you really
have a gift - I never thought home made wines could taste like this."

Mr. Crump stared at me for a moment then one corner of his mouth began
to twitch and incredibly a shy smile spread slowly over his face.
"You're about just I've heard say that. You'd think I was trying to
poison folks when I offer them ma wine - they always shy off but they
can sup plenty of beer and whisky."

"Well they don't know what they're missing, Mr. Crump." I watched while
the farmer replenished my glass. "I wouldn't have believed you could
make stuff as good as this at home." I sipped appreciatively at the
elderflower. It still tasted like champagne.

I hadn't got more than half way down the glass before Mr. Crump was
clattering and clinking inside the pantry again. He emerged with a
bottle with contents of a deep blood red. "Try that," he gasped.

I was beginning to feel like a professional taster and rolled the first
mouthful around my mouth with eyes half closed. "Mm, mm, yes. Just like
an excellent port, but there's something else here - a fruitiness in the
background - something familiar about it - it's ... it's ... '

"Blackberry!" shouted Mr. Crump triumphantly. "One of t'best I've done.
Made it two back-ends since - it were a right good year for it."

Leaning back in the chair I took another drink of the rich, dark wine;
it was round-flavoured, warming, and behind it there was always the
elusive hint of the brambles. I could almost see the heavy-hanging
clusters of berries glistening black and succulent in the autumn
sunshine. The mellowness of the image matched my mood which was becoming
more expansive by the minute and I looked round with leisurely
appreciation at the rough comfort of the farmhouse kitchen; at the hams
and sides of bacon hanging from their hooks in the ceiling, and at my
host sitting across the table, watching me eagerly. He was, I noticed
for the first time, still wearing his cap.

"You know," I said, holding the glass high and studying its ruby depths
against the light. "I can't make up my mind which of your wines I like
best. They're all excellent and yet so different."

Mr. Crump, too, had relaxed. He threw back his head and laughed
delightedly before hurriedly refilling both of our tumblers. "But you
haven't started yet. Ah've got dozens of bottles in there - all
different. You must try a few more." He shambled again over to the
pantry and this time when he reappeared he was weighed down by an armful
of bottles of differing shapes and colours.

What a charming man he was, I thought. How wrong I had been in my
previous assessment of him; it had been so easy to put him down as
lumpish and unemotional but as I looked at him now his face was alight
with friendship, hospitality, understanding. He had cast off his
inhibitions and as he sat down surrounded by the latest batch he began
to talk rapidly and fluently about wines and wine making.

Wide-eyed and impassioned he ranged at length over the niceties of
fermentation and sedimentation, of flavour and bouquet. He dealt
learnedly with the relative merits of Chambertin and Nuits St. George,
Montrachet and Chablis. Enthusiasts are appealing but a fanatic is
irresistible and I sat spellbound while Mr. Crump pushed endless samples
of his craft in front of me, mixing and adjusting expertly.

"How did you find that 'un?"

"Very nice ... '

"But sweet, maybe?"

"Well, perhaps ... ;

1

aa'right, try some of this with it." The meticulous addition of a few
drops of nameless liquid from the packed rows of bottles. "How's that?"

"Marvelous!"

"Now this 'un. Perhaps a bit sharpish, eh?"

"Possibly ... yes ... '

Again the tender trickling of a few mysterious droplets into my drink
and again the anxious enquiry.

"Is that better?"

"Just right."

The big man drank with me, glass by glass. We tried parsnip and
dandelion, cowslip and parsley, clover, gooseberry, beetroot and crab
apple. Incredibly we had some stuff made from turnips which was so
exquisite that I insisted on a refill.

Everything gradually slowed down as we sat there. Time slowed down till
it was finally meaningless. Mr. Crump and I slowed down and our speech
and actions became more and more deliberate. The farmer's visits to the
pantry developed into laboured, unsteady affairs; sometimes he took a
roundabout route to reach the door and on one occasion there was a
tremendous crash from within and I feared he had fallen among his
bottles. But I couldn't be bothered to get up to see and in due course
he reappeared, apparently unharmed.

It was around nine o'clock that I heard the soft knocking on the outer
door. I ignored it as I didn't want to interrupt Mr. Crump who was in
the middle of a deep exposition.

"Thigh," he was saying, leaning close to me and tapping a bulbous flagon
with his forefinger. "Thish is, in my 'pinion, comp'rable to a fine
Moselle. Made it lash year and would 'preciate it if you'd tell me what
you think." He went low over the glass, blinking, heavy-eyed as he
poured.

"Now then, wha" d'you say? Ish it or ishn't it?"

I took a gulp and paused for a moment. It all tasted the same now and I
had never drunk Moselle anyway, but I nodded and hiccuped solemnly in
reply.

The farmer rested a friendly hand on my shoulder and was about to make a
further speech when he, too, heard the knocking. He made his way across
the floor with some difficulty and opened the door. A young lad was
standing there and I heard a few muttered words.

"We 'ave a cow on calving and we 'phoned surgery and they said vitnery
might still be here."

Mr. Crump turned to face me. "It's the Bamfords of Holly Bush. They wan"
you to go there - jush a mile along "'road."

"Right," I heaved myself to my feet then gripped the table tightly as
the familiar objects of the room began to whirl rapidly around me. When
they came to rest Mr. Crump appeared to be standing at the head of a
fairly steep slope. The kitchen floor had seemed perfectly level when I
had come in but now it was all I could do to fight my way up the
gradient.

When I reached the door Mr. Crump was staring owlishly into the
darkness.

' "Seining," he said. ' "Seining like 'ell."

I peered out at the steady beat of the dark water on the cobbles of the
yard, but my car was just a few yards away and I was about to set out
when the farmer caught my arm.

"Jus" minute, can't go out like that." He held up a finger then went
over and -.i groped about in a drawer. At length he produced a tweed cap
which he offered ~ me with great dignity. ~'

I never wore anything on my head whatever the weather but I was deeply
touched and wrung my companion's hand in silence. It was understandable
that ~ I a man like Mr. Crump who wore his cap at all times, indoors and
out, would recoil in horror from the idea of anybody venturing uncovered
into the rain.

The tweed cap which I now put on was the biggest I had ever seen; a
great round flat pancake of a thing which even at that moment I felt
would keep not only my head but my shoulders and entire body dry in the
heaviest downpour.

I took my leave of Mr. Crump with reluctance and as I settled in the
seat of the car trying to remember where first gear was situated I could
see his bulky form silhouetted against the light from the kitchen; he
was waving his hand with gentle benevolence and it struck me as I at
length drove away what a deep and wonderful friendship had been forged
that night.

Driving at walking pace along the dark narrow road, my nose almost
touching the windscreen, I was conscious of some unusual sensations. My
mouth and lips felt abnormally sticky as though I had been drinking
liquid glue instead of wine my breath seemed to be whistling in my
nostrils like a strong wind blowing under a door, and I was having
difficulty focusing my eyes. Fortunately I met only one car and as it
approached and flashed past in the other direction I was muzzily
surprised by the fact that it had two complete sets of headlights which
kept merging into each other and drawing apart again.

In the yard at Holly Bush I got out of the car, nodded to the shadowy
group of figures standing there, fumbled my bottle of antiseptic and
calving ropes from the boot and marched determinedly into the byre. One
of the men held an oil lamp over a cow lying on a deep bed of straw in
one of the standings; from the vulva a calf's foot protruding a few
inches and as the cow strained a little muzzle showed momentarily then
disappeared as she relaxed.

Far away inside me a stone cold sober veterinary surgeon murmured: "Only
a leg back and a big roomy cow. Shouldn't be much trouble." I turned and
looked at the Bamfords for the first time. I hadn't met them before but
it was easy to classify them; simple, kindly anxious-to-please people
two middle-aged men, probably brothers, and two young men who would be
the sons of one or the other. They were all staring at me in the dim
light, their eyes expectant, their mouths slightly open as though ready
to smile or laugh if given half a chance.

I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath and said in a loud voice:
"Would you please bring me a bucket of hot water, some soap and a
tower." Or at least that's what I meant to say, because what actually
issued from my lips was a torrent of something that sounded like
Swahili. The Bamfords, poised, ready to spring into action to do my
bidding, looked at me blankly. I cleared my throat, swallowed, took a
few seconds" rest and tried again. I cleared my throat, swallowed,
another volley of gibberish echoing uselessly round the cow house.

Clearly I had a problem. It was essential to communicate in some way,
particularly since these people didn't know me and were waiting for some
action. 1 suppose I must have appeared a strange and enigmatic figure
standing there, straight and solemn, surmounted and dominated by the
vast cap. But through the mists a flash of insight showed me where I was
going wrong. It was overconfidence It wasn't a bit of good trying to
speak loudly like that. I tried again in the faintest of whispers.

"Could I have a bucket of hot water, some soap and a towel, please." It
came out beautifully though the oldest Mr. Bamford didn't quite get it
first time. He came close, cupped an ear with his hand and watched my
lips intently. Then he nodded eagerly in comprehension, held up a
forefinger at me, tiptoed across the floor like a tight rope walker to
one of the sons and whispered in his ear. The young man turned and crept
out noiselessly, closing the door behind him with the utmost care; he
was back in less than a minute, padding over the cobbles daintily in his
heavy boots and placing the bucket gingerly in front of me.

I managed to remove my jacket, tie and shirt quite efficiently and they
were ~en from me in silence and hung upon nails by the Bamfords who were
moving ~und as though in church. I thought I was doing fine till I
started to wash my ns. The soap kept shooting from my arms, slithering
into the dung channel, ,appearing into the dark corners of the byre with
the Bamfords in hot pursuit. was worse still when I tried to work up to
the top of my arms. The soap ftew r my shoulders like a live thing, at
times cannoning off the walls, at others ding down my back. The farmers
never knew where the next shot was going d they took on the appearance
of a really sharp fielding side crouching around with arms outstretched
waiting for a catch.

However I did finally work up a lather and was ready to start, but the
cow used firmly to get to her feet, so I had to stretch out behind her
face down the unyielding cobbles. It wasn't till I got down there that I
felt the great cap ~pping over my ears; I must have put it on again
after removing my shirt ~ugh it was difficult to see what purpose it
might serve.

Inserting a hand gently into the vagina I pushed along the calf's neck,
hoping come upon a flexed knee or even a foot, but I was disappointed;
the leg really IS right back, stretching from the shoulder away flat
against the calf's side. ill, I would be all right - it just meant a
longer reach.

And there was one reassuring feature; the calf was alive. As I lay, my
face IS almost touching the rear end of the cow and I had a close up of
the nose which kept appearing every few seconds; it was good to see the
little nostrils itching as they sought the outside air. All I had to do
was get that leg round. But the snag was that as I reached forward the
cow kept straining, squeezing y arm cruelly against her bony pelvis,
making me groan and roll about in ony for a few seconds t.ll the
pressure went oflf. Quite often in these crises my p fell on to the
floor and each time gentle hands replaced it immediately on y head.

At last the foot was in my hand - there would be no need for ropes this
time and I began to pull it round. It. took me longer than I thought and
it seemed me that the calf was beginning to lose patience with me
because when its ad was forced out by the cow's contractions we were eye
to eye and I fancied e little creature was giving me a disgusted "For
heaven's sake get on wrth it" ~k.

When the leg did come round it was with a rush and in an instant
everything as laid as it should have been.

"Get hold of the feet," I whispered to the Bamfords and after a hushed
nsultation they took up their places. In no time at all a fine heifer
calf was riggling on the cobbles shaking its head and snorting the
placental fluid from i nostrils.

In response to my softly hissed instructions the farmers rubbed the
little eature down with straw wisps and pulled it round for its mother
to lick.

It was a happy ending to the most peaceful calving I have ever attended.
ever a voice raised, everybody moving around on tiptoe. I got dressed in
a .thedral silence, went out to the car, breathed a final goodnight and
left with e Bamfords waving mutely.

O say I had a hangover next morning would be failing even to hint at the
utter sintegration of my bodily economy and personality. Only somebody
who had ~nsumed two or three quarts of assorted home-made wines at a
sitting could ~ve an inkling of the quaking nausea, the raging inferno
within, the jangling ryes, the black despairing outlook.

Tristan had seen me in the bathroom running the cold tap on my tongue
and had intuitively administered a raw egg, aspirins and brandy which,
as 1 came downstairs" lay in a cold, unmoving blob in my outraged
stomach.

"What are you walking like that for, James?" asked Siegfried in what
sounded like a bull's bellow as I came in on him at breakfast. "You look
as though you'd pee'd yourself."

"Oh it's nothing much." It was no good telling him I was treading warily
across the carpet because I was convinced that if I let my heels down
too suddenly it would jar my eyeballs from their sockets. "I Crump's
wine last night and it seems to have upset me."

"A few glasses! You ought to be more careful - that stufl~s dynamite.
Could knock anybody over." He crashed his cup into its saucer then began
to clatter about with knife and fork as if trying to give a one man
rendering of the Anvil C,horus. "I hope you weren't any the worse to go
to Bamford's."

had a few glasses of Mr. ~" ~, _ .- ~ D I listlessly crumbled some dry
toast on my plate..t T'A h~A ~ hit too much - no use denvin~ it."

. "Well I did the job all right, Siegfried was in one of his encouraging
moods. "By God, James, those Bamfords are very strict Methodists.
They're grand chaps but absolutely dead nuts against drink - if they
thought you were under the influence of alcohol they'd never have you on
the place again." He ruthlessly bisected an egg yolk. "I hope they
didn't notice anything. Do you think they knew?"

"Oh maybe not. No, I shouldn't think so." I closed my eyes and shivered
as Siegfried pushed a forkful of sausage and fried bread into his mouth
and began to chew briskly. My mind went back to the gentle hands
replacing the monstrous cap on my head and I groaned inwardly.

Those Bamfords knew all right. Oh yes, they knew.

Chapter Seven.

The silvery haired old gentleman with the pleasant face didn't look the
type to be easily upset but his eyes glared at me angrily and his lips
quivered with indignation.

"Mr. Herriot," he said. "I have come to make a complaint. I strongly
object to your callousness in subjecting my dog to unnecessary
suffering."

"Suffering? What suffering?" I was mystified.

"I think you know, Mr. Herriot. I brought my dog in a few days ago. He
was very lame and I am referring to your treatment on that occasion."

I nodded "Yes, I remember it well ... but where does the suffering come
in?"

"Well, the poor animal is going around with his leg dangling and I have
it on good authority that the bone is fractured and should have been put
in plaster immediately" The old gentleman stuck his chin out fiercely.

"All right, you can stop worrying," I said. "Your dog has a radial
paralysis caused by a blow on the ribs and if you are patient and follow
my treatment he'll gradually improve. In fact I think he'll recover
completely."

"But he trails his leg when he walks."

"I know - that's typical, and to the layman it does give the appearance
of a broken leg. But he shows no sign of pain, does he?"

"No, he seems quite happy, but this lady seemed to be absolutely sure of
her facts. She was adamant."

"Lady ?"

"Yes, said the old gentleman. "She is very clever with animals and she
came round to see if she could help in my dog's convalescence. She
brought some excellent condition powders with her."

"Ah!" A blinding shaft pierced the fog in my mind. All was suddenly
clear. "It was Mrs. Donovan, wasn't it?"

"Well ... er, yes. That was her name."

Old Mrs. Donovan was a woman who really got around. No matter what was
going on in Darrowby - weddings, funerals, house-sales - you'd find the
dumpy little figure and walnut face among the spectators, the darting,
black-button eyes. taking everything in. And always, on the end of its
lead, her terrier dog.

When I say 'old", I'm only guessing, because she appeared ageless; she
seemed to have been around a long time but she could have been anything
between fifty-five and seventy-five. She certainly had the vitality of a
young woman because she must have walked vast distances in her dedicated
quest to keep abreast of events. Many people took an uncharitable view
of her acute curiosity but whatever the motivation, her activities took
her into almost every channel of life in the town. One of these channels
was our veterinary practice.

Because Mrs. Donovan, among her other widely ranging interests, was an
animal doctor. In fact I think it would be safe to say that this facet
of her life transcended all the others.

She could talk at length on the ailments of small animals and she had a
whole armoury of medicines and remedies at her command, her two
specialities being her miracle working condition powders and a dog
shampoo of unprecedented value for improving the coat. She had an
uncanny ability to sniff out a sick animal and it was not uncommon when
I was on my rounds to find Mrs. Donovan's dark gipsy face poised
intently over what I had thought was my patient while she administered
calf's foot jelly or one of her own patent nostrums.

I suffered more than Siegfried because I took a more active part in the
small animal side of our practice. I was anxious to develop this aspect
and to improve my image in this field and Mrs. Donovan didn't help at
all. "Young Mr. Herriot," she would confide to my clients, 'is all right
with cattle and such like, but he don't know nothing about dogs and
cats."

And of course they believed her and had implicit faith in her. She had
the irresistible mystic appeal of the amateur and on top of that there
was her habit, particularly endearing in Darrowby, of never charging for
her advice, her medicines, her long periods of diligent nursing.

Older folk in the town told how her husband, an Irish farm worker, had
died many years ago and how he must have had a 'bit put away" because
Mrs. Donovan had apparently been able to indulge all her interests over
the years without financial strain. Since she inhabited the streets of
Darrowby all day and every day I often encountered her and she always
smiled up at me sweetly and told me how she had been sitting up all
night with Mrs. So-and-so's dog that I'd been treating. She felt sure
she'd be able to pull it through.

There was no smile on her face, however, on the day when she rushed into
the surgery while Siegfried and I were having tea.

"Mr. Herriot!" she gasped. "Can you come? My little dog's been run
over!"

I jumped up and ran out to the car with her. She sat in the passenger
seat with her head bowed, her hands clasped tightly on her knees.

"He slipped his collar and ran in front of a car," she murmured. "He's
Lying in front of the school half way up Cliffend Road. Please hurry."

I was there within three minutes but as I bent over the dusty little
body stretched on the pavement I knew there was nothing I could do. The
fast-glazing eyes, the faint, gasping respirations, the ghastly pallor
of the mucous membranes all told the same story.

"I'll take him back to the surgery and get some saline into him, Mrs.
Donovan," I said. "But I'm afraid he's had a massive internal
haemorrhage. Did you see what happened exactly?"

She gulped. "Yes, the wheel went right over him."

Ruptured liver, for sure. I passed my hands under the little animal and
began to lift him gently, but as I did so the breathing stopped and the
eyes stared fixedly ahead.

Mrs. Donovan sank to her knees and for a few moments she gently stroked
the rough hair of the head and chest. "He's dead, isn't he?" she
whispered at last.

"I'm afraid he is," I said.

She got slowly to her feet and stood bewilderedly among the little group
of bystanders on the pavement. Her lips moved but she seemed unable to
say any more.

I took her arm, led her over to the car and opened the door. "Get in and
sit down," I said. "I'll run you home. Leave everything to me."

I wrapped the dog in my calving overall and laid him in the boot before
driving away. It wasn't until we drew up outside Mrs. Donovan's house
that she began to weep silently. I sat there without speaking till she
had finished. Then she wiped her eyes and turned to me.

"Do you think he suffered at all?"

"I'm certain he didn't. It was all so quick - he wouldn't know a thing
about it."

She tried to smile. "Poor little Rex, I don't know what I'm doing to do
without him. We've travelled a few miles together, you know."

"Yes, you have. He had a wonderful life, Mrs. Donovan. And let me give
you a bit of advice - you must get another dog. You'd be lost without
one."

She shook her head. "No, I couldn't. That little dog meant too much to
me. I couldn't let another take his place."

"Well I know that's how you feel just now but I wish you'd think about
it. I don't want to seem callous - I tell everybody this when they lose
an animal and I know it's good advice."

"Mr. Herriot, I'll never have another one." She shook her head again,
very decisively. "Rex was my faithful friend for many years and I just
want to remember him. He's the last dog I'll ever have."

I often saw Mrs. Donovan around the town after this and I was glad to
see she was still as active as ever, though she looked strangely
incomplete without the little dog on its lead. But it must have been
over a month before I had the chance to speak to her.

It was on the afternoon that Inspector Halliday of the RSPCA rang me.

"Mr. Herriot," he said, "I'd like you to come and see an animal with me.
A cruelty case."

"Right, what is it?"

"A dog, and it's pretty grim. A dreadful case of neglect." He gave me
the name of a row of old brick cottages down by the river and said he'd
meet me there.

Halliday was waiting for me, smart and business-like in his dark
uniform, as I pulled up in the back lane behind the houses. He was a
big, blond man with cheerful blue eyes but he didn't smile as he came
over to the car.

"He's in here," he said, and led the way towards one of the doors in the
long, crumbling wall. A few curious people were hanging around and with
a feeling of inevitability I recognised a gnome-like brown face. Trust
Mrs. Donovan, I thought, to be among those present at a time like this.

We went through the door into the long garden. I had found that even the
lowliest dwellings in Darrowby had long strips of land at the back as
though the builders had taken it for granted that the country people who
were going to live in them would want to occupy themselves with the
pursuits of the soil; with vegetable and fruit growing, even stock
keeping in a small way. You usually found a pig there, a few hens, often
pretty beds of flowers.

But this garden was a wilderness. A chilling air of desolation hung over
the few gnarled apple and plum trees standing among a tangle of rank
grass as though the place had been forsaken by all living creatures.

Halliday went over to a ramshackle wooden shed with peeling paint and a
rusted corrugated iron roof. He produced a key, unlocked the padlock and
dragged the door partly open. There was no window and it wasn't easy to
identify the jumble inside; broken gardening tools, an ancient mangle,
rows of flower pots and partly used paint tins. And right at the back, a
dog sitting quietly.

I didn't notice him immediately because of the gloom and because the
smell in the shed started me coughing, but as I drew closer I saw that
he was a big animal, sitting very upright, his collar secured by a chain
to a ring in the wall. I had seen some thin dogs but this advanced
emaciation reminded me of my text books on anatomy; nowhere else did the
bones of pelvis, face and rib cage stand out with such horrifying
clarity. A deep, smoothed out hollow in the earth floor showed where he
had lain, moved about, in fact lived for a very long time.

The sight of the animal had a stupefying effect on me; I only half took
in the rest of the scene - the filthy shreds of sacking scattered
nearby, the bowl of scummy water.

"Look at his back end," Halliday muttered.

I carefully raised the dog from his sitting position and realised that
the stench in the place was not entirely due to the piles of excrement.
The hindquarters were a welter of pressure sores which had turned
gangrenous and strips of sloughing tissue hung down from them. There
were similar sores along the sternum and ribs. The coat, which seemed to
be a dull yellow, was matted and caked with dirt.

The Inspector spoke again. "I don't think he's ever been out of here.
He's only a young dog - about a year old - but I understand he's been in
this shed since he was an eight-week-old pup. Somebody out in the lane
heard a whimper or  ... .. he'd never have been found." ..

I felt a tightening of the throat and a sudden nausea which wasn't due
to the smell. It was the thought of this patient animal sitting starved
and forgotten in the darkness and filth for a year. I looked again at
the dog and saw in his eyes only a calm trust. Some dogs would have
barked their heads off and soon been discovered, some would have become
terrified and vicious, but this was one of the totally undemanding kind,
the kind which had complete faith in people and accepted all their
actions without complaint. Just an occasional whimper perhaps as he sat
interminably in the empty blackness which had been his world and at
times wondered what it was all about.

"Well, Inspector, I hope you're going to throw the book at whoever's
responsible," l said. ~

Halliday grunted. "Oh, there won't be much done. It's a case of
diminished responsibility. The owner's definitely simple. Lives with an
aged mother who:hardly knows what's going on either. I've seen the
fellow and it seems he threw in a bit of food when he felt like it and
that's about all he did. They'll fine him and stop him keeping an animal
in the future but nothing more than that."

1 ) 1 r 1:

r r "I see." I reached out and stroked the dog's head and he immediately
responded by resting a paw on my wrist. There was a pathetic dignity
about the way he held himself erect, the calm eyes regarding me,
friendly and unafraid. "Well, you'll let me know if you want me in
court."

"Of course, and thank you for coming along." Halliday hesitated for a
moment. "And now I expect you'll want to put this poor thing out of his
misery right away."

I continued to run my hand over the head and ears while I thought for a
moment "Yes ... yes, I suppose so. We'd never find a home for him in
this state. It's the kindest thing to do. Anyway, push the door wide
open will you so that I can get a proper look at him."

In the improved light I examined him more thoroughly. Perfect teeth,
wellproportioned limbs with a fringe of yellow hair. I put my
stethoscope on his chest and as I listened to the slow, strong thudding
of the heart the dog again put his paw on my hand.

I turned to Halliday, "You know, Inspector, inside this bag of bones
there's a lovely healthy Golden Retriever. I wish there was some way of
letting him out."

As I spoke I noticed there was more than one figure in the door opening.
A pair of black pebble eyes were peering intently at the big dog from
behind the Inspector's broad back. The other spectators had remained in
the lane but Mrs. Donovan's curiosity had been too much for her. I
continued conversationally as though I hadn't seen her.

"You know, what this dog needs first of all is a good shampoo to clean
up his matted coat."

"Huh?"said Halliday.

"Yes. And then he wants a long course of some really strong condition
powders."

"What's that?" The Inspector looked startled.

"There's no doubt about it," I said. "It's the only hope for him, but
where are you going to find such things? Really powerful enough, I
mean." I sighed and straightened up. "Ah well, I suppose there's nothing
else for it. I'd better put him to sleep right away. I'll get the things
from my car."

When I got back to the shed Mrs. Donovan was already inside examining
the dog despite the feeble remonstrances of the big man.

"Look!" she said excitedly, pointing to a name roughly scratched on the
collar. "His name's Roy." She smiled up at me. "It's a bit like Rex,
isn't it, that name?"

"You know, Mrs. Donovan, now you mention it, it is. It's very like Rex,
the way it comes off your tongue." I nodded seriously.

She stood silent for a few moments, obviously in the grip of a deep
emotion, then she burst out.

"Can I have 'im? I can make him better, I know I can. Please, please let
me have 'im!"

"Well I don't know," I said. "It's really up to the Inspector. You'll
have to get his permission."

Halliday looked at her in bewilderment, then he said: "Excuse me,
Madam," and drew me to one side. We walked a few yards through the long
grass and stopped under a tree.

"Mr. Herriot," he whispered, "I don't know what's going on here, but I
can't Just pass over an animal in this condition to anybody who has a
casual whim. The poor beggar's had one bad break already - I think it's
enough. This woman doesn't look a suitable person ... '

I held up a hand. "Believe me, Inspector, you've nothing to worry about.
She's a funny old stick but she's been sent from heaven today. If
anybody in Darrowby can give this dog a new life it's her."

Halliday still looked very doubtful. "But I still don't get it. What was
all that stuff about him needing shampoos and condition powders?"

"Oh never mind about that. I'll tell you some other time. What he needs
is .] lots of good grub, care and affection and that's just what he'll
get. You can take my word for it."

"All right, you seem very sure." Halliday looked at me for a second or
two then turned and walked over to the eager little figure by the shed.

I had never before been deliberately on the look out for Mrs. Donovan:
she had just cropped up wherever I happened to be, but now I scanned the
streets of Darrowby anxiously day by day without sighting her. I didn't
like it when Gobber Newhouse got drunk and drove his bicycle
determinedly through a barrier into a ten foot hole where they were
laying the new sewer and Mrs. Donovan was not in evidence among the
happy crowd who watched the council workmen and two policemen trying to
get him out, and when she was nowhere to be seen when they had to fetch
the fire engine to the fish and chip shop the night the fat burst into
flames I became seriously worried.

Maybe I should have called round to see how she was getting on with that
dog. Certainly I had trimmed off the necrotic tissue and dressed the
sores before she took him away, but perhaps he needed something more
than that. And yet at the time I had felt a strong conviction that the
main thing was to get him out of there and clean and feed him and nature
would do the rest. And I had a lot of faith in Mrs. Donovan - far more
than she had in me - when it came to animal doctoring; it was hard to
believe I'd been completely wrong.

It must have been nearly three weeks and I was on the point of calling
at her home when I noticed her stumping briskly along the far side of
the market place, peering closely into every shop window exactly as
before. The only difference was that she had a big yellow dog on the end
of the lead.

I turned the wheel and sent my car bumping over the cobbles till I was
abreast of her. When she saw me getting out she stopped and smiled
impishly but she didn't speak as I bent over Roy and examined him. He
was still a skinny dog but he looked bright and happy, his wounds were
healthy and granulating and there was not a speck of dirt in his coat or
on his skin. I knew then what Mrs. Donovan had been doing all this time;
she had been washing and combing and teasing at that filthy tangle till
she had finally conquered it.

As I straightened up she seized my wrist in a grip of surprising
strength and looked up into my eyes.

"Now Mr. Herriot," she said. "Haven't I made a difference to this dog!"

"You've done wonders, Mrs. Donovan," I said. "And you've been at him
with that marvelous shampoo of yours, haven't you?"

She giggled and walked away and from that day I saw the two of them
frequently but at a distance and something like two months went by
before I had a chance to talk to her again. She was passing by the
surgery as I was coming down the steps and again she grabbed my wrist.

"Mr. Herriot," she said, just as she had done before. "Haven't I made a
difference to this dog!"

I looked down at Roy with something akin to awe. He had grown and filled
out and his coat, no longer yellow but a rich gold, lay in luxuriant
shining swathes over the well-fleshed ribs and back. A new, brightly
studded collar glittered on his neck and his tail, beautifully fringed,
fanned the air gently. He was now a Golden Retriever in full
magnificence. As I stared at him he reared up, plunked his fore paws on
my chest and looked into my face, and in his eyes :

i . , :~ l 1

;

I read plainly the same calm affection and trust I had seen back in that
black, noisome shed.

"Mrs. Donovan," I said softly, 'he's the most beautiful dog in
Yorkshire." Then, because I knew she was waiting for it. "It's those
wonderful condition powders. Whatever do you put in them?"

"Ah, wouldn't you like to know!" She bridled and smiled up at me
coquettishly and indeed she was nearer being kissed at that moment than
for many years.

I suppose you could say that that was the start of Roy's second life.
And as the years passed I often pondered on the beneficent providence
which had decreed that an animal which had spent his first twelve months
abandoned and unwanted, staring uncomprehendingly into that unchanging,
stinking darkness, should be whisked in a moment into an existence of
light and movement and love. Because I don't think any dog had it quite
so good as Roy from then on.

His diet changed dramatically from odd bread crusts to best stewing
steak and biscuit, meaty bones and a bowl of warm milk every evening.
And he never missed a thing. Garden fetes, school sports, evictions,
gymkhanas - he'd be there. I was pleased to note that as time went on
Mrs. Donovan seemed to be clocking up an even greater daily mileage. Her
expenditure on shoe leather must have been phenomenal, but of course it
was absolute pie for Roy - a busy round in the morning, home for a meal
then straight out again; it was all go.

Mrs. Donovan didn't confine her activities to the town centre; there was
a big stretch of common land down by the river where there were seats,
and people used to take their dogs for a gallop and she liked to get
down there fairly regularly to check on the latest developments on the
domestic scene. I often saw Roy loping majestically over the grass among
a pack of assorted canines, and when he wasn't doing that he was
submitting to being stroked or patted or generally fussed over. He was
handsome and he just liked people; it made him irresistible.

It was common knowledge that his mistress had bought a whole selection
of brushes and combs of various sizes with which she laboured over his
coat. Some people said she had a little brush for his teeth, too, and it
might have been true, but he certainly wouldn't need his nails clipped
his life on the roads would keep them down.

Mrs. Donovan, too, had her reward; she had a faithful companion by her
side every hour of the day and night. But there was more to it than
that; she had always had the compulsion to help and heal animals and the
salvation of Roy was the high point of her life - a blazing triumph
which never dimmed.

I know the memory of it was always fresh because many years later I was
sitting on the sidelines at a cricket match and I saw the two of them;
the old lady glancing keenly around her, Roy gazing placidly out at the
field of play, apparently enjoying every ball. At the end of the match I
watched them move away with the dispersing crowd; Roy would be about
twelve then and heaven only knows how old Mrs. Donovan must have been,
but the big golden animal was trotting along effortlessly and his
mistress, a little more bent perhaps and her head rather nearer the
ground, was going very well.

When she saw me she came over and I felt the familiar tight grip on my
wrist.

"Mr. Herriot," she said, and in the dark probing eyes the pride was
still as warm, the triumph still as bursting new as if it had all
happened yesterday.

"Mr. Herriot, haven't I made a difference to this dog!"

Chapter Eight.

"How would you like to officiate at Darrowby Show, James?" Siegfried
threw the letter he had been reading on to the desk and turned to me.

"I don't mind, but I thought you always did it."

"I do, but it says in that letter that they've changed the date this
year and it happens I'm going to be away that weekend."

"Oh well, fine. What do I have to do?"

Siegfried ran his eye down his list of calls. "It's a sinecure, really.
More a pleasant day out than anything else. You have to measure the
ponies and be on call in case any animals are injured. That's about all.
Oh and they want you to judge the Family Pets."

"Family Pets?"

"Yes, they run a proper dog show but they have an expert judge for that.
This is just a bit of fun - all kinds of pets. You've got to find a
first, second and third."

"Right," I said. "I think I should just about be able to manage that."

"Splendid." Siegfried tipped up the envelope in which the letter had
come. "Here are your car park and luncheon tickets for self and friend
if you want to take somebody with you. Also your vet's badge. O.K.?"

The Saturday of the show brought the kind of weather that must have had
the organisers purring with pleasure; a sky of wide, unsullied blue,
hardly a whiff of wind and the kind of torrid, brazen sunshine you don't
often find in North Yorkshire.

As I drove down towards the show ground I felt I was looking at a living
breathing piece of old England; the group of tents and marquees vivid
against the green of the riverside field, the women and children in
their bright summer dresses, the cattle with their smocked attendants, a
line of massive Shire horses parading in the ring.

I parked the car and made for the stewards" tent with its Rag hanging
limply from the mast. Tristan parted from me there. With the impecunious
student's unerring eye for a little free food and entertainment he had
taken up my spare tickets. He headed purposefully for the beer tent as I
went in to report to the show secretary.

Leaving my measuring stick there I looked around for a while.

A country show is a lot of different things to a lot of different
people. Riding horses of all kinds from small ponies to hunters were
being galloped up and down and in one ring the judges hovered around a
group of mares and their beautiful little foals.

In a corner four men armed with buckets and brushes were washing and
grooming a row of young bulls with great concentration, twiddling and
crimping the fuzz over the rumps like society hairdressers.

Wandering through the marquees I examined the bewildering variety of
produce from stalks of rhubarb to bunches of onions, the Rower displays,
embroidery, jams, cakes, pies. And the children's section, a painting of
"The Beach at Scarborough" by Annie Heseltine, aged nine, rows of
wobbling copperplate handwriting - "A thing of beauty is a joy for
ever", Bernard Peacock, aged twelve.

Drawn by the occasional gusts of melody I strolled across the grass to
where the Darrowby and Houlton Silver Band was rendering Poet and
Peasant. The bandsmen were of all ages from seventies down to one or two
boys of about fourteen and most of them had doffed their uniform tunics
as they sweated in the hot sun. Pint pots reposed under many of the
chairs and the musicians refreshed themselves frequently with leisurely
swigs.

I was particularly fascinated by the conductor, a tiny frail man who
looked about eighty. He alone had retained his full uniform, cap and
all, and he stood apparently motionless in front of the crescent of
bandsmen, chin sunk on chest, arms hanging limply by his sides. It
wasn't until I came right up to him that I realised his fingers were
twitching in time with the music and that he was, in fact, conducting.
And the more I watched him the more fitting it seemed that he should do
it like that. The Yorkshireman's loathing of exhibitionism or indeed any
outward show of emotion made it unthinkable that he should throw his
arms about in the orthodox manner; no doubt he had spent weary hours
rehearsing and coaching his players but here, when the results of his
labours were displayed to the public he wasn't going to swank about it.
Even the almost imperceptible twitching of the finger-ends had something
guilty about it as if the old man felt he was being caught out in
something shameful.

But my attention was jerked away as a group of people walked across on
the far side of the band. It was Helen with Richard Edmundson.and behind
them Mr. Alderson and Richard's father deep in conversation. The young
man walked very close to Helen, his shining, plastered-down fair hair
hovering possessively over her dark head, his face animated as he talked
and laughed.

There were no clouds in the sky but it was as if a dark hand had reached
across and smudged away the brightness of the sunshine. I turned quickly
and went in search of Tristan.

I soon picked out my colleague as I hurried into the marquee with
"Refreshments" over the entrance. He was leaning with an elbow on the
makeshift counter of boards and trestles chatting contentedly with a
knot of cloth-capped locals, a Woodbine in one hand, a pint glass in the
other. There was a general air of earthy bonhomie. Drinking of a more
decorous kind would be taking place at the president's bar behind the
stewards" headquarters with pink gins or sherry as the main tipple but
here it was beer, bottled and draught, and the stout ladies behind the
counter were working with the fierce concentration of people who knew
they were in for a hard day.

"Yes, I saw her," Tristan said when I gave him my news. "In fact there
she is now." He nodded in the direction of the family group as they
strolled past the entrance "I've had my eye on them for some time - I
don't Miss. much from in here you know, Jim."

"Ah well." I accepted a half of bitter from him. "It all looks pretty
cosy. The two dads like blood brothers and Helen hanging on to that
bloke's arm."

Tristan squinted over the top of his pint at the scene outside and shook
his head. "Not exactly. He's hanging on to HER arm." He looked at me
judicially. "There's a difference, you know."

"I don't suppose it makes much difference to me either way," I grunted.

"Well don't look so bloody mournful." He took an effortless swallow
which lowered the level in his glass by about six inches. "What do you
expect an attractive girl to do? Sit at home waiting for you to call? If
you've been pounding on her door every night you haven't told me about
it."

"It's all right you talking. I think old man Alderson would set his dogs
on me ji l" I snoweu up there. 1 know he doesn't like me hanging around
Helen and on top of that I've got the feeling he thinks I killed his cow
on my last visit."

"And did you?"

"No, I didn't. But I walked up to a living animal, gave it an injection
and it promptly died, so I can't blame him."

I took a sip at my beer and watched the Alderson party who had changed
direction and were heading away from our retreat. Helen was wearing a
pale blue dress and I was thinking how well the colour went with the
deep brown of her hair and how I like the way she walked with her legs
swinging easily and her shoulders high and straight when the loudspeaker
boomed across the show ground.

"Will Mr. Herriot, Veterinary Surgeon, please report to the stewards
immediately."

It made me jump but at the same time I felt a quick stab of pride. It
was the first time I had heard myself and my profession publicly
proclaimed. I turned to Tristan. He was supposed to be seeing practice
and this could be something interesting. But he was immersed in a story
which he was trying to tell to a little stocky man with a fat, shiny
face, and he was having difficulty because the little man, determined to
get his full measure of enjoyment, kept throwing himself into helpless
convulsions at the end of every sentence, and the finish was a long way
away. Tristan took his stories very seriously; I decided not to
interrupt him.

A glow of importance filled me as I hurried over the grass, my official
badge with "Veterinary Surgeon" in gold letters dangling from my lapel.
A steward met me on the way.

"It's one of the cattle. Had an accident, I think." He pointed to a tow
of pens along the edge of the field.

A curious crowd had collected around my patient which had been entered
in the in-calf heifers class. The owner, a stranger from outside the
Darrowby practice, came up to me, his face glum.

"She tripped coming off the cattle wagon and went 'ead first into the
wall. Knocked one of 'er horns clean off."

The heifer, a bonny little light roan, was a pathetic sight. She had
been washed, combed, powdered and primped for the big day and there she
was with one horn dangling drunkenly down the side of her face and an
ornamental fountain of bright arterial blood climbing gracefully in
three jets from the broken surface high into the air.

I opened my bag. I had brought a selection of the things I might need
and I fished out some artery forceps and suture material. The rational
way to stop haemorrhage of this type is to grasp the bleeding vessel and
ligate it, but it wasn't always as easy as that. Especially when the
patient won't co-operate.

The broken horn was connected to the head only by a band of skin and I
quickly snipped it away with scissors; then, with the farmer holding the
heifer's nose I began to probe with my forceps for the severed vessels.
In the bright sunshine it was surprisingly difficult to see the spurting
blood and as the little animal threw her head about I repeatedly felt
the warm spray across my face and heard it spatter on my collar.

It was when I was beginning to lose heart with my ineffectual groping
that I looked up and saw Helen and her boy friend watching me from the
crowd. Young Edmundson looked mildly amused as he watched my unavailing
efforts but Helen smiled encouragingly as she caught my eye. I did my
best to smile back at her through my bloody mask but I don't suppose it
showed.

I gave it up when the heifer gave a particularly brisk toss which sent
my forceps Rying on to the grass. I did what I should probably have done
at the ~ l ~a beginning - clapped a pad of cotton wool and antiseptic
powder on to the stump and secured it with a figure of eight bandage
round the other horn.

"That's it, then," I said to the farmer as I tried to blink the blood
out of my eyes. "The bleeding's stopped, anyway. I'd advise you to have
her properly dehorned soon or she's going to look a bit odd."

Just then Tristan appeared from among the spectators.

"What's got you out of the beer tent?" I enquired with a touch of
bitterness.

"It's lunch time, old lad," Tristan replied equably. "But we'll have to
get you cleaned up a bit first. I can't be seen with you in that
condition. Hang on, I'll get a bucket of water."

The show luncheon was so excellent that it greatly restored me. Although
it was taken in a marquee the committee men's wives had somehow managed
to conjure up a memorable cold spread. There was fresh salmon and home
fed ham and slices of prime beef with mixed salads and apple pie and the
big brimming jugs of cream you only see at farming functions. One of the
ladies was a noted cheese maker and we finished with some delicious goat
cheese and coffee. The liquid side was catered for too with a bottle of
Magnet Pale Ale and a glass at every place.

I didn't have the pleasure of Tristan's company at lunch because he had
strategically placed himself well down the table between two strict
Methodists so that his intake of Magnet was trebled.

I had hardly emerged into the sunshine when a man touched me on the
shoulder.

"One of the dog show judges wants you to examine a dog. He doesn't like
the look of it."

He led me to where a thin man of about forty with a small dark mustache
was standing by his car. He held a wire-haired fox terrier on a leash
and he met me with an ingratiating smile.

"There's nothing whatever the matter with my dog," he declared, 'but the
chap in there seems very fussy."

I looked down at the terrier. "I see he has some matter in the corner of
his eyes."

The man shook his head vigorously. "Oh no, that's not matter. I've been
using some white powder on him and a bit's got into his eyes, that's
all."

"Hmm, well let's see what his temperature says, shall we?"

The little animal stood uncomplaining as I inserted the thermometer.
When I took the reading my eyebrows went up.

"It's a hundred and four. I'm afraid he's not fit to go into the show."

"Wait a minute." The man thrust out his jaw. "You're talking like that
chap in there. I've come a long way to show this dog and I'm going to
show him."

"I'm sorry but you can't show him with a temperature of a hundred and
four."

"But he's had a car journey. That could put up his temperature."

I shook my head. "Not as high as that it couldn't. Anyway he looks sick
to me. Do you see how he's half closing his eyes as though he's
frightened of the light?

It's possible he could have distemper."

"What? That's rubbish and you know it. He's never been fitter!" The
man's mouth trembled with anger.

I looked down at the little dog. He was crouching on the grass
miserably. Occasionally he shivered, he had a definite photophobia and
there was that creamy blob of pus in the corner of each eye. "Has he
been inoculated against distemper ?"

"Well no, he hasn't, but why do you keep on about it?"

"Because I think he's got it now and for his sake and for the sake of
the other dogs here you ought to take him straight home and see your own
vet."

he glared at me. so you won't let me take him into the show tent?"

"That's right. I'm very sorry, but it's out of the question." I turned
and walked away.

I had gone only a few yards when the loudspeaker boomed again. "Will Mr.
Herriot please go to the measuring stand where the ponies are ready for
him."

I collected my stick and trotted over to a corner of the field where a
group of ponies had assembled; Welsh, Dales, Exmoor, Dartmoor - all
kinds of breeds were represented.

For the uninitiated, horses are measured in hands which consist of four
inches and a graduated stick is used with a cross piece and a spirit
level which rests on the withers, the highest point of the shoulders. I
had done a fair bit of it in individual animals but this was the first
time I had done the job at a show. With my stick at the ready I stood by
the two wide boards which had been placed on the turf to give the
animals a reasonably level standing surface.

A smiling young woman led the first pony, a smart chestnut, on to the
boards.

"Which class?" I asked.

"Thirteen hands."

I tried the stick on him. He was well under.

"Fine, next please."

A few more came through without incident then there was a lull before
the next group came up. The ponies were arriving on the field all the
time in their boxes and being led over to me, some by their young
riders, others by the parents. It looked as though I could be here quite
a long time.

During one of the lulls a little man who had been standing near me spoke
up.

"No trouble yet?" he asked.

"No, everything's in order," I replied.

He nodded expressionlessly and as I took a closer look at him his slight
body, dark, leathery features and high shoulders seemed to give him the
appearance of a little brown gnome. At the same time there was something
undeniably horsy about him.

"You'll 'ave some awkward 'uns," he grunted. "And they allus say the
same thing. They allus tell you the vet at some other show passed their
pony." His swarthy cheeks crinkled in a wry smile.

"Is that so?"

"Aye, you'll see."

Another candidate, led by a beautiful blonde, was led on to the
platform. She gave me the full blast of two big greenish eyes and
flashed a mouthful of sparkling teeth at me.

"Twelve two," she murmured seductively.

I tried the stick on the pony and worked it around, but try as I might I
couldn't get it down to that.

"I'm afraid he's a bit big," I said.

The blonde's smile vanished. "Have you allowed half an inch for his
shoes?"

"I have indeed, but you can see for yourself, he's well over."

"But he passed the vet without any trouble at Hickley." She snapped and
out of the corner of my eye I saw the gnome nodding sagely.

"I can't help that," I said. "I'm afraid you'll have to put him into the
next class.

For a moment two green pebbles from the cold sea bed fixed me with a
frigid glare then the blonde was gone taking her pony with her.

Next, a little bay animal was led on to the stand by a hard faced
gentleman in a check suit and I must say I was baffled by its behaviour.
Whenever the stick i touched the withers it sank at the knees so that I
couldn't be sure whether I was getting the right reading or not. Finally
I gave up and passed him through.

.

The gnome coughed. "I know that feller."

"You do?"

"Aye, he's pricked that pony's withers with a pin so many times that it
drops down whenever you try to measure 'im."

"Never!"

"Sure as I'm standing here."

I was staggered, but the arrival of another batch took-up my attention
for a few minutes. Some I passed, others I had to banish to another
class and the owners took it in different ways - some philosophically, a
few with obvious annoyance. One or two of the ponies just didn't like
the look of the stick at all and I had to dance around them as they
backed away and reared.

The last pony in this group was a nice grey led by a bouncy man wearing
a great big matey smile.

"How are you, all right?"he enquired courteously. "This 'un's thirteen
two."

The animal went under the stick without trouble but after he had trotted
away the gnome spoke up again.

"I know that feller, too."

"Really ?"

"Not 'elf. Weighs down 'is ponies before they're measured. That grey's
been standing in 'is box for the last hour with a twelve stone sack of
corn on 'is back. Knocks an inch off."

"Good God! Are you sure?"

"Don't worry, I've seen 'im at it."

My mind was beginning to reel just a little. Was the man making it all
up or were there really these malign forces at work behind all this
innocent fun?

"That same feller," continued the gnome. "I've seen 'im bring a pony to
a show and get half an inch knocked off for shoes when it never 'ad no
shoes on."

I wished he'd stop. And just then there was an interruption. It was the
man with the mustache. He sidled up to me and whispered confidentially
in my ear.

"Now I've just been thinking. My dog must have got over his journey by
now and I expect his temperature will be normal. I wonder if you'd just
try him again. I've still got time to show him."

I turned wearily. "Honestly, it'll be a waste of time. I've told you,
he's ill."

"Please! Just as a favour." He had a desperate look and a fanatical
light flickered in his eye.

"All right." I went over to the car with him and produced my
thermometer. The temperature was still a hundred and four.

"Now I wish you'd take this poor little dog home," I said. "He shouldn't
be here."

For a moment I thought the man was going to strike me. "There's nothing
wrong with him!" he hissed, his whole face working with emotion.

"I'm sorry," I said, and went back to the measuring stand.

A boy of about fifteen was waiting for me with his pony. It was supposed
to be in the thirteen two class but was nearly one and a half inches
over.

"Much too big, I'm afraid," I said. "He can't go in that class."

The boy didn't answer. He put his hand inside his jacket and produced a
sheet of paper. "This is a veterinary certificate to say he's under
thirteen two."

"No good, I'm sorry," I replied. "The stewards have told me not to
accept any certificates I've turned down two others today. Everything
has to go under the stick. It's a pity, but there it is."

His manner changed abruptly. "But you've GOT to accept it!" he shouted
in my face. "There doesn't have to be any measurements.when you have a
certificate."

"You'd better see the stewards. Those are my instructions."

"I'll see my father about this, that's what!" he shouted and led the
animal i, away.

Father was quickly on the scene. Big, fat, prosperous-looking,
confident. He obviously wasn't going to stand any nonsense from me.

"Now look here, I don't know what this is all about but you have no
option in this matter. You have to accept the certificate."

"I don't, I assure you," I answered. "And anyway, it's not as though
your pony was slightly over the mark. He's miles over - nowhere near the
height."

Father flushed dark red. "Well let me tell you he was passed through by
the : vet at ... '

"I know, I know," I said, and I heard the gnome give a short laugh. "But
he's :

not going through here." :;

There was a brief silence then both father and son began to scream at
me. And as they continued to hurl abuse I felt a hand on my arm. It was
the man with the mustache again.

"I'm going to ask you just once more to take my dog's temperature," he
whispered with a ghastly attempt at a smile. "I'm sure he'll be all
right this time. Will you try him again?"

I'd had enough. "No, I bloody well won't!" I barked. "Will you kindly
stop bothering me and take that poor animal home."

It's funny how the most unlikely things motivate certain people. It
didn't seem a life and death matter whether a dog got into a show or not
but it was to the man with the mustache. He started to rave at me.

"You don't know your job, that's the trouble with you! I've come all
this way and you've played a dirty trick on me. I've got a friend who's
a vet, a proper vet, and I'm going to tell him about you, yes I am. I'm
going to tell him about you!"

At the same time the father and son were still in full cry, snarling and
mouthing at me and I became suddenly aware that I was in the centre of a
hostile circle. The blonde was there too, and some of the others whose
ponies I had outed and they were all staring at me belligerently, making
angry gestures.

I felt very much alone because the gnome, who had seemed an ally, was
nowhere to be seen. I was disappointed in the gnome; he was a big talker
but had vanished at the first whiff of danger. As I surveyed the
threatening crowd I moved my measuring stick round in front of me; it
wasn't much of a weapon but it might serve to fend them off if they
rushed me.

And just at that moment, as the unkind words were thick upon the air, I
saw Helen and Richard Edmundson on the fringe of the circle, taking it
all in. I wasn't worried about him but again it struck me as strange
that it should be my destiny always to be looking a bit of a clown when
Helen was around.

Anyway, the measuring was over and I felt in need of sustenance. I
retreated and went to find Tristan.

Chapter Nine.

The atmosphere in the beer tent was just what I needed. The hot weather
had made the place even more popular than usual and it was crowded; many
of the inhabitants had been there since early morning and the air was
thick with earthy witticisms, immoderate laughter, cries of joy; and the
nice thing was that nobody in there cared a damn about the heights of
ponies or the temperatures of dogs.

I had to fight my way through the crush to reach Tristan who was leaning
across the counter in earnest conversation with a comely young barmaid.
The other serving ladies were middle-aged but his practised eye had
picked this one out; glossy red hair, a puckish face and an inviting
smile. I had been hoping for a soothing chat with him but he was unable
to give me his undivided attention, so after juggling with a glass among
the throng for a few minutes I left.

Out on the field the sun still blazed, the scent of the trampled grass
rose into the warm air, the band was playing a selection from Rose Marie
and peace began to steal into my soul. Maybe I could begin to enjoy the
show now the pinpricks were over; there was only the Family Pets to
judge and I was looking forward to that.

For about an hour I wandered among the pens of mountainous pigs and
haughty sheep; the rows of Shorthorn cows with their classical
wedge-shaped grace, their level udders and dainty feet.

I watched in fascination a contest which was new to me; shirt-sleeved
young men sticking a fork into a straw bale and hurling it high over a
bar with a jerk of their thick brown arms. ~

Old Steve Bramley, a local farmer, was judging the heavy horses and I
envied him his massive authority as he stumped, bowler-hatted and
glowering around each animal, leaning occasionally on his stick as he
took stock of the points. I couldn't imagine anyone daring to argue with
him.

It was late in the afternoon when the loudspeaker called me to my final
duty. The Family Pets contestants were arranged on wooden chairs drawn
up in a wide circle on the turf. They were mainly children but behind
them an interested ring of parents and friends watched me warily as I
arrived.

The fashion for exotic pets was still in its infancy but I experienced a
mild shock of surprise when I saw the variety of creatures on show. I
suppose I must have had a vague mental picture of a few dogs and cats
but I walked round the circle in growing bewilderment looking down at
rabbits - innumerable rabbits of all sizes and colours - guinea pigs,
white mice, several budgerigars, two tortoises, a canary, a kitten, a
parrot, a mynah bird, a box of puppies, a few dogs and cats and a
goldfish in a bowl. The smaller pets rested on their owners" knees, the
others squatted on the ground.

How, I asked myself was I going to come to a decision here? How did you
choose between a parrot and a puppy, a budgie and a bulldog, a mouse and
a mynah? Then as I circled it came to me, it couldn't be done. The only
way was to question the children in charge and find which ones looked
after their pets best which of them knew most about their feeding and
general husbandry. I rubbed my hands together and repressed a chuckle of
satisfaction; I had something to work on now.

I don't like to boast but I think I can say in all honesty that I
carried out an exhaustive scientific survey of that varied group. From
the outset I adopted an attitude of cold detachment, mercilessly
banishing any ideas of personal preference . If I had been pleasing only
myself I would have given first prize to a gleaming black Labrador
sitting by a chair with massive composure and offering me a gracious paw
every time I came near. And my second would have been a i benevolent
tabby - I have always had a thing about tabby cats - which rubbed its
cheek against my hand as I talked to its owner. The pups, crawling over
each other and grunting obesely, would probably have come third. But I
put away these unworthy thoughts and pursued my chosen course.

I was distracted to some extent by the parrot which kept saying "Hellow"
in a voice of devastating refinement like a butler answering a telephone
and the mynah which repeatedly adjured me to "Shut door as you go out,"
in a booming Yorkshire baritone.

The only adult in the ring was a bosomy lady with glacial pop eyes and a
white poodle on her knee. As I approached she gave me a challenging
stare as though defying me to place her pet anywhere but first.

"Hello, little chap," I said, extending my hand. The poodle responded by
drawing its lips soundlessly back from its teeth and giving me much the
same kind of look as its owner. I withdrew my hand hastily.

"Oh you needn't be afraid of trim," the lady said frigidly. "He won't
hurt you."

I gave a light laugh. "I'm sure he won't." I held out my hand again.
"You're a nice little dog, aren't you?" Once more the poodle bared his
teeth and when I persevered by trying to stroke his ears he snapped
noiselessly, his teeth clicking together an inch from my fingers.

"He doesn't like you, I can see that. Do you, darling?" The lady put her
check against the dog's head and stared at me distastefully as though
she knew just how he felt.

"Shut door as you go out," commanded the mynah gruffy from somewhere
behind me.

I gave the lady my questionnaire and moved on.

And among the throng there was one who stood out; the little boy with
the goldfish. In reply to my promptings he discoursed knowledgeably
about his fish, its feeding, life history and habits. He even had a fair
idea of the common diseases. The bowl, too, was beautifully clean and
the water fresh; I was impressed.

When I had completed the circuit I swept the ring for the last time with
a probing eye. Yes, there was no doubt about it; I had the three prize
winners; fixed in my mind beyond any question and in an order based on
strictly scientific selection. I stepped out into the middle.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, scanning the company with an affable
smile.

"Hellow," responded the parrot fruitily.

I ignored him and continued. "These are the successful entrants. First,
number . six, the goldfish. Second, number fifteen, the guinea pig. And
third, number ten, the white kitten." ;4

I half expected a little ripple of applause but there was none. In fact
my ., announcement was greeted by a tight-lipped silence. I had noticed
an immediate change in the atmosphere when I mentioned the goldfish. It
was striking - a sudden cold wave which swept away the expectant smiles
and replaced them with discontented muttering.

I had done something wrong, but what? I looked around helplessly as the
hum of voices increased. "What do you think of that, then?"

"Not fair, is it?" 3

~Wouldn't have thought it of him?"

"All them lovely rabbits and he hardly looked at them."

I couldn't make it out, but my job was done, anyway. I pushed between
the chairs and escaped to the open field.

"Shut door as you go out," the mynah requested in deepest bass as I
departed.

I sought out Tristan again. The atmosphere in the beer tent had changed,
too The drinkers were long since past their peak and the hilarious babel
which had met me on my last visit had died to an exhausted murmur There
was a general air of satiation. Tristan, pint in hand, was being
addressed with great solemnity by a man in a flat cap and braces. The
man swayed slightly as he grasped Tristan's free hand and gazed into his
eyes. Occasionally he patted him on the shoulder with the utmost
affection. Obviously my colleague had been forging deep and lasting
friendships in here while I was making enemies outside.

I sidled up to him and spoke into his ear. "Ready to go soon, Triss?"

He turned slowly and looked at me. "No, old lad," he said, articulating
carefully. "I'm afraid I shall't be coming with you. They're having a
dance here on the showfield later and Doreen has consented to accompany
me." He cast a loving glance across the counter at the red-head who
crinkled her nose at him.

I was about to leave when a snatch of conversation from behind made me
pause.

"A bloody goldfish!" a voice was saying disgustedly.

"Aye, it's a rum 'un, George," a second voice replied.

There was a slurping sound of beer being downed.

"But the knows, Fred," the first voice said. "That vet feller had to do
it. Didn't 'ave no choice. He couldn't pass over "'squire's son."

"Reckon you're right, but it's a bugger when you get graft and
corruption in ""Family Pets."

A heavy sigh, then "It's the way things are nowadays, Fred. Everything's
hulterior."

"You're right there, George. It's hulterior, that's what it is."

I fought down a rising panic. The Pelhams had been Lords of the Manor of
Darrowby for generations and the present squire was Major Pelham. I knew
him as a friendly farmer client, but that was all. I'd never heard of
his son.

I clutched at Tristan's arm. "Who is that little boy over there?"

Tristan peered out glassily across the sward. "The one with the goldfish
bowl, you mean?"

"That's right."

"It's young Nigel Pelham, the squire's son."

"Oh Gawd," I moaned. "But I've never seen him before. Where's he been?"

Boarding school down south, I believe. On holiday just now."

I stared at the boy again. Tousled fair hair, grey open-necked shirt,
sunburned legs. Just like all the others.

George was at it again. "Lovely dogs and cats there was, but squire's
lad won it with a bloody goldfish.

"Well, let's be right," his companion put in. "If that lad 'ad brought.
along a bloody stuffed monkey he'd still 'ave got just prize with it."

"No doubt about it, Fred. T'other kids might as well 'ave stopped at
'ome."

"Aye, it's not like it used to be, George. Nobody does owl for nowt
these days."

"True, Fred, very true." There was a gloomy silence punctuated by noisy
gulpings Then, in weary tones: "Well you and me can't alter it. It's the
kind of world we're living in today."

I reeled out into the fresh air and the sunshine. Looking round at the
tranquil scene, the long stretch of grass, the loop of pebbly river with
the green hills rising behind, I had a sense of unreality. Was there any
part of this peaceful cameo of rural England without its sinister
undertones? As if by instinct I made my way into the long marquee which
housed the produce section. Surely among those quiet rows of vegetables
I would find repose.

The place was almost empty but as I made my way down the long lines of
tables I came upon the solitary figure of old John William Enderby who
had a little grocer's shop in the town.

"Well how are things?" I enquired.

"Nobbut middlin" lad," the old man replied morosely.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Well, ah got a second with me broad beans but only a highly commended
for me shallots. Look at 'em."

I looked. "Yes, they're beautiful shallots, Mr. Enderby."

"Aye, they are, and nobbut a highly commended. It's a insult, that's
what it is a insult."

"But Mr. Enderby ... highly commended ... I mean, that's pretty good
isn't it ?"

"No it isn't, it's a insult!"

"Oh bad luck."

John William stared at me wide-eyed for a moment. "It's not bad luck,
lad, it's nowt but a twist."

"Oh surely not!"

"Ah'm tellin" you. Jim Houlston got first with 'is shallots and judge is
his wife's cousin."

"Never!" ' It's true," grunted John William, nodding solemnly. "It's
nowt but a twist."

"Well I've never heard of such a thing!"

"You don't know what goes on, young man. Ah wasn't even placed with me
taties. Frank Thompson got first wi" that lot." He pointed to a tray of
noble tubers.

I studied them. "I must admit they look splendid potatoes."

"Aye, they are, but Frank pinched 'em."

"What ?"

"Aye, they took first prize at Brisby show last Thursday and Frank
pinched 'em orf "'stand."

I clutched at the nearby table. The foundations of my world were
crumbling. "That can't be true, Mr. Enderby."

"Ah'm not jokin" nor jestin"," declared John William. "Them's self and
same taties, ah'd know them anywhere. It's nowt but a ... '

J could take no more. I fled.

Outside the evening sunshine was still warm and the whole field was
awash with the soft light which, in the Dales, seems to stream down in a
golden Rood from the high tops. But it was as if the forces of darkness
were pressing on me; all I wanted was to get home.

I hurried to the stewards" tent and collected my measuring stick,
running a gauntlet of hostile stares from the pony people I had outed
earlier in the day. They were still waving their certificates and
arguing.

On the way to the car I had to pass several of the ladies who had
watched me judge the pets and though they didn't exactly draw their
skirts aside they managed to convey their message. Among the rows of
vehicles I spotted the man with the mustache. He still hadn't taken his
terrier away and his eyes, full of wounded resentment, followed my every
step.

I was opening my door when Helen and her party, also apparently on the
way home, passed about fifty yards away. Helen waved, I waved back, and
Richard Edmundson gave me a nod before helping her into the front seat
of a gleaming, silver Daimler. The two fathers got into the back.

As I settled into the seat of my little Austin, braced my feet against
the broken floor boards and squinted through the cracked windscreen I
prayed that just this once the thing would go on the starter. Holding my
breath I pulled at the knob but the engine gave a couple of lazy turns
then fell silent.

Fishing the starting handle from under the seat I crept out and inserted
it in its hole under the radiator; and as I began the old familiar
winding the silver monster purred contemptuously past me and away.

Dropping into the driver's seat again I caught sight of my face in the
mirror and could see the streaks and flecks of blood still caked on my
cheek and around the roots of my hair. Tristan hadn't done a very good
job with his bucket of cold water.

I looked back at the emptying field and at the Daimler disappearing
round a distant bend. It seemed to me that in more ways than one the
show was over.

Chapter Ten.

~:

:'

i .~ 1 L Ben Ashby the cattle dealer looked over the gate with his
habitual deadpan expression. It always seemed to me that after a
lifetime of buying cows from farmers he had developed a terror of
showing any emotion which might be construed as enthusiasm. When he
looked at a beast his face registered nothing beyond, occasionally, a
gentle sorrow.

This was how it was this morning as he leaned on the top spar and
directed a gloomy stare at Harry Sumner's heifer. After a few moments he
turned to the farmer.

"I wish you'd had her in for me, Harry. She's too far away. I'm going to
have to get over the top." He began to climb stiffly upwards and it was
then that he spotted Monty. The bull hadn't been so easy to see before
as he cropped the grass among the group of heifers but suddenly the
great head rose high above the others, the nose ring gleamed, and an
ominous, strangled bellow sounded across the grass. And as he gazed at
us he pulled absently at the turf with a fore foot.

Ben Ashby stopped climbing, hesitated for a second then returned to
ground level.

"Aye well," he muttered, still without changing expression. "It's not
that far away. I reckon I can see all right from here."

Monty had changed a lot since the first day I saw him about two years
ago. He had been a fortnight old then, a skinny, knock-kneed little
creature, his head deep in a calf bucket.

"Well, what do you think of me new bull?" Harry Sumner had asked,
laughing. "Not much for a hundred quid is he?"

I whistled. "As much as that?"

"Aye, it's a lot for a new-dropped calf, isn't it? But I can't think of
any other way of getting into the Newton strain. I haven't the brass to
buy a big 'un."

Not all the farmers of those days were as farseeing as Elarry and some
of them would use any type of male bovine to get their cows in calf.

One such man produced a gaunt animal for Siegfried's inspection and
asked him what he thought of his bull. Siegfried's reply of "All horns
and balls" didn't please the owner but I still treasure it as the most
graphic description of the typical scrub bull of that period.

Harry was a bright boy. He had inherited a little place of about a
hundred acres on his father's death and with his young wife had set
about making it go He was in his early twenties and when I first saw him
I had been deceived by his almost delicate appearance into thinking that
he wouldn't be up to the job," the pallid face, the large, sensitive
eyes and slender frame didn't seem fitted far the seven days a week
milking, feeding, mucking-out slog that was dairy farming. But I had
been wrong.

The fearless way he plunged in and grabbed at the hind feet of kicking
cows for me to examine and his clenched-teeth determination as he hung
on to the. noses of the big loose beasts at testing time made me change
my mind in a hurry He worked endlessly and tirelessly and it was natural
that his drive should have taken him to the south of Scotland to find a
bull.

Harry's was an Ayrshire herd - unusual among the almost universal short
thorns in the Dales - and there was no doubt an injection of the famous
Newton blood would be a sure way of improving his stock.

"He's got prize winners on both his sire and dam's side," the young
farmer said. "And a grand pedigree name, too. Newton Montmorency the
Sixth -~ Monty for short."

As though recognising his name, the calf raised his head from the bucket
and looked at us. It was a comic little face - wet-muzzled, milk
slobbered half way up his cheeks and dribbling freely from his mouth. I
bent over into the pen and scratched the top of the hard little head,
feeling the tiny horn buds no bigger than peas under my fingers.
Limpid-eyed and unafraid, Monty submitted calmly to the caress for a few
moments then sank his head again in the bucket.

I saw quite a bit of Harry Sumner over the next few weeks and usually
had a look at his expensive purchase. And as the calf grew you could see
why he had cost 100. He was in a pen with three of Harry's own calves
and his superiority was evident at a glance; the broad forehead and
wide-set eyes; the deep chest and short straight legs; the beautifully
even line of the back from shoulder to tail head. Monty had class; and
small as he was he was all bull.

He was about three months old when Harry rang to say he thought the calf
had pneumonia. I was surprised because the weather was fine and warm and
I knew Monty was in a draught-free building. But when I saw him I
thought immediately that his owner's diagnosis was right. The heaving of
the rib cage, the temperature of 105 degrees - it looked fairly
straightforward. But when I got my stethoscope on his chest and listened
for the pneumonic sounds I heard nothing. His lungs were perfectly
clear. I went over him several times but there was not a squeak, not a
rare, not the slightest sign of consolidation.

This was a facer. I turned to the farmer. "It's a funny one, Harry. He's
sick, all right, but his symptoms don't add up to anything
recognisable."

I was going against my early training because the first vet I ever saw
practice with in my student days told me once: "If you don't know what's
wrong with an animal for God's sake don't admit it. Give it a name call
it McLuskie's Disease or Galloping Dandruff - anything you like, but
give it a name." But no inspiration came to me as I looked at the
panting, anxious-eyed little creature.~

Treat the symptoms. That was the thing to do. He had a temperature so
I'd: try to get that down for a start. I brought out my pathetic armoury
of febrifuges; the injection of non-specific antiserum, the 'fever
drink" of sweet spirit of nitre; but over the next two days it was
obvious that the time-honoured remedies were, having no effect. ~

On the fourth morning, Harry Sumner met me as I got out of my car. "He's
walking funny, this morning, Mr. Herriot - and he seems to be blind."

Blind! An unusual form of lead-poisoning - could that be it? I hurried
into the calf pen and began to look round the walls, but there wasn't a
scrap of paint anywhere and Monty had spent his entire life in there.

And anyway, as I looked at him I realised that he wasn't really blind;
his eyes were staring and slightly upturned and he blundered unseeingly
around the pen, but he blinked as I passed my hand in front of his face.
To complete my bewilderment he walked with a wooden, stiff-legged gait
almost like a mechanical toy and my mind began to snatch at diagnostic
straws - tetanus, no - meningitis - no, no; I always tried to maintain
the calm, professional exterior but I had to fight an impulse to scratch
my head and stand gaping.

I got off the place as quickly as possible and settled down to serious
thought as I drove away. My lack of experience didn't help, but I did
have a knowledge of pathology and physiology and when stumped for a
diagnosis I could usually work something out on rational grounds. But
this thing didn't make sense.

That night I got out my books, notes from college, back numbers of the
Veterinary Record and anything else I could find on the subject of calf
diseases. Somewhere here there would surely be a clue. But the volumes
on medicine and surgery were barren of inspiration and I had about given
up hope when I came upon the passage in a little pamphlet on calf
diseases. "Peculiar, stilted gait, staring eyes with a tendency to gaze
upwards, occasionally respiratory symptoms with high temperature." The
words seemed to leap out at me from the printed page and it was as
though the unknown author was patting me on the shoulder and murmuring
reassuringly: "This is it, you see. It's all perfectly clear."

I grabbed the phone and rang Harry Sumner. "Harry, have you ever noticed
Monty and those other calves in the pen licking each other?"

"Aye, they're allus at it, the little beggars. It's like a hobby with
them. Why?"

"Well I know what's wrong with your bull. He's got a hair ball."

"A hair ball? Where?"

"In the abomasum - the fourth stomach. That's what's ,setting up all
those strange symptoms." , "Well I'll go to hell. What do we do about
it, then?"

"It'll probably mean an operation, but I'd like to try dosing him with
liquid paraffin first. I'll put a pint bottle on the step for you if
you'll come and collect it. Give him half a pint now and the same first
thing in the morning. It might just grease the thing through. I'll see
you tomorrow."

I hadn't a lot of faith in the liquid paraffin. I suppose I suggested it
for the sake of doing something while I played nervously with the idea
of operating. And next morning the picture was as I expected; Monty was
still rigid-limbed, still staring sightlessly ahead of him, and an
oiliness round his rectum and down his tail showed that the paraffin had
by-passed the obstruction.

"He hasn't had a bite now for three days," Harry said. "I doubt he won't
stick ~t much longer."

I looked from his worried face to the little animal trembling in the
pen. "You're right. We'll have to open him up straight away to have any
hope of saving him. Are you willing to let me have a go?"

"Oh, aye, let's be at t'job - sooner the better." He smiled at me. It
was a confident smile and my stomach gave a lurch. His confidence could
be badly misplaced because in those days abdominal surgery in the bovine
was in a primitive state. There were a few jobs we had begun to tackle
fairly regularly but removal of a hair-ball wasn't one of them and my
knowledge of the procedure was confined to some rather small-print
reading in the text books.

But this young farmer had faith in me. He thought I could do the job so
it .~_ ~

was no good letting him see my doubts. It was at times like this that I
envied our colleagues in human medicine. When a surgical case came up
they packed: their patient off to a hospital but the vet just had to get
his jacket off on the spot and make an operating theatre out of the farm
buildings.

Harry and I busied ourselves in boiling up the instruments, setting out
buckets of hot water and laying a clean bed of straw in an empty pen.
Despite his weakness the calf took nearly sixty c.c."s of Nembutal into
his vein before he was fully anaesthetised but finally he was asleep,
propped on his back between two straw bales, his little hooves dangling
above him. I was ready to start.

It's never the same as it is in the books. The pictures and diagrams
look so simple and straightforward but it is a different thing when you
are cutting into a living, breathing creature with the abdomen rising
and falling gently and the blood oozing beneath your knife. The
abomasum, I knew, was just down there, slightly to the right of the
sternum but as I cut through the peritoneum there was this slippery mass
of fat-streaked omentum obscuring everthing; and as I pushed it aside
one of the bales moved and Monty tilted to his left causing a sudden
gush of intestines into the wound. I put the flat of my hand against the
shining pink loops - it would be just great if my patient's insides
started spilling out on to the straw before I had started.

"Pull him upright, Harry, and shove that bale back into place," I
gasped. The farmer quickly complied but the intestines weren't at all
anxious to return to their place and kept intruding coyly as I groped
for the abomasum. Frankly I was beginning to feel just a bit lost and my
heart was thudding when I came upon something hard. It was sliding about
beyond the wall of one of the stomachs - at the moment I wasn't sure
which. I gripped it and lifted it into the wound. I had hold of the
abomasum and that hard thing inside must be the hair-ball.

Repelling the intestines which had made another determined attempt to
push their way into the act, I incised the stomach and had my first look
at the cause of the trouble. It wasn't a ball at all, rather a flat
plaque of densely matted hair mixed freely with strands of hay, sour
curd and a shining covering of my liquid paraffin. The whole thing was
jammed against the pyloric opening.

Gingerly I drew it out through the incision and dropped it in the straw.
It wasn't till I had closed the stomach wound with the gut, stitched up
the muscle layer and had started on the skin that I realised that the
sweat was running down my face. As I blew away a droplet from my nose
end Harry broke the silence. -, "It's a hell of a tricky job, isn't it?"
he said. Then he laughed and thumped, my shoulder. "I bet you felt a bit
queer the first time you did one of these!"

I pulled another strand of suture silk through and knotted it. "You're
right, Harry," I said. "How right you are."

When I had finished we covered Monty with a horse rug and piled straw on
top of that, leaving only his head sticking out. I bent over and touched
a corner of the eye. Not a vestige of a corneal reflex. God, he was deep
- had I given him too much anaesthetic? And of course there'd be
surgical shock, too. As I left I glanced back at the motionless little
animal. He looked smaller than ever and very vulnerable under the bare
walls of the pen.

I was busy for the rest of the day but that evening my thoughts kept
coming back to Monty. Had he come out of it yet? Maybe he was dead. I
hadn't the experience of previous cases to guide me and I simply had no
idea of how a calf reacted to an operation like that. And I couldn't rid
myself of the nagging consciousness of how much it all meant to Harry
Sumner. The bull is half the; herd, they say, and half of Harry's future
herd was Lying there under the straw: - he wouldn't be able to find that
much money again.

I jumped suddenly from my chair. It was no good, I had to find out what
was happening Part of me rebelled at the idea of looking amateurish and
u'su. c ~ myself by going fussing back, but, I thought, I could always
say I had returned to look for an instrument The farm was in darkness as
I crept into the pen. I shone my torch on the mound of straw and saw
with a quick thump of the heart that the calf had not moved. I dropped
to my knees and pushed a hand under the rug; he was breathing anyway.
But there was still no eye reflex - either he was dying or he was taking
a hell of a time to come out.

In the shadows of the yard I looked across at the soft glow from the
farmhouse kitchen Nobody had heard me. I slunk over to the car and drove
off with the sick knowledge that I was no further forward. I still
didn't know how the job was going to turn out.

Next morning I had to go through the same thing again and as I walked
stiffly across to the calf pen I knew for sure I'd see something this
time. Either he'd be dead or better. I opened the outer door and almost
ran down the passage. It was the third pen along and I stared hungrily
into it.

Monty was sitting up on his chest. He was still under the rug and straw
and he looked sorry for himself but when a bovine animal is on its chest
I always feel hopeful. The tensions flowed from me in a great wave. He
had survived the operation - the first stage was over; and as I knelt
rubbing the top of his head I had the feeling that we were going to win.

And, in fact, he did get better, though I have always found it difficult
to explain to myself scientifically why the removal of that pad of
tangled fibres could cause such a dramatic improvement in so many
directions. But there it was. His temperature did drop and his breathing
returned to normal, his eyes did stop staring and the weird stiffness
disappeared from his limbs.

But though I couldn't understand it, I was none the less delighted. Like
a teacher with his favourite pupil, I developed a warm proprietary
affection for the calf and when I happened to be on the farm I found my
feet straying unbidden to his pen. He always walked up to me and
regarded me with friendly interest; it was as if he had a fellow feeling
for me, too.

He was rather more than a year old when I noticed the change. The
friendly interest gradually disappeared from his eyes and was replaced
by a thoughtful, speculative look; and he developed a habit of shaking
his head at me at the same time.

"I'd stop going in there, Mr. Herriot, if I were you," Harry said one
day. "He's getting big and I reckon he's going to be a cheeky bugger
before he's finished."

But cheeky was the wrong word. Harry had a long, trouble-free spell and
Monty was nearly two years old when I saw him again. It wasn't a case of
illness this time. One or two of Harry's cows had been calving before
their time and it was typical of him that he should ask me to blood test
his entire herd for Brucellosis.

We worked our way easily through the cows and I had a long row of glass
tubes filled with blood in just over an hour.

"Well, that's the lot in here," the farmer said. "We only have bull to
do and we're finished." He led the way across the yard through the door
into the calf pens and along a passage to the bull box at the end. He
opened the half door and as I looked inside I felt a sudden sense of
shock.

Monty was enormous. The neck with its jutting humps of muscle supported
a head so huge that the eyes looked tiny. And there was nothing friendly
in those eyes now; no expression at all, in fact, only a cold black
glitter. He was standing sideways to me, facing the wall, but I knew he
was watching me as he pushed his head against the stones, his great
horns scoring the whitewash with slow, menacing deliberation.
Occasionally he snorted from deep in his chest but apart from that he
remained ominously still. Monty wasn't just a bull - he was a vast,
brooding presence.

Harry grinned as he saw me staring over the door. "Well, do you fancy
popping inside to scratch his head? That's what you allus used to do."

"No thanks." I dragged my eyes away from the animal. "But I wonder what
my expectation of life would be if I did go in."

"I reckon you'd last about a minute," Harry said thoughtfully. "He's a
grand bull - all I ever expected - but by God he's a mean 'un. I never
trust him an inch."

"And how," I asked without enthusiasm, 'am I supposed to get a sample of
blood from him?"

"Oh I'll trap his head in yon corner." Harry pointed to a metal yoke
above a trough in an opening into the yard at the far side of the box.
"I'll give him some meal to 'tice him in." He went back down the passage
and soon I could see him out in the yard scooping meal into the trough.

The bull at first took no notice and continued to prod at the wall with
his horns, then he turned with awesome slowness, took a few unhurried
steps across the box and put his nose down to the trough. Harry, out of
sight in the yard, pulled the lever and the yoke crashed shut on the
great neck.

"All right," the farmer cried, hanging on to the lever, "I have 'im. You
can go in now."

I opened the door and entered the box and though the bull was held fast
by the head there was still the uneasy awareness that he and I were
alone in the t small space together. And as I passed along the massive
body and put my hand on the neck I sensed a quivering emanation of pent
up power and rage. Digging my fingers into the jugular furrow I watched
the vein rise up and poised my needle. It would take a good hard thrust
to pierce that leathery skin.

The bull stiffened but did not move as I plunged the needle in and with
relief I saw the blood flowing darkly into the syringe. Thank God I had
hit the vein first time and didn't have to start poking around. I was
withdrawing the needle and thinking that the job had been so simple
after all when everything started to happen. The bull gave a tremendous
bellow and whipped round at me with no trace of his former lethargy. I
saw that he had got one horn out of the yoke and though he couldn't
reach me with his head his shoulder knocked me on my back with a
terrifying revelation of unbelievable strength. I heard Harry shouting
from outside and as I scrambled up and headed for the box door I saw
that the madly plunging creature had almost got his second horn clear
and when I reached the passage I heard the clang of the yoke as he
finally freed himself.

Anybody who has travelled a narrow passage a few feet ahead of about a
ton of snorting, pounding death will appreciate that I didn't dawdle. I
was spurred on by the certain knowledge that if Monty caught me he would
plaster me against the wall as effortlessly as I would squash a ripe
plum, and though I was clad in a long oilskin coat and Wellingtons I
doubt whether an olympic sprinter in full running kit would have
bettered my time.

I made the door at the end with a foot to spare, dived through and
crashed it shut. The first thing I saw was Harry Sumner running round
from the outside of the box. He was very pale. I couldn't see my face
but it felt pale; even my lips were cold and numb.

"God, I'm sorry!" Harry said hoarsely. "The yoke couldn't have closed
properly - that bloody great neck of his. The lever just jerked out of
my hand. Damn, I'm glad to see you - I thought you were a goner!"

I looked down at my hand. The blood-filled syringe was still tightly
clutched there. "Well I've got my sample anyway, Harry. And it's just as
well, because ;

it Would take some fast talking to get me in there to try for another.
I'm afraid you've just seen the end of a beautiful friendship." Y aye,
the big sod!" Harry listened for a few moments to the thudding of
Monty's horns against the door. "And after all you did for him. That's
gratitude for you.

Chapter Eleven.

I suppose if it hadn't been for the Tuberculin Testing scheme I'd never
have come to know Ewan and Ginny Ross.

Siegfried broached the matter to me one morning as I was making up some
colic mixture in the dispensary.

"All this extra testing work is a bit much for a one-man practice,
especially when it's an older man. Ewan Ross has been on the phone
asking me if I could help him and we've thrashed out a plan which could
benefit us both. But it depends on you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, would you be willing to go up to Scarburn and do his testing say
three days a week? Ewan and I would split the proceeds and you'd get a
little cut too."

I screwed a cork into the last bottle. "It's all right with me. I'd
enjoy a bit of fresh country. It's real wild up there - about
twenty-five miles away isn't it?"

"Just about. It is a bit bleak, but it's beautiful in fine weather. And
I'm sure you'll get on with Ewan."

"I've heard quite a lot about him." I laughed. "They say he'd rather
settle down with a bottle than work.", Siegfried turned a level gaze on
me. "They say a lot things but he's a good friend of mine and just about
the best veterinary surgeon I've ever seen." He paused for a moment then
went on. "I want you to go up there tomorrow to meet him, then you can
judge for yourself."

As I drove out next morning I reflected on the snippets which had come
through to me about Ewan Ross. I didn't know all that much about him;
twenty-five miles was enough to make him remote from my own working area
and in any case hard drinking and wild behaviour were the norm among the
older members of the profession. The more recent graduates were a
different type altogether; more scientifically orientated, more
conscious of professional standards; but the men who had been on the go
for twenty years or more, many of them ex-servicemen, were a
hard-bitten, rugged lot of characters. Most of them had had a hell of a
life, working single-handed through the years when times were hard,
money short and the work at its roughest and I suppose they just had to
erupt now and then.

Ewan Ross, it was said, would incarcerate himself in some village pub
and go on a bender lasting days on end until his wife finally managed to
winkle him out and entice him back to his practice. People said, too,
that he liked to challenge big farm men in bars to 'take a hold" - to
shake hands with him and have a test of grip which usually finished with
the big man on the floor. There were tales, too, of brushes with the
police - he'd lost his licence for a while for being drunk m charge of a
car - and other things.

The scene beyond my car windows was changing all the time as I drove.
The Dales country around Darrowby was softened by the trees which lined
the valley floors and by the lush, level pastures by the rivers where
they wandered among leisurely shallows. But this was the high Pennines,
the harsh, wind-blown roof of England, almost treeless with only the
endless miles of dry stone walls climbing and cries-crossing over the
bald heights.

And, driving into Scarburn, it occurred to me that this was just the
sort of place some seedy character would want to hole up. It was only
too easy to picture the broken-down vet and his harassed, blowsy wife. I
had always thought Darrowby was quiet and a bit rough-hewn but it was a
sophisticated metropolis compared to Scarburn.

On this windy, sunless day the grey horse-shoe of buildings grouped
around the steeply sloping market place seemed in danger of sliding down
the high fell on which it was perched. I drove past the ironmonger's,
the Methodist Chapel, a draper's with a few dowdy clothes in the window,
the Temperance Hotel; there was no attempt at adornment or softness
anywhere and apart from a few muffled women battling against the wind
the streets were empty.

I found the veterinary surgeon's plate on a small modern house about two
hundred yards beyond the market place and knocked at the door. I had a
fairly clear mental image by now of my colleague within; needing a
shave, running to fat, the smell of whisky about him, and as the door
opened I drew in my breath in anticipation.

A tallish, heavy-shouldered man stood there. The face, ruddy and
handsome with pale blue friendly eyes, could have been that of a young
man but for the swathes of silver in the sandy hair above it. The suit
of soft brown tweed hung gracefully on his lean frame. He held out his
hand.

"You'll be James Herriot. Come away in." The voice had the lilt of the
Scottish Highlands with something else in it.

He led the way into the kitchen where a woman was standing by the stove.
"Ginny," he called. "Come and meet Siegfried's right hand man, young Mr.
Herriot."

Virginia Ross turned her head and looked at me.

"Hello," she said. "You're just in time for coffee." And she gave me a
crooked smile with one eyebrow slightly raised which had an
extraordinary effect. Over the years I knew her she always looked at me
like that - as though I was a quite pleasant but amusing object - and it
always did the same thing to me. It's difficult to put into words but
perhaps I can best describe it by saying that if I had been a little dog
I'd have gone leaping and gambolling around the room wagging my tail
furiously.

She would be about ten years younger than Ewan - somewhere in her early
forties - but she had the kind of attractiveness that was ageless. She
filled three mugs with coffee and I sat down at the table with the
feeling that I was with friends. I couldn't count the times I have sat
in that kitchen since that first day, drinking tea or coffee or if I
happened in around lunch time, eating Ginny's delectable food. She was a
cook with the magic touch; in fact as time went on I found she could do
just about anything. She spoke several languages, had read everything,
she painted and embroidered and as I said, she could cook. How she could
cook! She must have had to work on a very tight budget but she managed
to make a poem out of the simplest materials.

Ewan pushed away his mug and stood up. "I've got to operate on a colt
for umbilical hernia. Would you care to come along?"

"Yes," I said. "I'd like that very much."

We went out to a small building alongside the house which was the
surgery and dispensary. There is a fascination in seeing another man's
set-up and I browsed happily along the shelves and tables. There isn't
nearly so much fun in doing this nowadays because vets all use the same
drugs - a narrow variation in the range of antibiotics, sulphonamides
and steroids - but back there in 1939 we were still using the countless
mystical remedies of the dark ages.

And Ewan's selection was even more primitive than ours at Darrowby,
Physic balls, electuaries, red blister, stimulant draught, ammonia
powders, cooling lotions" alterative mixture, Donovan's solution; and a
lot of Ewan's own pet ideas with a whiff of black magic about them; like
his paste of arsenic and soft soap which you smeared on a length of
twine and tied round the necks of tumours where it was supposed to eat
its way through.

As I wandered round I watched him preparing for the operation. He didn't
seem to have a steriliser but he was methodically boiling the
instruments in a saucepan on a gas ring. Then he took them out with
forceps and carefully wrapped them one by one in sheets of clean brown
paper. He was a picture of unhurried calm.

It was the same when we got to the farm. Ewan paced about the field till
he found a perfectly level spot where the grass was long and soft, then
he pottered along" peering closely at the ground, throwing aside a few
small stones which were lurking there. When he was satisfied he made a
table out of a couple of straw bales, covered it with a clean sheet and
laid out his instruments on it meticulously. Next to the bales he
stationed a bucket of hot water, soap and towel and finally produced a
beautiful soft white rope tied in a neat coil. Only then did he allow
the colt to be led out.

I must have looked a bit open-mouthed because he grinned and said, "I
never start anything till I've set my stall out properly."

What struck me was the difference from my boss in Darrowby. Siegfried
would never have had the patience to go through all this procedure; his
system was based on Napoleon's dictum of "On s'engage et puis on volt"
and it usually involved a lot of yelling and rushing about. I had to
admit that this was more peaceful.

But I really saw what Ewan was made of when he started to do the job. He
was using the old-fashioned method of casting the horse by sidelines and
trussing him up before administering the chloroform but he did it as I'd
never seen it done before.

The patient was a shaggy little animal with the beginnings of feathers
round his hooves; he was typical of the hundreds of cart colts we had to
deal with every year and he trembled nervously as he looked around him.

Ewan seemed to pacify him immediately with a few soft words as he placed
the rope around his neck then between the hind legs and back through the
neck loop; and when the farm men pulled on the rope he stood by the head
still talking so that the colt collapsed easily on to his grassy bed.

It was an education for me to watch him then, deftly tugging and
knotting till the animal was positioned on his back with his legs tied
together fore to hind and the operation area exposed. Once more Ewan had
set his stall out properly.

He gave me the job of looking after the chloroform muzzle while he
incised the skin, tucked away the hernia and neatly sutured the wound.
He did it all with the firm, almost rough movements of the expert
surgeon and as I watched the strong fingers at work I was reminded again
of the tales of take a hold".

Even when he was finished and had thoroughly cleared away the last drop
of blood and debris from the operation site he still was in no hurry. He
washed and dried his instruments with great deliberation, wrapped them
up again in the sheets of brown paper then sat down on the straw bales
to wait for the colt to come round from the anaesthetic. As he sat
there, perfectly relaxed, he pulled a cigarette paper from his pocket,
tipped a stream of dark brown dusty tobacco into it from a little pouch,
rolled the paper effortlessly with one hand, licked it, screwed up one
end and thrust it into his mouth.

As the smoke curled round his ears he gave a few instructions in his
soft Highland voice.

"Now just pull him on to his chest will you. That's right, put your knee
behind his shoulder and let him rest there for a while. Don't hurry him,
now, he'll get up when he's ready."

He didn't leave for another twenty minutes when the colt gave a final
effort and heaved himself to his feet where he stood shakily, looking
around him in some bewilderment.

"Let him stand there awhile till he's steady on his legs," Ewan said
"Then you can walk him back to his box."

He turned to me. "Well now, there's not a bad little pub in this
village. How about a beer before lunch?"

There was nobody but ourselves in the bar. Ewan took a contented sip of
his half pint then pulled the small pouph again from his pocket. I
watched him again as he rolled another cigarette with one hand.

I laughed. "You know, I've only seen that done by cowboys on the
pictures. Where did you learn the art?"

"Oh that?" Ewan gave his shy smile, "In Canada, a long time ago. It was
the only way I had of getting a smoke for years and I've never got out
of the way of it."

He obviously found difficulty in talking about himself but as we sat I
was able to build a picture of his history. He was a farmer's son from
West Sutherland and even as a small boy he had worked with horses and
been fascinated by them. On leaving school he had, like many other
restless Highlanders, sailed away to seek his fortune. First he tried
Australia where he took a job riding the rabbit fences, then he moved to
Canada and worked on a ranch for years, more or less living in the
saddle. He came to England with the Canadian Expeditionary Force at the
beginning of the war and served till 1918 in the cavalry. I suppose he
must have recognised then that his life seemed to be inevitably bound up
with horses so he enrolled with a lot of other exservicemen in the
London Veterinary College. That was where he met Ginny.

He didn't go into details of how he had finally landed in Scarburn and I
didn't press him. But it seemed such a waste. You don't often find a top
class horseman and a veterinary surgeon combined. Siegfried was such a
one and I never thought I'd see a better. But Ewan Ross could beat them
all. The extraordinary thing was that he had settled in a cattle and
sheep district where his equine skills were seldom exploited. Certainly
there were numbers of racing stables in the Pennines but Ewan made not
the slightest attempt to gain a footing there; a 'horse specialist" in a
big Bentley used to travel around doing most of the racing work and
making a packet of money in the process. He wasn't a bad chap, either,
but Ewan had forgotten more about horses than he'd ever know.

I suppose the simple explanation was that Ewan was devoid of ambition.
He didn't want a big successful practice, he wasn't interested in being
rich or famous. Even this morning when I talked to him about our plans
in Darrowby I could see he was listening with polite attention, but it
didn't mean a thing to him. No, Ewan would do enough work to keep going
and beyond that he just didn't give a damn.

We stayed for something like half an hour in the bar and we'd drunk
three glasses of beer apiece. I looked at my watch.

"I'd better be getting back down the hill to Darrowby," I said. "I've
got a few things fixed for this afternoon."

Ewan smiled. "Oh, there's no hurry. We'll just have one for the road."

His t, l ~t e " t 1

1

r s 1

f voice was soft as usual but it had a sleepy quality now and I was
surprised to see a slight glassiness in the pale blue eyes. There was no
doubt about it - that small amount of drink had affected him.

"No thanks," I said. "I've really got to go."

And as I drove back along the narrow dry-walled road that crawled its
slow way among the fells I pondered on the strange fact; Ewan Ross
couldn't drink. Or he had a certain proportion of alcohol in his
bloodstream so that he was easily topped up. But I didn't think it was
that; he just had a low threshold for the stuff. I had a conviction that
he would have stayed in that pub if I had been agreeable; and who knows
when he might have come out? Ewan's famous benders could all have
started as simply.

Anyway, I was only guessing and I never did find out, because I always
said "No thanks" when he said "We'll just have one for the road." All
the years I knew him I never saw him drunk or anything like it so I
can't say anything about that other side of his life.

Strangely enough, circumstances took me through Scarburn just a few days
afterwards. It was Sunday and the church was turning out and from my car
I saw Ewan and Ginny, dressed in their best, walking down the street
ahead of me. I didn't catch them up - just watching them.till the
straight-backed easy striding man and the elegant woman turned the
corner out of sight, and I thought as I was to think so often what
marvelous-looking people were my two new friends.

Chapter Twelve.

"You know, there's maybe something in this Raynes ghost business after
all." Tristan pushed his chair back from the breakfast table, stretched
out his legs more comfortably and resumed his study of the Darrowby and
Houlton times. "It says here they've got a historian looking into it and
this man has unearthed some interesting facts."

Siegfried didn't say anything, but his eyes narrowed as his brother took
out a Woodbine and lit it. Siegfried had given up smoking a week ago and
he didn't want to watch anybody lighting up; particularly somebody like
Tristan who invested even the smallest action with quiet delight, rich
fulfilment. My boss's mouth tightened to a grim line as the young man
unhurriedly selected a cigarette, flicked his lighter and dragged the
smoke deep with a kind of ecstatic gasp.

"Yes," Tristan continued, thin outgoing wisps mingling with his words.
"This chap points out that several of the monks were murdered at Raynes
Abbey in the fourteenth century."

"Well, so what?" snapped Siegfried.

Tristan raised his eyebrows. "This cowled figure that's been seen so
often lately near the abbey - why shouldn't it be the spirit of one of
those monks?"

"Wheat? What's that you say?"

"Well, after all it makes you think, doesn't it? Who knows what fell
deeds might have been ... ?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Siegfried barked.

Tristan looked hurt. "That's all very well, and you may laugh, but
remember _ ' _

what Shakespeare said." He raised a solemn finger. "There are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your ... '

"Oh balls!" said Siegfried, bringing the discussion effectively to a
close.

I took a last thankful swallow of coffee and put down my cup, I was
pleased that the topic had petered out fairly peacefully because
Siegfried was in an edgy condition. Up to last week he had been a
dedicated puffer of pipe and cigarettes but he had also developed a
classical smoker's cough and had suffered increasingly from violent
stomach-ache. At times his long thin face had assumed the appearance of
a skull, the cheeks deeply sunken, the eyes smouldering far down in
their sockets. And the doctor had said he must give up smoking.

Siegfried had obeyed, felt immediately better and was instantly seized
with the evangelical zeal of the convert. But he didn't just advise
people to give up tobacco; I have seen him several times strike a
cigarette from the trembling fingers of farm workers, push his face to
within inches of theirs and grind out menacingly, "Now don't ever let me
see you with one of those bloody things in your mouth again, do you
hear?"

Even now there are grizzled men who tell me with a shudder, "Nay, ah've
never had a fag sin" Mr. Farnon told me to stop, thirty years back. Nay,
bugger it, the way 'e looked at me I dursn't do it!"

However the uncomfortable fact remained that his crusade hadn't the
slightest effect on his brother. Tristan smoked almost continually but
he never coughed and his digestion was excellent.

Siegfried looked at him now as he contentedly tapped off a little ash
and took another blissful suck. "You smoke too many of those bloody
cigarettes!"

"So do you."

"No I don't!" Siegfried retorted. "I'm a non-smoker and it's time you
were, too!

It's a filthy habit and you'll kill yourself the way you're going!"

Tristan gave him a benign look and again his words floated out on the
fine Woodbine mist. "Oh I'm sure you're wrong. Do you know, I think it
rather agrees with me.

Siegfried got up and left the room. I sympathised with him for he was in
a difficult position. Being in loco parentis he was in a sense providing
his brother with the noxious weeds and his innate sense of propriety
prevented him from abusing his position by dashing the things from
Tristan's hands as he did with others. He had to fall back on
exhortation and it was getting him nowhere. And there was another thing
- he probably wanted to avoid a row this morning as Tristan was leaving
on one of his mysterious trips back to the Veterinary College; in fact
my first job was to take him down to the Great North Road where he was
going to hitch a lift.

~.

After I had left him there 1 set of ~ on my rounds and, as I drove, my
thoughts kept going back to the conversation at breakfast. A fair number
of people were prepared to swear that they had seen the Raynes ghost and
though it was easy to dismiss some of them as sensation mongers or
drunkards the fact remained that others were very solid citizens indeed.

The story was always the same. There was a hill beyond Raynes village
and at the top a wood came right up to the roadside. Beyond lay the
abbey. People driving up the hill late at night said they had seen the
monk in their headlights - a monk in a brown habit just disappearing
into the wood. They believed the figure had been walking across the road
but they weren't sure because it was always a little too far away. But
they were adamant about the other part; they had seen a cowled figure,
head bowed, go into that wood. There must have been something uninviting
about the apparition because nobody ever said they had gone into the
wood after it.

It was strange that after my thoughts had been on Raynes during the day
Should be called to the village at one o'clock the following morning.
Crawling from bed and climbing wearily into my clothes I couldn't help
thinking of Tristan curled up peacefully in his Edinburgh lodgings far
away from the troubles of practice. But I didn't feel too bad about
getting up; Raynes was only three miles away and the job held no
prospect of hard labour - a colic in a little boy's Shetland pony. And
it was a fine night - very cold with the first chill of autumn but with
a glorious full moon to light my way along the road.

They were walking the pony round the yard when I got there. The owner
was the accountant at my bank and he gave me a rueful smile.

"I'm very sorry to get you out of bed, Mr. Herriot, but I was hoping
this bit of bellyache would go off. We've been parading round here for
two hours. When we stop he tries to roll."

"You've done the right thing," I said. "Rolling can cause a twist in the
bowel." I examined the little animal and was reassured. He had a normal
temperature, good strong pulse, and listening at his flank I could hear
the typical abdominal sounds of spasmodic colic.

What he needed was a good evacuation of the bowel, but I had to think
carefully when computing the dose of arecoline for this minute member of
the equine species. I finally settled on an eighth of a grain and
injected it into the neck muscles. The pony stood for a few moments in
the typical colic position, knuckling over the sinking down on one hind
leg then the other and occasionally trying to lie down.

"Walk him on again slowly will you?" I was watching for the next stage
and I didn't have long to wait; the pony's jaws began to champ and his
lips to slobber and soon long dribbles of saliva hung down from his
mouth. All right so far but I had to wait another fifteen minutes before
he finally cocked his tail and deposited a heap of faeces on the
concrete of the yard.

"I think he'll be O.K. now," I said. "So I'll leave you to it. Give me
another ring if he's still in pain."

Beyond the village the road curved suddenly out of sight of the houses
then began the long straight climb to the abbey. Just up there at the
limits of my headlights would be where the.ghost was always seen walking
across the road and into the black belt of trees. At the top of the
hill, on an impulse, I drew in to the side of the road and got out of
the car. This was the very place. At the edge of the wood, under the
brilliant moon, the smooth boles of the beeches shone with an eerie
radiance and, high above, the branches creaked as they swayed in the
wind.

I walked into the wood, feeling my way carefully with an arm held before
me till I came out on the other side. Raynes Abbey lay before me.

I had always associated the beautiful ruin with summer days with the sun
warming the old stones of the graceful arches, the chatter of voices,
children playing on the cropped turf; but this was 2.30 a.m. in an empty
world and the cold breath of the coming winter on my face. I felt
suddenly alone.

In the cold glare everything was uncannily distinct. But there was a
look of unreality about the silent rows of columns reaching into the
dark sky and throwing their long pale shadows over the grass. Away at
the far end I could see the monks" cells - gloomy black caverns deep in
shadow - and as I looked an owl hooted, accentuating the heavy,
blanketing silence.

A prickling apprehension began to creep over me, a feeling that my
living person had no place here among these brooding relics of dead
centuries. I turned quickly and began to hurry through the wood, bumping
into the trees, tripping over roots and bushes, and when I reached my
car I was trembling and more out of breath than I should have been. It
was good to slam the door, turn the ignition and hear the familiar roar
of the engine.

I was home within ten minutes and trotted up the stairs, looking forward
to catching up on my lost sleep. Opening my bedroom door I flicked on
the switch and felt a momentary surprise when the room remained in
darkness Then I stood frozen in the doorway.

By the window, where the moonlight flooded in, making a pool of silver
in the gloom, a monk was standing. A monk in a brown habit, motionless,
arms folded, head bowed. His face was turned from the light towards me
but I could see nothing under the drooping cowl but a horrid abyss of
darkness.

I thought I would choke. My mouth opened but no sound came. And in my
racing mind one thought pounded above the others - there were such
things as ghosts after all.

Again my mouth opened and a hoarse shriek emerged.

"Who in the name of God is that?"

The reply came back immediately in a sepulchral bass.

"Tristaan."

I don't think I actually swooned, but I did collapse limply across my
bed and lay there gasping, the blood thundering in my ears. I was dimly
aware of the monk standing on a chair and screwing in the light bulb,
giggling helplessly the while. Then he flicked on the switch and sat on
my bed. With his cowl pushed back on his shoulders he lit a Woodbine and
looked down at me, still shaking with laughter.

"Oh God, Jim, that was marvelous - even better than I expected."

I stared up at him and managed a whisper. "But you're in Edinburgh  ...
'

"Not me, old lad. There wasn't much doing so I concluded my business and
hitched straight back, I'd just got in when I saw you coming up the
garden. Barely had time to get the bulb out and climb into my outfit - I
couldn't Miss. the opportunity."

"Feel my heart," I murmured.

Tristan rested his hand on my ribs for a moment and as he felt the
fierce hammering a fleeting concern crossed his face.

"Hell, I'm sorry, Jim." Then he patted my shoulder reassuringly. "But
don't worry. If it was going to be fatal you'd have dropped down dead on
the spot. And anyway, a good fright is very beneficial - acts like a
tonic. You won't need a holiday this year."

"Thanks," I said. "Thanks very much."

"I wish you could have heard yourself." He began to laugh again. "That
scream of terror ... oh dear, oh dear!"

I hoisted myself slowly into a sitting position, pulled out the pillow,
propped it against the bed head and leaned back against it. I still felt
very weak.

I eyed him coldly. "So you're the Raynes ghost."

Tristan grinned in reply but didn't speak.

"You young devil! I should have known. But tell me, why do you do it?

What do you get out of it?"

"Oh I don't know." The young man gazed dreamily at the ceiling through
the cigarette smoke. "I suppose it's just getting the timing right so
that the drivers aren't quite sure whether they've seen me or not. And
then I get a hell or a kick out of hearing them revving up like mad and
roaring off for home. None of them ever slows down."

"Well, somebody once told me your sense of humour was over-developed," I
said. "And I'm telling you it'll land you in the cart one of these
days."

"Not a chance. I keep my bike behind a hedge about a hundred yards down
the road so that I can make a quick getaway if necessary. There's no
problem."

"Well, please yourself." I got off the bed and made shakily for the
door. "I'm i!.

~_

going downstairs for a tot of whisky, and just remember this." I turned
and glared at him. "If you try that trick on me again I'll strangle
you."

A few days later at about eight o'clock in the evening I was sitting
reading by the fireside in the big room at Skeldale House when the door
burst open and Siegfried burst into the room.

"James," he rapped out. "Old Horace Dawson's cow has split its teat.
Sounds like a stitching job. The old chap won't be able to hold the cow
and he has no near neighbours to help him so I wonder if you'd come and
give me a hand."

"Sure, glad to." I marked the place in my book, stretched and yawned
then got up from the chair. I noticed Siegfried's foot tapping on the
carpet and it occurred to me, not for the first time, that the only
thing that would satisfy him would be some kind of ejector seat on my
chair which would hurl me straight through the door and into action on
the word of command. I was being as quick as I could but I had the
feeling as always - when I was writing something for him or operating
under his eyes - that I wasn't going nearly fast enough. There were
elements of tension in the knowledge that the mere fact of watching me
rise from the chair and replace my book in the fireside alcove was an
almost unbearable strain for him.

By the time I was half way across the carpet he had disappeared into the
passage. I followed at a trot and just made it into the street as he was
starting the car. Grabbing the door I made a dive for the interior and
felt the road whip away from under my foot as we took off into the
darkness.

Fifteen minutes later we screeched to a halt in the yard behind a little
smallholding standing on its own across a couple of fields. The engine
had barely stopped before my colleague was out of the car and striding
briskly towards the cow house. He called to me over his shoulder as he
went.

"Bring the suture materials, James, will you ... and that bottle of
wound lotion ... '

. and the local and syringe I heard the brief murmur of conversation
from within then Siegfried's voice again, raised this time in an
impatient shout.

"James! What are you doing out there? Can't you find those things?"

I had hardly got the boot open and I rummaged frantically among the rows
of tins and bottles. I found what he required, galloped across the yard
and almost collided with him as he came out of the building.

He was in mid shout. "James! What the hell's keeping you ... oh, you're
there. Right, let's have that stuff ... what have you been doing all
this time?"

He had been right about Horace Dawson, a tiny frail man of about eighty
who couldn't be expected to do any strong-arm stuff. Despite his age he
had stubbornly refused to give up milking the two fat shorthorn cows
which stood in the little cobbled byre.

Our patient had badly damaged a teat; either she or her neighbour must
have stood on it because there was a long tear running almost full
length with the milk running from it.

"It's a bad one, Horace," Siegfried said. "You can see it goes right
into the milk channel But we'll do what we can for her - it'll need a
good few stitches in there."

He bathed and disinfected the teat then filled a syringe with local
anaesthetic.

"Grab her nose, James," he said, then spoke gently to the farmer.
"Horace, will you please hold her tail for me. Just catch it by the very
end, that's the way ... Lovely."

The little man squared his shoulders. "Aye, ah can do that fine, Mr.
Farnon."

"Good lad, Horace, that's splendid, thank you. Now stand well clear." He
1~

bent over and as I gripped the animal's nose he inserted the needle
above the top extremity of the wound.

There was an instant smacking sound as the cow registered her
disapproval by kicking Siegfried briskly half way up his wellington
boot. He made no sound but breathed deeply and flexed his knee a couple
of times before crouching down again.

"Cush pet," he murmured soothingly as he stuck the needle in again.

This time the cloven foot landed on his forearm, sending the syringe
winging gracefully through the air till it came to rest by a piece of
good fortune in the hay-rack. Siegfried straightened up, rubbed his arm
thoughtfully, retrieved his syringe and approached the patient again.

For a few moments he scratched around the root of her tail and addressed
her in the friendliest manner. "All right, old lady, it isn't very nice,
is it?"

When he got down again he adopted a new stance, burrowing with his head
into the cow's flank and stretching his long arms high he managed
despite a few more near misses to infiltrate the tissues round the wound
with local. Then he proceeded to thread a needle unhurriedly, whistling
tunelessly under his breath.

Mr. Dawson watched him admiringly. "Ah know why you're such a good
feller wi" animals, Mr. Farnon. It's because you're so patient - I
reckon you're t'patientest man ah've ever seen."

Siegfried inclined his head modestly and recommenced work. And it was
more peaceful now. The cow couldn't feel a thing as my colleague put in
a long, even row of stitches, pulling the lips of the wound firmly
together.

When he had finished he put an arm round the old man's shoulders.

"Now, Horace, if that heals well the teat will be as good as new. But it
won't heal if you pull at it, so I want you to use this tube to milk
her." He held up a bottle of spirit in which a teat syphon gleamed.

"Very good," said Mr. Dawson firmly. "Ah'll use it."

Siegfried wagged a playful finger in his face. "But you've got to be
careful, you know. You must boil the tube every time before use and keep
it always in the bottle or you'll finish up with mastitis. Will you do
that?"

"Mr. Farnon," the little man said, holding himself very erect. "Ah'll do
exackly as you say.

"That's my boy, Horace." Siegfried gave him a final pat on the back
before starting to pick up his instruments. "I'll pop back in about two
weeks to take the stitches out."

As we were leaving, the vast form of Claude Blenkiron loomed suddenly in
the byre door. He was the village policeman, though obviously off duty
judging by the smart check jacket and slacks.

"I saw you had summat on, Horace, and I wondered if you wanted a hand."

"Nay, thank ye, Mr. Blenkiron. It's good of ye but you're ower late.
We've done t'job," the old man replied.

Siegfried laughed. "Wish you'd arrived half an hour ago, Claude. You
could have tucked this cow under your arm while I stitched her."

The big man nodded and a slow smile spread over his face. He looked the
soul of geniality but I felt, as always, that there was a lot of iron
behind that smile. Claude was a well-loved character in the district, a
magnificent athlete who bestowed lavish help and friendship on all who
needed it on his beat. But though he was a sturdy prop to the weak and
the elderly he was also a merciless scourge of the ungodly.

I had no first hand knowledge but there were rumours that Claude
preferred not to trouble the magistrates with trivialities but dispensed
his own form of instant justice. It was said that he kept a stout stick
handy and acts of hooliganism and vandalism were rapidly followed by a
shrill yowling down some dark alley.

second offenders were almost unknown and in fact his whole district was
remarkably law-abiding. I looked again at the smiling face. He really
was the most pleasant looking man but as I say there was something else
there and nothing would ever have induced me to pick a fight with him.

"Right, then," he said. "I was just on me way into Darrowby so I'll say
good night gentlemen."

Siegfried put a hand on his arm. "Just a moment, Claude, I want to go on
to see another of my cases. I wonder if you'd give Mr. Herriot a lift
into the town."

"I'll do that with pleasure, Mr. Farnon," the policeman replied and
beckoned me to follow him.

In the darkness outside I got into the passenger.seat of a little Morris
Eight and waited for a few moments while Claude squeezed his bulk behind
the wheel. As we set off he began to talk about his recent visit to
Bradford where he had been taking part in a wrestling match.

We had to go through Raynes village on the way back and as we left the
houses behind and began the ascent to the abbey he suddenly stopped
talking. Then he startled me as he snapped upright in his seat and
pointed ahead.

"Look, look there, it's that bloody monk!"

"Where? Where?" I feigned ignorance but I had seen it all right - the
cowled, slow-pacing figure heading for the wood.

Claude's foot was on the boards and the car was screaming up the hill.
At the top he swung savagely on to the roadside grass so that the
headlights blazed into the depths of the wood and as he leapt from the
car there was a fleeting moment when his quarry was in full view; a
monk, skirts hitched high, legging it with desperate speed among the
trees.

The big man reached into the back of the car and pulled out what looked
like a heavy walking stick. "After the bugger!" he shouted, plunging
eagerly forward.

I panted after him. "Wait a minute, what are you going to do if you
catch him ?"

"I'm going" to come across his arse with me ash plant," Claude said with
chilling conviction and galloped ahead of me till he disappeared from
the circle of light. He was making a tremendous noise, beating against
the tree trunks and emitting a series of intimidating shouts.

My heart bled for the hapless spectre blundering in the darkness with
the policeman's cries dinning in his ears. I waited with tingling horror
for the final confrontation and the tension increased as time passed and
I could still hear Claude in full cry; "Come out of there, you can't get
away! Come on, show yourself!" while his splintering blows echoed among
the trees.

I did my own bit of searching but found nothing. The monk did indeed
seem to have disappeared and when I finally returned to the car I found
the big man already there.

"Well that's a rum 'un, Mr. Herriot," he said. "I can't find 'im and I
can't think where he's got to. I was hard on his heels when I first
spotted him and he didn't get out of the wood because I can see over the
fields in the moonlight. I've 'ad a scout round the abbey too, but he
isn't there. He's just bloody vanished."

I was going to say something like "Well, what else would you expect from
a ghost?" but the huge hand was still swinging that stick and I decided
against it.

"Well I reckon we'd better get on to Darrowby," the policeman grunted,
stamping his feet on the frosty turf. I shivered. It was bitterly cold
with an east wind getting up and I was glad to climb back into the car.

In Darrowby I had a few companionable beers with Claude at his favourite
haunt, the Black Bull, and it was ten thirty when I got into Skeldale
House. There was no sign of Tristan and I felt a twinge of anxiety.

It must have been after midnight when I was awakened by a faint
scuffling from the next room. Tristan occupied what had been the long,
narrow 'dressing room" in the grand days when the house was young. I
jumped out of bed and opened the communicating door.

Tristan was in pyjamas and he cuddled two hot water bottles to his
bosom. He turned his head and gave me a single haggard glance before
pushing one of the bottles well down the bed. Then he crawled between
the sheets and lay on his back with the second bottle clasped across his
chest and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. I went over.and looked down at
him in some concern. He was shaking so much that the whole bed vibrated
with him.

"How are you, Triss?" I whispered.

After a few moments a faint croak came up. "Frozen to the bloody marrow
Jim."

"But where the heck have you been?"

Again the croak. "In a drainpipe."

"A drainpipe!" I stared at him. "Where?"

The head rolled feebly from side to side on the pillow. "Up at the wood.
"Didn't you see those pipes by the roadside?"

A great light flashed. "Of course, yes! They're going to put a new sewer
into the village, aren't they?"

"That's right," Tristan whispered. "When I saw that big bloke pounding
into the wood I cut straight back and dived into one of the pipes. God
only knows how long I was in there."

"But why didn't you come out after we left?"

A violent shudder shook the young man's frame and he closed his eyes
briefly. "I couldn't hear a thing in there. I was jammed tight with my
cowl over my ears and there was a ninety mile a hour wind screaming down
the pipe. I didn't hear the car start and I daren't come out in case
that chap was still standing there with his bloody great shillelagh." He
took hold of the quilt with one hand and picked at it fitfully.

"Well never mind, Triss," I said. "You'll soon get warmed up and you'll
be all right after a night's sleep."

Tristan didn't appear to have heard. "They're horrible things,
drain-pipes, Jim." He looked up at me with hunted eyes. "They're full of
muck and they stink of cats" pee."

"I know, I know." I put his hand back inside the quilt and pulled the
sheets up round his chin. "You'll be fine in the morning." I switched
off the light and tiptoed from the room. As I closed the door I could
still hear his teeth chattering.

Clearly it wasn't only the cold that was bothering him; he was still in
a state of shock. And no wonder. The poor fellow had been enjoying a
little session of peaceful haunting with never a care in the world when
without warning there was a scream of brakes a blaze of light and that
giant bounding into the middle of it like the demon king. It had all
been too much.

Next morning at the breakfast table Tristan was in poor shape. He looked
very pale, he ate little and at intervals his body was racked by deep
coughing spasms.

Siegfried looked at him quizzically. "I know what's done this to you. I
know why you're sitting there like a zombie, coughing your lungs up."

His brother stiffened in his chair and a tremor crossed his face. "You
do?"

"Yes, I hate to say I told you so, but I did warn you, didn't I? It's
all those bloody cigarettes!"

Chapter Thirteen.

Tristan never did give up smoking but the Raynes ghost was seen no more
and remains an unsolved mystery to this day.

._ :'

1 1

1

~ 1

t l 1 " .~

:'t .~

::

.

~:

,.,)

:d .)

~.] ~3 :l f~

The arrangement with Ewan Ross had worked out very well. It meant a lot
of driving for me; twenty-five miles to Scarburn, then a full day round
the farms in that area followed by the run back to Darrowby at night,
but I enjoyed working up there on the airy summit of Yorkshire and
meeting a fresh community of farmers who, like all hillmen, seemed to
vie with each other in hospitality. In their rough, flagged kitchens I
ate superb meals which belied their modest description of 'a bit o"
dinner" and it was almost routine for me to bring home a parcel of
butter, a few eggs, sometimes an exquisite piece of spare rib.

Of course I realise I was lucky. At the commencement of the Tuberculin
Testing Scheme there was a nice incentive bonus on the milk or on the
numbers of cattle and I appeared on the farms almost as a bringer of
bounty. In later years when attestation became universal the stock
owners came to regard the tests as a necessary nuisance, but, as I say,
I was lucky - I was in on the honeymoon period.

The arrangement suited Siegfried, too. Certainly he had to work hard on
the days when I was away but it brought in some welcome revenue to the
practice.

And best of all it suited Ewan, because without doing a single thing or
even thinking about it he had a Ministry cheque on his breakfast table
every quarter. This was absolutely tailored to his personality because
nothing would ever have induced him to spend hours in routine work, then
go home and fill in forms with long columns of descriptions and ages and
measurements.

When he had to do a job he did it magnificently. And he did it with such
care - always boiling up before he left the house and wrapping syringes
and instruments in his strips of clean brown paper of which he must have
had an endless supply. But if he could get away with it he stayed at
home. In fact, after lunch every day he took off his shoes, put on his
slippers and got down by the fireside. Once he was there it took
something spectacular to shift him.

I have seen him sitting there smoking while Ginny answered the phone to
farmers who wanted his services.

"Och, it'll do tomorrow," he would say.

Not for him the sweat of fighting the clock, the panic of urgent calls
coming in from opposite directions, the tightening ball of tension in
the stomach when the work began to pile up. No, no, he put on his
slippers, rolled cigarettes, and let it all flow past him.

He had only a mild interest in the work we did in Darrowby but he was
fascinated by the funny things that happened to us. He dearly loved to
listen to my accounts of the various contretemps at Skeldale House and,
strangely, he wanted to hear them again and again almost as a child
would. Often, as he lay back in his chair with the smoke rising from his
twisted little cigarette he would say suddenly in his soft
Highland-Canadian voice.

"Tell me about the rubber suit."

I must have told him that tale twenty times before but it made no
difference. He would gaze fixedly at me as I went through the story
again and though his expression hardly changed his shoulders would begin
to shake silently and the pale blue eyes to brim with tears.

Looking back I often wonder who was right - Ewan or all the successful
vets who gave themselves ulcers dashing round in circles. I do know that
he enjoyed a deference from his clients which I never encountered
elsewhere. Perhaps there is a lesson somewhere in the fact that he
received grateful thanks if he went to an animal the same day he was
called, whereas Siegfried and I who tried to get to a case within twenty
minutes were greeted with 'what kept you?" if we took half an hour.

There was another advantage to Ewan in having me to do his testing; he
was able to pass on occasional private jobs to me while I was on the
farms and as the weeks passed he began to use me more and more as a
general assistant. It became commonplace for the farmers to say, "Oh,
and Mr. Ross said would you take some nanberries or a stirk's belly
while you're here," or "Will you inject some calves for scour? Mr. Ross
rang and said you were coming." One morning I was startled to find a
couple of strapping two-year-old horses waiting for me to castrate
standing before I commenced the day's work.

If the farmers had any objection to a young stranger doing their work
they never voiced it. Whatever Ewan did or arranged was right with them;
in fact there didn't seem to be much they wouldn't do for him.

This was brought home to me forcibly one night. I had had a particularly
rough day in the Scarburn district. Herds which I thought had about
twenty animals turned out to have fifty or sixty and these were
scattered around in little buildings miles apart on the fell-sides.
There was only one way to get to them - you walked; and while this might
have been enjoyable in good weather it had been a lowering late autumn
day with a gusting wind scouring the flattened grass and almost piercing
my bones like the first quick gleam of winter's teeth. It had almost
stupefied me.

And on top of that I had had a wider than usual selection of Ewan's
private jobs; a couple of cleansings, a farrowing, a few pregnancy
diagnoses; all jacket-off jobs which left my arms raw and painful. I
must have tested about four hundred unyielding bovines, elbowing and
squeezing between their craggy bodies, and it seemed almost too much
that just when I was turning away from the very last cow of the day she
should kick me resoundingly just behind the knee. This farewell gesture
dropped me in a moaning heap on the byre floor and it was some minutes
before I was able to hobble away.

The journey back to Darrowby had seemed interminable and it didn't help
at all when I got home and found that Siegfried was out and there were a
few more calls left for me in our own practice. When I finally crawled
into bed I had nothing left to offer.

It was just after midnight when the bedside phone rang. With a feeling
of disbelief I recognised Ewan's voice - what the devil could he
possibly want with me at this hour?

"Hello, Jim, sorry to disturb you." The words seemed to reach out and
caress me.

"That's all right, Ewan, what can I do for you?" I said trying to sound
casual but gripping the sheets tightly with my free hand.

Ewan paused for a moment. "Well now I'm in a wee bit of bother here.
It's a calving."

The window rattled as the wind buffeted the glass. "A calving?" I
quavered.

"Yes, a big cow with a great long pelvis and the calf's head is back.
I've been trying for an hour but I'm damned if I can reach it - my arm's
not long enough."

"Ah yes, I've a very short arm myself," I babbled. "I know just how you
feel. I'm no good when it comes to jobs like that."

.i_

:~

._

~ .

A soft chuckle came over the line. "Oh I don't want your arm, Jim, it's
that embryotome I want "Embryotome ?"

"That's right. Remember you were telling me what a wonderful instrument
it was."

Why couldn't I keep my big mouth shut? My mind began to hunt round
desperately for a way of escape.

"But Ewan, you'd kill the calf. An embryotome isn't indicated in a case
like this."

"This calf's dead and stinking, Jim. All I want is to get its head off
to save the cow."

I was trapped. I didn't say anything more but lay quivering, waiting for
the terrible words which I knew were coming.

They came all right. "Just slip out here and do it for me will you,
Jim?"

As I tottered from my bed I became aware immediately that the knee where
I had been kicked had stiffened up and I could hardly bend it. In the
darkness of the garden the dead leaves crunched softly under my feet and
when I reached the yard the wind roared in the elms, tearing the last
leaves from the branches and hurling them past my face like driven snow
flakes.

Huddled over the wheel, my head nodding with weariness, I drove out of
the town. My destination was Hutton House, a farm about five miles on
the other side of Scarburn, and I muttered feebly to myself as I peered
through the windscreen.

"Just slip out here!" he says. "Just slip out thirty bloody miles over
narrow twisting roads and get down on your belly and knock your guts
out!" Damn Ewan Ross, and damn his Highland charm and his Highland
indolence. I was like a bloody little shuttlecock - back and forth, back
and forth. And I was absolutely whacked and my arms were sore and my
knee ached. Almost whimpering with self pity I bemoaned my lot. This
country vetting was a mug's game. I should have been a doctor, my mother
always wanted me to be a doctor, and I wouldn't have to drive thirty
miles to a cold cow house but just pop round the corner into a nice warm
bedroom and pat the hand of some sweet old lady and dole out a few pills
then back within minutes to my bed - my deep, deep, soft, soft bed  ...
I lurched suddenly into wakefulness as the car careered straight for the
roadside wall. Gripping the wheel tightly, feeling the wind pulling
against the steering, I decided that the main thing was not to fall
asleep. It wasn't easy; there was a numbing sameness about the miles of
walls, the endless strip of road rolling out before me, but finally,
after about an hour, I chugged into Scarburn and for a few moments my
headlights swept across the unheeding tight-shut face of the little
town. Then the last five miles with the engine fighting against the
rising ground before I drew up outside the gate of Hutton House.

I should say the first gate because there were four along the track
leading to the pin point of light high on the fellside. And at each gate
the wind, whipping straight from the north, tugged fiercely at the car
door as I got out and each time as I turned away from the headlights the
fields were lost in the blackness and there was only the cold glitter of
stars in a clean-swept sky.

At last the huddle of farm buildings lay before me and I drove up to the
chink of brightness which came from the byre door. Even here in the yard
the wind tore at me as I wrestled with the boot. Gasping, I lifted out
my wellingtons, bottle of antiseptic and the accursed embryotome and
hurried over to the low building.

Inside, all was peace; a delicious warmth rising from the long row of
somnolent cows, my patient propped on her chest between two bales, Mr.
Hugill, the stooping, wrinkled farmer and Ewan sitting comfortably
cross-legged, smoking one of his funny cigarettes. He was sitting in a
chair, too - they had even brought a chair out here for him - and in the
light of the big oil lamp he looked across at me without speaking for a
moment then he gave me his shy smile.

"Jim, it's good of you to come. I've had a damn hard try but I know when
I'm beat. I can tell you you're a sight for sore eyes walking in that
door."

Mr. Hugill chuckled. "Aye, we're badly in need of a bit o'young blood on
t'job."

Suddenly I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I didn't care about the
long journey, about being winkled from my delectable bed. But I didn't
feel much like young blood as I stripped off, knelt down gingerly on my
stiff knee and thrust an arm, chaffed red and tingling from the
antiseptic, into the cow.

I realised straight away what Ewan meant. This cow did have a hell of a
long pelvis. The calf's feet were in the passage and the head was tucked
away back . along the ribs somewhere. I had to surmise this because at
full stretch I could just reach the cleft made by the flexion of the
neck. There was no chance of straightening it out, so my task was clear;
I had to get an embryotomy wire down that cleft and round the neck so
that I could cut off the head.

This was one of those carvings without the true savour; without the
rewarding sight of a new living creature at the finish. But sometimes it
happened like this. The calf I was feeling had been dead for about
twenty-four hours judging by the sweetish smell and the emphysematous
crackling under the skin, and had to be regarded simply as a piece of
inanimate tissue which had to be removed or the mother would surely die
of septicaemia or have to be slaughtered. As though divining my thoughts
the cow laid her head along her side, looked at me and moaned softly.
She had the bonny white face of the Hereford Cross and she looked sick;
she wanted rid of that thing inside her more than anybody.

The usual procedure is to pass a cord round the part to be cut off and
then pull the wire through; but it isn't as easy as that. It is one
thing pushing it into a tight space but quite another thing finding it
at the other side. Fortunately some intelligent chap who clearly knew
what calving was all about had come ~ up with a simple invention - a
heavy lead weight with a small hole at one end j for the cord and a
bigger one at the other end for your finger.

I fished my weight out now and again pushed an arm alongside the dry
legs and up to the cleft in the neck. By straining to the limit I
managed to force the weight forward and felt it fall down into the
cleft. I came out of the cow now i and carefully soaped my arm. This was
the moment of truth. If I could get hold of the weight on the underside
of the neck and pull it through with the cord attached the rest was
easy. The job was over in fact. If I couldn't reach it all was lost.

Again down on the cobbles and again the long reach between the calf's
legs and the clinging vaginal wall right forward beneath the twisted
neck where my lead weight just had to be. It wasn't there. Digging my
toes between the stones on the floor I fought for another inch and
managed to pass my fingers up into the cleft. Still nothing. The weight
hadn't fallen through - it was stuck up there, probably a fraction above
my groping fingers; and my hopes were stuck with ~t.

I went back to the bucket and soaped the other arm. Sometimes that
worked. But the result was the same; a desperate fumbling at nothing.
Not for the first time I cursed the accident of anatomy which had given
me a short arm. Siegfried with his slender build and long reach would
have been putting his jacket on by now, all ready to go home.

But there was nothing else for it but to fight on - and I wasn't in
shape for fighting. Even a man in peak condition can't spend much time
inside a cow L ~Without having the blood squeezed relentlessly from his
arm by the uterine Contractions" but when he starts as I did from a
point of maximum fragility it is really no contest. It took only about a
minute for my arm to be reduced to something like a stalk of asparagus
with useless twitching fingers on the end. I had to keep changing round
faster and faster till I was flopping on the cobbles like a stranded
fish. And all the time it was getting worse in there; drier, more
clinging, everything closing down till I could hardly move, never mind
get my hand on that precious lead weight.

I must have gone on like this for the best part of an hour before the
futility of it became plain. I had to try something else. Hoisting
myself on to my knees I turned round.

"Mr. Hugill, would you please bring me some warm water in another
bucket."

As the farmer hurried from the byre I turned to Ewan.

"It's that bloody weight," I said. "I expected it to fall straight down
but it hasn't. The bend in the neck must be so tight the thing can't get
through. I'm going to pump some water in to see if it'll open things up
a bit."

Ewan looked with compassion at my sweating face and sagging jaw, at the
caked dirt and slime and bits of straw sticking to my chest. "Right,
Jim," he said. "That sounds like a good idea."

I didn't enjoy my visit out to the car. Standing stripped to the waist
in total darkness in the teeth of a north wind is an overrated pastime
but it made a change from the cobbles. I fumbled a pump and rubber tube
from the boot and returned to the byre at a trot.

Ewan operated the pump as I pushed the tube forward over the dried-out
legs, playing the water from side to side and especially into that bend
in the neck.

When I had finished I came out of the cow quickly, dropped, the tube
and, slightly breathless, soaped my arm again. This was really it this
time. That water would give me more room, but only for a few seconds.

Lying down again I inserted my arm and it was like a different world
lots of space, everything moist and moveable. My fingers trembled as
they inched forward under that neck and'hallelujah, the weight was
there, the smooth, metallic, beautiful edge of the thing just projecting
from among the hair. I could twiddle it with the end of my fingers and I
felt it gradually coming down till the hole was within reach and I
thrust my finger through it with savage relief and lay like that for a
few moments smiling stupidly down at the wet stones and knowing I had
won.

The rest was routine. Joining the cord to the wire and pulling it round
the neck; threading the wire through the shining steel tubes of the
embryotome which protected the vaginal wall from the cutting edge; the
few minutes of steady sawing till the sudden lack of resistance told
that the head was off and the obstruction removed.

After that, Ewan and I took a leg apiece and delivered the calf without
difficulty, the head followed and the job was done. Swilling myself down
with the last of the water I looked at the cow, she had had a long
tussle but nothing to do her any harm; no hard pulling, no internal
damage. She should be all right And as though trying to reassure me she
hunched her hind legs under her, gave a heave and got to her feet.

"By Gaw, that's a good sign," Mr. Hugill said.

The cow turned her fine white face towards me for a moment, straddled
her legs, strained a couple of times, and the placenta welled in
multi-coloured entirety from her vulva and plopped into the channel.

"And that's a better sign," Ewan murmured. He looked at his watch.
"Nearly three o'clock." Then he turned to the farmer. "Is your missus
up, Mr. Hugill?"

The old man didn't seem surprised at the question, in fact he seemed to
be expecting it. "Aye, she's up, right enough, Mr. Ross?"

"And is the fire on?"

"Aye, there's a real good fire, Mr. Ross," he replied eagerly.

"Splendid!" Ewan said, rubbing his hands. "Well, I think we'll have some
boiled eggs." He looked over at me. "Boiled eggs all right for you,
Jim?"

"Boiled eggs?" The concept was difficult to grasp at this hour.

"Yes, just the thing for you after your hard work."

"Oh well, right, just as you say."

Ewan became very brisk. "Fine, we'll have boiled eggs, Mr. Hugill, and
some tea of course, and maybe a little toast." He rubbed his chin
thoughtfully like a diner at his favourite restaurant pondering over the
menu. "Oh and a few scones would be very nice."

"Very good, Mr. Ross, I'll go in and tell t'missus." The farmer nodded
happily and scuttled away.

Ten minutes later, walking into the farmhouse kitchen, I felt strangely
disembodied. Maybe it was because my physical state had progressed from
mere exhaustion to something like coma, but the whole thing seemed
unreal. The brasses of hearth and mantelpiece glinting in the flames
from a crackling wood fire, the table under a hissing tilly lamp laden
with its burden of scones, crusty bread, ham and egg pie, curd tarts,
fruit cake; it all looked like something from a dream. And it was funny,
but the most incredible objects of all were the boiled eggs, brown and
massive, top heavy in their china cradles, two for Ewan at the top of
the table and two for me down the side.

Mrs. Hugill, stout and beaming, poured our tea, then she and her husband
sat down on either side of the fire and waited with evident interest for
us to go into action. Ewan with total lack of self consciousness began
busily to knock the tops off his eggs and slap butter on the toast. I
followed mechanically, noting even through the mists that the eggs had a
creamy savour which you maybe only found when the hens spent their lives
pecking around a 1500 foot high farmyard, and that the tang of yeast was
strong in the home made bread even though I mumbled it with a dry mouth
and numb lips. The tea, too, would have been excellent but for the fact
that I added salt to it instead of sugar; just sat and watched myself
pouring salt from the little spoon first on to my egg plate then into my
tea. It tasted different, but I don't recommend it.

All the time the call of home and bed was getting stronger but Ewan was
in no hurry. Speaking through a mouthful of ham and egg pie he addressed
his hostess.

"Mrs. Hugill, now I know why you always win the prizes at Scarburn show
with your baking."

As the good lady giggled with pleasure I struggled to my feet. "I second
that, Mrs. Hugill, I've really enjoyed it, but it's time I was away.
I've a long way to go.

Ewan swallowed, wiped his lips and smiled across the table. "Well I
can't thank you enough, Jim. You've saved the situation. I couldn't have
done what you've done tonight even if I'd had your magic embryotome."

"Oh that's all right, it's been a pleasure." I made my way to the door
and took a last look back at the scene which I still could scarcely
believe; the farmer and his wife nodding and waving from the bright
fireside, Ewan, in lordly state at the head of the table, hacking
vigorously at a large Wensleydale cheese.

I hardly noticed the run back. In a comfortable state of suspended
animation I sat with half closed eyes fixed on the road ahead. There was
none of the apprehension of the journey out, none of the moaning and
griping, just the warm satisfaction that a good cow would be pulling hay
from its rack tomorrow instead :s , .

of hanging from the butcher's hook. Only a little thing, nothing
world-shaking about it, but good.

When I drove into the yard at Skeldale House the gale had blown itself
out leaving a deep litter of leaves shining brilliant gold in the
headlights and I scuffled my way through them, ankle deep, feeling the
still air cool on my face in the darkness Bed was an unbelievable haven
and as I floated away my last emotion was a feeling of wonder at the
things the farmers would do for Ewan Ross My clients had shown me many
kindnesses in the past and I had a lot of future still ahead of me, but
I doubted whether anybody would ever give me boiled eggs at three
o'clock in the morning.

Chapter Fourteen.

It was the chance to start my public speaking career; a definite
opportunity which I knew I should grasp, yet I shrank from it.

"Oh I don't know," I said to the curate, "I've never done anything of
the sort before. Maybe you'd better look for somebody else."

The curate beamed on me. He was in his thirties and had always struck me
as being a saintly man since he obviously saw no evil in anything or
anybody.

"Oh come now, Mr. Herriot. I'm sure you'd manage splendidly and the
youth club are longing to hear you. A lot of my young people are from
farming families and they'd be quite fascinated to have a vet speak to
them."

"Well it's very nice of you to say so, Mr. Blenkinsopp." But I had a
mental image of the packed church hall, the rows of faces looking up at
me, and I began to sweat at the very thought. "I tell you what - if they
want to hear a vet I'll get Mr. Farnon to give them a talk. He's very
good."

The curate squeezed my arm. "But Mr. Herriot, it's you I want. You are
very young and the boys and girls would have something in common with
you from the start. And you'd only have to speak for about half and hour
and then there would be questions and a lively discussion."

"Oh I don't think I'd better," I muttered though inwardly I writhed at
the shame of being scared to get up in front of an audience. "Maybe some
other time, but I really don't feel I could do it just at present."

Mr. Blenkinsopp sighed. "Ah well, just as you wish, but I know the club
members will be disappointed. And Miss. Alderson, too."

"Miss. Alderson?"

"Yes, Helen helps me run the club. In fact it was she who suggested you
as a speaker."

"She did?"

"Yes, indeed."

"She attends all the meetings, I suppose?" I said.

"Oh of course. I'm sure she was looking forward to seeing you at our
next get-together."

"Mm ... well ... I wonder. Maybe I'd better have a bash at it."

'splendid!" The curate's face shone with pleasure. "You have plenty of
time - it's not till three weeks on Tuesday."

"Well done, James." Siegfried said at lunch. "I'm glad you've grasped
the nettle. All professional men have to get used to public speaking and
the sooner: you begin the better. And it helps our image - one has to
wave the flag a little now and then."

"I suppose so." I fiddled with my napkin for a moment. "But I haven't
much idea about what to say. Have you any suggestions?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Hall, that looks wonderful." Siegfried said to our
housekeeper as she impassively placed-a large steak and kidney pie in
front of him. Then he turned to me again. "Well, James, you've been
asked to speak as a vet so you've got to deal with veterinary matters.
If they're farmers" sons and daughters they'll lap it up."

"Yes, but that's a big subject. What exactly do you mean?"

My employer attacked the pie resolutely and a heavenly steam escaped as
his knife pierced the crust. "Pass your plate, James." He mounded on
meat and ~; pastry then pushed a tureen of mashed potatoes towards me.
"I know it's a big subject so you've got to pick out some attractive and
interesting aspects."

"I don't think I'd know where to start," I said. "I wish you'd sort of
sketch something out for me."

" Siegfried chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. "Everybody has their
own ideas about these things, of course, but if I were you I'd start off
with something to catch their attention - some provocative remark or
question - then I'd paint I a broad tapestry of the profession,
including its history, and in between I'd shove in some practical
things, maybe about first aid in animals."

"First aid, eh?" .

"Yes, that's right." My employer was warming to his subject. "How to
stop . haemorrhage, how to deal with emergencies when the vet isn't
available. How about puncturing the rumen in a bloated cow? That would
make them sit up."

"It would, wouldn't it? Yes, I think I'll do that." I made a few mental
notes. "But how about the opening remark you mentioned? Any ideas about
that?"

Siegfried carefully transported an extra boiled leek from its bed of
white sauce on to his plate. For perhaps a minute he stared ahead of him
in silence then 3 without warning he crashed his fist down on the table,
making me bite my . tongue painfully.

"I've got it, James! Not a shadow of a doubt about it." He held up a
finger and intoned, "WHAT DOES MRCVS MEAN TO YOU ? There's your opening
line - how about that?"

"Gosh, it's good!" I gazed at him admiringly. "What does MRCVS mean to
you? I really like that."

"There you are, then," he said, chewing smugly, 'and you must deliver it
in loud, ringing tones. You'll have them on the edge of their seats
right from the start, and gasping to hear more. A good beginning is
vital."

"Well thanks, Siegfried, you've been a big help. I think I can get the
material I together now but the only thing is, can I put it over? I've
never spoken in public - what if I dry up as soon as I get on my feet?

What if I can't remember a thing ?"

"Oh there's no possibility of that, but I know how you feel and I'll
give you one more piece of advice." He pointed solemnly at me with his
fork. "Since it's your first time you ought to get the whole thing word
perfect. Practise it day by day till you can recite it like poetry, then
you'll be all right."

"OK," I said. "I'll do that, too."

Siegfried leaned back and laughed. "Good lad! And in the meantime, stop
worrying. You're going to knock 'em cold, James, I just know you are."

I took his advice literally and over the next three weeks as I drove
along the frost-bound roads my lips were continually moving as I
harangued my imaginary audience Several times I saw roadside workers
look up in surprise as my declamations boomed out at them through the
open windows, and I got to the stage where every syllable, every
inflection tripped effortlessly off my tongue in perfect order.

In fact, it all began to sound so good to me that in a fearful sort of
way I began to look forward to the big night. How many would be there to
hear me?

Fifty? Sixty? Maybe even a hundred? Well, let 'em all come. And Helen
would be there. Maybe my stock wasn't so high in that direction but it
wouldn't do any harm if she were to see me hold the mass of young people
in my thrall, the youthful faces upturned eagerly to me, drinking in. my
every word.

My confidence grew steadily as the days passed and when the fateful
Tuesday evening finally arrived I was in a state of pallid resolution.
No panic. A certain tension and dryness of the mouth, but above all a
cold determination to make good.

Before I left for the church hall I bathed, put on my best suit and
inspected my face carefully in the mirror. It wouldn't do if I had a
piece of cow muck sticking on an eyebrow in front of all that throng.

I was glad I didn't have far to walk because there had been a fall of
snow that morning followed by a few hours of icy rain and the streets
were deep in slush. As I opened the hall door and stepped inside, the
curate met me with a radiant smile.

"Ah, Mr. Herriot, here you are! So kind of you to come. Our young people
can hardly wait to hear you."

We were in a narrow lobby with doors on either side and from somewhere I
could hear music and laughter. But I didn't pay much attention because
Helen was coming down the stairs at the far end.

She laughed and for a moment her eyes held mine with that warm,
interested, kind look which was part of her. It was a funny thing but
whenever I met Helen she looked at me like that. I hadn't had a lot of
luck in my contacts with her but afterwards there was no difference; it
was always the same calm, friendly smile. , Of course she was a kind
girl, Helen, that was it. This was probably the way she looked at
everybody - with that soft flame kindling in her eyes" blue depths and
the full lips parted over the white teeth. And there was the way her
mouth went into little upturned folds in the corners ... and how her
dark hair fell softly across the white of her cheek ... But Mr.
Blenkinsopp was giving a series of little coughs. I dragged my attention
back to him.

"Come in and see our club room before you start," he said, opening one
of the doors. "I think you'll agree that it's a pleasant place for them
to come on these wintry evenings."

We went inside. A gramophone was playing and some pretty teenage girls
were fox-trotting together to the music. A few lads lounged about while
two others were playing billiards on a miniature table in the corner.
The curate gazed fondly at the scene, the music stopped, the record was
changed for a waltz and the dancing began again. It struck me as strange
that it didn't seem to occur to any of the boys to dance with those
attractive girls.

I looked at the two billiard players. They would be about fifteen or
sixteen and were obviously devotees of the cinema. There was something
of the Bowery pool room in their scowling attitude, the cigarettes
dangling from their lips, the way they squinted through the smoke as
they bent to play a shot, the tough, deadpan chalking of the cues, the
contemptuous gangsterish disregard of the other occupants of the room.

, .

The curate clapped his hands. "Come now, boys and girls, it's time you
joined the others in the hall Mr. Herriot is ready to talk to you now."

The room emptied rapidly as the young people went through a door in the
far corner. Soon there only remained the gangsters at the billiard
table; they didn't appear to have heard. The curate called on them
several times more but they took no notice. Finally Helen went over and
whispered tensely at them and at length they threw down their cues and
with a single malevolent glance in my direction they slouched from the
room.

This then was the moment of truth when I would face my audience after
the weeks of preparation. I took a deep breath and followed the others
into the hall and on to the platform. Perched on a shaky chair between
Helen and Mr. Blenkinsopp I surveyed the scene.

It wasn't a big hall - it would probably have held a hundred if it had
been full. But it wasn't full tonight, in fact the main feature about it
was space. I made a quick count of the audience; there were twelve. They
were disposed in little knots among the empty chairs. Half way up
clustered the six teenage girls then a few rows behind, a very fat boy
holding a bag of potato crisps and near him a thin, dispirited-looking
youth with sleepy eyes. Right on the back row, against the wall, the two
gangsters lounged in attitudes of studied boredom. What surprised me
most, however, was the sight of two tiny girls, mere tots of about four,
right in the middle of the front row, a long way from anybody else. One
sported a big pink bow in her hair while the other wore pigtails. Their
little legs swinging, they looked up at me incuriously.

I turned to Helen. "Who are those two?"

"Oh, they like to come with their big sisters now and again,"-she
replied. "They love it and they're very good. They won't be any
trouble."

I nodded stupidly, still trying to adjust my mind to the fact that these
were the people who were going to receive my searching exposition on
veterinary science. None of them seemed to be showing the slightest
interest in me except for one very pretty little thing in the centre of
the teenage group who gazed up at me with shining eyes as though she
couldn't wait for me to begin.

Mr. Blenkinsopp stood up and made a charming introductory speech. As he
spoke, the gangsters at the back giggled, wrestled and dug at each
other's ribs; the girls, with the exception of the little darling in the
centre peeped back at the fighting pair in admiration.

At last I heard the curate's final words. "And now I have great pleasure
in asking Mr. Herriot to address you."

I got slowly to my feet and gazed over the twelve. The gangsters were
still wrestling, the fat boy put a crisp in his mouth and began to
crunch it loudly, down in the front, tot number one was sucking her
thumb while the other, rocking her head from side to side, appeared to
be singing to herself.

I felt a moment of wild panic. Should I change the entire plan and just
talk casually about a few trivial points? But I couldn't. I had the
whole thing o if parrot-like and I'd have to deliver it as I had learned
it. There was no way out.

With an effort I steadied myself and cleared my throat. "What does MRCVS
mean to you?" I cried.

It seemed to startle Mr. Blenkinsopp because he jumped slightly in his
chair, but the audience remained totally unmoved. MRCVS appeared to mean
not a thing to them. I ploughed ahead, sketching out the history of the
Royal College, painstakingly illustrating its development from the early
days of farriery. Nobody was listening except the little pet in the
centre but I was in the groove and couldn't stop.

"A supplemental Royal Charter was granted in 1932," I pronounced after
about ten minutes" hard going and just then the thin boy yawned. I had
labelled ."

him as an ineffectual sort of lad but he certainly could yawn; it was a
stretching, groaning, voluptuous paroxysm which drowned my words and it
went on and on till he finally lay back, bleary and exhausted by the
effort. His companion munched his crisps stolidly By the time I had been
holding forth for twenty minutes I seemed to be standing listening to
myself with a kind of wonder. "After qualification," I was saying" 'the
main avenues open to the new graduate are general practice and work
under the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. The latter is mainly
concerned with preventive medicine and with the implementation of the
laws governing the notifiable diseases."

The gangsters punched each other fiercely with stifled laughter, the fat
boy had another crisp, tot one drew ecstatically on her thumb while her
other hand fondled a lock of her hair. Tot two stuck her legs straight
out and admired her little white socks and red shoes. Only the dear girl
in the middle paid any attention.

I began to break out in a light perspiration. The thing was taking a lot
longer than I had thought to get through, and I had the growing
conviction that I must be looking more and more of a chump in Helen's
eyes as time went on.

I had rehearsed a few light sallies designed to send my audience into
convulsions of laughter as a contrast to the absorbing, serious stuff,
but even those who were listening failed to change expression at my
shafts of wit. Except, of course, for the little treasure in the middle
who pealed back at me sweetly every time.

But I stuck to it grimly. Surely I'd get through to them when I came to
the practical bit about first aid.

"All right," I said, 'you've got a calf with a nasty cut on its leg. The
blood is pouring out and you can't get hold of a vet. If you just leave
it the blood will all run out and the calf will die. What are you going
to do?"

Nobody seemed to care much either way except for tot two. She obviously
didn't like the turn things were taking and she stared up at me, her
lower lip protruding and trembling.

I went on to explain about tourniquets and pressure pads and then moved
on to a discussion of bloat.

"This cow is blown up ready to burst," I proceeded. "You've got to do
something or she could drop down dead any second."

I glanced apprehensively at tot two. Her lip was sticking out more every
second and was now like a soup plate, but it was no good, I had to go
on.

"You must get a knife like a carving knife and stick it straight into
the stomach," I declaimed desperately. "Now I'll tell you just where to
stick it in ... '

But tot two had had enough. She threw back her head and bawled heartily
till her big sister hurried down a few rows and led her away in floods
of tears, her pig tails dangling forlornly. Tot one was undisturbed,
utterly engrossed as she was with her thumb and the wisp of hair she was
rub-rub-rubbing.

Anyway I was getting towards the last lap now.

"The future of the profession, I am convinced, will be less and less
involved with the problems of the individual animal," I went on,
addressing myself now exclusively to the little sweetheart in the centre
who kept her eyes fixed on me with open admiration. The thin boy went
into another of his mighty yawns while his companion finished his last
crisp and crumpled the bag noisily.

We must also consider the emergence of small animal work in any of our
plans for the future. Over the past few years the increase in this field
has been ... '

But I had to pause as there was a major disturbance at the back. The
jolly feud between the gangsters had flared into ugly warfare. Fists
flew, blood streamed, a few ripe.oaths rocketed over the company. After
a couple of minutes the combatants drew apart and sat glaring and
snarling at each other as they dabbed their wounds.

"Whatever the uncertainties and despite the depressed state of
agriculture I feel there will always be a place for the veterinary
surgeon in our national economy." that was it. I sat down and Helen, the
curate and the little charmer in the middle applauded enthusiastically.

Mr. Blenkinsopp rose, beaming delightedly around him. He congratulated
me on my splendid talk and said how much they'd all enjoyed it and
finished by saying he would now throw the meeting open for questions.

I settled back in my chair. So this was to be the lively discussion he
had talked about. I hunted around anxiously from face to face but my
audience stared back, dead-eyed; for the first time all evening there
was dead silence.

The minutes ticked away and I felt the tension building in me, but at
last there was a stirring in the middle of the hall. It was my darling
girl; God blest and keep her, she was going to say something. I felt a
sudden glow at the knowledge that my words had stimulated a response in
at least one young mind.

She sat up in her seat, moistened her lips and smiled at me, bright
eyed. She was indeed going to ask a question and as it turned out it was
the only one of the evening. I leaned forward expectantly as she began
to speak.

"Mr. Herriot, I 'ave a little dog what's moultin". What can I do for
'im?"

C:hapter Fifteen t Probably the most dramatic occurrence in the history
of veterinary practice was the disappearance of the draught horse. It is
an almost incredible fact that this glory and mainstay of the profession
just melted quietly away within a few years. And I was one of those who
were there to see it happen.

When I first came to Darrowby the tractor had already begun to take
over, but tradition dies hard in the agricultural world and there were
still a lot of horses around. Which was just as well because my
veterinary education had been geared to things equine with everything
else a poor second. It had been a good scientific education in many
respects but at times I wondered if the people who designed it still had
a mental picture of the horse doctor with his top hat ~ and frock coat
busying himself in a world of horse-drawn trams and brewers", drays.

We learned the anatomy of the horse in great detail then that of the
other animals much more superficially. It was the same with the other
subjects; from animal husbandry with such insistence on a thorough
knowledge of shoeing that we developed into amateur blacksmiths - right
up to medicine and surgery where it was much more important to know
about "landers and strangles than canine distemper. Even as we were
learning, we youngsters knew it was ridiculous, with the draught horse
already cast as a museum piece and the obvious potential of cattle and
small animal work.

Still, after we had absorbed a vast store of equine lore it was a
certain comfo that there were still a lot of patients on which we could
try it out. I should thin4

in my first two years I treated farm horses nearly every day and though
I never was and never will be an equine expert there was a strange
thrill in meeting with the age-old conditions whose names rang down
almost from mediaeval times. Quittor, fistulous withers, poll evil,
thrush, shoulder slip - vets had been wrestling with them for hundreds
of years using very much the same drugs and procedures as myself. Armed
with my firing iron and box of blister I plunged determinedly into what
had always been the surging mainstream of veterinary life.

And now, in less than three years the stream had dwindled, not exactly
to a trickle but certainly to the stage where the final dry-up was in
sight. This meant, in a way, a lessening of the pressures on the
veterinary surgeon because there is no doubt that horse work was the
roughest and most arduous part of our life.

So that today, as I looked at the three-year-old gelding, it occurred to
me that this sort of thing wasn't happening as often as it did. He had a
long tear in his flank where he had caught himself on barbed wire and it
gaped open whenever he moved. There was no getting away from the fact
that it had to be stitched.

The horse was tied by the head in his stall, his right side against the
tall wooden partition. One of the farm men, a hefty six footer, took a
tight hold of the head collar and leaned back against the manger as I
puffed some iodoform into the wound. The horse didn't see to mind, which
was a comfort because he was a massive animal emanating an almost
tangible vitality and power. I threaded my needle with a length of silk,
lifted one of the lips of the wound and passed it through. This was
going to be no trouble, I thought as I lifted the flap at the other side
and pierced it, but as I was drawing the needle through, the gelding
made a convulsive leap and I felt as though a great wind had whistled
across the front of my body. Then, strangely, he was standing there
against the wooden boards as if nothing had happened.

On the occasions when I have been kicked I have never seen it coming. It
is surprising how quickly those great muscular legs can whip out. But
there was no doubt he had had a good go at me because my needle and silk
was nowhere to be seen, the big man at the head was staring at me with
wide eyes in a chalk white face and the front of my, clothing was in an
extraordinary state. I was wearing a gaberdine mac and it looked as if
somebody had taken a razor blade and painstakingly cut the material into
narrow strips which hung down in ragged strips to ground level. The
great iron-shod hoof had missed my legs by an inch or two but my mac was
a write-off.

I was standing there looking around me in a kind of stupor when I heard
a cheerful hail from the doorway.

"Now then, Mr. Herriot, what's he done at you?" Cliff Tyreman, the old
horseman, looked me up and down with a mixture of amusement and
asperity.

"He's nearly put me in hospital, Cliff," I replied shakily. "About the
closest near Miss. I've ever had. I just felt the wind of it."

"What were you tryin" to do?"

"Stitch that wound, but I'm not going to try any more. I'm off to the
surgery to get a chloroform muzzle."

The little man looked shocked. "You don't need no choloform. I'll haud
him and you'll have no trouble."

I m sorry, Cliff." I began to put away my suture materials, scissors and
powder. "You're a good bloke, I know, but he's had one go at me and he's
not getting another chance. I don't want to be lame for the rest of my
life."

The horseman's small, wiry frame seemed to bunch into a ball of
aggression. He thrust forward his head in a characteristic posture and
glared at me. "I've never heard owl as daft in me life." Then he swung
round on the big man who was still hanging on to the horse's head, the
ghastly pallor of his face now tinged with a delicate green. "Come on
out o" there Bob! You're that bloody scared ~ you're upsetting t'oss.
Come on out of it and ;et me have 'im!" l Bob gratefully left the head
and grinning sheepishly moved with care along the side of the horse. He
passed Cliff on the way and the little man's head didn't . reach his
shoulder. :.

Cliff seemed thoroughly insulted by the whole business. He took hold of
the I head collar and regarded the big animal with the disapproving
stare of a schoolmaster at a naughty child. The horse, still in the mood
for trouble, laid i back his ears and began to plunge about the stall,
his huge feet clattering ominously on the stone floor, but he came to
rest quickly as the little man uppercutted him furiously in the ribs.

"Get stood up straight there, ye big bugger. What's the matter with ye?"

Cliff barked and again he planted his tiny fist against the swelling
barrel of the chest, ' a puny blow which the animal could scarcely have
felt but which reduced him to quivering submission. "Try to kick, would
you, eh? I'll bloody fettle you!" He shook the head collar and fixed the
horse with a hypnotic stare as he spoke. Then he turned to me. "You can
come and do your job, Mr. Herriot, he won't hurt tha."

I looked irresolutely at the huge, lethal animal. Stepping open-eyed
into 4' dangerous situations is something vets are called upon regularly
to do and I suppose we all react differently. I know there were times
when an over-vivid imagination made me acutely aware of the dire
possibilities and now my mind seemed to be dwelling voluptuously on the
frightful power in those enormous shining quarters on the unyielding
flintiness of the spatulate feet with their rims of metal. Cliff's voice
cut into my musings. ~

"Come on, Mr. Herriot, I tell ye he won't hurt tha."

I reopened my box and tremblingly threaded another needle. I didn't seem
to have much option; the little man wasn't asking me, he was telling me.
I'd have to try again.

I couldn't have been a very impressive sight as I shuffled forwards,
almost tripping over the tattered hula-hula skirt which dangled in front
of me, my shaking hands reaching out once more for the wound, my heart
thundering in my ears. But I needn't have worried. It was just as the
little man had said; he didn't hurt me. In fact he never moved. He
seemed to be listening attentively to the muttering which Cliff was
directing into his face from a few inches" range. I powdered and
stitched and clipped as though working on an anatomical specimen.
Chloroform couldn't have done it any better.

As I retreated thankfully from the stall and began again to put away my
instruments the monologue at the horse's head began to change its
character.

The menacing growl was replaced by a wheedling, teasing chuckle. ::

"Well, ye see, you're just a daft awd bugger, getting yourself all
airigated over nowt. You're a good lad, really, aren't ye, a real good
lad." Cliff's hand ran caressingly over the neck and the towering animal
began to nuzzle his cheek, as completely in his sway as any Labrador
puppy.

When he had finished he came slowly from the stall, stroking the back,
ribs, belly and quarters, even giving a playful tweak at the tail on
parting while what had been a few minutes ago an explosive mountain of
bone and muscle submitted happily.

I pulled a packet of Gold Flake from my pocket. "Cliff, you're a marvel.
Will you have a cigarette?"

"It 'ud be like givin" a pig a strawberry," the little man replied, then
he thrust forth his tongue on which reposed a half-chewed gobbet of
tobacco. "It's allus there. Ah push it in just thing every mornin" soon
as I get out of bed and there it stays. You'd never know, would you?"

I must have looked comically surprised because the dark eyes gleamed ann
the rugged little face split into a delighted grin. I looked at that
grin - boyish, invincible - and reflected on the phenomenon that was
Cliff Tyreman.

In a community in which toughness and durability was the norm he stood
out as something exceptional. When I had first seen him nearly three
years ago barging among cattle, grabbing their noses and hanging on
effortlessly, I had put him down as an unusually fit middle-aged man;
but he was in fact nearly seventy There wasn't much of him but he was
formidable; with his long arms swinging, his stumping, pigeon-toed gait
and his lowered head he seemed always to be butting his way through
life.

"I didn't expect to see you today," I said. "I heard you had pneumonia."

He shrugged. "Aye, summat of t'sort. First time I've ever been off work
since I was a lad."

"And you should be in your bed now, I should say." I looked at the
heaving chest and partly open mouth. "I could hear you wheezing away
when you were at the horse's head."

"Nay, I can't stick that nohow. I'll be right in a day or two." He
seized a shovel and began busily clearing away the heap of manure behind
the horse, his breathing loud and stertorous in the silence.

Harland Grange was a large, mainly arable farm in the low country at the
foot of the Dale, and there had been a time when this stable had had a
horse standing in every one of the long row of stalls. There had been
over twenty with at least twelve regularly at work, but now there were
only two, the young horse I had been treating and an ancient grey called
Badger.

Cliff had been head horseman and when the revolution came he turned to
tractoring and other jobs around the farm with no fuss at all. This was
typical of the reaction of thousands of other farm workers throughout
the country; they didn't set up a howl at having to abandon the skills
of a lifetime and start anew - they just got on with it. In fact, the
younger men seized avidly upon the new machines and proved themselves
natural mechanics.

But to the old experts like Cliff, something had gone. He would say:
"It's a bloody sight easier sitting on a tractor - it used to play 'elf
with me feet walking up and down them fields all day." But he couldn't
lose his love of horses; the fellow feeling between working man and
working beast which had grown in him since childhood and was in his
blood forever.

My next visit to the farm was to see a fat bullock with a piece of
turnip stuck in his throat but while I was there, the farmer, Mr.
Gilling, asked me to have a look at old Badger.

"He's had a bit of a cough lately. Maybe it's just his age, but see what
you The old horse was the sole occupant of the stable now. "I've sold
the three year old," Mr. Gilling said. "But I'll still keep the old 'un
he'll be useful for a bit of light carting."

I glanced sideways at the farmer's granite features. He looked the least
sentimental of men but I knew why he was keeping the old horse. It was
for "Cliff will be pleased, anyway," I said.

Mr. Gilling nodded. "Aye, I never knew such a feller for 'osses. He was
never happier than when he was with them." He gave a short laugh. "Do
you know, I can remember years ago when he used to fall out with his
missus he'd come down to this stable of a night and sit among his
'osses. Just sit here for hours on end looking at 'em and smoking. That
was before he started chewing tobacco."

"And did you have Badger in those days?"

Aye, we bred him. Cliff helped at his foaling - I remember the little
beggar came arse first and,we had a bit of a job pullin" him out." He
smiled again. "Maybe that's why he was always Cliff's favourite. He
always worked Badge" himself - year in year out - and he was that proud
of 'im that if he had to take him into the town for any reason he'd
plait ribbons into his mane and hang all; his brasses on him first." He
shook his head reminiscently.

The old horse looked round with mild interest as I went up to him He we.
in his late twenties and everything about him suggested serene old age;
the gaunt; projection of the pelvic bones, the whiteness of face and
muzzle, the sunken eye with its benign expression. As I was about to
take his temperature he gave a sharp, barking cough and it gave me the
first clue to his ailment. I watched the rise and fall of his breathing
for a minute or two and the second clue was there to be seen; further
examination was unnecessary.

"He's broken winded, Mr. Gilling," I said. "Or he's got pulmonary
emphysema" to give it its proper name. Do you see that double lift of
the abdomen as he breaths out? That's because his lungs have lost their
elasticity and need an extra. effort to force the air out."

"What's caused it, then?"

"Well it's to do with his age, but he's got a bit of cold on him at the
moment and that's brought it out."

"Will he get rid of it in time?" the farmer asked.

"He'll be a bit better when he gets over his cold, but I'm afraid he'll
never be quite right. I'll give you some medicine to put in his drinking
water which will alleviate his symptoms." I went out to the car for a
bottle of the arsenical expectorant mixture which we used then.

It was about six weeks later that I heard from Mr. Gilling again. He
rang me about seven o'clock one evening.

"I'd like you to come out and have a look at old Badger," he said.

"What's wrong? Is it his broken wind again?"

"No, it's not that. He's still got the cough but it doesn't seem to
bother him much. No, I think he's got a touch of colic. I've got to go
out but Cliff will attend to you." ~

The little man was waiting for me in the yard. He was carrying an oil
lamp. As I came up to him I exclaimed in horror.

"Good God, Cliff, what have you been doing to yourself?" His face was a
patchwork of cuts and scratches and his nose, almost without skin,
jutted from between two black eyes.

He grinned through the wounds, his eyes dancing with merriment. "Came
off me bike t'other day. Hit a stone and went right over handlebars,
arse over tip." He burst out laughing at the very thought.

"But damn it, man, haven't you been to a doctor? You're not fit to be
out in that state."

"Doctor? Nay, there's no need to bother them fellers. It's nowt much."

He fingered a gash on his jaw. "Ah lapped me chin up for a day in a bit
o" bandage, but it's right enough now."

I shook my head as I followed him into the stable. He hung up the oil
lamp" then went over to the horse. ,?

"Can't reckon t'awd feller up," he said. "You'd think there wasn't much
ailin him but there's summat"."

There were no signs of violent pain but the animal kept transferring
his,weight from one hind foot to the other as if he did have a little
abdominal discomfort. His temperature was normal and he didn't show
symptoms a anything else.

~t I looked at him doubtfully. "Maybe he has a bit of colic. There's
nothing else to see, anyway. I'll give him an injection to settle him
down."

"Right you are, maister, that's good." Cliff watched me get my syringe
out then he looked around him into the shadows at the far end of the
stable.

"Funny seeing only one 'oss standing here. I remember when there was a
great row of 'em and the barfins and bridles hangin" there on the stalls
and the rest of the harness behind them all shinin" on "'wall." He
transferred his plug of tobacco to the other side of his mouth and
smiled. "By yaw, I were in here at six o'clock every morning feedin"
them and gettin" them ready for work and Ah'll tell you it was a sight
to see us all going" off ploughing at the start o" the day. Maybe six
pairs of 'osses setting off with their harness jinglin" and the
ploughmen sittin" sideways on their backs. Like a regular procession it
was."

I smiled. "It was an early start, Cliff."

"Aye, by Gaw, and a late finish. We'd bring the 'osses home at night and
give 'em a light feed and take their harness off, then we'd go and have
our own teas and we'd be back 'ere again afterwards, curry-combing and
dandy-brushin" all the sweat and dirt off 'em. Then we'd give them a
right good stiff feed of chop and oats and hay to set 'em up for the
next day."

"There wouldn't be much left of the evening then, was there?"

"Nay, there wasn't. It was about like work and bed, I reckon, but it
never bothered us."

I stepped forward to give Badger the injection, then paused. The old
horse had undergone a slight spasm, a barely perceptible stiffening of
the muscles, and as I looked at him.he cocked his tail for a second then
lowered it.

"There's something else here," I said. "Will you bring him out of his
stall Cliff, and let me see him walk across the yard."

And watching him clop over the cobbles I saw it again; the stiffness,
the raising of the tail. Something clicked in my mind, I walked over and
rapped him under the chin and as the membrane nictitans flicked across
his eye then slid slowly back I knew.

I paused for a moment. My casual little visit had suddenly become
charged with doom.

"Cliff," I said. "I'm afraid he's got tetanus."

"Lockjaw, you mean?" ~

"That's right. I'm sorry, but there's no doubt about it. Has he had any
wounds lately - especially in his feet?"

"Well he were dead lame about a fortnight ago and blacksmith let some
matter out of his hoof. Made a right big 'ole."

There it was. "It's a pity he didn't get an anti-tetanus shot at the
time," I said. I put my hand into the animal's mouth and tried to prise
it open but the jaws were clamped tightly together. "I don't suppose
he's been able to eat today."

"He had a bit this morning but nowt tonight. What's the lookout for him,
Mr. Herriot ?" What indeed? If Cliff had asked me the same question
today I would have been just as troubled to give him an answer. The
facts are that seventy to eighty per cent of tetanus cases die and
whatever you do to them in the way of treatment doesn't seem to make a
whit of difference to those figures. But I didn't want to sound entirely
defeatist.

"It's a very serious condition as you know, Cliff, but I'll do all I
can. I've got some antitoxin in the car and I'll inject that into his
vein and if the spasms get very bad I'll give him a sedative. As long as
he can drink there's a chance for him because he'll have to live on
fluids - gruel would be fine."

For a few days Badger didn't get any worse and I began to hope. I've
seen tetanus horses recover and it is a wonderful experience to come in
one day and find that the jaws have relaxed and the hungry animal can
once more draw food into its mouth But it didn't happen with Badger.
They had got the old horse into a big loose box where he could move
around in comfort and each day as I looked over the half door I felt
myself willing him to show some little sign of improvement; but instead,
after that first few days he began to deteriorate. A sudden movement; or
the approach of any person would throw him into a violent spasm so that
he would stagger stiff-legged round the box like a big wooden toy, his
eyes terrified, saliva drooling from between his fiercely clenched
teeth. One morning I we, sure he would fall and I suggested putting him
in slings. I had to go back to the surgery for the slings and it was
just as I was entering Skeldale House that th. phone rang.

It was Mr. Gilling. "He's beat us to it, I'm afraid. He's flat out on
the floor and I doubt it's a bad job, Mr. Herriot. We'll have to put him
down, won't we?"

"I'm afraid so."

"There's just one thing. Mallock will be taking him away but old Cliff
says he doesn't want Mallock to shoot 'im. Wants you to do it. Will you
come?"

I got out the humane killer and drove back to the farm, wondering at the
fact that the old man should find the idea of my bullet less repugnant
than the: knacker man's. Mr. Gilling was waiting in the box and by his
side Cliff,~ shoulders hunched, hands deep in his pockets. He turned to
me with a strange smile. :

"I was just saying to t'boss how grand t'awd lad used to look when I got
'im up for a show. By Gaw you should have seen him with 'is coat
polished and the~ feathers on his legs scrubbed as white as snow and a
big blue ribbon round his tail."

"I can imagine it, Cliff," I said. "Nobody could have looked after; him
better."

He took his hands from his pockets, crouched by the prostrate animal and
for: a few minutes stroked the white-flecked neck and pulled at the ears
while the old sunken eye looked at him impassively.

He began to speak softly to the old horse but his voice was steady,
almost conversational, as though he was chatting to a friend.

"Many's the thousand miles I've walked after you, awd lad, and many's
the talk we've had together. But I didn't have to say much to the, did
I? I reckon you knew every move I made, everything I said. Just one
little word and you always did what ah wanted you to do."

He rose to his feet. "I'll get on with me work now, boss," he said
firmly, and: strode out of the box.

I waited awhile so that he would not hear the bang which signalled the
end of Badger, the end of the horses of Harland Grange and the end of
the sweet core of Cliff Tyreman's life.

As I was leaving I saw the little man again. He was mounting the iron
seat of a roaring tractor and I shouted to him above the noise.

"The boss says he's going to get some sheep in and you'll be doing a bit
shepherding. I think you'll enjoy that."

Cliffs undefeated grin flashed out as he called back to me.

"Aye, I don't mind learnin" summat new. I'm nobbut a lad yet!"

:

:

_

Chapter Sixteen.

This was a different kind of ringing. I had gone to sleep as the great
bells in the church tower down the street pealed for the Christmas
midnight mass, but this was a sharper, shriller sound.

It was difficult at first to shake off the mantle of unreality in which
I had wrapped myself last night. Last night - Christmas Eve. It had been
like a culmination of all the ideas I had ever held about Christmas - a
flowering of emotions I had never experienced before. It had been
growing in me since the afternoon call to a tiny village where the snow
lay deep on the single street and on the walls and on the ledges of the
windows where the lights on the tinselled trees glowed red and blue and
gold; and as I left it in the dusk I drove beneath the laden branches of
a group of dark spruce as motionless as though they had been sketched
against the white background of the fields. And when I reached Darrowby
it was dark and around the market place the little shops were bright
with decorations and the light from the windows fell in a soft yellow
wash over the trodden snow of the cobbles. People, anonymously muffled,
were hurrying about, doing their last minute shopping, their feet
slithering over the rounded stones.

I had known many Christmases in Scotland but they had taken second place
to the New Year celebrations; there had been none of this air of subdued
excitement which started days before with folks shouting good wishes and
coloured lights winking on the lonely fell-sides and the farmers" wives
plucking the fat geese, the feathers piled deep around their feet. And
for fully two weeks you heard the children piping carols in the street
then knocking on the door for sixpences. And best of all, last night the
Methodist choir and sung out there, filling the night air with rich,
thrilling harmony.

Before going to bed and just as the church bells began, I closed the
door of Skeldale House behind me and walked again into the market place.
Nothing stirred now in the white square stretching smooth and cold and
empty under the moon, and there was a Dickens look about the ring of
houses and shops put together long before anybody thought of town
planning; tall and short, fat and thin, Squashed in crazily around the
cobbles, their snow-burdened roofs jagged and uneven against the frosty
sky.

As I walked back, the snow crunching under my feet, the bells clanging,
the sharp air tingling in my nostrils, the wonder and mystery of
Christmas enveloped me in a great wave. Peace on earth, goodwill towards
men; the words became meaningful as never before and I saw myself
suddenly as a tiny particle in the Scheme of things; Darrowby, the
farmers, the animals and me seemed for the first time like a warm,
comfortable entity. I hadn't been drinking but I almost floated up the
stairs of Skeldale House to my bedroom.

The temperature up there was about the same as in the street. It was
always !like that and I had developed the habit of hurling off my
clothes and leaping Into bed before the freezing air could get at me,
but tonight my movements were leisurely and when I finally crawled
between the sheets I was still wallowing in my Yuletide euphoria. There
wouldn't be much work tomorrow; I'd have a long lie - maybe till nine
and then a lazy day, a glorious hiatus in my busy life. As I drifted
into sleep it was as though I was surrounded by the smiling; faces of my
clients looking down at me with an all-embracing benevolence; and
strangely I fancied I could hear Singing, sweet and haunting, just like
the ~ methodist choir - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ... l But now there
was this other bell which wouldn't stop. Must be the alarm. :] But as I
pawed at the clock the noise continued and I saw that it was six
o'clock.

It was the phone of course. I lifted the receiver A metallic voice,
crisp and very Wideawake jarred in my ear. "Is that the vet?"

"Yes, Herriot speaking," I mumbled "This is Brown, Willet Hill. I've got
a cow down with milk fever. I want you here quick."

"Right, I'll see to it."

"Don't take ower long." Then a click at the far end.

I rolled on to my back and stared at the ceiling. So this was Christmas
Day The :lay when I was going to step out of the world for a spell and
luxuriate in the seasonal spirit. I hadn't bargained for this fellow
jerking me brutally back to reality. And not a word of regret Or
apology. No 'sorry to get you out of bed", or anything else, never mind
"Merry Christmas". It was just a bit hard.

Mr. Brown was waiting for me in the darkness of the farmyard. I had been
to his place a few times before and as my headlights blazed on him I was
struck, as always, by his appearance of perfect physical fitness. He was
a gingery man of about forty with high cheekbones set in a
sharp-featured clear-skinned face. Red hair peeped from under a check
cap and a faint auburn down covered his cheeks, his neck, the backs of
his hands. It made me a bit more sleepy just to look at him.

He didn't say good morning but nodded briefly then jerked his head in
the direction of the byre. "She's in there" was all he said.

He watched in silence as I gave the injections and it wasn't until I was
putting the empty bottles into my pocket that he spoke.

"Don't suppose I'll have to milk her today?"

"No," I replied. "Better leave the bag full." .

"Anything special about feedin"?"

"No, she can have anything she likes when she wants it." Mr. Brown was
very efficient. Always wanted to know every detail.

As we crossed the yard he halted suddenly and turned to face me. Could
it be that he was going to ask me in for a nice hot cup of tea?

"You know," he said, as I stood ankle deep in the snow, the frosty air
nipping at my ears. "I've had a few of these cases lately. Maybe there's
summat wrong . with my routine. Do you think I'm steaming up my cows too
much?"

"It's quite possible." I hurried towards the car. One thing I wasn't
going to do was deliver a lecture on animal husbandry at this moment My
hand was on the door handle when he said "I'll give you another ring if
she's not up by dinner time. And there's one other thing - that was a
hell of a: bill I had from you fellers last month, so tell your boss not
to be so savage with 'is pen." Then he turned and walked quickly towards
the house.

Well that was nice, I thought as I drove away. Not even thanks or
goodbye, just a complaint and a promise to haul me away from my roast
goose if necessary. A sudden wave of anger surged in me. Bloody farmers!

There were some miserable devils among them. Mr. Brown had doused my
festive feelings as effectively as if he had thrown a bucket of water
over me.

As I mounted the steps of Skeldale House the darkness had paled to a
shivery grey. Mrs. Hall met me in the passage She was carrying a tray.

"I'm sorry," she said. "There's another urgent job. Mr. Farnon's had to
go out, too. But I've got a cup of coffee and some fried bread for you.
Come in and sit down - you've got time to eat it before you go."

I sighed. It was going to be just another day after all. "What's this
about, Mrs. Hall?" I asked, sipping the coffee.

"It's old Mr. Kirby," she replied. "He's in a right state about his
nanny goat."

"Nanny goat!"

"Aye, he says she's choking."

"Choking! How the heck can she be choking?" I shouted.

"I'm sure I don't know. And I wish you wouldn't shout at me, Mr.
Herriot. It's not my fault."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hall, I'm really sorry." I finished the coffee
sheepishly. My feeling of goodwill was at a very low ebb.

Mr. Kirby was a retired farmer, but he had sensibly taken a cottage with
a bit of land where he kept enough stock to occupy his time - a cow, a
few pigs and his beloved goats. He had always had goats, even when he
was running his dairy herd; he had a thing about them.

The cottage was in a village high up the Dale. Mr. Kirby met me at the
gate.

"Ee, lad," he said. "I'm right sorry to be bothering you this early in
the morning and Christmas an" all, but I didn't have no choice.
Dorothy's real bad."

He led the way to a stone shed which had been converted into a row of
pens. Behind the wire of one of them a large white nanen goat peered out
at us anxiously and as I watched her she gulped, gave a series of
retching coughs, then stood trembling, saliva drooling from her mouth.

The farmer turned to me, wide-eyed. "You see, I had to get you out,
didn't I? If I left her till tomorrow she'd be a goner."

"You're right, Mr. Kirby," I replied. "You couldn't leave her. There's
something in her throat."

We went into the pen and as the old man held the goat against the wall I
tried to open her mouth. She didn't like it very much and as I prised
her jaws apart she startled me with a loud, long-drawn human-sounding
cry. It wasn't a big mouth but I have a small hand and, as the sharp
back teeth tried to nibble me, I poked a finger deep into the pharynx.

There was something there all right. I could just touch it but I
couldn't get hold of it. Then the animal began to throw her head about
and I had to come out; I stood there, saliva dripping from my hand,
looking thoughtfully at Dorothy.

After a few moments I turned to the farmer. "You know, this is a bit
baffling. I can feel something in the back of her throat, but it's soft
- like cloth. I'd been expecting to find a bit of twig, or something
sharp sticking in there - it's funny what a goat will pick up when she's
pottering around outside. But if it's cloth, what the heck is holding it
there? Why hasn't she swallowed it down?"

"Aye, it's a rum 'un isn't it?" The old man ran a gentle hand along the
animal's back. "Do you think she'll get rid of it herself? Maybe it'll
just slip down?"

"No, I don't. It's stuck fast, God knows how, but it is. And I've got to
get it out soon because she's beginning to blow up. Look there." I
pointed to the goat's left side, bulged by the tympanitic rumen, and as
I did so, Dorothy began another paroxysm of coughs which seemed almost
to tear her apart.

Mr. Kirby looked at me with a mute appeal, but just at that moment I
didn't see what I could do. Then I opened the door of the pen. "I'm
going to get my torch from the car. Maybe I can see something to explain
this."

The old man held the torch as I once more pulled the goat's mouth open
and again heard the curious child-like wailing. It was when the animal
was in full cry that I noticed something under the tongue - a thin, dark
band.

"I can see what's holding the thing now," I cried. "It's hooked round
the tongue with string or something." Carefully I pushed my forefinger
under the band and began to pull.

It wasn't string. It began to stretch as I pulled carefully at it  ...
like elastic. Then it stopped stretching and I felt a real resistance ..
. whatever was in the throat was beginning to move. I kept up a gentle
traction and very slowly the mysterious obstruction came sliding up over
the back of the tongue and into the! mouth, and when it came within
reach I let go the elastic, grabbed the sodden mass and hauled it forth.
It seemed as if there was no end to it - a long snake of dripping
material nearly two feet long - but at last I had it out on to the straw
of the pen.

Mr. Kirby seized it and held it up and as he unravelled the mass
wonderingly he gave a sudden cry.

"God 'elp us, it's me summer drawers!"

"Your what?"

"Me summer drawers. Ah don't like them long johns when weather gets
warmer and I allus change into these little short 'uns. Missus was
havin" a clearout afore the end of t'year and she didn't know whether to
wash 'em or mck them into dusters. She washed them at t'finish and
Dorothy must have got 'em off the line." He held up the tattered shorts
and regarded them ruefully. "By yaw, they've seen better days, but I
reckon Dorothy's fettled them this time."

Then his body began to shake silently, a few low giggles escaped from
him and finally he gave a great shout of laughter. It was an infectious
laugh and I joined in as I watched him. He went on for quite a long time
and when he had finished he was leaning weakly against the wire netting.

"Me poor awd drawers," he gasped, then leaned over and patted the goat's
head. "But as long as you're all right, lass, I'm not worried."

"Oh, she'll be O.K." I pointed to her left flank. "You can see her
stomach's going down already." As I spoke, Dorothy belched pleasurably
and began to nose interestedly at her hay rack.

The farmer gazed at her fondly. "Isn't that grand to see! She's ready
for her grub again. And if she hadn't got her tongue round the elastic
that lot would have gone right down and killed her."

"I really don't think it would, you know", I said. "It's amazing what
ruminants can carry around in their stomachs. I once found a bicycle
tyre inside a cow when I was operating for something else. The tyre
didn't seem to be bothering her in the least."

"I see." Mr. Kirby rubbed his chin. "So Dorothy might have wandered
around with me drawers inside her for years."

"It's possible. You'd never have known what became of them."

"By yaw, that's right." Mr. Kirby said, and for a moment I thought he
was going to start giggling again, but he mastered himself and seized my
arm. "But I don't know what I'm keeping you out here for, lad. You must
come in and have a bit o" Christmas cake."

Inside the tiny living room of the cottage I was ushered to the best
chair by the fireside where two rough logs blazed and crackled.

"Bring cake out for Mr. Herriot, mother," the farmer cried as he
rummaged in the pantry. He reappeared with a bottle of whisky at the
same time as his; wife bustled in carrying a cake thickly laid with
icing and ornamented with coloured spangles, toboggans, reindeers.

Mr. Kirby unscrewed the stopper. "You know, mother, we're lucky to have
such men as this to come out on a Christmas mornin" to help us."

"Aye, we are that." The old lady cut a thick slice of the cake and
placed it on a plate by the side of an enormous wedge of Wensleydale
cheese.

Her husband meanwhile was pouring my drink. Yorkshiremen are amateurs`

with whisky and there was something delightfully untutored in the way he
was sloshing it into the glass as if it was lemonade; he would have
filled it to the brim if I hadn't stopped him.

Drink in hand, cake on knee, I looked across at the farmer and his wife
who were sitting in upright kitchen chairs watching me with quiet
benevolence. The two faces had something in common - a kind of beauty.
You would find faces like that only in the country; deeply wrinkled and
weathered, clear-eyed, alight with a cheerful serenity.

I raised my glass. "A happy Christmas to you both."

The old couple nodded and replied smilingly. "And the same to you, Mr.
Herriot."

"Aye, and thanks again, lad," said Mr. Kirby. "We're right grateful to
you for runnin" out here to save awd Dorothy. We've maybe mucked up your
day for you but it would've mucked up ours if we'd lost the old lass,
wouldn't it, mother ?"

"Don't worry, you haven't spoiled anything for me." I said. "In fact
you've made me realise again that it really is Christmas." And as I
looked around the little room with the decorations hanging from the
low-beamed ceiling I could feel the emotions of last night surging
slowly back, a warmth creeping through me that had nothing to do with
the whisky.

I took a bit of the cake and followed it with a moist slice of cheese.
When I had first come to Yorkshire I had been aghast when offered this
unheard-of combination, but time had brought wisdom and I had discovered
that the mixture when chewed boldly together was exquisite; and,
strangely, I had also found that there was nothing more suitable for
washing it finally over the tonsils than a draught of raw whisky.

"You don't mind "'wireless, Mr. Herriot?" Mrs. Kirby asked. "We always
like to have it on Christmas morning to hear t'old hymns but I'll turn
it off if you like."

"No please leave it, it sounds grand." I turned to look at the old radio
with its chipped wooden veneer, the ornate scroll-work over the worn
fabric; it must have been one of the earliest models and it gave off a
tinny sound, but the singing of the church choir was none the less sweet
...  Hark the Herald Angels Sing - flooding the little room, mingling
with the splutter of the logs and the soft voices of the old people.

They showed me a picture of their son, who was a policeman over in
Houlton and their daughter who was married to a neighbouring farmer.
They were bringing their grand-children up for Christmas dinner as they
always did and Mrs. Kirby opened a box and ran a hand over the long row
of crackers. The choir started on Once in Royal David's City, I finished
my whisky and put up only feeble resistance as the farmer plied the
bottle again. Through the small window I could see the bright berries of
a holly tree pushing through their covering of snow.

It was really a shame to have to leave here and it was sadly that I
drained my glass for the second time and scooped up the last crumbs of
cake and icing from my plate.

Mr. Kirby came out with me and at the gate of the cottage he stopped and
held out his hand.

"Thank ye lad, I'm right grateful," he said. "And all the very best to
you."

For a moment the rough dry palm rasped against mine, then I was in the
car, Starting the engine. I looked at my watch; it was still only half
past nine but the first early sunshine was sparkling from a sky of
palest blue.

Beyond the village the road climbed steeply then curved around the rim
of the valley in a wide arc, and it was here that you came suddenly upon
the whole great expanse of the Plain of York spread out almost at your
feet. I always slowed down here and there was always something different
to see, but today the vast chequerboard of fields and farms and woods
stood out with a clarity I had never seen before. Maybe it was because
this was a holiday and down there no factory chimney smoked, no lorries
belched fumes, but the distance was magically foreshortened in the
clear, frosty air and I felt I could reach out and touch the familiar
landmarks far below.

I looked back at the enormous white billows and folds of the fells,
crowding close, one upon another into the blue distance, every crevice
uncannily defined, the highest summits glittering where the sun touched
them. I could see the village with the Kirbys" cottage at the end. I had
found Christmas and peace and goodwill and everything back there.

Farmers? They were the salt of the earth."

Chapter Seventeen.

Marmaduke Skelton was an object of interest to me long before our paths
crossed. For one thing I hadn't thought people were ever calledmarmaduke
outside of books and for another he was a particularly well known member
of the honourable profession of unqualified animal doctors.

Before the Veterinary Surgeons" Act of 1948 anybody who fancied his
chance at it could dabble in the treatment of animal disease. Veterinary
students could quite legally be sent out to cases while they were seeing
practice, certain members of the lay public did a bit of veterinary work
as a sideline while others did it as; a full time job. These last were
usually called 'quacks".

The disparaging nature of the term was often unjust because, though some
of them were a menace to the animal population, others were dedicated
men who did their job with responsibility and humanity and after the Act
were c brought into the profession's fold as Veterinary Practitioners.

But long before all this there were all sorts and types among them. The
one I knew best was Arthur Lumley, a charming little ex-plumber who ran
a thriving small animal practice in Brawton, much to the chagrin of Mr.
Angus Grier MRCVS. Arthur used to drive around in a small van. He always
wore a white coat and looked very clinical and efficient, and on the
side of the van in foot-high letters which would have got a qualified
man a severe dressing down from the Royal College was the legend,
"Arthur Lumley MKC, Canine and Feline Specialist." The lack of letters"
after their name was the one thing which differentiated these men from
qualified vets in the eyes of the general public and I was interested to
see that Arthur did have an academic attainment. However the degree of
MKC was unfamiliar to me and he was somewhat cagey when I asked him
about it; I did find out eventually what it stood for; Member of the
Kennel Club.

Marmaduke Skelton was of a vastly different breed. I had been working
long enough round the Scarburn district to become familiar with some of
the local history and it seemed that when Mr. and Mrs. Skelton were
producing a family in the early 1900s they must have thought their
offspring were destined for great things; they named their four sons
Marmaduke, Sebastian, Cornelius and, i i .

~ .

incredibly, Alonzo. The two middle brothers drove lorries for the
Express Dairy and Alonzo was a small farmer; one of my vivid memories is
the shock of surprise when I was filling up the forms after his
tuberculin test and asked him for his first name. The exotic appellation
pronounced in gruff Yorkshire was so incongruous that I thought he was
pulling my leg; in fact I was going to make a light comment but
something in his eye prompted me to leave it alone.

Marmaduke, or Duke as he was invariably called, was the colourful member
of the family. I had heard a lot about him on my visits to the Scarburn
farms; he was a 'right good hand" et calving, foaling and lambing, and
'as good as any vitnery" in the diagnosis and treatment of animals"
ailments. He was also an expert castrator, docker and pig-killer. He
made a nice living at his trade and, of course, in Ewan Ross he had the
ideal professional opposition; a veterinary surgeon who worked only when
he felt like it and who didn't bother to go to a case unless he was in
the mood. Much as the farmers liked and in many cases revered Ewan, they
were often forced to fall back on Duke's services.

If Duke had confined his activities to treating his patients I don't
think Ewan would ever have spared him a thought; but Skelton liked to
enliven his farm visits with sneers about the old Scotch vet who had
never been much good and was definitely getting past it now. Maybe even
that didn't get very far under Ewan's skin but at the mention of his
rival's name his mouth would harden a little and a ruminative expression
creep into the blue eyes.

And it wasn't easy to like Duke. There were the tales you heard about
his savage brawls and about how he knocked his wife and children around
when the mood was on him. I didn't find his appearance engaging either
when I first saw him swaggering across Scarburn market place; a black
bull of a man, a shaggy Heathcliffe with fierce, darting eyes and a hint
of braggadocio in the bright red handkerchief tied round his neck.

But on this particular afternoon I wasn't thinking about Duke Skelton,
in fact I wasn't thinking about anything much as I sprawled in a chair
by the Rosses" fireside. I had just finished one of Ginny's lunches;
something with the unassuming name of fish pie but in truth a magical
concoction in which the humble haddock was elevated, to unimagined
heights by the admixture of potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, macaroni and
things only Ginny knew. Then the apple crumble and the chair close to
the fire with the heat from the flames beating on my face.

The thoughts I had were slumbrous ones; that this house and the people
in it had come to have a magnetic attraction for me; that if this had
been a big successful practice the phone would have been ringing and
Ewan would be struggling into his coat as he chewed his last bite. And
an unworthy thought as I glanced through the window at the white garden
and the snow-burdened trees; that if I didn't hurry back to Darrowby.
Siegfried might do double the work and finish the lot before I got home.

Playing with the soothing picture of the muffled figure of my boss
battling round the farms I watched Ginny placing a coffee cup by her
husband's elbow. Ewan smiled up into her face and just then the phone
range.

Like most vets I am bell-happy and I jumped, but Ewan didn't. He began
quietly to sip his coffee as Ginny picked up the receiver and he didn't
change expression when his wife came over and said, "It's Tommy Thwaite.
One of his cows has put its calf bed out."

These dread tidings would have sent me leaping round the room but Ewan
took a long swallow at his coffee before replying.

Thank you, dear. Will you tell him I'll have a look at her shortly."

He turned to me and began to tell me something funny which had happened
to him that morning and when he had finished he went into his
characteristic laugh - showing nothing apart from a vibration of the
shoulders and a slight popping of the eyes. Then he relaxed in his chair
and recommenced his leisurely sipping.

Though it wasn't my case my feet were itching. A bovine prolapsed uterus
was not only an urgent condition but it held such grim promise of hard
labour that I could never get it over quickly enough. Some were worse
than others and I was always in a hurry to find out what was in store.

Ewan, however, appeared to be totally incurious. In fact he closed his
eyes and I thought for a moment he was settling down for a post prandial
nap. But it was only a gesture of resignation at the wrecking of his
afternoon's repose and he gave a final stretch and got up.

"Want to come with me, Jim?" he asked in his soft voice.

I hesitated for a moment then, callously abandoning Siegfried to his
fate, I nodded eagerly and followed Ewan into the kitchen.

He sat down and pulled on a pair of thick woollen over-socks which Ginny
had been warming by the stove, then he put on his Wellingtons, a short
overcoat" yellow gloves and a check cap. As he strolled along the narrow
track which had been dug through the garden snow he looked
extraordinarily youthful and debonair.

He didn't go into his dispensary this time and I wondered what equipment
he would use, thinking at the same time of Siegfried's words: "Ewan has
his own way of doing everything."

At the farm Mr. Thwaite trotted over to meet us. He was understandably
agitated but there was something else; a nervous rubbing of the hands,
an uneasy giggle as he watched my colleague opening the car boot.

"Mr. Ross," he blurted out at last, "I don't want you to be upset, but
I've summat to tell you." He paused for a moment. "Duke Skelton's in
there with my cow.

Ewan's expression did not flicker. "Oh, right. Then you won't need me."

He closed the boot, opened the door and got back into the car.

"Hey, hey, I didn't mean you to go away!" Mr. Thwaite ran round and
cried through the glass. "Duke just happened to be in "'village and he
said he'd help me out."

"Fine," Ewan said, winding down the window, "I don't mind in the least.
I'm sure he'll do a good job for you."

The farmer screwed up his face in misery. "But you don't understand.
He's been in there for about an hour and a half and he's no further
forward. He's not doin'a bit o" good and he's about buggered an" all. I
want you to take over, Mr. Ross."

"No, I'm sorry." Ewan gave him a level stare. "I couldn't possibly
interfere. You know how it is, Tommy. He's begun the job - I've got to
let him finish." He started the engine.

"No, no, don't go!" shouted Mr. Thwaite, beating the car roof with his
hands. "Duke's whacked, I tell ye. If you drive away now ah'm going to
lose one of ma best cows. You've got to help me, Mr. Ross!" He seemed on
the verge of tears.

My colleague looked at him thoughtfully as the engine purred. Then he
bent forward and turned off the ignition. "All right, I'll tell you what
- I'll go in there and see what he says. If he wants me to help, then I
will."

I followed him into the byre and as we paused just inside the door Duke
Skelton looked up from his work. He had been standing head down, one
hand resting on the rump of a massive cow, his mouth hanging open, his
great barrel chest heaving. The thick hair over his shoulders and ribs
was matted with blood from the huge everted uterus which dangled behind
the animal. Blood and filth L~ \

streaked his face and covered his arms and as he stared at us from under
his shaggy brows he looked like something from the jungle.

"Well now, Mr. Skelton," Ewan murmured conversationally. "How are you
getting on?"

Duke gave him a quick malevolent glance. "Ah'm coin" all right." The
words rumbled from deep down through his gaping lips.

Mr. Thwaite stepped forward, smiling ingratiatingly. "Come on, Duke,
you've done your best. I think you should let Mr. Ross give you a 'and
now."

"Well ah don't." The big man's jaw jutted suddenly. "If I was lookin"
for help I wouldn't want "IM." He turned away and seized the uterus.
Hoisting it in his arms he began to push at it with fierce
concentration.

Mr. Thwaite turned to us with an expression of despair and opened his
mouth to lament again, but Ewan silenced him with a raised hand, pulling
a milking stool from a corner and squatted down comfortably against a
wall. Unhurriedly he produced his little pouch and, one-handed, began to
make a cigarette; as he licked the paper, screwed up the end and applied
a match he gazed with blank eyes at the sweating, struggling figure a
few feet from him.

Duke had got the uterus about half way back. Grunting and gasping, legs
straddled, he had worked the engorged mass inch by inch inside the vulva
till he had just about enough cradled in his arms for one last push; and
as he stood there taking a breather with the great muscles of his
shoulders and arms rigid his immense strength was formidably displayed.
But he wasn't as strong as that cow. No man is as strong as a cow and
this cow was one of the biggest I had ever seen with a back like a table
top and rolls of fat round her tailhead.

I had been in this position myself and I knew what was coming next. I
didn't have to wait long. Duke took a long wheezing breath and made his
assault, heaving desperately, pushing with arms and chest, and for a
second or two he seemed to be winning as the mass disappeared steadily
inside. Then the cow gave an almost casual strain and the whole thing
welled out again till it hung down bumping against the animal's hocks.

As Duke almost collapsed against her pelvis in the same attitude as when
we first came in I felt pity for the man. I found him uncharming but I
felt for him. That could easily be me standing there; my jacket and
shirt hanging on that nail, my strength ebbing, my sweat mingling with
the blood. No man could do what he was trying to do. You could push back
a calf bed with the aid of an epidural anaesthetic to stop the straining
or you could sling the animal up to a beam with a block and tackle; you
couldn't just stand there and do it from scratch as this chap was trying
to do.

I was surprised Duke hadn't learned that with all his experience; but
apparently it still hadn't dawned on him even now because he was going
through all the motions of having another go. This time he got even
further - a few more inches inside before the cow popped it out again.
The animal appeared to have a sporting streak because there was
something premeditated about the way she played her victim along before
timing her thrust at the very last moment. Apart from that she seemed
somewhat bored by the whole business, in fact with the possible
exception of Ewan she was the calmest among us.

Duke was trying again. As he bent over wearily and picked up the gory
organ I wondered how often he had done this since he arrived nearly two
hours ago. He had guts, there was no doubt. But the end was near. There
was a frantic urgency about his movements as though he knew himself it
was his last throw and as he yet again neared his goal his grunts
changed to an agonised whimpering, an almost tearful sound as though he
were appealing to the recalcitrant mass, beseeching it to go away inside
and stay away, just this once.

And when the inevitable happened and the poor fellow, panting and
shaking, i surveyed once more the ruin of his hopes I had the feeling
that somebody had to do something.

Mr. Thwaite did it. "You've had enough, Duke," he said. "For God's sake
come in the house and get cleaned up. Missus'll give you a bit o" dinner
and while you're having it Mr. Ross'll see what he can do."

The big man, arms hanging limp by his sides, chest heaving, stared at
the farmer for a few seconds then he turned abruptly and snatched his
clothes from; the wall.

"Aw right," he said and began to walk slowly towards the door. He
stopped , opposite Ewan but didn't look at him. "But ah'll tell you
summat Maister Thwaite. If ah can't put that calf bed back this awd
bugger never will."

Ewan drew on his cigarette and peered up at him impassively. He didn't
follow him with his eyes as he left the byre but leaned back against the
wall, puffed out a thin plume of smoke and watched it rise and disappear
among the . shadows in the roof.

Mr. Thwaite was soon back. "Now, Mr. Ross," he said a little
breathlessly, "I'm sorry about you havin" to wait but we can get on now.
I expect you'll be needin" some fresh hot water and is there anything
else you want?"

Ewan dropped his cigarette on the cobbles and ground it with his foot.
"Yes, you can bring me a pound of sugar."

"What's that?"

"A pound of sugar."

"A pound of ... right, right ... I'll get it." .

In no time at all the farmer returned with an unopened paper bag. Ewan
split the top with his finger, walked over to the cow and began to dust
the sugar all over the uterus. Then he turned to Mr. Thwaite again.

"And I'll want a pig stool, too. I expect you have one."

"Oh aye, we have one, but what the hangmen" ... ?"

t., ~i ~.

Ewan cocked a gentle eye at him. "Bring it in, then. It's time we got
this job done."

As the farmer disappeared at a stiff gallop I went over to my colleague.
"What's going on, Ewan? What the devil are you chucking that sugar about
for?"

"Oh it draws the serum out of the uterus. You can't beat it when the
thing's engorged like that."

"It does?" I glanced unbelievingly at the bloated organ. "And aren't you
going to give her an epidural ... and some pituitrin ... and a calcium
injection?"

"Och no," Ewan replied with his slow smile. "I never bother about those
things."

I didn't get the chance to ask him what he wanted with the pig stool
because just then Mr. Thwaite trotted in with one under his arm.

Most farms used to have them. They were often called 'creels" and the
sides of bacon were laid on them at pig-killing time. This was a typical
specimen like a long low table with four short legs and a slatted
concave top. Ewan took hold of it and pushed it carefully under the cow
just in front of the udder while I stared at it through narrowed eyes. I
was getting out of my depth.

Ewan then walked unhurriedly out to his car and returned with a length
of rope and two objects wrapped in the inevitable brown paper. As he
draped the rope over the partition, pulled on a rubber parturition gown
and began to open the parcels I realised I was once again watching Ewan
setting out his stall.

From the first parcel he produced what looked like a beer tray but which
I decided couldn't possibly be; but when he said, "Here, hold this a
minute, Jim," and I read the emblazoned gold scroll, "John Smith's
Magnet Pale Ale" I had to change my mind. It was a beer tray.

He began to unfold the brown paper from the other object and my brain
reeled a little as he fished out an empty whisky bottle and placed it on
the tray.

standing there with my strange burden I felt like the stooge in a
conjuring act and I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if my colleague
had produced a live rabbit next.

But all he did was to fill the whisky bottle with some of the clean hot
water from the bucket.

Next he looped the rope round the cow's horns, passed it round the body
a couple of times then leaned back and pulled. Without protest the big
animal collapsed gently on top of the pig stool and lay there with her
rear end stuck high in the air.

"Right now, we can start," Ewan murmured, and as I threw down my jacket
and began to tear off my tie he turned to me in surprise.

"Here, here, what do you think you're doing?"

"Well I'm going to give you a hand, of course."

One corner of his mouth twitched upwards. "It's kind of you, Jim, but
there's no need to get stripped off. This will only take a minute. I
just want you and Mr. Thwaite to keep the thing level for me."

He gently hoisted the organ which to my fevered imagination had shrunk
visibly since the sugar, on to the beer tray and gave the farmer and me
an end each to hold.

Then he pushed the uterus back.

He did literally only take a minute or not much more. Without effort,
without breaking sweat or exerting visible pressure he returned that
vast mass to where it belonged while the cow, unable to strain or do a
thing about it, just lay there with an aggrieved expression on her face.
Then he took his whisky bottle, passed it carefully into the vagina and
disappeared up to arm's length where he began to move his shoulder
vigorously.

"What the hell are you doing now?" I whispered agitatedly into his ear
from my position at the end of the beer tray.

"I'm rotating each horn to get it back into place and pouring a little
hot water from the bottle into the ends of the horns to make sure
they're completely involuted."

"Oh, I see." I watched as he removed the bottle, soaped his arms in the
bucket and began to take off his overall.

"But aren't you going to stitch it in?" I blurted out.

Ewan shook his head. "No, Jim. If you put it back properly it never
comes out again."

He was drying his hands when the byre door opened and Duke Skelton
slouched in. He was washed and dressed, with his red handkerchief
knotted again round his neck and he glared fierce-eyed at the cow which,
tidied up and unperturbed, looked now just like all the other cows in
the row. His lips moved once or twice before he finally found his voice.

"Aye, it's all right for some people," he snarled. "Some people with
their bloody fancy injections and instruments! It's bloody easy that
way, isn't it." Then he swung round and was gone.

As I heard his heavy boots clattering across the yard it struck me that
his words were singularly inapt. What was there even remotely fancy
about a pig stool, a pound of sugar, a whisky bottle and a beer tray?

Chapter Eighteen.

"I work for cats."

That was how Mrs. Bond introduced herself on my first visit, gripping my
hand firmly and thrusting out her jaw defiantly as though challenging me
to make something of it. She was a big woman with a strong,
high-cheekboned face and a commanding presence and I wouldn't have
argued with her anyway, so I nodded gravely as though I fully understood
and agreed, and allowed her to lead me into the house.

I saw at once what she meant. The big kitchen-living room had been
completely given over to cats. There were cats on the sofas and chairs
and spilling in cascades on to the floor, cats sitting in rows along the
window sills and right in the middle of it all, little Mr. Bond, pallid,
wispy-moustached, in his shirt sleeves reading a newspaper.

It was a scene which was going to become very familiar. A lot of the
cats were obviously uncastrated Toms because the atmosphere was vibrant
with their distinctive smell - a fierce pungency which overwhelmed even
the sickly wisps from the big sauce-pans of nameless cat food bubbling
on the stove. And Mr. Bond was always there, always in his shirt sleeves
and reading his paper, a lonely little island in a sea of cats.

I had heard of the Bonds, of course. They were Londoners who for some
obscure reason had picked on North Yorkshire for their retirement.
People said they had a 'bit o" brass" and they had bought an old house
on the outskirts of Darrowby where they kept themselves to themselves
and the cats. I had heard that Mrs. Bond was in the habit of taking in
strays and feeding them and giving them a home if they wanted it and
this had predisposed me in her favour, because in my experience the
unfortunate feline species seemed to be fair game for every kind of
cruelty and neglect. They shot cats, threw things at them, starved them
and set their dogs on them for fun. It was good to see somebody taking
their side.

My patient on this first visit was no more than a big kitten, a
terrified little blob of black and white crouching in a corner.

"He's one of the outside cats," Mrs. Bond boomed.

"Outside cats?"

"Yes. All these you see here are the inside cats. The others are the
really wild ones who simply refuse to enter the house. I feed them of
course but the only time they come indoors is when they are ill."

"I see."

"I've had frightful trouble catching this one. I'm worried about his
eyes there seemed to be a skin growing over them, and I do hope you can
do something for him. His name, by the way, is Alfred."

"Alfred? Ah yes, quite." I advanced cautiously on the little half-grown
animal and was greeted by a waving set of claws and a series of
open-mouthed spittings. He was trapped in his corner or he would have
been off with the speed of light.

Examining him was going to be a problem. I turned to Mrs. Bond. "Could
you let me have a sheet of some kind? An old ironing sheet would do. I'm
going to have to wrap him up."

"Wrap him up?" Mrs. Bond looked very doubtful but she disappeared into
another room and returned with a tattered sheet of cotton which looked
just right.

I cleared the table of an amazing variety of cat feeding dishes, cat
books, cat medicines and spread out the sheet, then I approached my
patient again. You can't be in a hurry in a situation like this and it
took me perhaps five minutes of wheedling and "Puss-pulsing" while I
brought my hand nearer and nearer. When I got as far as being able to
stroke his cheek I made a quick grab at the scruff of his neck and
finally bore Alfred, protesting bitterly and lashing out in all
directions, over to the table. There, still holding tightly to his
scruff, I laid him on the sheet and started the wrapping operation.

This is something which as to be done quite often with obstreperous
felines and, although I say it, I am rather good at it. The idea is to
make a neat, tight roll, leaving the relevant piece of cat exposed; it
may be an injured paw, perhaps the tail, and in this case of course the
head. I think it was the beginning of Mrs. Bond's unquestioning faith in
me when she saw me quickly enveloping that cat till all you could see of
him was a small black and white head protruding from an immovable cocoon
of cloth. He and I were now facing each other, more or less eyeball to
eyeball, and Alfred couldn't do a thing about it.

As I say, I rather pride myself on this little expertise and even today
my veterinary colleagues have been known to remark: "Old Herriot may be
limited in many respects but by God he can wrap a cat."

As it turned out, there wasn't a skin growing over Alfred's eyes. There
never ~s.

"He's got a paralysis of the third eyelid, Mrs. Bond. Animals have this
membrane which flicks across the eye to protect it. In this case it
hasn't gone back, probably because the cat is in low condition - maybe
had a touch of cat flu or something else which has weakened him. I'll
give him an injection of vitamins and leave you some powder to put in
his food if you could keep him in for a few days. I think he'll be all
right in a week or two."

The injection presented no problems with Alfred furious but helpless
inside his sheet and I had come to the end of my first visit to Mrs.
Bond's.

It was the first of many. The lady and I established an immediate
rapport which was strengthened by the fact that I was always prepared to
spend time over her assorted charges; crawling on my stomach under piles
of logs in the outhouses to reach the outside cats, coaxing them down
from trees, stalking them endlessly through the shrubbery. But from my
point of view it was rewarding in many ways.

For instance there was the diversity of names she had for her cats. True
to her London upbringing she had named many of the Toms after the great
Arsenal team of those days. There was Eddie Hapgood, Cliff Bastin, Ted
Drake, Will Copping, but she did slip up in one case because Alex James
had kittens three times a year with unfailing regularity.

Then there was her way of calling them home. The first time I saw her at
this was on a still summer evening. The two cats she wanted me to see
were out in the garden somewhere and I walked with her to the back door
where she halted, clasped her hands across her bosom, closed her eyes
and gave tongue in a mellifluous contralto.

"Bates, Bates, Bates, Ba-hates." She actually sang out the words in a
reverent monotone except for a delightful little lilt on the "Be-hates".
Then once more she inflated her ample rib cage like an operatic prima
donna and out it came again, delivered with the utmost feeling.

"Bates, Bates Bates, Ba-hates."

Anyway it worked, because Bates the cat came trotting from behind a
clump of laurel. There remained the other patient and I watched Mrs.
Bond with interest.

She took up the same stance, breathed in, closed her eyes, composed her
features into a sweet half-smile and started again.

"Seven-times-three, Seven-times-three, Seven-times-three-hee, It was set
t o the same melody as Bates with the same dulcet rise and fall at the
end. She didn't get the quick response this time, though, and had to go
through the performance again and again, and as the notes lingered on
the still evening air the effect was startlingly like a muezzin calling
the faithful to prayer.

At length she was successful and a fat tortoiseshell slunk
apologetically along the wall-side into the house.

"By the way, Mrs. Bond," I asked, making my voice casual. "I didn't
quite catch the name of that last cat."

"Oh, Seven-times-three?" She smiled reminiscently. "Yes, she is a dear.
She's had three kittens seven times running, you see, so I thought it
rather a good name for her, don't you?"

"Yes, yes, I do indeed. Splendid name, splendid."

Another thing which warmed me towards Mrs. Bond was her concern for my
safety. I appreciated this because it is a rare trait among animal
owners. I can think of the trainer after one of his racehorses had
kicked me clean out of a loose box examining the animal anxiously to see
if it had damaged its foot; the little old lady dwarfed by the
bristling, teeth-bared Alsatian saying: "You'll be gentle with him won't
you and I hope you won't hurt him - he's very nervous"; the . farmer,
after an exhausting calving which I feel certain has knocked about two
years off my life expectancy, grunting morosely: "I doubt you've tired
that cow out, young man."

Mrs. Bond was different. She used to meet me at the door with an
enormous pair of gauntlets to protect my hands against scratches and it
was an inexpressible relief to find that somebody cared. It became part
of the pattern of my life; walking up the garden path among the
innumerable slinking, wild-eyed little creatures which were the outside
cats, the ceremonial acceptance of the gloves at the door, then the
entry into the charged atmosphere of the kitchen with little Mr. Bond
and his newspaper just visible among the milling furry bodies of the
inside cats. I was never able to ascertain Mr. Bond's attitude to cats -
come to think of it he hardly ever said anything - but I had the
impression he could take . them or leave them.

The gauntlets were a big help and at times they were a veritable
godsend. As in the case of Boris. Boris was an enormous blue-black
member of the outside cats and my bete noire in more senses than one. I
always cherished a private conviction that he had escaped from a zoo; I
had never seen a domestic cat with, such sleek, writhing muscles, such
dedicated ferocity. I'm sure there was a bit of puma in Boris somewhere.

It had been a sad day for the cat colony when he turned up. I have
always found it difficult to dislike any animal; most of the ones which
try to do us a: mischief are activated by fear, but Boris was different;
he was a malevolent bully and after his arrival the frequency of my
visits increased because of his habit of regularly beating up his
colleagues. I was forever stitching up tattered ears, dressing gnawed
limbs.

We had one trial of strength fairly early. Mrs. Bond wanted me to give
him a worm dose and I had the little tablet all ready held in forceps.
How I ever got hold of him I don't quite know, but I hustled him on to
the table and did my: wrapping act at lighting speed, swathing him in
roll upon roll of stout material.

; :1 , 1~ ,~

.

1 2 ~i Just for a few seconds I thought I had him as he stared up at me,
his great brilliant eyes full of hate. But as I pushed my loaded forceps
into his mouth he clamped his teeth viciously down on them and I could
feel claws of amazing power tearing inside the sheet. It was all over in
moments. A long leg shot out and ripped its way down my wrist, I let go
my tight hold of the neck and in a flash Boris sank his teeth through
the gauntlet into the ball of my thumb and was away. I was left standing
there stupidly, holding the fragmented worm tablet in a bleeding hand
and looking at the bunch of ribbons which had once been my wrapping
sheet. From then on Boris loathed the very sight of me and the feeling
was mutual.

But this was one of the few clouds in a serene sky. I continued to enjoy
my visits there and life proceeded on a tranquil course except, perhaps,
for some legpulling from my colleagues. They could never understand my
willingness to spend so much time over a.lot of cats. And of course this
fitted in with the general attitude because Siegfried didn't believe in
people keeping pets of any kind. He just couldn't understand their
mentality and propounded his views to anybody who cared to listen. He
himself, of course, kept five dogs and two cats. The dogs, all of them,
travelled everywhere with him in the car and he fed dogs and cats every
day with his own hands - wouldn't allow anybody else to do the job. In
the evening all seven animals would pile themselves round his feet as he
sat in his chair by the fire. To this day he is still as vehemently
anti-pet as ever, though another generation of waving dogs" tails almost
obscures him as he drives around and he also has several cats, a few
tanks of tropical fish and a couple of snakes.

Tristan saw me in action at Mrs. Bond's on only one occasion. I was
collecting some long forceps from the instrument cupboard when he came
into the room.

"Anything interesting, Jim?" he asked.

"No, not really. I'm just off to see one of the Bond cats. It's got a
bone stuck between its teeth."

The young man eyed me ruminatively for a moment. "Think I'll come with
you. I haven't seen much small animal stuff lately."

As we went down the garden at the cat establishment I felt a twinge of
embarrassment. One of the things which had built up my happy
relationship with Mrs. Bond was my tender concern for her charges. Even
with the wildest and the fiercest I exhibited only gentleness, patience
and solicitude; it wasn't really an act, it came quite naturally to me.
However I couldn't help wondering what Tristan would think of my cat
bedside manner.

Mrs. Bond in the doorway had summed up the situation in a flash and had
two pairs of gauntlets waiting. Tristan looked a little surprised as he
received his pair but thanked the lady with typical charm. He looked
still more surprised when he entered the kitchen, sniffed the rich
atmosphere and surveyed the masses of furry creatures occupying almost
every available inch of space.

"Mr. Herriot, I'm afraid it's Boris who has the bone in his teeth," Mrs.
Bond said.

"Boris!" My stomach lurched. "How on earth are we going to catch him?"

"Oh I've been rather clever," she replied. "I've managed to entice him
with some of his favourite food into a cat basket."

Tristan put his hand on a big wicker cage on the table. "In here, is
he?" he asked casually. He slipped back the catch and opened the lid.
For something like a third of a second the coiled creature within and
Tristan regarded each other tensely, then a sleek black body exploded
silently from the basket past the young man's left ear on to the top of
a tall cupboard.

"Christ!" said Tristan. "What the hell was that?" That" I said, 'was
Boris, and now we've got to get hold of him again." I climbed on to a
chair, reached slowly on to the cupboard top and started
"Puss-puss-puss'ing in my most beguiling tone.

After about a minute Tristan appeared to think he had a better idea; he
made a sudden leap and grabbed Boris's tail. But only briefly, because
the big cat freed himself in an instant and set off on a whirlwind
circuit of the room, along the tops of cupboards and dressers, across
the curtains, careering round and round like a wall of death rider.

Tristan stationed himself at a strategic point and as Boris shot past he
swiped at him with one of the gauntlets.

"Missed the bloody thing!" he shouted in chagrin. "But here he comes
again ... take that, you black sod! Damn it, I can't nail him!"

The docile little inside cats, startled by the scattering of plates and
tins and pans and by Tristan's cries and arm wavings, began to run
around in their turn, knocking over whatever Boris had missed. The noise
and confusion even got through to Mr. Bond because just for a moment he
raised his head and looked around him in mild surprise at the hurtling
bodies before returning to his newspaper.

Tristan, flushed with the excitement of the chase had really begun to
enjoy himself. I cringed inwardly as he shouted over to me happily.

"Send him on, Jim, I'll get the bugger next time round!"

We never did catch Boris. We just had to leave the piece of bone to work
its own way out, so it wasn't a successful veterinary visit. But Tristan
as we got back into the car smiled contentedly.

"That was great, Jim. I didn't realise you had such fun with your
pussies."

Mrs. Bond on the other hand, when I next saw her, was rather
tight-lipped over the whole thing.

"Mr. Herriot," she said, "I hope you aren't going to bring that young
man with you again.

Chapter Nineteen.

I always liked having a student with us. These young men had to see at
least six months" practice on their way through college and most of
their vacations were spent going round with a vet.

We, of course, had our own resident student in Tristan but he was in a
different category. I often envied him his remarkable brain because he
didn't have to be taught anything - he seemed to know things, to absorb
knowledge without apparent effort or indeed without showing interest. If
you took Tristan to a case he usually spent his time on the farm sitting
in the car reading his Daily Mirror and smoking Woodbines.

There were all types among the others the towns, some dull-witted, some
bright some from the country some from - but as I say, I liked having
them.

For one thing they were good company in the car. A big part of a country
vet's life consists of solitary driving and it was a relief to be able
to talk to somebody. It was wonderful, too, to have a gate-opener. Some
of the Outlying farms were approached through long, gated roads - one
which always struck terror into me had eight gates - and it is hard to
convey the feeling of sheer luxury when somebody else leaped out and
opened them.

And there was another little pleasure; asking the students questions. My
own days of studying and examinations were still fresh in my memory and
on top of that I had all the vast experience of nearly three years of
practice. It gave me a feeling of power to drop casual little queries
about the cases we saw and watch the lads squirm as I had so recently
squirmed myself. I suppose that even in those early days I was forming a
pattern for later life; unknown to myself I was falling in to the way of
asking a series of my own pet questions as all examiners are liable to
do and many years later I overhead one youngster asking another: "Has he
grilled you on the causes of fits in calves yet? Don't worry, he will."

That made me feel suddenly old but there was compensation on another
occasion when a newly qualified ex-student rushed up to me and offered
to buy me all the beer I could drink. "You know what the examiner asked
me in the final oral ?

The causes of fits in calves! By God I paralysed him - he had to beg me
to stop talking."

And students were useful in other ways. They ran and got things out of
the car boot, they pulled a rope at carvings, they were skilled
assistants at operations, they were a repository for my worries and
doubts; it isn't too much to say that during their brief visits they
revolutionised my life.

So this Easter I waited on the platform of Darrowby station with
pleasant anticipation. This lad had been recommended by one of the
Ministry officials. "A really first class chap. Final year London
several times gold medallist. He's seen mixed and town practice and
thought he ought to have a look at some of the real rural stuff. I said
I'd give you a ring. His name is Richard Carmody."

Veterinary students came in a variety of shapes and sizes but there were
a few features most of them had in common and I already had a mental
picture of an eager-faced lad in tweed jacket and rumpled slacks
carrying a rucksack. He would probably jump on to the platform as soon
as the train drew up. But this time there was no immediate sign of life
and a porter had begun to load a stack of egg boxes into the guard's van
before one of the compartment doors opened and a tall figure descended
in leisurely manner.

I was doubtful about his identity but he seemed to place me on sight. He
walked over, held out a hand and surveyed me with a level gaze.

"Mr. Herriot?"

"Yes ... er ... yes. That's right."

"My name is Carmody."

"Ah yes, good. How are you?" We shook hands and I took in the fine check
suit and tweedy hat, the shining brogues and pigskin case. This was a
very superior student, in fact a highly impressive young man. About a
couple of years younger than myself but with a mature air in the set of
his broad shoulders and the assurance on his strong, high-coloured face.

I led him across the bridge out on to the station yard. He didn't
actually raise his eyebrows when he saw my car but he shot a cold glance
at the mud-spattered vehicle, at the cracked windscreen and smooth
tyres; and when I opened the door for him I thought for a moment he was
going to wipe the seat before sitting down.

At the surgery I showed him round. I was only the assistant but I was
proud of our modest set-up and most people were impressed by their first
sight of it. But Carmody said "Hm", in the little operating room, "Yes,
I see," in the dispensary, and "Quite" at the instrument cupboard. In
the stockroom he was more forthcoming. He reached out and touched a
packet of our beloved Adrevan worm medicine for horses.

"Still using this stuff, eh?" he said with a faint smile.

~_

He didn't go into any ecstasies but he did show signs of approval when I
took him out through the french windows into the long, high-walled
garden where the daffodils glowed among the unkempt tangle and the
wisteria climbed high over the old bricks of the tall Georgian house. In
the cobbled yard at the foot of the garden he looked up at the rooks
making their din high in the overhanging elms and he gazed for a few
moments through the trees to where you could see the bare ribs of the
fells still showing the last white runners of winter.

"Charming," he murmured. "Charming."

I was glad enough to see him to his lodgings that evening. I felt I
needed time to readjust my thinking.

When we started out next morning I saw he had discarded his check suit
but was still very smart in a hacking jacket and flannels.

"Haven't you any protective clothing?" I asked.

"I've got these." He indicated a spotless pair of Wellingtons in the
back of the car.

"Yes, but I mean an oilskin or a coat of some kind. Some of our jobs are
pretty dirty."

He smiled indulgently. "Oh, I'm sure I'll be all right. I've been round
the farms before, you know."

I shrugged my shoulders and left it at that.

Our first visit was to a lame calf. The little animal was limping round
its pen holding up a fore leg and looking very woebegone. The knee was
visibly swollen and as I palpated it there seemed to be a lumpiness in
the fluid within as if there might be a flocculus of pus among it. The
temperature was a hundred and four.

I looked up at the farmer. "This is joint ill. He probably got ah
infection through his navel soon after birth and it's settled in his
knee. We'll have to take care of him because his internal organs such as
the liver and lungs can be affected. I'll give him an injection and
leave you some tablets for him."

I went out to the car and when I came back Carmody was bending over the
calf, feeling at the distended knee and inspecting the navel closely. I
gave my injection and we left.

"You know," Carmody said as we drove out of the yard, 'that wasn't joint
ill."

"Really?" I was a bit taken aback. I didn't mind students discussing the
pros and cons of my diagnoses as long as they didn't do it in front of
the farmer, but I had never had one tell me bluntly that I was wrong. I
made a mental note to try to keep this fellow away from Siegfried; one
remark like that and Siegfried would hurl him unhesitatingly out of the
car, big as he was.

"How do you make that out, then?" I asked him.

"Well there was only the one joint involved and the navel was perfectly
dry. No pain or swelling there. I should say he just sprained that
knee."

"You may be right, but wouldn't you say the temperature was a bit high
for a sprain?"

Carmody grunted and shook his head slightly. Apparently he had no
doubts.

A few gates cropped up in the course of our next batch of calls and
Carmody got out and opened them just like any ordinary being except that
he did it with a certain leisurely elegance. Watching his tall figure as
he paced across, his head held high, the smart hat set at just the right
angle, I had to admit again that he had enormous presence. It was
remarkable at his age.

Shortly before lunch I saw a cow that the farmer had said on the phone
might have To. "She's gone down t'nick ever since she calved, guvnor. I
doubt she's a screw, but you'd better have a look at her, anyroad."

As soon as I walked into the byre I knew what the trouble was. I have
been blessed with an unusually sensitive nose and the sickly sweet smell
of ketone hit me right away. It has always afforded me a childish
pleasure to be able to say suddenly in the middle of a tuberculin test
"There's a cow in here about three weeks calved that isn't doing very
well," and watch the farmer scratch his head and ask me how I knew.

I had another little triumph today. "Started going off her cake first
didn't she?" and the farmer nodded assent. "And the flesh has just
melted off her since then ?"

"That's right," the farmer said, "I've never seen a cow go down as
quick."

"Well you can stop worrying, Mr. Smith. She hasn't got TB, she's got
slow fever and we'll be able to put her right for you."

Slow fever is the local term for acetonaemia and the farmer smiled in
relief. "Damn. I'm glad! I thowt she was dog meat. I nearly rang Mallock
this morning."

I couldn't reach for the steroids which we use today, but I injected six
ounces of glucose and 100 units of insulin intravenously - it was one of
my pet remedies and might make modern vets laugh. But it used to work.
The cow, dead-eyed and gaunt, was too weak to struggle as the farmer
held her nose.

When I had finished I ran my hand over the jutting bones, covered, it
seemed, only by skin.

"She'll soon fatten up now," I said. "But cut her down to once a day
milking - that's half the battle. And if that doesn't work, stop milking
her entirely for two or three days."

"Yes, I reckon she's putting it in "'bucket instead of on her back."

"That's it exactly, Mr. Smith."

Carmody didn't seem to appreciate this interchange of home-spun wisdom
and fidgeted impatiently. I took my cue and headed for the car.

"I'll see her in a couple of days," I cried as we drove away, and waved
to Mrs. Smith who was looking out from the farmhouse doorway. Carmody
however raised his hat gravely and held it a few inches above his head
till we had left the yard, wh:eh was definitely better. I had noticed
him doing this at every place we had visited and it looked so good that
I was playing with the idea of starting to wear a hat so that I could
try it too.

I glanced sideways at my companion. Most of a morning's work done and I
hadn't asked him any questions. I cleared my throat.

"By the way, talking about that cow we've just seen, can you tell me
something about the causes of acetonaemia?"

Carmody regarded me impassively. "As a matter of fact I can't make up my
mind which theory I endorse at the moment. Stevens maintains it is the
incomplete oxidation of fatty acids, Sjollema leans towards liver
intoxication and Janssen implicates one of the centres of the autonomic
nervous system. My own view is that if we could only pin-point the exact
cause of the production of diacetic acid and beta-oxybutyric acid in the
metabolism we'd be well on the way to understanding the problem. Don't
you agree?"

I closed my mouth which had begun to hang open.

"Oh yes, I do indeed ... it's that oxy ... that old beta-oxy ... yes,
that's what it is, without a doubt." I slumped lower in my seat and
decided not to ask Carmody any more questions; and as the stone walls
flipped past the w.indows I began to face up to the gradually filtering
perception that this was a superior befog next to me. It was depressing
to ponder on the fact that not only was he big, good-looking" completely
sure of himself but brilliant as well. Also, I thought bitterly, he had
every appearance of being rich.

We rounded the corner of a lane and came up to a low huddle of stone
buildings It was the last call before lunch and the gate into the yard
was closed.

We might as well go through," I murmured. "Do you mind?"

The student heaved himself from the car, unlatched the gate and began to
brtog it round. And he did it as he seemed to do everything; coolly,
unhurriedly, with natural grace. As he passed the front of the car I was
studying him afresh, wondering again at his style, his massive
composure, when, apparently from nowhere, an evil looking little black
cur dog glided silently out, sank its teeth with dedicated venom into
Carmody's left buttock and slunk away.

Not even the most monolithic dignity can survive being bitten deeply and
without warning in the backside. Carmody screamed, leaped in the air
clutching his rear, then swarmed to the top of the gate with the agility
of a monkey. Squatting on the top spar, his natty hat tipped over one
eye, he glared about him "What the hell?" he yelled. "What the bloody
hell?"

"It's all right," I said, hurrying towards him and resisting the impulse
to throw myself on the ground and roll about. "It was just a dog."

"Dog? What dog? Where?" Carmody's cries took on a frantic note.

"It's gone - disappeared. I only saw it for a couple of seconds." And
indeed, as I looked around it was difficult to believe that that
flitting little black shadow had ever existed.

Carmody took a bit of coaxing down from the top of the gate and when he
finally did reach ground level he limped over and sat down in the car
instead of seeing the case. And when I saw the tattered cloth on his
bottom I couldn't blame him for not risking a further attack. If it had
been anybody else I'd have told him to drop his pants so that I could
slap on some iodine but in this instance I somehow couldn't bring myself
to do it. I left him sitting there.

Chapter Twenty.

When Carmody turned up for the afternoon round he had completely
recovered his poise. He had changed his flannels and adopted a somewhat
lopsided sitting position in the car but apart from that the dog episode
might never have happened. In fact we had hardly got under way when he
addressed me with a touch of arrogance.

"Look, I'm not going to learn much just watching you do things. Do you
think I could carry out injections and the like? I want actual
experience with the animals themselves."

I didn't answer for a moment but stared ahead through the maze of fine
cracks on the windscreen. I couldn't very well tell him that I was still
trying to establish myself with the farmers and that some of them had
definite reservations about my capabilities. Then I turned to him.

"OK. I'll have to do the diagnosing but whenever possible you can carry
on from there."

He soon had his first taste of action. I decided that a litter of ten
week old pigs might benefit from an injection of E cold antiserum and
handed him the bottle and syringe. And as he moved purposefully among
the little animals I thought with gloomy satisfaction that though I may
not be all fait with all the small I print in the text books I did know
better than to chase pigs into the dirty end of the pen to catch them.
Because with Carmody in close pursuit the squealing creatures leaped
from their straw bed and charged in a body towards a stagnant lake of
urine against the far wall. And as the student grabbed at their hind
legs the pigs scrabbled among the filth, kicking it back over him in a
steady shower. He did finally get them all injected but at the end his
smart outfit was liberally spattered and I had to open the windows wide
to tolerate his presence in the car.

The next visit was to a big arable farm in the low country, and it was
one of the few places where they had hung on to their horses; the long
stable had several stalls in use and the names of the horses on the wall
above; Boxer, Captain" Bobby, Tommy, and the mares Bonny and Daisy. It
was Tommy the old cart horse we had to see and his trouble was a
'stoppage".

Tommy was an old friend of mine; he kept having mild bouts of colic with
constipation and I often wondered if he had a faecolith lurking about in
his bowels somewhere. Anyway, six drachms of Istin in a pint of water
invariably restored him to normal health and I began automatically to
shake up the yellow powder in a drenching bottle. Meanwhile the farmer
and his man turned the horse round in his stall, ran a rope under his
nose band, threw it over a beam in the stable roof and pulled the head
upwards.

I handed the bottle to Carmody and stepped back. The student looked up
and hesitated. Tommy was a big horse and the head, pulled high, was far
beyond reach; but the farm man pushed a ramshackle kitchen chair
wordlessly forward and Carmody mounted it and stood swaying
precariously.

I watched with interest. Horses are awkward things to drench at any time
and Tommy didn't like Istin, even though it was good for him. On my last
visit I had noticed that he was becoming very clever at holding the
bitter mixture at the back of his throat instead of swallowing it. I had
managed to foil him by tapping him under the chin just as he was toying
with the idea of coughing it out and he had gulped it down with an
offended look. But it was more and more becoming a battle of wits.

Carmody never really had a chance. He started off well enough by
grasping the horse's tongue and thrusting the bottle past the teeth but
Tommy outwitted him effortlessly by inclining his head and allowing the
liquid to flow from the far side of his mouth.

"It's coming out t'other side, young man!" the farmer cried with some
asperity.

The student gasped and tried to direct the flow down the throat but
Tommy had summed him up immediately as an amateur and was now in
complete command of the situation. By judicious rolling of the tongue
and a series of little coughs and snorts he kept ridding himself of most
of the medicine and I felt a pang of pity at the sight of Carmody
weaving about on the creaking chair as the yellow fluid cascaded over
his clothes.

At the end, the farmer squinted into the empty bottle.

"Well I reckon t'oss got SOME of it," he muttered sourly Carmody eyed
him impassively for a moment, shook a few ounces of Istin solution from
somewhere up his sleeve and strode out of the stable.

At the next farm I was surprised to detect a vein of sadism in my
makeup. The owner, a breeder of pedigree Large Whits pigs, was exporting
a sow abroad and it had to be subjected to various tests including a
blood sample for Brucellosis. Extracting a few c.c."s of blood from the
ear vein of a struggling pig is a job which makes most vets shudder and
it was clearly a dirty trick to ask a student to do it, but the memory
of his coldly confident request at the beginning of the afternoon seemed
to have stilled my conscience. I handed him the syringe with scarcely a
qualm.

The pigman slipped a noose into the sow's mouth and drew it tight over
the snout and behind the canine teeth. This common method of restraint
isn't at all painful but the sow was one of those who didn't like any
form of mucking about. She was a huge animal and as soon as she felt the
rope she opened her mouth wide m a long-drawn, resentful scream. The
volume of sound was incredible and she kept it up effortlessly without
any apparent need to draw breath. Conversation from then on was out of
the question and I watched in the appalling din as Carmody put an
elastic tourniquet at the base of the sow's ear, swabbed the surface
with spirit and then poked with his needle at the small blood vessel.
Nothing happened. He tried again but the syringe remained obstinately
empty. He had a few more attempts then, as I felt the top of my head was
going to come loose I wandered from the pen into the peace of the yard.

I took a leisurely stroll round the outside of the piggery, pausing for
a minute or two to look at the view at the far end where the noise was
comparatively faint. When I returned to the pen the screaming hit me
again like a pneumatic drill and Carmody, sweating and slightly
pop-eyed, looked up from the ear where he was still jabbing fruitlessly.
It seemed to me that everybody had had enough. Using sign language I
indicated to the student that I'd like to have a go and by a happy
chance my first effort brought a dark welling of blood into the syringe.
I waved to the pigman to remove the rope and the moment he did so the
big sow switched off the noise magically and began to nose, quite
unperturbed, among the straw.

"Nothing very exciting at the next place," I kept the triumph out of my
voice as we drove away. "Just a bullock with a tumour on its jaw. But
it's an interesting herd - all Galloways, and this group we're going to
see have been wintered outside. They're the toughest animals in the
district." Carmody nodded. Nothing I said seemed to rouse much
enthusiasm in him. For myself this herd of untamed black cattle always
held a certain fascination; contacts with them were always coloured by a
degree of uncertainty - sometimes you could catch them to examine them,
sometimes you couldn't.

As we approached the farm I could see a bunch of about thirty bullocks
streaming down the scrubby hillside on our right. The farm men were
driving them down through the scattered gorse bushes and the sparse
groups of trees to where the stone walls met in a rough V at the front.

One of them waved to me. "We're going to try to get a rope on 'im down
in the corner while he's among his mates. He's a wick bugger - you'd
never get near him in t field."

After a lot of shouting and waving and running about the bullocks were
finally cornered and they stood in a tight, uneasy pack, their shaggy
black polls bobbing among the steam rising from their bodies.

"There he is! You can see the thing on his face." A man pointed to a big
beast about the middle of the bunch and began to push his way towards
him. My admiration for the Yorkshire farm worker rose another notch as I
watched him squeezing between the plunging, kicking animals. "When I get
the rope on his head you'll all have to get on t'other end - one man'll
never hold 'im." He gasped as he fought his way forward.

He was obviously an expert because as soon as he got within reach he
dropped the halter on to the bullock's head with practised skill.
"Right!" he shouted. "Give me a hand with him. We have 'im now."

But as he spoke the beast gave a great bellow and began to charge from
the pack. The man cried out despairingly and disappeared among the hairy
bodies. The rope whipped free out of reach of everybody. Except Carmody.
As the bullock shot past him he grabbed the trailing rope with a reflex
action and hung on.

I watched, fascinated, as man and beast careered across the field. They
were travelling away from me towards the far slope, the animal head
down, legs pistoning, going like a racehorse, the student also at full
speed but very upright, both hands on the rope in front of him, a
picture of resolution.

The men and I were helpless spectators and we stood in a silent group as
the beast turned left suddenly and disappeared behind a clump of low
trees. It was gone for only a few moments but it seemed a long time and
when it reappeared it was going faster than ever, hurtling over the turf
like a black thunderbolt. Carmody" incredibly, was still there on the
end of the rope and still very upright but his strides had increased to
an impossible length till he seemed to be touching the ground only every
twenty feet or so.

I marvelled at his tenacity but obviously the end was near. He took a
last few soaring, swooping steps then he was down on his face. But he
didn't let go. The bullock, going better than ever, had turned towards
us now, dragging the inert form apparently without effort, and I winced
as I saw it was headed straight for a long row of cow pats.

It was when Carmody was skidding face down through the third heap of
muck that I suddenly began to~like him. And when he finally did have to
release his hold and lay for a moment motionless on the grass I hurried
over to help him up. He thanked me briefly then looked calmly across the
field at a sight which is familiar to every veterinary surgeon - his
patient thundering out of sight across the far horizon.

The student was almost unrecognisable. His clothes and face were
plastered with filth except where the saffron streaks of the Istin
showed up like war paint, he smelt abominably, he had been bitten in the
backside, nothing had really gone right for him all day yet he was
curiously undefeated. I smiled to myself. It was no good judging this
bloke by ordinary standards; I could recognise the seeds of greatness
when I saw them.

Carmody stayed with us for two weeks and after that first day I got on
with him not so badly. Of course it wasn't the same relationship as with
other students; there was always a barrier of reserve. He spent a lot of
time squinting down the practice microscope at blood films, skin
scrapings, milk smears, and by the end of each day he had collected a
fresh supply of samples from the cases he had seen. He would come and
drink a polite beer with me after an evening call but there was none of
the giggling over the day's events as with the other young lads. I had
the feeling always that he would rather have been writing up his case
book and working out his findings.

But I didn't mind. I found an interest in being in contact with a truly
scientific mind. He was as far removed as he could be from the
traditional studious swot - his was a cold, superior intellect and there
was something rewarding in watching him at work.

I didn't see Carmody again for over twenty years. I picked out his name
in the Record when he qualified with top marks then he disappeared into
the great world of research for a while to emerge with a Ph.D. and over
the years he added a string of further degrees and qualifications. Every
now and then an unintelligible article would appear in the professional
journals under his name and it became commonplace when reading
scientific papers to see references to what Dr. Carmody had said on the
subject.

When I finally did see him he was the guest of honour at a professional
banquet, an international celebrity heavy with honours. From where I was
Sitting at the far end of one of the side tables I listened to his
masterly speech with a feeling of inevitability, the wide grasp of his
subject, the brilliant exposition - I had seen it all coming those many
years ago.

Afterwards when we had left the tables he moved among us and I gazed
with Something like awe at the majestic figure approaching. Carmody had
always been big, but with the tail coat tight across the massive
shoulders and the vast L~

expanse of gleaming shirt front stretched over the curving abdomen he
was almost overpowering. As he passed he stopped and looked at me.

"It's Herriot, isn't it?"the handsome, high-coloured face still had that
look of calm power.

"Yes, it is. It's good to see you again."

We shook hands. "And how is the practice at Darrowby?"

"Oh, as usual," I replied. "Bit too busy at times. We could do with some
help if ever you felt like it."

Carmody nodded gravely. "I'd like that very much. It would be good for
me."

He was about to move on when he paused. "Perhaps you'd let me know any
time you want a pig bled." For a moment we looked into each other's eyes
and I saw a small flame flicker briefly in the frosty blue. Then he was
gone.

As I looked at the retreating back a hand gripped my arm. It was Brian
Miller, a happily obscure practitioner like myself.

"Come on, Jim, I'll buy you a drink," he said.

We went into the bar and ordered two beers.

"That Carmody!" Brian said. "The man's got a tremendous brain, but by
God he's a cold fish."

I sipped at the beer and looked thoughtfully into my glass for a few
seconds.

"Oh I don't know," I said. "He certainly gives that impression, but
Carmody's all right."

Chapter Twenty-one.

The big room at Skeldale House was full. It seemed to me that this room
with its graceful alcoves, high, carved ceiling and french windows lay
at the centre of our life in Darrowby. It was where Siegfried, Tristan
and I gathered when the day's work was done, toasting our feet by the
white wood fireplace with the glass-fronted cupboard on top, talking
over the day's events. It was the heart of our bachelor existence,
sitting there in a happy stupor, reading, listening to the radio,
Tristan usually flipping effortlessly through the Daily Telegraph
crossword.

It was where Siegfried entertained his friends and there was a constant
stream of them - old and young, male and female. But tonight it was
Tristan's turn and the pack of young people with drinks in their hands
were there at his invitation And they wouldn't need much persuasion.
Though just about the opposite of his brother in many ways he had the
same attractiveness which brought the friends running at the crook of a
finger.

The occasion was the Daffodil Ball at the Drovers" Arms and we were
dressed in our best. This was a different kind of function from the
usual village institute hop with the farm lads in their big boots and
music from a scraping fiddle and piano. It was a proper dance with a
popular local band - Lenny Butterfield and his Hot Shots - and was an
annual affair to herald the arrival of spring.

I watched Tristan dispensing the drinks. The bottles of whisky, gin and
sherry which Siegfried kept in the fireplace cupboard had taken some
severe punishment but Tristan himself had been abstemious. An occasional
sip from a glass of light ale perhaps, but nothing more. Drinking, to
him, meant the bulk intake of ;:

l l draught bitter; all else was mere vanity and folly. Dainty little
glasses were anathema and even now when I see him at a party where
everybody is holding small drinks Tristan somehow contrives to have a
pint in his hand.

"Nice little gathering, Jim," he said, appearing at my elbow. "A few
more blokes than girls but that won't matter much."

I eyed him coldly. I knew why there were extra men. It was so that
Tristan wouldn't have to take the floor too often. It fitted in with his
general dislike of squandering energy that he was an unenthusiastic
dancer; he didn't mind walking a girl round the floor now and again
during the evening but he preferred to spend most of the time in the
bar.

So, in fact, did a lot of the Darrowby folk. When we arrived at the
Drovers the bar was congested while only a dedicated few circled round
the ballroom. But as time went on more and more couples ventured out and
by ten o'clock the dance floor was truly packed. ~

And I soon found I was enjoying myself. Tristan's friends were an
effervescent bunch; likable young men and attractive girls; I just
couldn't help having a good time.

Butterfield's famed band in their short red jackets added greatly to the
general merriment. Lenny himself looked about fifty-five and indeed all
four of the Hot Shots ensemble were rather elderly, but they made up for
their grey hairs by sheer vivacity. Not that Lenny's hair was grey; it
was dyed a determined black and he thumped the piano with dynamic
energy, beaming out at the company through his horn-rimmed glasses,
occasionally bawling a chorus into the microphone by his side,
announcing the dances, making throaty wisecracks. He gave value for
money.

There was no pairing off in our party and I danced with all the girls in
turn. At the peak of the evening I was jockeying my way around the floor
with Daphne and the way she was constructed made it a rewarding
experience. I never have been one for skinny women but I suppose you
could say that Daphne's development had strayed a little too far in the
other direction. She wasn't fat, just lavishly endowed.

Battling through the crush, colliding with exuberant neighbours,
bouncing deliciously off Daphne, with everybody singing as they danced
and the Hot Shots pouring out an insistent boom-boom beat, I felt I
hadn't a care in the world. And then I saw Helen.

She was dancing with the inevitable Richard Edmundson, his shining gold
head floating above the company like an emblem of doom. And it was
uncanny how in an instant my cosy little world disintegrated leaving a
chill gnawing emptiness.

When the music stopped I returned Daphne to her friends and went to find
Tristan. The comfortable little bar in the Drovers was overflowing and
the temperature like an oven. Through an almost impenetrable fog of
cigarette smoke I discerned my colleague on a high stool holding court
with a group of perspiring revellers. Tristan himself looked cool and,
as always, profoundly content He drained his glass, smacked his lips
gently as though it had been the best pint of beer he'd ever tasted,
then, as he reached across the counter and Courteously requested a
refill he spotted me struggling towards him.

When I reached his stool he laid an affable hand on my shoulder, "Ah,
Jim, nice to see you. Splendid dance, this, don't you think."

I didn't bring up the fact that I hadn't seen him on the floor yet, but
making my voice casual I mentioned that Helen was there.

Tristan nodded benignly. "Yes, saw her come in. Why don't you go and
dance "I can't do that. She's with a partner - young Edmundson."

"Not at all." Tristan surveyed his fresh pint with a critical eye and
took an exploratory sip. "She's with a party, like us. No partner."

"How do you know that?"

"I watched all the fellows hang their coats out there while the girls
went upstairs. No reason at all why you shouldn't have a dance with
her."

"I see." I hesitated for a few moments then made my way back to the
ballroom But it wasn't as easy as that. I had to keep doing my duty with
the girls in our group and whenever I headed for Helen she was whisked
away by one of her men friends before I got near her. At times I fancied
she was looking over at me but I couldn't be sure; the only thing I knew
for certain was that I wasn't enjoying myself any more; the magic and
gaiety had gone and I felt a rising misery at the thought that this was
going to be another of my frustrating contacts with Helen when all I
could do was look at her hopelessly. Only this time was worse - I hadn't
even spoken to her.

I was almost relieved when the manager came up and told me there was a
call for me. I went to the phone and spoke to Mrs. Hall. There was a
bitch in trouble whelping and I had to go. I looked at my watch - after
midnight, so that was the end of the dance for me.

I stood for a moment listening to the muffled thudding from the dance
floor then slowly pulled on my coat before going in to say goodbye to
Tristan's friends. I exchanged a few words with them, waved, then turned
back and pushed the swing door open.

Helen was standing there, about a foot away from me. Her hand was on the
door, too. I didn't wonder whether she was going in or out but stared
dumbly into her smiling blue eyes.

"Leaving already, Jim?" she said.

"Yes, I've got a call, I'm afraid."

"Oh what a shame. I hope it's nothing very serious."

I opened my mouth to speak, but her dark beauty and the very nearness of
her suddenly filled my world and a wave of hopeless longing swept over
and submerged me. I slid my hand a few inches down the door and gripped
hers as a drowning man might, and wonderingly I felt her fingers come
round and entwine themselves tightly in mine.

And in an instant there was no band, no noise, no people, just the two
of us standing very close in the doorway.

"Come with me," I said.

Helen's eyes were very large as she smiled that smile I knew so well.

"I'll get my coat," she murmured.

This wasn't really me, I thought, standing on the hall carpet watching
Helen ,< trotting quickly up the stairs, but I had to believe it as she
reappeared on the landing pulling on her coat. Outside, on the cobbles
of the market place my car, too, appeared to be taken by surprise
because it roared into life at the first touch of the starter.

I had to go back to the surgery for my whelping instruments and in the
siren t moonlit street we got out and I opened the big white door to
Skeldale House. ~;

And once in the passage it was the most natural thing in the world to
take her in my arms and kiss her gratefully and unhurriedly. I had
waited a long] time for this and the minutes flowed past unnoticed as we
stood there, our feet; on the black and red eighteenth-century tiles,
our heads almost touching the vast] picture of the Death of Nelson which
dominated the entrance. ,!

We kissed again at the first bend of the passage under the companion
picture"] of the Meeting of Wellington and Blucher at Waterloo. We
kissed at the second bend by the tall cupboard where Siegfried kept his
riding coats and boots. W kissed in the dispensary in between searching
for my instruments. Then we tried it out in the garden and this was the
best of all with the Rowers still and expectant in the moonlight and the
fragrance of the moist earth and grass rising about us.

I have never driven so slowly to a case. About ten miles an hour with
Helen's head on my shoulder and all the scents of spring drifting in
through the open window. And it was like sailing from stormy seas into a
sweet, safe harbour, like coming home.

The light in the cottage window was the only one showing in the sleeping
village, and when I knocked at the door Bert Chapman answered. Bert was
a council roadman - one of the breed for whom I felt an abiding
affinity.

The council men were my brethren of the roads.^Like me they spent most
of their lives on the lonely by-ways around Darrowby and I saw them most
days of the week, repairing the tarmac, cutting back the grass verges in
the summer, gritting and snow ploughing in the winter. And when they
spotted me driving past they would grin cheerfully and wave as if the
very sight of me had made their day. I don't know whether they were
specially picked for good nature but I don't think I have ever met a
more equable body of men.

One old farmer remarked sourly to me once. "There's no wonder the
buggers are 'appy, they've got nowt to do." An exaggeration, of course,
but I knew how he felt; compared with farming every other job was easy.

I had seen Bert Chapman just a day or two ago, sitting on a grassy bank,
his shovel by his side, a vast sandwich in his hand. He had raised a
corded forearm in salute, a broad smile bisecting his round,
sun-reddened face. He had looked eternally carefree but tonight his
smile was strained.

"I'm sorry to bother you this late, Mr. Herriot," he said as he ushered
us into the house, 'but I'm gettin" a bit worried about Susie. Her pups
are due and she's been making a bed for them and messing about all day
but nowt's happened. I was going" to leave her till morning but about
midnight she started panting like 'elf - I don't like the look of her."

Susie was one of my regular patients. Her big, burly master was always
bringing her to the surgery, a little shame-faced at his solicitude, and
when I saw him sitting in the waiting room looking strangely out of
place among the ladies with their pets, he usually said "T'missus asked
me to bring Susie." But it was a transparent excuse.

"She's nobbut a little mongrel, but very faithful," Bert said, still
apologetic, but I could understand how he felt about Susie, a shaggy
little ragamuffin whose only wile was to put her paws on my knees and
laugh up into my face with her tail lashing. I found her irresistible.

But she was a very different character tonight. As we went into the
living room of the cottage the little animal crept from her basket, gave
a single indeterminate wag of her tail then stood miserably in the
middle of the floor, her ribs heaving. As I bent to examine her she
turned a wide panting nouth and anxious eyes up to me.

I ran my hands over her abdomen. I don't think I have ever felt a more
bloated little dog; she was as round as a football, absolutely bulging
with pups, ready to pop, but nothing was happening.

What do you think?" Bert's face was haggard under his sunburn and he
touched the dog's head briefly with a big calloused hand.

"I don't know yet, Bert," I said. "I'll have to have a feel inside.
Bring me some hot water, will you?"

I added some antiseptic to the water, soaped my hand and with one finger
Carefully explored the vagina. There was a pup there, all right; my
finger tip brushed across the nostrils, the tiny mouth and tongue; but
he was jammed in that passage like a cork in a bottle.

Squatting back on my heels I turned to the Chapmans.

"I'm afraid there's a big pup stuck fast. I have a feeling that if she
could get rid of this chap the others would come away. They'd probably
be smaller."

"Is there any way of shiftin" him, Mr. Herriot?" Bert asked.

I paused for a moment. "I'm going to put forceps on his head and see if
he'll move. I don't like using forceps but I'm going to have one careful
try and if it doesn't work I'll have to take her back to the surgery for
a caesarian."

"An operation?" Bert said hollowly. He gulped and glanced fearfully at
his wife. Like many big men he had married a tiny woman and at this
moment Mrs. Chapman looked even smaller than her four foot eleven inches
as she huddled in her chair and stared at me with wide eyes.

"Oh I wish we'd never had her mated," she wailed, wringing her hands. "I
told Bert five year old was too late for a first litter but he wouldn't
listen. And now we're maybe going to lose 'er."

I hastened to reassure her. "No, she isn't too old, and everything may
be all right. Let's just see how we get on." :

I boiled the instrument for a few minutes on the stove then kneeled
behind my patient again. I poised the forceps for a moment and at the
flash of steel a grey tinge crept under Bert's sunburn and his wife
coiled herself into a ball in her chair. Obviously they were
non-starters as assistants so Helen held Susie's head while I once more
reached in towards the pup. There was desperately little room but I
managed to direct the forceps along my finger till they touched the
nose. Then very gingerly I opened the jaws and pushed them forward with
the very gentlest pressure until I was able to clamp them on either side
of the head.

I'd soon know now. In a situation like this you can't do any pulling,
you can only try to ease the thing along. This I did and I fancied I
felt just a bit of . movement; I tried again and there was no doubt
about it, the pup was coming towards me. Susie, too, appeared to sense
that things were taking a turn for the better. She cast off her apathy
and began to strain lustily.

It was no trouble after that and I was able to draw the pup forth
almost: without resistance.

"I'm afraid this one'll be dead," I said, and as the tiny creature lay
across my palm there was no sign of breathing. But, pinching the chest
between thumb and forefinger I could feel the heart pulsing steadily and
I quickly opened his mouth and blew softly down into his lungs.

I repeated this a few times then laid the pup on his side in the basket.
I was just thinking it was going to be no good when the little rib cage
gave a sudden lift, then another and another.

"He's off!" Bert exclaimed happily. "That's champion! We want these
puppies alive the knows. They're by Jack Dennison's terrier and he's a
grand 'un."

"That's right," Mrs. Chapman put in. "No matter how many she has,
they're all spoken for. Everybody wants a pup out of Susie."

"I can believe that," I said. But I smiled to myself. Jack Dennison's
terrier was another hound of uncertain ancestry, so this lot would be a
right mixture. But none the worse for that.

I gave Susie half a c.c. of pituitrin. "I think she needs it after
pushing against that fellow for hours. We'll wait and see what happens
now."

And it was nice waiting. Mrs. Chapman brewed a pot of tea and began to
slap butter on to home-made scones. Susie, partly aided by my pituitrin,
pushed out ~. a pup in a self-satisfied manner about every fifteen
minutes. The pups themselves: soon set up a bawling of surprising volume
for such minute creatures. Bert, relaxing visibly with every minute,
filled his pipe and regarded the fast-growing family with a grin of
increasing width.

"Ee, it is kind of you young folks to stay with us like this." Mrs.
Chapman put her head on one side and looked at us worriedly. "I should
think you've been dying to get back to your dance all this time."

I thought of the crush at the Drovers. The smoke, the heat, the nonstop
boom-boom of the Hot Shots and I looked around the peaceful little room
with the Old-fashioned black grate, the low, varnished beams, Mrs.
Chapman's sewing box, the row of Bert's pipes on the wall. I took a
firmer grasp of Helen's hand which I had been holding under the table
for the last hour.

"Not at all, Mrs. Chapman," I said. "We haven't missed it in the least."

And I have never been more sincere.

It must have been about half past two when I finally decided that Susie
had finished She had six fine pups which was a good score for a little
thing like her and the noise had abated as the family settled down to
feast on her abundant udder.

I lifted the pups out one by one and examined them. Susie didn't mind in
the least but appeared to be smiling with modest pride as I handled her
brood. When I put them back with her she inspected them and sniffed them
over busily before rolling on to her side again.

"Three dogs and three bitches," I said. "Nice even litter."

Before leaving I took Susie from her basket and palpated her abdomen.
The degree of deflation was almost unbelievable; a pricked balloon could
not have altered its shape more spectacularly and she had made a
remarkable metamorphosis to the lean, scruffy little extrovert I knew so
well.

When I released her she scurried back and curled herself round her new
family who were soon sucking away with total absorption.

Bert laughed. "She's fair capped wi" them pups." He bent over and
prodded the first arrival with a horny forefinger. "I like the look o"
this big dog pup. I reckon we'll keep this 'un for ourselves, mother.
He'll be company for t'awd lass."

It was time to go. Helen and I moved over to the door and little Mrs.
Chapman with her fingers on the handle looked up at me.

"Well, Mr. Herriot," she said, "I can't thank you enough for comin" out
and putting our minds at rest. I don't know what I've done wi" this man
of mine if anything had happened to his little dog."

Bert grinned sheepishly. "Nay," he muttered. "Ah was never really
worried."

His wife laughed and opened the door and as we stepped out into the
silent scented night she gripped my arm and looked up at me roguishly.

"I suppose this is your young lady," she said.

I put my arm round Helen's shoulders.

"Yes," I said firmly, 'this is my young lady."

Chapter Twenty-two.

It was almost as though I were looking at my own cows because as I stood
in the tattle new byre and looked along the row of red and roan backs I
felt a kind of pride.

Frank," I said. "They look marvelous. You wouldn't think they were the
same animals"

Frank Metcalfe grinned. "Just what I was thinking meself. It's wonderful
what a change of setting'll do for livestock."

It was the cows" first day in the new byre. Previously I had seen them
only in the old place - a typical Dales cowhouse, centuries old with a
broken cobbled floor and gaping holes where the muck and urine lay in
pools, rotting wooden partitions between the stalls and slit windows as
though the place had been built as a fortress. I could remember Frank
sitting in it milking, almost invisible i the gloom, the cobwebs hanging
in thick fronds from the low roof above him.

In there, the ten cows had looked what they were - a motley assortment
of ordinary milkers - but today they had acquired a new dignity and
style.

"You must feel it's been worth all your hard work," I said, and the
young" farmer nodded and smiled. There was a grim touch about the smile
as though he was reliving for a moment the hours and weeks and months of
back-breaking labour he had put in there. Because Frank Metcalfe had
done it all himself. The rows of neat, concreted standings, the clean,
level sweep of floor, the whitewashed, cement-rendered walls all bathed
in light from the spacious windows had been put there by his own two
hands.

"I'll show you the dairy," Frank said.

We went into a small room which he had built at one end and I looked
admiringly at the gleaming milk cooler, the spotless sinks and buckets,
the strainer with its neat pile of filter pads.

"You know," I said. "This is how milk should be produced. All those
mucky old places I see every day on my rounds - they nearly make my hair
stand on end."

Frank leaned over and drew a jet of water from one of the taps. "Aye,
you'r" right. It'll all be like this and better one day and it'll pay
the farmers better too. I've got me TT licence now and the extra
fourpence a gallon will make a he" of a difference. I feel I'm ready to
start."

And when he did start, I thought, he'd go places. He seemed to have all
th" things it took to succeed at the hard trade of farming intelligence,
physical toughness, a love of the land and animals and the ability to go
slogging o endlessly when other people were enjoying their leisure. I
felt these qualities would overcome his biggest handicap which was
simply that he didn't have an money.

Frank wasn't a farmer at all to start with. He was a steel worker from
Middlesbrough. When he had first arrived less than a year ago with his
young" wife to take over the isolated small holding at Bransett I had
been surprised learn that he hailed from the city because he had the
dark, sinewy look of th. typical Dalesman - and he was called Metcalfe.

He had laughed when I mentioned this. "Oh, my great grandfather cam"
from these parts and I've always had a hankering to come back."

As I came to know him better I was able to fill in the gaps in that
simple statement. He had spent all his holidays up here as a small boy
and though he father was a foreman in the steelworks and he himself had
served his time the trade the pull of the Dales had been like a siren
song welling stronger tile he had been unable to resist it any longer.
He had worked on farms in his spa time, read all he could about
agriculture and finally had thrown up his old I and rented the little
place high in the fells at the end of a long, stony track.

With its primitive house and tumbledown buildings it seemed an
unpromising place to make a living and in any case I hadn't much faith
in the ability townspeople to suddenly turn to farming and make a go of
it; in my short experience I had seen quite a few try and fail. But
Frank Metcalfe had go about the job as though he had been at it all his
life, repairing the broken wal improving the grassland, judiciously
buying stock on his shoe-string budget; there was no sign of the
bewilderment and despair I had seen in so many others.

I had mentioned this to a retired farmer in Darrowby and the old man
chuckled. "Aye, you've got to have farmin" inside you. There's very few
people as can succeed at it unless it's in their blood. It matters nowt
that young Metcalfets been brought up in a town, he's still got it in
'im - he's got it through the titty, don't you see, through the titty."

Maybe he was right, but whether Frank had it through the titty or
through study and brains he had transformed the holding in a short time.
When he wasn't milking, feeding, mucking out, he was slaving at that
little byre, chipping stones, mixing cement, sand and dust clinging to
the sweat on his face. And now, as he said, he was ready to start.

As we came out of the dairy he pointed to another old building across
the yard. "When I'm straightened out I aim to convert that into another
byre. I've had to borrow a good bit but now I'm TT I should be able to
clear it off in a couple of years. Sometime in the future if all goes
well I might be able to get a bigger place altogether."

He was about my own age and a natural friendship had sprung up between
us. We used to sit under the low beams of his cramped living room with
its single small window and sparse furniture and as his young wife
poured cups of tea he liked to talk of his plans. And, listening to him,
I always felt that a man like him would do well not only for himself but
for farming in general.

I looked at him now as he turned his head and gazed for a few moments
round his domain. He didn't have to say: "I love this place, I feel I
belong here." It was all there in his face, in the softening of his eyes
as they moved over the huddle of grass fields cupped in a hollow of the
fells. These fields, clawed by past generations from the rough hillside
and fighting their age-old battle with heather and bracken, ran up to a
ragged hem of cliff and scree and above you could just see the lip of
the moor - a wild land of bog and peat hag. Below, the farm track
disappeared round the bend of a wooded hill. The pastures were poor and
knuckles of rock pushed out in places through the thin soil, but the
clean, turf-scented air and the silence must have been like a
deliverance after the roar and smoke of the steel-works.

"Well we'd better see that cow, Frank," I said. "The new byre nearly
made me forget what I came for."

"Aye, it's this red and white 'un. My latest purchase and she's never
been right since I got her. Hasn't come on to her milk properly and she
seems dosy, somehow."

The temperature was a hundred and three and as I put the thermometer
away I sniffed. "She smells a bit, doesn't she?"

"Aye," Frank said. "I've noticed that myself."

"Better bring me some hot water, then. I'll have a feel inside."

The uterus was filled with a stinking exudate and as I withdrew my arm
there was a gush of yellowish, necrotic material. "Surely she must have
had a bit of a discharge," I said.

Frank nodded. "Yes, she has had, but I didn't pay much attention - a lot
of them do it when they're clearing up after calving."

I drained the uterus by means of a rubber tube and irrigated it with
antiseptic, then I pushed in a few acriflavine pessaries. "That'll help
to clean her up, and I think she'll soon be a lot better in herself, but
I'm going to take a blood sample "Why's that?"

Well it may be nothing, but I don't like the look of that yellow stuff.
It consists of decayed~cotyledones - you know, the berries on the calf
bed - and when they're that colour it's a bit suspicious of
Brucellosis."

"Abortion, you mean?" :

"It's possible, Frank. She may have calved before her time or she may
have calved normally but still been infected. Anyway the blood will tell
us. Keep her isolated in the meantime."

A few days later at breakfast time in Skeldale House I felt a quick stab
of anxiety as I opened the lab report and read that the agglutination
test on the blood had given a positive result. I hurried out to the
farm.

"How long have you had this cow?" I asked.

"Just over three weeks," the young farmer replied.

"And she's been running in the same field as your other cows and the
in-calf heifers ?" +.

"Yes, all the time." :

I paused for a moment. "Frank, I'd better tell you the implications. I
know you'll want to know what might happen. The source of infection in
Brucellosis is the discharges of an infected cow and I'm afraid this
animal of yours will have thoroughly contaminated that pasture. Any or
all of your animals may have picked up the bug."

"Does that mean they'll abort?"

. : . :, , .

:

.

.

. ~1 .

y I; ~

1. ~'

, L "Not necessarily. It varies tremendously. Many cows carry their
calves through`' despite infection." I was doing my best to sound
optimistic. ;

Frank dug his hands deep into his pockets. His thin, dark-complexioned
face was serious. "Damn, I wish I'd never seen the thing. I bought her
at Houlton market - God knows where she came from, but it's too late to
talk like that now What can we do about the job?"

"The main thing is to keep her isolated and away from the other stock. I
wish there was some way to protect the others but there isn't much we
can do. There are only two types of vaccine - live ones which can only
be given to empty cow" and yours are all in-calf, and dead ones which
aren't reckoned to he of much use."

"Well I'm the sort that doesn't like to just sit back and wait. The dead
vaccine; won't do any harm if it doesn't do any good, will it?"

"No."

"Right, let's do 'em all with it and we'll hope for the best."

Hoping for the best was something vets did a lot of in the thirties. I
vaccinated" the entire herd and we waited.

Nothing happened for a full eight weeks. Summer lengthened into autumn:

and the cattle were brought inside. The infected cow improved, her
discharge cleared up and she began to milk a bit better. Then Frank rang
early once morning.

"I've found a dead calf laid in the channel when I went in to milk. Will
you come ?"

It was a thinly-haired seven months foetus that I found. The cow looked
sick and behind her dangled the inevitable retained placenta. Her udder
which, if; she had calved normally would have been distended with milk,
the precious milk Frank depended on for his livelihood, was almost
empty.

Obsessed by a feeling of helplessness I could only offer the same old
advice isolate, disinfect - and hope.

A fortnight later one of the in-calf heifers did it - she was a pretty
little Jersey cross which Frank had hoped would push up his butter fat
percentage - and a week after that one of the cows slipped a calf in her
sixth month pregnancy.

It was when I was visiting this third case that I met Mr. Bagley. Frard
introduced him somewhat apologetically. "He says he has a cure for this
trouble, Jim. He wants to talk to you about it."

In every sticky situation there is always somebody who knows better than
the vet. Subconsciously I suppose I had been waiting for a Mr. Bagley to
turn up and I listened patiently He was very short with bandy legs in
cloth leggings, and he looked up at me intently. "Young man, I've been
through this on ma own farm and ah wouldn't be here today if I hadn't
found the remedy."

"I see, and what was that, Mr. Bagley?"

"I have it 'ere." The little man pulled a bottle from his jacket pocket.
"It's a bit mucky - it's been stood in t'cow house window for a year or
two."

I read the label. "Professor Driscoll's Abortion Cure. Give two
table-spoonsful to each cow in the herd in a pint of water and repeat on
the following day." The professor's face took up most of the label. He
was an aggressive-looking, profusely whiskered man in a high Victorian
collar and he glared out at me belligerently through a thick layer of
dust. He wasn't so daft, either, because lower down the bottle I read.
"If an animal has aborted a dose of this mixture will prevent further
trouble." He knew as well as I did that they didn't often do it more
than once.

"Yes," Mr. Bagley said. "That's the stuff. Most of my cows did it on me
but I kept going" with the medicine and they were right as a bobbin next
time round."

"But they would be in any case. They develop an immunity you see."

Mr. Bagley put his head on one side and gave a gentle unbelieving smile.
And who was I to argue, anyway? I hadn't a thing to offer.

"OK, Frank," I said wearily. "Go ahead - like my vaccine, I don't
suppose it can do any harm."

A fresh bottle of Driscoll's cure was purchased and little Mr. Bagley
supervised the dosing of the herd. He was cock-a-hoop when, three weeks
later, one of the cows calved bang on time.

"Now then, what do you say, young man? Ma stuff's working already, isn't
it ?"

"Well I expected some of them to calve normally," I replied and the
little man pursed his lips as though he considered me a bad loser.

But I wasn't really worried about what he thought; all I felt was an
unhappy resignation. Because this sort of thing was always happening in
those days before the modern drugs appeared. Quack medicines abounded on
the farms and the vets couldn't say a lot about them because their own
range of pharmaceuticals was pitifully inadequate.

And in those diseases like abortion which had so far defeated all the
efforts of the profession at control the harvest for the quack men was
particularly rich. The farming press and country newspapers were filled
with confident advertisements of red drenches, black draughts, pink
powders which were positively guaranteed to produce results. Professor
Driscoll had plenty of competition.

When shortly afterwards another cow calved to time Mr. Bagley was very
nice about it. "We all 'ave to learn, young man, and you haven't had
much practical experience. You just hadn't heard of my medicine and I'm
not blaming you, but I think we're on top of t'job now."

I didn't say anything. Frank was beginning to look like a man who could
see a gleam of hope and I wasn't going to extinguish it by voicing my
doubts. Maybe the outbreak had run its course - these things were
unpredictable.

But the next time I heard Frank on the phone all my gloomy forebodings
were realised "I want you to come out and cleanse three cows."

"Three!"

"Aye, they did it one after the other - bang, bang, bang. And all before
time. It's an absolute bugger, Jim - I don't know what I'm going to do."

He met me as I got out of the car at the top of the track. He looked ten
years older, his face pale and haggard as though he hadn't slept. Mr.
Bagley was there, too, digging a hole in front of the byre door.

"What's he doing?" I asked.

Frank looked down at his boots expressionlessly. "He's burying one of
the calves. He says it does a lot of good if you put it in front of the
door." He looked at me with an attempt at a smile. "Science can do nowt
for me so we might as well try a bit of black magic."

I felt a few years older myself as I picked my way round the deep grave
Mr. Bagley was digging. The little man looked up at me as I passed.
"This is a very old remedy," he explained. "Ma medicine seems to be
losing its power so we'll have to try summat stronger. The trouble is,"
he added with some asperity. "I was called in on this case far too
late."

I removed the putrefying afterbirths from the three cows and got off the
place as soon as possible. I felt such a deep sense of shame that I
could hardly meet Frank's eye. And it was even worse on my next visit a
fortnight later because as I walked across the yard I was conscious of a
strange smell polluting the sweet hill air. It was a penetrating, acrid
stink and though it rang a bell somewhere I couldn't quite identify it.
As Frank came out of the house he saw me sniffing and looking round.

"Not very nice is it?" he said with a tired smile. "I don't believe
you've met our goat."

"You've got a goat?"

"Well, we've got the loan of one - an old Billy. I don't see him around
right now but by God you can always smell him. Mr. Bagley dug 'im up
somewhere - says he did one of his neighbours a world of good when he
was having my trouble. Burying the calves wasn't doing any good so he
thought he'd better bring on the goat. It's the smell that does the
trick, he says."

"Frank, I'm sorry," I said. "It's still going on, then?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Aye, two more since I saw you. But I'm past
worrying now, Jim, and for God's sake stop looking so bloody miserable
yourself. You can't do anything, I know that. Nobody can do anything."

Driving home, I brooded on his words. Contagious Bovine Abortion has
been recognised for centuries and I had read in old books of the filthy
scourge which ravaged and ruined the ancient farmers just as it was
doing to Frank Metcalfe today. The experts of those days said it was due
to impure water, improper feeding, lack of exercise, sudden frights.
They did note, however, that other cows which were allowed to sniff at
the foetuses and afterbirths were likely to suffer the same fate
themselves. But beyond that it was a black tunnel of ignorance.

We modern vets, on the other hand, knew all about it. We knew it was
caused" by a Gram negative bacillus called Brucella abortus whose habits
and attributes we had studied till we knew its every secret; but when it
came to helping a. farmer in Frank's situation we were about as much use
as our colleagues of old; who wrote those quaint books. True, dedicated
researchers were working to find.; a strain of the bacillus which would
form a safe and efficient vaccine to immunise cattle in calfhood and as
far back as 1930 a certain strain 19 had been developed from which much
was hoped. But even now it was still in the experimental stage. If Frank
had had the luck to be born twenty years later the chances are. that
those cows he bought would have all been vaccinated and protected by
that same strain 19. Nowadays we even have an efficient dead vaccine for
the pregnant cows.

.:

Best of all there is now a scheme under way for the complete eradication
of grucellosis and this has brought the disease to the notice of the
general public. People are naturally interested mainly in the public
health aspect and they have learned about the vast spectrum of illnesses
which the infected milk can cause in humans But few townsmen know what
Brucellosis can do to farmers.

The end of Frank's story was not far away. Autumn was reaching into
winter and the frost was sparkling on the steps of Skeldale House when
he called one night to see me. We went into the big room and I opened a
couple of bottles of beer.

"I thought I'd come and tell you, Jim," he said in a matter of fact
tone. "I'm having to pack up."

"Pack up?" Something in me refused to accept what he was saying.

"Aye, I'm going back to me old job in Middlesbrough. There's nowt else
to do."

I looked at him helplessly. "It's as bad as that, is it?"

"Well just think." He smiled grimly. "I have three cows which calved
normally out of the whole herd. The rest are a mucky, discharging,
sickly lot with no milk worth talking about. I've got no calves to sell
or keep as replacements. I've got nowt."

I hesitated. "There's no hope of raising the wind to get you over this?"

"No, Jim. If I sell up now I'll just about be able to pay the bank what
I owe them. The rest I borrowed from my old man and I'm not going" back
to him for more. I promised him I'd return to the steelworks if this
didn't work out and that's what I'm going" to do."

"Oh hell, Frank," I said. "I can't tell you how sorry I am. You haven't
had a scrap of luck all the way through."

He looked at me and smiled with no trace of self pity. "Aye well," he
said. "These things happen."

I almost jumped at the words. "These things happen!" That's what farmers
always said after a disaster. That old man in Darrowby had been right.
Frank really did have it through the titty.

And in truth he wasn't the only man to be bankrupted in this way. What
had hit Frank was called an 'abortion storm" and the same sort of thing
had driven a legion of good men to the wall. Some of them hung on,
tightened their belts, spent their life savings and half starved till
the storm abated and they could start again. But Frank had no savings to
see him through; his venture had been a gamble from the beginning and he
had lost.

I never heard of him again. At first I thought he might write, but then
I realised that once the agonising break had been made it had to be
complete.

~

From some parts of the northern Pennines you can see away over the great
sprawl of Teesside and when the fierce glow from the blast furnaces set
the night sky alight I used to think of Frank down there and wonder how
he was getting on. He'd make a go of it all right, but how often did his
mind turn to the high-blown green hollow where he had hoped to build
something worth while and to live and bring up his children?

Some people called Peters bought the little farm at Bransett after he
left. Strangely enough they were from Teesside, too, but Mr. Peters was
a wealthy director of the ICI and used the place only as a weekend
retreat. It was ideal for the purpose because he had a young family all
keen on riding and the fields were Soon being grazed by an assortment of
horses and ponies. In the summer ~rs Peters used to spend months on end
up there with the children. They were nice people who cared for their
animals and I was a frequent visitor.

The dwelling house was renovated almost out of recognition and I drank
coffee instead of tea in the living room which had become a place of
grace and charm with an antique table, chintz covers and pictures on the
walls. The old outbuildings were converted into loose boxes with
shining, freshly painted doors.

The only thing which got no attention was Frank's little new byre; it
we" used as a storage place for corn and bedding for the horses.

I always felt a tug at my heart when I looked in there at the thick dust
on the floor, the windows almost opaque with dirt, the cobwebs
everywhere, the. rusting water bowls, the litter of straw bales, peat
moss and sacks of oats where once Frank's cows had stood so proudly.

It was all that was left of a man's dream.

Chapter Twenty-three.

After the night of the Daffodil Ball I just seemed to drift naturally
into the habit of dropping in to see Helen on an occasional evening. And
before I knew what was happening I had developed a pattern; around eight
o'clock my feet began to make of their own accord for Heston Grange. Of
course I fought the impure - I didn't go every night; there was my work
which often occupied me round the clock, there was a feeling of
propriety, and there was Mr. Alderson.

Helen's father was a vague little man who had withdrawn into himself to
great extent since his wife's death a few years ago. He was an expert
stocksman and his farm could compare with the best, but a good part of
his mind often seemed to be elsewhere. And he had acquired some little
peculiarities; when things weren't going well he carried on long
muttered conversations with himself but when he was particularly pleased
about something he was inclined to break into a loud, tuneless humming.
It was a penetrating sound and on my professional visits I could often
locate him by tracking down this characteristic droning among the farm
buildings.

At first when I came to see Helen I'm sure he never even noticed me - I
was just one of the crowd of young men who hung around his daughter; but
as time; went on and my visits became more frequent he suddenly seemed
to become conscious of me and began to regard me with an interest which
deepened rapidly into alarm. I couldn't blame him, really. He was
devoted to Helen and it was; natural that he should desire a grand match
for her. Richard Edmundson represented just that. His family were rich,
powerful people and Richard was very keen indeed. Compared to him, an
unknown, impecunious young vet was: a poor bargain.

When Mr. Alderson was around, my visits were uncomfortable affairs and
it was a pity because I instinctively liked him. He had an amiable,
completely inoffensive nature which was very appealing and under other
conditions would have got along very well. But there was no getting
round the fact that 1" resented me. And it wasn't because he wanted to
hang on to Helen - he was an unselfish man and anyway, he had an
excellent housekeeper in his sister who had been recently widowed and
had come to live with the Aldersons. Auntie Lucy was a redoubtable
character and was perfectly capable of running the household and looking
after the two younger children. It was just that he had got used to the
comfortable assumption that one day his daughter would marry"

~, the son of his old friend and have a life of untroubled affluence;
and he had a Stubborn streak which rebelled fiercely against any
prospect of change.

So it was always a relief when I got out of the house with Helen.
Everything was right then; we went to the little dances in the village
institutes, we walked for miles along the old grassy mine tracks among
the hills, or sometimes she came on my evening calls with me. There
wasn't anything spectacular to do in Darrowby but there was a complete
lack of strain, a feeling of being selfsufficient in a warm existence of
our own that made everything meaningful and worthwhile.

Things might have gone on like this indefinitely but for a conversation
I had with Siegfried We were sitting in the big room at Skeldale House
as we often did before bedtime, talking over the day's events when he
laughed and slapped his knee.

"I had old Harry Forster in.tonight paying his bill. He was really funny
sat looking round the room and saying "It's a nice little nest you have
here, Mr. Farnon, a nice little nest" and then, very sly "It's time
there was a bird in this nest you know, there should be a little bird in
here." '

I laughed too. "Well, you should be used to it by now. You're the most
eligible bachelor in Darrowby. People are always having a dig at you
they won't be happy till they've got you married off."

"Wait a minute, not so fast." Siegfried eyed me thoughtfully. "I don't
think for a moment that Harry was talking about me, it was you he had in
mind."

"What do you mean?"

"Well just think. Didn't you say you had run into the old boy one night
when you were walking over his land with Helen. He'd be on to a thing
like that in a flash. He thinks it's time you were hitched up, that's
all."

I lay back in my chair and gave myself over to laughter. "Me! Married!

That'll be the day. Can you imagine it? Poor old Harry."

Siegfried leaned forward. "What are you laughing at, James? He's quite
right - it's time you were married."

"What's that?" I looked at him incredulously. "What are you on about
now?"

"It's quite simple," he said. "I'm saying you ought to get married, and
soon."

"Oh come on Siegfried, you're joking!"

"Why should I be?"

"Well damn it, I'm only starting my career, I've no money, no nothing,
I've never even thought about it."

"You've never even ... well tell me this, are you courting Helen
Alderson or aren't you?"

"Well I'm ... I've been ... oh I suppose you could call it that."

Siegfried settled back comfortably on his chair, put his finger tips
together and assumed a judicial expression. "Good, good. You admit
you're courting the girl. Now let us take it a step further. She is,
from my own observation, extremely attractive - in fact she nearly
causes a traffic pile-up when she walks across the COBBLES on market
day. It's common knowledge that she is intelligent, equable and an
excellent cook. Perhaps you would agree with this?" Of course I would,"
I said, nettled at his superior air. "But what's this all about? Why are
you going on like a High Court judge?"

I m only trying to establish my point, James, which is that you seem to
have an ideal wife lined up and you are doing nothing about it. In fact,
not to put a too fine point on it, I wish you'd stop playing around and
let us see a little , But it's not as simple as that," I said, my voice
rising, "I've told you already I'd have to be a lot better off, and
anyway, give me a chance, I've only been going to the house for a few
weeks - surely you don't start thinking of getting married as soon
as\that. And there's another thing - her old man doesn't like me."

Siegfried put his head on one side and I gritted my teeth as a saintly
expression began to settle on his face. "Now my dear chap, don't get
angry, but there's something I have to tell you for your own good.
Caution is often a virtue, but in your case you carry it too far. It's a
little flaw in your character and it shows in a multitude of ways. In
your wary approach to problems in your work, for instance - you are
always too apprehensive, proceeding fearfully step by step when you
should be plunging boldly ahead. You keep seeing dangers when there
aren't any - you've got to learn to take a chance, to lash out a bit. As
it is, you are confined to a narrow range of activity by your own
doubts."

"The original stick-in-the-mud in fact, eh?"

"Oh come now, James, I didn't say that, but while we're talking, there"
another small point I want to bring up. I know you won't mind my saying
this. Until you get married I'm afraid I shall fail to get the full
benefit of your assistance in the practice because frankly you are
becoming increasingly besotted and bemused to the extent that I'm sure
you don't know what you're doing half the time."

"What the devil are you talking about? I've never heard such ... '
"Kindly hear me out, James. What I'm saying is perfectly true - you're
walking about like a man in a dream and you've developed a disturbing
habit of staring into space when I'm talking to you. There's only one
cure, my boy."

"And it's a simple little cure, isn't it!" I shouted. "No money, no
home, but leap into matrimony with a happy cry. There's not a thing to
worry about!"

"Ah-ah, you see, there you go again, looking for difficulties." He gave
a little laugh and gazed at me with pitying affection. "No money you
say. Well one of these days you'll be a partner here. Your plate will be
out on those railings i" front of the house, so you'll never be short of
your daily bread. And as regards a home - look at all the empty rooms in
this house. You could set up a private suite upstairs without any
trouble. So that's just a piffling little detail." I ran my hand
distractedly through my hair. My head was beginning to swim "You make it
all sound easy."

"But it IS easy!" Siegfried shot upright in his chair. "Go out and ask
that girl without further delay and get her into church before the month
is out!"

He wagged a finger at me. "Learn to grasp the nettle of life, James.
Throw of ~ your hesitant ways and remember": He clenched his fist and
struck an attitude. "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken
at the flood ... ' "O.K., O.K.," I said, rising wearily from my chair,
'that's enough, I get the message. I'm going to bed now."

And I don't suppose I am the first person to have had his life
fundamentally influenced by one of Siegfried's chance outbursts. I
thought his opinions ridiculous at the time but he planted a seed which
germinated and flowered almost overnight. There is no doubt he is
responsible for the fact that I was the father" of a grown-up family
while I was still a young man, because when I brought" the subject up
with Helen she said yes she'd like to marry me and we set our eyes on an
early date. She seemed surprised at first - maybe she had the same
opinion of me as Siegfried and expected it would take me a few years to
get off the ground. I Anyway, before I had time to think much more about
it everything was neatly t settled and I found I had made a magical
transition from jeering at the whole idea to making plans for furnishing
our prospective bedsitter at Skeldale House It was a blissful time with
only one cloud on the horizon; but that cloud .. _ :]

bulked large and forbidding. As I walked hand in hand with Helen, my
thoughts in the air, she kept bringing me back to earth with an
appealing look.

you know, Jim, you'll really have to speak to Dad. It's time he knew."

Chapter Twenty-four.

I had been warned long before. I qualified that country practice was a
dirty, stinking job. I had accepted the fact and adjusted myself to it
but there were times when this side of my life obtruded itself and
became almost insupportable. Like now, when even after a long hot bath I
still smelt.

As I hoisted myself from the steaming water I sniffed at my arm and
there it was; the malodorous memory of that horrible cleansing at Tommy
Dearlove's striking triumphantly through all the soap and antiseptic
almost as fresh and pungent as it had been at four o'clock this
afternoon. Nothing but time would move It.

But something in me rebelled at the idea of crawling into bed in this
state and I looked with something like desperation along the row of
bottles on the bathroom shelf. I stopped at Mrs. Hall's bath salts,
shining violent pink in their big glass jar. This was something I'd
never tried before and I tipped a small handful into the water round my
feet. For a moment my head swam as the rising steam was suddenly charged
with an aggressive sweetness then on an impulse I shook most of the
jar's contents into the bath and lowered myself once more under the
surface.

For a long time I lay there smiling to myself in triumph as the oily
liquid lapped around me. Not even Tommy Dearlove~s cleansing could
survive this treatment.

The whole process had a stupefying effect on me and I was half asleep
even as I sank back on the pillow. There followed a few moments of
blissful floating before a delicious slumber claimed me. And when the
bedside phone boomed in my ear the sense of injustice and personal
affront was even stronger than usual. Blinking sleepily at the clock
which said 1.15a.m. I lifted the receiver and mumbled into it, but I was
jerked suddenly wide awake when I recognised Mr. Alderson's voice. Candy
was calving and something was wrong. Would I come right away.

There has always been a 'this is where I came in" feeling about a night
call. And as my lights swept the cobbles of the deserted market place it
was there again; a sense of returning to fundamentals, of really being
me. The silent houses, the tight drawn curtains, the long, empty street
giving way to the stone walls of the country road flipping endlessly
past on either side. At these times I was usually in a state of
suspended animation, just sufficiently awake to steer the car in the
right direction, but tonight I was fully alert, my mind ticking over
anxiously.

Because Candy was something special. She was the house cow, a pretty
little Jersey and Mr. Alderson's particular pet. She was the sole member
of her breed in the herd but whereas the milk from the Shorthorns went
into the churns to be collected by the big dairy, Candy's rich yellow
offering found its way on to ~_

the family porridge every morning or appeared heaped up on trifles and
fruit pies or was made into butter, a golden creamy butter to make you
dream. !

But apart from all that, Mr. Alderson just liked the animal. He usually
stopped opposite her on his way down the byre and began to hum to
himself an" gave her tail head a brief scratch as he passed. And I
couldn't blame him because I sometimes wish all cows were Jerseys;
small, gentle, doe-eyed creatures you could push around without any
trouble; with padded corners and fragilelimbs Even if they kicked you it
was like a love tap compared with the clump from a craggy Friesian.

I just hoped it would be something simple with Candy, because my stock
wasn't high with Mr. Alderson and I had a nervous conviction that he
wouldn't react favourably if I started to make a ham-fisted job of
calving his little favourite. I shrugged away my fears; obstetrics in
the Jersey were usually easy.

Helen's father was an efficient farmer. As I pulled up in the yard I
could see" into the lighted loose box where two buckets of water were
steaming in readiness for me. A towel was draped over the half door and
Stan and Bert, the twe long-serving cowman, were standing alongside
their boss. Candy was lying.~$ comfortably in deep straw. She wasn't
straining and there was nothing visible at the vulva but the cow had a
preoccupied, inward look as though all was n well with her.

I closed the door behind me. "Have you had a feel inside her, Mr.
Alderson?

"Aye, I've had me hand in and there's nowt there"

"Nothing at all?"

"Not a thing. She'd been on for a few hours and not showing so I popped
m. hand in and there's no head, no legs, nowt. And not much room,
either. That when I rang you."

This sounded very strange. I hung my jacket on a nail and began
thoughtful!, to unbutton my shirt. It was when I was pulling it over my
head that I noticed Mr. Alderson's nose wrinkling. The farm men, too,
began to sniff and look at each other wonderingly. Mrs. Hall's bath
salts, imprisoned under my clothing had burst from their bondage in a
sickly wave, filling the enclosed space with their strident message.
Hurriedly I began to wash my arms in the hope that th" alien odour might
pass away but it seemed to get worse, welling from my warm skin,
competing incongruously with the honest smells of cow, hay and straw
Nobody said anything. These men weren't the type to make the ribald
remark which would have enabled me to laugh the thing off. There was no
ambiguity about this scent; it was voluptuously feminine and Bert and
Stan stared at me open mouthed. Mr. Alderson, his mouth turned down at
the corners, his nostrils still twitching, kept his eyes fixed on the
far wall. 4

Cringing inwardly I knelt behind the cow and in a moment my
embarrassment: was forgotten. The vagina was empty; a smooth passage
narrowing rapidly to a small, ridged opening just wide enough to admit
my hand. Beyond I could fed the feet and head of a calf. My spirits
plummeted. Torsion of the uterus. There" was going to be no easy victory
for me here.

I sat back on my heels and turned to the farmers. "She's got a twisted
calf bed, There's a live calf in there all right but there's no way out
for it - I can barer get my hand through."

"Aye, I thought it was something peculiar." Mr. Alderson rubbed his chin
and looked at me doubtfully. "What can we do about it, then?"

"We'll have to try to correct the twist by rolling the cow over while I
keep hold of the calf. It's a good job there's plenty of us here."

"And that'll put everything right, will it?"

I swallowed. I didn't like these jobs. Sometimes rolling worked and
sometime, it didn't and in those days we hadn't quite got round to
performing caesarian i .

:

' i 1: ~i ., 1:

on cows If I was unsuccessful I had the prospect of telling Mr. Alderson
to send Candy to the butcher. I banished the thought quickly.

"It'll put everything right," I said. It had to. I stationed Bert at the
front legs, Stan at the hind and the farmer holding the cow's head on
the floor. Then I stretched myself on the hard concrete, pushed in a
hand and grasped the calf's foot.

"Now roll her," I gasped, and the men pulled the legs round in a
clockwise direction I held fiercely to the little feet as the cow
flopped on to her other side. Nothing seemed to be happening inside.

"Push her on to her chest," I panted.

Stan and Bert expertly tucked the legs under the cow and rolled her on
to her brisket and as she settled there I gave a yell of pain.

"Get her back, quick! We're going the wrong way!" The smooth band of
tissue had tightened on my wrist in a numbing grip of frightening power.
For a moment I had the panicky impression that I'd never get out of
there again.

But the men worked like lightning. Within seconds Candy was stretched
out on her original side, the pressure was off my arm and we were back
where we started.

I gritted my teeth and took a fresh grip on the calf's foot. "O.K., try
her the other way."

This time the roll was anti-clockwise and we went through 180 degrees
without anything happening. I only just kept my grasp on the foot - the
resistance this time was tremendous. Taking a breather for a few seconds
I lay face down while the sweat sprang out on my back, sending out fresh
exotic vapours from the bath salts.

"Right. One more go!" I cried and the men hauled the cow further over.

And oh it was beautiful to feel everything magically unravelling and my
arm Lying free in a wide uterus with all the room in the world and the
calf already beginning to slide towards me.

Candy summed up the situation immediately and for the first time gave a
determined heaving strain. Sensing victory just round the corner she
followed up with another prolonged effort which popped the calf wet and
wriggling into my arms.

"By gum, it was quick at t'finish," Mr. Alderson murmured wonderingly.
He seized a wisp of hay and began to dry off the little creature.

Thankfully I soaped my arms in one of the buckets. After every delivery
there is a feeling of relief but in this case it was overwhelming. It no
longer mattered that the loose box smelt like a ladies" hairdressing
salon, I just felt good. I said good night to Bert and Stan as they
returned to their beds, giving a final incredulous sniff as they passed
me. Mr. Alderson was pottering about, having a word with Candy then
starting again on the calf which he had already rubbed down several
times. He seemed fascinated by it. And I couldn't blame him because it
was like something out of Disney; a pale gold faun, unbelievably tiny
with large dark limpid eyes and an expression of trusting innocence. It
was a heifer, too.

The farmer lifted it as if it were a whippet dog and laid it by the
mother's head Candy nosed the little animal over, rumbling happily in
her throat, then she began to lick it. I watched Mr. Alderson. He was
standing, hands clasped behind him, rocking backwards and forwards on
his heels, obviously enchanted by the scene Any time now, I thought. And
I was right; the tuneless humming broke out, even louder than usual,
like a joyful paean.

I stiffened in my Wellingtons. There would never be a better time. After
a nervous cough I spoke up firmly.

.

' Mr. Alderson," I said and he half turned his head. "I would like to
marry your L daughter. ~ r The humming was switched off abruptly and he
turned slowly till he w ~ facing me. He didn't speak but his eyes
searched my face unhappily. Then 15 bent stiffly, picked up the buckets
one by one, tipped out the water and ma L for the door. L "You'd better
come in the house," he said. The farmhouse kitchen looked lost and
forsaken with the family abed. I s in a high backed wooden chair by the
side of the empty hearth while he Alderson put away his buckets, hung up
the towel and washed his hen methodically at the sink, then he pottered
through to the parlour and I heard him bumping and clinking about in the
sideboard. When he reappeared he bore; a tray in front of him on which a
bottle of whisky and two glasses rattled gently The tray lent the simple
procedure an air of formality which was accentuated _ by the heavy cut
crystal of the glasses and the virgin, unopened state of t [

Mr. Alderson set the tray down on the kitchen table which he dragged
nearer to us before settling in the chair at the other side of the
fireplace. Nobody said anything. I waited in the lengthening silence
while he peered at the cap of t} bottle like a man who had never seen
one before then unscrewed it with slow apprehension as though he feared
it might blow up in his face.

Finally he poured out two measures with the utmost gravity and
precision" ducking his head frequently to compare the levels in the two
glasses, and with a last touch of ceremony proffered the laden tray. 1

I took my drink and waited expectantly. ~ .

Mr. Alderson looked into the lifeless fireplace for a minute or two then
h directed his gaze upwards at the oil painting of the paddling cows
which him .g above the mantelpiece. He pursed his lips as though about
to whistle but ;; appeared to change his mind and without salutation
took a gulp of his whisky which sent him into a paroxysm of coughing
from which it took him some time , to recover. When his breathing had
returned to normal he sat up straight an I fixed me with streaming eyes.
He cleared his throat and I felt a certain tension "Aye well," he said,
'it's grand hay weather."

I agreed with him and he looked round the kitchen with the interested
stare ~ of a total stranger. Having completed his inspection he took
another copious . swallow from his glass, grimaced, closed his eyes,
shook his head violently a few times, then leaned forward.

"Mind you," he said, 'a night's rain would do a lot of good."

I gave my opinion that it undoubtedly would and the silence fell again.
It . lasted even longer this time and my host kept drinking his whisky
as though h was getting used to it. And I could see that it was having a
relaxing effect; the . strained lines on his face were beginning to
smooth out and his eyes were losing their hunted look.

; Nothing more was said until he had replenished our glasses, balancing
the amounts meticulously again. He took a sip at his second measure then
he looked down at the rug and spoke in a small voice.

"James," he said, "I had a wife in a thousand."

I was so surprised I hardly knew what to say. "Yes, I know," I murmured
"I've heard a lot about her."

Mr. Alderson went on, still looking down, his voice full of gentle
yearning.

"Yes, she was the grandest lass for miles around and the bonniest." He
Looked up at me suddenly with the ghost of a smile. "Nobody thought
she'd ever have a feller like me, you know. But she did." He paused and
looked away. "Aye, ski.

He began to tell me about his dead wife. He told me calmly, without self
pity, but with a wistful gratitude for the happiness he had known. And I
discovered that Mr. Alderson was different from a lot of the farmers of
his generation because he said nothing about her being a 'good worker".
So many of the women of those times seemed to be judged mainly on their
working ability and when I had first come to Darrowby I had been shocked
when I commiserated with a newly widowed old man. He had brushed a tear
from his eye and said, "Aye, she was a grand worker." But Mr. Alderson
said only that his wife had been beautiful, that she had been kind, and
that he had loved her very much. He talked about Helen, too, about the
things she had said and done when she was a little girl, about how very
like her mother she was in every way. He never said anything about me
but I had the feeling all the time that he meant it to concern me; and
the very fact that he was talking freely seemed a sign that the barriers
were coming Actually he was talking a little too freely. He was half way
down his third huge whisky and in my experience Yorkshiremen just
couldn't take the stuff. I had seen burly ten pint men from the local
pub keel over after a mere sniff at the amber fluid and little Mr.
Alderson hardly drank at all. I was getting worried.

But there was nothing I could do, so I let him ramble on happily. He was
Lying right back in his chair now, completely at ease, his eyes, alight
with his memories, gazing somewhere above my head. In fact I am
convinced he had forgotten I was there because after one long passage he
dropped his eyes, caught sight of me and stared for a moment without
recognition. When he did manage to place me it seemed to remind him of
his duties as a host. But as he reached again for the bottles he caught
sight of the clock on the wall.

"Well clang it, it's four o'clock. We've been here long enough. It's
hardly worth going" to bed, but I suppose we'd better have an hour or
two's sleep." He tipped the last of the whisky down his throat, jumped
briskly to his feet, looked around him for a few moments in a
business-like sort of way then pitched head first with a sickening
clatter among the fire irons.

Frozen with horror, I started forward to help the small figure
scrabbling on the hearth but I needn't have worried because he bounced
back to his feet in a second or two and looked me in the eye as if
nothing had happened.

"Well, I'd better be off," I said. "Thanks for the drink." There was no
point in staying longer as I realised that the chances of Mr. Alderson
saying "Bless you, my son" or anything like that were remote. But I had
a comforting impression that all was going to be well.

As I made my way to the door the farmer made a creditable attempt to
usher me out but his direction was faulty and he tacked helplessly away
from me across the kitchen floor before collapsing against a tall
dresser. From under a row of willow pattern dinner plates his face
looked at me with simple bewilderment.

I hesitated then turned back. "I'll just walk up the stairs with you,
Mr. Alderson" I said in a matter of fact voice and the little man made
no resistance as I took his arm and guided him towards the door in the
far corner.

As we creaked our way upstairs he stumbled and would have gone down
again had I not grabbed him round the waist. As I caught him he looked
up at me and grunted "Thanks, lad," and we grinned at each other for a
moment before restarting the climb.

I supported him across the landing to his bedroom door and he stood
hesitating as though about to say something. But finally he just nodded
to me a couple of times before ducking inside.

I waited outside the door, listening in some anxiety to the bumps and
thumps from within; but I relaxed as a loud, tuneless humming came
through the panels Everything most certainly was going to be all right.

Chapter Twenty-five.

"Well, do you want t'job or don't you?"

Walt Barnett towered over me in the surgery doorway and his eyes
flickered from my head to my feet and up again without expression. The
cigarette dangling from his lower lip seemed to be a part of him as did
the brown trilby hat and the shining navy blue serge suit stretched
tightly over his bulky form. He must have weighed nearly twenty stones
and with his red beefy brutal mouth and overbearing manner he was
undeniably formidable.

"Well, er ... yes. Of course we want the job," I replied. "I was just
wondering :; when we could fit it in." I went over to the desk and began
to look through the appointment book. "We're pretty full this week and I
don't know what Mr. Farnon has fixed for the week after. Maybe we'd
better give you a ring."

The big man had burst in on me without warning or greeting and barked,
"I 'ave a fine big blood 'oss to geld. When can you do 'im?"

I had looked at him hesitantly for a few moments, taken aback partly by
the arrogance of his approach, partly by his request. This wasn't good
news to me;; I didn't like castrating fine big blood 'osses - I much
preferred the ordinary cart colts and if you came right down to it I had
a particular preference for Shetland ~ ponies. But it was all part of
living and if it had to be done it had to be done. I "You can give me a
ring if you like, but don't be ower long about it." The hard unsmiling
stare still held me. "And I want a good job coin", think on!"

"We always try to do a good job, Mr. Barnett," I said, fighting a rising
prickle; of resentment at his attitude.

"Aye well I've heard that afore and I've had some bloody balls-ups," he
said.. He gave me a final truculent nod, turned and walked out, leaving
the door open.

I was still standing in the middle of the room seething and muttering to
myself when Siegfried walked in. I hardly saw him at first and when he
finally came into focus I found I was glowering into his face.

"What's the trouble, James?" he asked. "A little touch of indigestion,
perhaps?"

"Indigestion? No ... no ... Why do you say that?"

"Well you seemed to be in some sort of pain, standing there on one leg
with- ' your face screwed up."

"Did I look like that? Oh it was just our old friend Walt Barnett. He
wants us to cut a horse for him and he made the request in his usual
charming way - he really gets under my skin, that man."

Tristan came in from the passage. "Yes I was out there and I heard him.
He's a bloody big lout."

Siegfried rounded on him. "That's enough! I don't want to hear that kind
of talk in here." Then he turned back to me. "And really, James, even if
you were upset I don't think it's an excuse for profanity."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, some of the expletives I heard you muttering there were unworthy
of out" He spread his hands in a gesture of disarming frankness, "Heaven
knows I'm no prude but I don't like to hear such language within these
walls." He paused and his features assumed an expression of deep
gravity. "After all, the people who come in here provide us with our
bread and butter and they should be referred to with respect., "Yes, but
...  '

"Oh I know some are not as nice as others but you must never let them
irritate you. You've heard the old saying, "The customer is always
right." Well I think it's a good working axiom and I always abide by it
myself." He gazed solemnly at Tristan and me in turn. "So I hope I make
myself clear. No swearing in the surgery - particularly when it concerns
the clients."

"It's all right for you!" I burst out heatedly. "But you didn't hear
Barnett. I'll stand so much, but ... '

Siegfried put his head on one side and a smile of ethereal beauty crept
over his face. "My dear old chap, there you go again, letting little
things disturb you. I've had to speak to you about this before, haven't
I? I wish I could help you, I wish I could pass on my own gift of
remaining calm at all times."

"What's that you said?"

'1 ~ir1 T wanted m heln you James. and I will." He held up a forefinger.
"You've probably often wondered why I never get angry or excited."

"Eh ?"

"Oh I know you have - you must have. Well I'll let you into a little
secret." His smile took on a roguish quality. "If a client is rude to me
I simply charge him a little more. Instead of getting all steamed up
like you do I tell myself that I'm putting ten bob extra on the bill and
it works like magic."

"Is that so?"

"Yes indeed, my boy." He thumped my shoulder then became very serious.
"Of course I realise that I have an advantage right at the start - I
have been blessed with a naturally even temperament while you are blown
about in all directions by every little wind of circumstance. But I do
think that this is something you could cultivate, so work at it, James,
work at it. All this fretting and fuming is bad for you - your whole
life would change if you could just acquire my own tranquil outlook." I
swallowed hard. "Well thank you, Siegfried," I said. "I'll try."

~----r ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

Walt Barnett was a bit of a mystery man in Darrowby. He wasn't a farmer,
he was a scrap merchant, a haulier, a dealer in everything from linoleum
to second hand cars, and there was only one thing the local people could
say for certain about him - he had brass, lots of brass. They said
everything he touched turned to money.

He had bought a decaying mansion a few miles outside the town where he
lived with a downtrodden little wife and where he kept a floating
population of livestock; a few bullocks, some pigs and always a horse or
two. He employed all the vets in the district in turn, probably because
he didn't think much of any of us; a feeling which I may say, was
mutual. He never seemed to do any physical work and could be seen most
days of the week shambling around the streets of Darrowby, hands in
pockets, cigarette dangling, his brown trilby on the back of his head,
his huge body threatening to burst through that shiny navy suit.

After my meeting with him we had a busy few days and it was on the
hollowing Thursday that the phone rang in the surgery. Siegfried lifted
it and immediately his expression changed. From across the floor I could
clearly hear the loud hectoring tones coming through the receiver and as
my colleague listened a slow flush spread over his cheeks and his mouth
hardened. Several times he tried to put in a word but the torrent of
sound from the far end was unceasing Finally he raised his voice and
broke in but instantly there was a click and he found himself speaking
to a dead line.

Siegfried crashed the receiver into its rest and swung round. "That was
Barnett - playing hell because we haven't rung him." He stood staring at
me for a few moments, his face dark with anger.

"The bloody bastard!" he shouted. "Who the hell does he think he is?

Abusing me like that, then hanging up on me when I try to speak!"

For a moment he was silent then he turned to me. "I'll tell you this,
James, he wouldn't have spoken to me like that if he'd been in this room
with me." He came over to me and held out his hands, fingers crooked
menacingly. "I'd have wrung his bloody neck, big as he is! I would have,
I tell you, I'd have strangled the bugger!"

"But Siegfried," I said. "What about your system?"

"System? What system?"

"Well, you know the trick you have when people are unpleasant - you put
something on the bill, don't you?"

Siegfried let his hands fall to his sides and stared at me for some
time, his chest rising and falling with his emotion. Then he patted me
on the shoulder and turned away towards the window where he stood
looking out at the quiet street.

When he turned back to me he looked grim but calmer. "By God, James,
you're right. That's the answer. I'll cut Barnett's horse for him but
I'll charge him a tenner."

I laughed heartily. In those days the average charge for castrating a
horse we" a pound, or if you wanted to be more professional, a guinea.

"What are you laughing at?" my employer enquired sourly.

"Well ... at your joke. I mean, ten pounds ... ha-ha-ha!"

"I'm not joking, I'm going to charge him a tenner."

"Oh come on, Siegfried, you can't do that."

"You just watch me," he said. "I'm going to sort that bugger."

wailed paddock deep in lush grass. The two-year-old, a magnificent
chestnut, was led in by two characters who struck me as typical henchmen
for Mr. Barnett. I don't know where he had dug them up but you didn't
see faces like that among the citizens of Darrowby. One was a brown
goblin who, as he conversed with his companion, repeatedly jerked his
head and winked one eye as though they were sharing some disreputable
secret. The other had a head covered with ginger stubble surmounting a
countenance of a bright scrofulous red which looked as though a piece
would fall off if you touched it; and deep in the livid flesh two tiny
eyes darted.

The two of them regarded us unsmilingly and the dark one spat
luxuriously as we approached.

"It's a nice morning," I said.

Ginger just stared at me while Winker nodded knowingly and closed one
eye as if I had uttered some craftiness which appealed to him.

The vast hunched figure of Mr. Barnett hovered in the background,
cigarette drooping, the bright sunshine striking brilliant shafts of
light from the tight sheen of the navy suit.

I couldn't help comparing the aspect of the trio of humans with the
natural beauty and dignity of the horse. The big chestnut tossed his
head then stood looking calmly across the paddock, the large fine eyes
alight with intelligence, the noble lines of the face and neck blending
gently into the grace and power of the body. Observations I had heard
about the higher and lower animals floated about in my mind.

Siegfried walked around the horse, patting him and talking to him, his
eyes shining with the delight of the fanatic.

"He's a grand sort, Mr. Barnett," he said.

Two mornings later I was going through the familiar motions of preparing
for a castration; boiling up the emasculator and laying it on the enamel
tray along with the scalpel, the roll of cotton wool, the artery
forceps, the tincture of iodine, the suture materials, the tetanus
antitoxin and syringes. For the last five minus* Siegfried had been
shouting at me to hurry.

"What the hell are you doing through there, James? Don't forget to put
an extra bottle of chloroform. And bring the sidelines in case he
doesn't g down. Where have you hidden those spare scalpel blades,
James?"

The sunshine streamed across the laden tray, filtering through the green
tangle of the wisteria which fell untidily across the surgery window.
Reminding me that it was May and that there was nowhere a May morning
came with such golden magic as to the long garden at Skeldale House; the
high brick walls with their crumbling mortar and ancient stone copings
enfolding the sunlight" in a warm clasp and spilling it over the
untrimmed lawns, the banks of lupi and bluebells, the masses of fruit
blossom. And right at the top the rooks cawing in the highest branches
of the elms.

Siegfried, chloroform muzzle looped over one shoulder, made a final
check the items on the tray then we set off. In less than half an hour
we were driving through the lodge gates of the old mansion then along a
mossy avenue which wandered among pine and birch trees up to the house
which looked out fro, its wooded background over the rolling miles of
fell and moor.

Nobody could have asked for a more perfect place for the operation; a
higt The big man glowered at him. "Aye well, don't spoil 'im, that's
all. I've paid a lot o'money for that 'oss."

Siegfried gave him a thoughtful look then turned to me.

"Well, let's get on. We'll drop him over there on that long grass. Are
you ready, James?"

I was ready, but I'd be a lot more at ease if Siegfried would just leave
me alone. In horse work I was the anaesthetist and my colleague was the
surgeon. And he was good; quick, deft, successful. I had no quarrel with
the arrangement; he could get on with his job and let me do mine. But
there was the rub; he would keep butting into my territory and I found
it wearing.

Anaesthesia in the large animals has a dual purpose; it abolishes pain
and acts as a means of restraint. It is obvious that you can't do much
with these potentially dangerous creatures unless they are controlled.

That was my job. I had to produce a sleeping patient ready for the knife
and very often I thought it was the most difficult part. Until the
animal was properly under I always felt a certain tension and Siegfried
didn't help in this respect. He would hover at my elbow, offering advice
as to the quantity of chloroform and he could never bear to wait until
the anaesthetic had taken effect. He invariably said, "He isn't going to
go down, James." Then, "Don't you think you should strap a fore leg up?"

Even now, thirty years later, when I am using such intravenous drugs as
thiopentone he is still at it. Stamping around impatiently as I fill my
syringe, poking over my shoulder with a long fore-finger into the
jugular furrow. "I'd shove it in just there, James."

I stood there irresolute, my employer by my side, the chloroform bottle
in my pocket, the muzzle dangling from my hand. It would be wonderful, I
thought, Just once I could be on my own to get on with it. And, after
all, I had worked l o for him for nearly three years - surely I knew
him.well enough to be able to put it to him.

I cleared my throat. "Siegfried, I was just wondering. Would you care to
go and sit down over there for a few minutes till I get him down?"

"What's that?"

"Well I thought it would be a good idea if you left me to it. There's a
bit of a crowd round the horse's head - I don't want him excited. So why
don't you relax for a while. I'll give you a shout when he's down?"

Siegfried raised a hand. "My dear chap, anything you say. I don't know
what I'm hanging around here for anyway I never interfere with your end
as you well know." He turned about and, tray under arm, marched off to
where he had parked his car on the grass about fifty yards away. He
strode round behind the Rover and sat down on the turf, his back against
the metal. He was out of sight.

Peace descended. I became suddenly aware of the soft warmth of the sun
on my forehead, of the bird song echoing among the nearby trees.
Unhurriedly I fastened on the muzzle under the head collar and produced
my little glass measure.

This once I had plenty of time. I'd start him off with just a couple of
drachms to get him used to the smell of it without frightening him. I
poured the clear fluid on to the sponge.

"Walk him slowly round in a circle," I said to Ginger and Winker. "I'm
going to give him a little bit at a time, there's no hurry. But keep a
good hold of that halter shank in case he plays up."

There was no need for my warning. The two-year-old paced round calmly
and fearlessly and every minute or so I trickled a little extra on to
the sponge. After a while his steps became laboured and he began to sway
drunkenly as he walked. I watched him happily; this was the way I liked
to do it. Another little dollop would just about do the trick. I
measured out another half ounce and walked over to the big animal.

His head nodded sleepily as I gave it to him. "You're just about ready
aren't you, old lad," I was murmuring when the peace was suddenly
shattered.

"He isn't going to go down, you know, James!" It was a booming roar from
the direction of the car and as I whipped round in consternation I saw a
head just showing over the bonnet. There was another cry.

"Why don't you strap up a ... ?"

At that moment the horse lurched and collapsed quietly on the grass and
Siegfried came bounding knife in hand from his hiding place like a
greyhound.

"Sit on his head!" he yelled. "What are you waiting for, he'll be up in
a minute!

And get that rope round that hind leg! And bring my tray! And fetch the
hot water!" He panted up to the horse then turned and bawled into
Ginger's face, "Come on, I'm talking to you. MOVE!"

Ginger went off at a bow-legged gallop and cannoned into Winker who was
rushing forward with the bucket. Then they had a brief but frenzied tug
of war with the rope before they got round the pastern.

"Pull the leg forward," cried my employer, bending over the operation
site, then a full blooded bellow, "Get the bloody foot out of my eye,
will you!

What's the matter with you, you wouldn't pull a hen off its nest the way
you're going." knelt quietly at the head, my knee on the neck. There was
no need to hold:

~wn; he was beautifully out, his eyes blissfully closed as Siegfried
worked, usual lightning expertise. There was a mere few seconds of
silence ~Iy by the tinkling of instruments as they fell back on the
tray, them 5,o.,ge glanced along the horse's back. "Open the muzzle,
James." its 'wo Ntion was over. Nob~I've ever seen an easier job. By the
time we had washed our instruments in the bucket the two-year-old was on
his feet, cropping gently at the grass.

"Splendid anaesthetic, James," said Siegfried, drying off the
emasculator.

"Just right. And what a grand sort of horse."

We had put our gear back in the boot and were ready to leave when ~Valt
Barnett heaved his massive bulk over towards us. He faced Siegfried
across the bonnet of the car.

"Well that were nowt of a job," he grunted, slapping a cheque book down
on the shining metal, "How much do you want?"

There was an arrogant challenge in the words and, faced with the dynamic
force, the sheer brutal presence of the man, most people who were about
to charge a guinea would have changed their minds and said a pound.

"Well, I'm asking'yer," he repeated. "How much do you want?"

"Ah yes," said Siegfried lightly. "That'll be a tenner."

The big man put a meaty hand on the cheque book and stared at my
colleague "What ?"

"That'll be a tenner," Siegfried said again.

"Ten pounds?" Mr. Barnett's eyes opened wider.

"Yes," said Siegfried, smiling pleasantly. "That's right. Ten pounds."

There was a silence as the two men faced each other across the bonnet.
The bird song and the noises from the wood seemed abnormally loud as the
seconds ticked away and nobody moved. Mr. Barnett was glaring furiously
and I 1looked from the huge fleshy face which seemed to have swollen
even larger across to the lean, strongjawed, high-cheekboned profile of
my employer. Siegfried still wore the remains of a lazy smile but down
in the grey depths of his eye a dangerous light glinted.

Just when I was at screaming point the big man dropped his head suddenly
and began to write. When he handed the cheque over he was shaking so
much that the slip of paper fluttered as though in a high wind.

"Here y'are, then" he said hoarsely.

"Thank you so much." Siegfried read the cheque briefly then stuffed it
carelessly into a side pocket. "Isn't it grand to have some real May
weather, ~r Barnett. Does us all good. I'm sure."

Walt Barnett mumbled something and turned away. As I got into the car I
could see the great expanse of navy blue back moving ponderously towards
the house.

"He won't have us back, anyway," I said.

Siegfried started the engine and we moved away. "No, James, I should
think he'd get his twelve bore out if we ventured down this drive again.
But that suits me - I think I can manage to get through the rest of my
life without Mr. Barnett."

Our road took us through the little village of Baldon and Siegfried
slowed down outside the pub, a yellow-washed building standing a few
yards back from the road with a wooden sign reading The Cross Keys and a
large black dog sleeping on the sunny front step.

My boss looked at his watch. "Twelve fifteen - they'll just have opened
A cool beer would be rather nice wouldn't it. I don't think I've been in
this Place before."

After the brightness outside, the shaded interior was restful, with only
Stray splinters of sunshine filtering through the curtains on to the
Ragged floor, the fissured oak tables, the big fireplace with its high
settle.

"Good morning to you, landlord," boomed my employer, striding over to
tile bar He was in his most ducal mood and I felt it was a pity he
didn't have a silver-knobbed stick to rap on the counter.

The man behind the counter smiled and knuckled a forelock in the
approved manner. "Good morning to you, sir, and what can I get for you
gentlemen?"

I half expected Siegfried to say, "Two stoups of your choicest brew.
honest fellow," but instead he just turned to me and murmured bitter, eh
James?"

The man began to draw the beer.

"Won't you join us?" Siegfried enquired.

"Thank ye sir, I'll 'ave a brown ale with you."

"And possibly your good lady, too?" Siegfried smiled over at the
landlord's wife who was stacking glasses at the end of the counter.

"That's very kind of you, I will." She looked up, gulped, and an
expression of wonder crept over her face. Siegfried hadn't stared at her
- it had only been a five second burst from the grey eyes - but the
bottle rattled against the glass as she poured her small port and she
spent the rest of the time gazing at him dreamily.

"That'll be five and sixpence," the landlord said.

"Right." My employer plunged a hand into his bulging side pocket and
crashed down on the counter an extraordinary mixture of crumpled bank
notes, coins, veterinary instruments, thermometers, bits of string. He
stirred the mass with a forefinger, flicking out a half crown and two
florins across the woodwork.

"Wait a minute!" I exclaimed. "Aren't those my curved scissors? I lost
them a few days ... '

Siegfried swept the pile out of sight into his pocket.

"Nonsense! What makes you think that?"

"Well, they look exactly like mine. Unusual shape - lovely long; flat
blades. I've been looking everywhere ... '

"James!" He drew himself up and faced me with frozen hauteur. "I think
you've said enough. I may be capable of stooping to some pretty low
actions but I'd like to believe that certain things are beneath me. And
stealing a colleague's curved scissors is one of them."

I relapsed into silence. I'd have to bide my time and take my chance
later. I was fairly sure I'd recognised a pair of my dressing forceps in
there too ^~, lase, something else was occupying Siegfried's mind. He
narrowed his - ~o~'-ri into his other pocket and produced a similar
-^!nter anxiously.

I "I think two halves of . ~ cq S,te ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ S~ ~ ~ 3 ~@ ~, <
And ge~ ~ ~ cj ~: ~ ~ ~water!" ~ ~ ~ ~ c~ ' ~ o "Come on, i~ ~ ;, c ~
-Ginger well~ t rushing forward -~ `~, 3

with the rope befo~ `~ ~ ~ = ' Pull the leg forw;

then a full blooded bell~, ~ O ",~

the matter with you, you ~ ~" ,_ ~ 0` knelt quietly at the heao3 "3, o~
t3t ~o~wn; he was beautifully ~:

usual lightning expert~ ~Iy by the tinkling of inst.8 ,^3\,e glanced
along the horse~ ' ;txtion was over. ;' 1 -\ I've ever seen an easier J.
other pockets - it must be vain. St. it, but I've just thought of ore
beer while you slip back!"

Chapter Twenty-six.

Considering we spent our honeymoon tuberculin testing it was a big
success. It compared favourably, at any rate, with the experiences of a
lot of people I know who celebrated this milestone in their lives by
cruising for a month on sunny seas and still wrote it off as a dead
loss. For Helen and me it had all the ingredients; laughter, fulfilment
and camaraderie, and yet it only lasted a week. And, as I say, we spent
it tuberculin testing.

The situation had its origins one morning at the breakfast table when
Siegfried, red-eyed after a bad night with a colicky mare, was opening
the morning mail. He drew his breath in sharply as a thick roll of forms
fell from an official envelope.

"God almighty! Look at all that testing!" He smoothed out the forms on
the table cloth and read feverishly down the long list of farm premises.
"And they want us to start this lot around Ellerthorpe next week without
fail - it's very urgent." He glanced at me for a moment. "That's when
you're getting married, isn't it?"

:

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

Siegfried snatched a piece of toast from the rack and began to slap
butter on it. "Well this is just great isn't it? The practice going mad,
a week's testing right at the top of the Dale, away in the back of
beyond, and your wedding smack in the middle of it. You'll be drifting
gaily off on your honeymoon without a care in the world while I'm
rushing around here nearly disappearing up my own backside!" He bit a
piece from the toast and began to chew it worriedly.

"I'm sorry, Siegfried," I said. "I didn't mean to land you in the cart
like this. I couldn't know the practice was going to get so busy right
now and I never expected them to throw all this testing at us."

Siegfried paused in his chewing and pointed a finger at me. "That's just
it, James, that's your trouble - you don't look ahead. You just go
belting straight on without a thought. Even when it comes to a bloody
wedding you're not worried - oh no, let's get on with it, to hell with
the consequences." He paused to cough up a few crumbs which he had
inhaled in his agitation. "In fact I can't see what all the hurry is
you've got all the time in the world to get married, you're just a boy.
And another thing - you hardly know this girl, you've only been seeing
her regularly for a few weeks."

"But wait a minute, you said ... '

"No, let me finish, James. Marriage is a very serious step, not to be
embarked upon without long and serious thought. Why in God's name does
it have to be next week? Next year would have been soon enough and you
could have enjoyed a nice long engagement. But no, you've got to rush in
and tie the knot and it ~isn't so easily untied you know."

"Oh hell, Siegfried, this is too bad! You know perfectly well it was you
who ... "One moment more. Your precipitate marital arrangements are
going to cause me a considerable headache but believe me I wish you
well. I hope all turns out for the best despite your complete lack of
foresight, but at the same time I must remind you of the old saying.
"Marry in haste, repent at leisure." '

I could stand no more. I leaped to my feet, thumped a fist on the table
and yelled at him.

"But damn it, it was your idea! I was all for leaving it for a bit but
you..

."

Siegfried wasn't listening. He had been cooling off all the time and now
his face broke into a seraphic smile. "Now, now, now, James, you're
getting excited again. Sit down and calm yourself. You mustn't mind my
speaking to you like this - you are very young and it's my duty. You
haven't done anything wrong at all; I suppose it's the most natural
thing in the world for people of your age to act without thinking ahead,
to jump into things with never a thought of the morrow. It's just the
improvidence of youth." Siegfried was about six years older than me but
he had donned the mantle of the omniscient grey-beard without effort.

I dug my fingers into my knees and decided not to pursue the matter. I
had no chance anyway, and besides, I was beginning to feel a bit worried
about clearing off and leaving him snowed under with work. I got up and
walked to the window where I watched old Will Varley pushing a bicycle
up the street with a sack of potatoes balanced on the handlebars as I
had watched him a hundred times before. Then I turned back to my
employer. I had had one of my infrequent ideas.

"Look, Siegfried, I wouldn't mind spending my honeymoon round
Ellerthorpe. It's wonderful up there at this time of the year and we
could stay at the Wheat Sheaf. I could do the testing from there."

He looked at me in astonishment. "Spend it at Ellerthorpe? And testing?

It's impossible - what would Helen say?"

"She wouldn't mind. In fact she could do the writing for me. We were
only going off touring in the car so we haven't made any plans, and
anyway it's funny, but Helen and I have often said we'd like to stay at
the Wheat Sheaf some time - there's something about that little pub."

Siegfried shook his head decisively. "No, James I won't hear of it. In
fact you're beginning to make me feel guilty. I'll get through the work
all right so forget about it and go away and have a good time."

"No, I've made up my mind. I'm really beginning to like the idea." I
scanned the list quickly. "I can start testing at Allen's and do all
those smaller ones around there on Tuesday, get married on Wednesday and
go back for the second injection and readings on Thursday and Friday. I
can knock hell out of that list by the end of the week."

Siegfried looked at me as though he was seeing me for the first time. He
argued and protested but for once I got my way. I fished the Ministry
notification cards from the desk drawer and began to make the
arrangements for my honeymoon.

On Tuesday at 12 noon I had finished testing the Allens" huge herd
scattered for miles over the stark fells at the top of the Dale and was
settling down with the hospitable folk for the inevitable 'bit o"
dinner". Mr. Alien was at the head of the scrubbed table and facing me
were his two sons, Jack, aged about twenty and Robbie, about seventeen.
The young men were superbly fit and tough and I had been watching all
morning in something like awe as they man-handled the wild, scattered
beasts, chasing and catching tirelessly hour after hour. I had stared
incredulously as Jack had run down a galloping heifer on the open moor,
seized its horns and borne it slowly to the ground for me to inject; it
struck me more than once that it was a pity that an Olympic selector was
unlikely to stray :i into this remote corner of high Yorkshire - he
would have found some worldbeating material.

I always had to stand a bit of legpulling from Mrs. Allen, a jolly
talkative woman; on previous visits she had ribbed me mercilessly about
being a slowcoach with the girls, the disgrace of having nothing better
than a housekeeper to look after me. I knew she would start on me again
today but I bided my time; I had a devastating riposte up my sleeve. She
had just opened the oven door, filling the room with a delectable
fragrance, and as she dumped a huge slab of roast ham on the table she
looked down at me with a smile.

"Now then, Mr. Herriot, when are we going to get you married off? It's
time you found a nice girl, you know I'm always at y;ou but you take not
a bit o" notice "She giggled as she bustled back to the cooking range
for a bowl of mashed potatoes.

I waited until she returned before I dropped my bombshell. "Well, as a
matter of fact, Mrs. Allen," I said airily, "I've decided to accept your
advice. I'm getting married tomorrow."

The good woman, mounding mashed potatoes on to my plate, stopped with
her spoon in mid-air. "Married tomorrow?" Her face was a study in blank
astonishment.

"That's right. I thought you'd be pleased."

"But ... but ... you're coming back here to read the test on Thursday
and Friday."

"Well of course. I have to finish the test, haven't 1? I'll be bringing
my wife with me - I'm looking forward to introducing her to you."

There was a silence. The young men stared at me, Mr. Allen stopped
sawing at the ham and regarded me stolidly, then his wife gave an
uncertain laugh.

"Oh come on, I don't believe it. You're kidding us. You'd be off on your
honeymoon if you were getting married tomorrow."

"Mrs. Allen," I said with dignity. "I wouldn't joke about a serious
matter like that. Let me repeat - tomorrow is my wedding day and I'll be
bringing my wife along on Thursday to see you."

Completely deflated, she heaped our plates and we all fell to in
silence. But I knew she was in agony; she kept darting little glances at
me and it was obvious she was dying to ask me more. The boys too, seemed
intrigued; only Mr. Allen a tall, quiet man who, I'm sure wouldn't have
cared if I'd been going to rob a bank tomorrow, ploughed calmly through
his food.

Nothing more was said until I was about to leave, then Mrs. Allen put a
hand on my arm.

"You really don't mean it, do you?" Her face was haggard with strain.

I got into the car and called out through the window. "Goodbye and thank
you, Mrs. Allen. Mrs. Herriot and I will be along first thing on
Thursday."

I can't remember much about the wedding. it was a 'quiet do" and my main
recollection is of desiring to get it all over with as soon as possible.
I have only one vivid memory; of Siegfried, just behind me in the church
booming '/Lmen" at regular intervals throughout the ceremony - the only
time I have ever heard a best man do this.

It was an incredible relief when Helen and I were ready to drive away
and when we were passing Skeldale House Helen grasped my hand.

"Look!" she cried excitedly. "Look over there!"

underneath Siegfried's brass plate which always hung slightly askew on
the iron railings was a brand new one. It was of the modern bakelite
type with a black background and bold white letters which read "J.
Herriot MRCVS ~veterinary Surgeon", and it was screwed very straight and
level on the metal.

i~

Siegfried had said something about "You'll see my wedding present on the
way out." And here it was. Not many people got a partnership as a gift,
but it had happened to me and was the crowning point of three years of
magnanimity.

I looked back down the street to try to see Siegfried but we had said
our goodbyes and I would have to thank him later. So I drove out of
Darrowby with a feeling of swelling pride because I knew what the plate
meant - I was a man with a real place in the world. The thought made me
slightly breathless. In fact we were both a little dizzy and we cruised
for hours around the countryside, getting out when we felt like it,
walking among the hills, taking no account of" time. It must have been
nine o'clock in the evening and darkness coming in fast when we realised
we had gone far out of our way.

We had to drive ten miles over a desolate moor on the tell top and it
was very dark when we rattled down the steep, narrow road into
Ellerthorpe. The Wheat Sheaf was an unostentatious part of the single
long village street, a low grey stone building with no light over the
door, and as we went into the slightly musty-smelling hallway the gentle
clink of glasses came from the public bar on our left. Mrs. Burn, the
elderly widow who owned the place, appeared from a back room and
scrutinised us unemotionally.

"We've met before, Mrs. Burn," I said and she nodded. I apologised for
our lateness and was wondering whether I dare ask for a few sandwiches
at this time of night when the old lady spoke up, quite unperturbed.

"Nay," she said, 'it's right. We've been expecting you and your supper's
waiting." She led us to the dining room where her niece, Beryl, served a
hot meal in no time. Thick lentil soup, followed by what would probably
be called a goulash these days but which was in fact simply a delicious
stew with mushrooms and vegetables obviously concocted by a culinary
genius. We had to say no to the gooseberry pie and cream.

It was like that all the time at the Wheat Sheaf. The whole place was
aggressively unfashionable; needing a lick of paint, crammed with
hideous Victorian furniture, but it was easy to see how it had won its
reputation. It didn't have stylish guests, but fat, comfortable men from
the industrial West Riding brought their wives at the week-ends and did
a bit of fishing or just took in the incomparable air between the
mealtimes which were the big moments of the day. There was only one
guest while we were there and he was a permanent one - a retired draper
from Darlington who was always at the table in good time, a huge white
napkin tucked under his chin, his eyes gleaming as he watched Beryl
bring in the food.

But it wasn't just the home-fed ham, the Wensleydale cheese, the
succulent steak and kidney pies, the bilberry tarts and mountainous
Yorkshire puddings which captivated Helen and me. There was a peace, a
sleepy insinuating charm: about the old pub which we always recall with
happiness. I still often pass the Wheat Sheaf, and as I look at its
ancient stone frontage, quite unaltered by the passage of a mere thirty
years, the memories are still fresh and warm; Our footsteps echoing in
the empty street when we took our last walk at night, the old brass
bedstead almost filling the little room, the dark rim of the fells
bulking against the night sky beyond our window, faint bursts of
laughter from the farmers in the bar downstairs.

I particularly enjoyed too, our very first morning when I took Helen to
do th, test at Allen's. As I got out of the car I could see Mrs. Allen
peeping round the curtains in the kitchen window. She was soon out in
the yard and her eye, popped when I brought my bride over to her. Helen
was one of the pioneers of slacks in the Dales and she was wearing a
bright purple pair this morning. which would in modern parlance knock
your eye out. The farmer's wife was partly shocked, partly fascinated
but she, soon found that Helen was of the same stock as herself and
within seconds the two women were chattering busily. I judged from Mrs.
Allen's vigorous head-nodding and her ever widening smile That Helen was
putting her out of her pain by explaining all the circumstances. It took
a long time and finally Mr. Allen had to break into the conversation.

~If we're going", we'll have to go," he said gruffly and we set off to
start the second day of the test.

We began on a sunny hillside where a group of young animals had been
penned Jack and Robbie plunged in among the beasts while Mr. Allen took
off his cap and courteously dusted the top of the wall.

"Your missus can sit 'ere," he said.

I paused as I was about to start measuring. My missus! It was the first
time anybody had said that to me. I looked over at Helen as she sat
cross-legged on the rough stones, her notebook on her knee, pencil at
the ready, and as she pushed back the shining dark hair from her
forehead she caught my eye and smiled; and as I smiled back at her I
became aware suddenly of the vast, swelling glory of the Dales around
us, and of the Dales scent of clover and warm grass, more intoxicating
than any wine. And it seemed that my first three years at Darrowby had
been leading up to this moment; that the first big step of my life was
being completed right here with Helen smiling at me and the memory,
fresh in my mind, of my new plate hanging in front of Skeldale House.

I might have stood there indefinitely, in a sort of trance, but Mr.
Allen cleared his throat in a marked manner and I turned back to the job
in hand.

"Right," I said, placing my calipers against the beast's neck. "Number
thirty-eight, seven millimetres and circumscribed," I called out to
Helen.

"Number thirty-eight, seven, C."

"Thirty-eight, seven, C," my wife repeated as she bent over her book and
started to write.