If Only They Could Talk
by
James Herriot

To EDDIE STRATTON
with gratitude and affection

Chapter One.

They didn't say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow
blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back.

I lay face down on the cobbled floor in a pool of nameless muck, my arm
deep inside the straining cow, my feet scrabbling for a toe hold between
the stones. I was stripped to the waist and the snow mingled with the
dirt and the dried blood on my body. I could see nothing outside the
circle of flickering light thrown by the smoky oil lamp which the farmer
held over me.

No, there wasn't a word in the books about searching for your ropes and
instruments in the shadows; about trying to keep clean in a half bucket
of tepid water; about the cobbles digging into your chest. Nor about the
slow numbing of the arms, the creeping paralysis of the muscles as the
fingers tried to work against the cow's powerful expulsive efforts.

There was no mention anywhere of the gradual exhaustion, the feeling of
futility and the little far off voice of panic.

My mind went back to that picture in the obstetrics book. A cow standing
in the middle of a gleaming floor while a sleek veterinary surgeon in a
spotless parturition overall inserted his arm to a polite distance. He
was relaxed and smiling, the farmer and his helpers were smiling, even
the cow was smiling. There was no dirt or blood or sweat anywhere.

That man in the picture had just finished an excellent lunch and had
moved next door to do a bit of calving just for the sheer pleasure of
it, as a kind of dessert. He hadn't crawled shivering from his bed at
two o'clock in the morning and bumped over twelve miles of frozen snow,
staring sleepily ahead till the lonely farm showed in the headlights. He
hadn't climbed half a mile of white fell-side to the doorless barn where
his patient lay.

I tried to wriggle my way an extra inch inside the cow. The calf's head
was back and I was painfully pushing a thin, looped rope towards its
lower jaw with my finger tips. All the time my arm was being squeezed
between the calf and the bony pelvis. With every straining effort from
the cow the pressure became almost unbearable, then she would relax and
I would push the rope another inch I wondered how long I would be able
to keep this up. If I didn't snare that jaw soon I would never get the
calf away. I groaned, set my teeth and reached forward again.

Another little flurry of snow blew in and I could almost hear the flakes
sizzling on my sweating back. There was sweat on my forehead too, and it
trickled into my eyes as I pushed.

There is always a time at a bad calving when you begin to wonder if you
will ever win the battle. I had reached this stage.

Little speeches began to flit through my brain. "Perhaps it would be
better to slaughter this cow. Her pelvis is so small and narrow that I
can't see a calf coming through." Or "She's a good fat animal and really
of the beef type, so don't you think it would pay you better to get the
butcher?" or perhaps "This is a very bad presentation. In a roomy cow it
would be simple enough to bring the head round but in this case it is
just about impossible."

Of course, I could have delivered the calf by embryotomy - by passing a
wire over the neck and sawing off the head. So many of these occasions
ended with the floor strewn with heads, legs, heaps of intestines. There
were thick text books devoted to the countless ways you could cut up a
calf.

But none of it was any good here, because this calf was alive. At my
furthest stretch I had got my finger as far as the commissure of the
mouth and had been startled by a twitch of the little creature's tongue.
It was unexpected because calves in this position are usually dead,
asphyxiated by the acute flexion of the neck and the pressure of the
dam's powerful contractions. But this one had a spark of life in it and
if it came out it would have to be in one piece.

I went over to my bucket of water, cold now and bloody, and silently
soaped my arms. Then I lay down again, feeling the cobbles harder than
ever against my chest. I worked my toes between the stones, shook the
sweat from my eyes and for the hundredth time thrust an arm that felt
like spaghetti into the cow; alongside the little dry legs of the calf,
like sandpaper tearing against my flesh, then to the bend in the neck
and so to the ear and then, agonisingly, along the side of the face
towards the lower jaw which had become my major goal in life.

It was incredible that I had been doing this for nearly two hours;
fighting as my strength ebbed to push a little noose round that jaw. I
had tried everything else - repelling a leg, gentle traction with a
blunt hook in the eye socket, but I was back to the noose.

It had been a miserable session all through. The farmer, Mr. Dinsdale,
was a long, sad, silent man of few words who always seemed to be
expecting the worst to happen. He had a long, sad, silent son with him
and the two of them had watched my efforts with deepening gloom.

But worst of all had been Uncle. When I had first entered the hillside
barn I had been surprised to see a little bright-eyed old man in a pork
pie hat settling down comfortably on a bale of straw. He was filling his
pipe and clearly looking forward to the entertainment.

"Now then, young man," he cried in the nasal twang of the West Riding.
"I'm Mr. Dinsdale's brother. I farm over in Listondale."

I put down my equipment and nodded. "How do you do? My name is Herriot."

The old man looked me over, piercingly. "My vet is Mr. Broomfield.
Expect you'll have heard of him - everybody knows him, I reckon.
Wonderful man, Mr. Broomfield, especially at calving. Do you know, I've
never seen 'im beat yet."

I managed a wan smile. Any other time I would have been delighted to
hear how good my colleague was, but somehow not now, not now. In fact,
the words set a mournful little bell tolling inside me.

"No, I'm afraid I don't know Mr. Broomfield," I said, taking off- my
jacket and, more reluctantly, peeling my shirt over my head. "But I
haven't been around these parts very long."

Uncle was aghast. "You don't know him! Well you're the only one as
doesn't. They think the world of him in Listondale, I can tell you." He
lapsed into a shocked silence and applied a match to his pipe. Then he
shot a glance at my goose-pimpled torso. "Strips like a boxer does Mr.
Broomfield. Never seen such muscles on a man."

A wave of weakness coursed sluggishly over me. I felt suddenly
leaden-footed and inadequate. As I began to lay out my ropes and
instruments on a clean towel the old man spoke again.

"And how long have you been qualified, may I ask?"

"Oh, about seven months."

"Seven months!" Uncle smiled indulgently, tamped down his tobacco and
blew out a cloud of rank, blue smoke. "Well, there's nowt like a bit of
experience, I always says. Mr. Broomfield's been doing my work now for
over ten years and he really knows what he's about. No, you can 'ave
your book learning. Give me experience every time."

I tipped some antiseptic into the bucket and lathered my arms carefully.
I knelt behind the cow.

"Mr. Broomfield always puts some special lubricating oils on his arms
first," Uncle said, pulling contentedly on his pipe. "He says you get
infection of the womb if you just use soap and water."

I made my first exploration. It was the burdened moment all vets go
through when they first put their hand into a cow. Within seconds I
would know whether I would be putting on my jacket in fifteen minutes or
whether I had hours of hard labour ahead of me.

I was going to be unlucky this time; it was a nasty presentation. Head
back and no room at all; more like being inside an undeveloped heifer
than a second carver. And she was bone dry - the 'waters" must have come
away from her hours ago. She had been running out on the high fields and
had started to calve a week before her time; that was why they had had
to bring her into this half-ruined barn. Anyway, it would be a long time
before I saw my bed again.

"Well now, what have you found, young man?" Uncle's penetrating voice
cut through the silence. "Head back, eh? You won't have much trouble,
then. I've seen Mr. Broomfield do 'em like that - he turns calf right
round and brings it out back legs first."

I had heard this sort of nonsense before. A short time in practice had
taught me that all farmers were experts with other farmers" live stock.
When their own animals were in trouble they tended to rush to the phone
for the vet, but with their neighbours" they were confident,
knowledgeable and full of helpful advice. And another phenomenon I had
observed was that their advice was usually regarded as more valuable
than the vet's. Like now, for instance; Uncle was obviously an accepted
sage and the Dinsdales listened with deference to everything he said.

"Another way with a job like this," continued Uncle 'is to get a few
strong chaps with ropes and pull the thing out, head back and all."

I gasped as I felt my way around. "I'm afraid it's impossible to turn a
calf completely round in this small space. And to pull it out without
bringing the head round would certainly break the mother's pelvis."

The Dinsdales narrowed their eyes. Clearly they thought I was hedging in
the face of Uncle's superior knowledge.

And now, two hours later, defeat was just round the corner. I was just
about whacked. I had rolled and grovelled on the filthy cobbles while
the Dinsdales watched me in morose silence and Uncle kept up a non-stop
stream of comment. Uncle, his ruddy face glowing with delight, his
little eyes sparkling, hadn't had such a happy night for years. His long
trek up the hillside had been repaid a hundredfold. His vitality was
undiminished; he had enjoyed every minute.

As I lay there, eyes closed, face stiff with dirt, mouth hanging open,
Uncle took his pipe in his hand and leaned forward on his straw bale.
"You're about beat, young man," he said with deep satisfaction. "Well,
I've never seen Mr. Broomfield beat but he's had a lot of experience.
And what's more, he's strong, really strong. That's one man you couldn't
tire."

Rage flooded through me like a draught of strong spirit. The right thing
to do, of course, would be to get up, tip the bucket of bloody water
over Uncle's head, run down the hill and drive away; away from
Yorkshire, from Uncle, from the Dinsdales, from this cow.

Instead, I clenched my teeth, braced my legs and pushed with everything
I had; and with a sensation of disbelief I felt my noose slide over the
sharp little incisor teeth and into the calf's mouth. Gingerly,
muttering a prayer, I pulled on the thin rope with my left hand and felt
the slipknot tighten. I had hold of that lower jaw.

At last I could start doing something. "Now hold this rope, Mr.
Dinsdale, and just keep a gentle tension on it. I'm going to repel the
calf and if you pull steadily at the same time, the head ought to come
round.

"What if the rope comes off?" asked Uncle hopefully.

I didn't answer. I put my hand in against the calf's shoulder and began
to push against the cow's contractions. I felt the small body moving
away from me. "Now a steady pull, Mr. Dinsdale, without jerking." And to
myself, "Oh God, don't let it slip off."

The head was coming round. I could feel the neck straightening against
my arm, then the ear touched my elbow. I let go the shoulder and grabbed
the little muzzle. Keeping the teeth away from the vaginal wall with my
hand, I guided the head till it was resting where it should be, on the
fore limbs.

Quickly I extended the noose till it reached behind the ears. "Now pull
on the head as she strains."

"Nay, you should pull on the legs now," cried Uncle.

"Pull on the bloody head rope, I tell you!" I bellowed at the top of my
voice and felt immediately better as Uncle retired, offended, to his
bale.

With traction the head was brought out and the rest of the body followed
easily. The little animal lay motionless on the cobbles, eyes glassy and
unseeing, tongue blue and grossly swollen.

"It'll be dead. Bound to be," grunted Uncle, returning to the attack.

I cleared the mucus from the mouth, blew hard down the throat and began
artificial respiration. After a few pressures on the ribs, the calf gave
a gasp and the eyelids flickered. Then it started to inhale and one leg
jerked.

Uncle took off his hat and scratched his head in disbelief. "By gaw,
it's alive. I'd have thowt it'd sure to be dead after you'd messed about
all that time." A lot of the fire had gone out of him and his pipe hung
down empty from his lips.

"I know what this little fellow wants," I said. I grasped the calf by
its fore legs and pulled it up to its mother's head. The cow was
stretched out on her side, her head extended wearily along the rough
floor. Her ribs heaved, her eyes were almost closed; she looked past
caring about anything. Then she felt the calf's body against her face
and there was a transformation; her eyes opened wide and her muzzle
began a snuffling exploration of the new object. Her interest grew with
every sniff and she struggled on to her chest, nosing and probing all
over the calf, rumbling deep in her chest. Then she began to lick him
methodically. Nature provides the perfect stimulant massage for a time
like this and the little creature arched his back as the coarse papillae
on the tongue dragged along his skin. Within a minute he was shaking his
head and trying to sit up.

I grinned. This was the bit I liked. The little miracle. I felt it was
something that would never grow stale no matter how often I saw it. I
cleaned as much of the dried blood and filth from my body as I could,
but most of it had caked on my skin and not even my finger nails would
move it. It would have to wait for the hot bath at home. Pulling my
shirt over my head, I felt as though I had been beaten for a long time
with a thick stick. Every muscle ached. My mouth was dried out, my lips
almost sticking together..

A long, sad figure hovered near. "How about. a drink?" asked Mr.
Dinsdale.

I could feel my grimy face cracking into an incredulous smile. A vision
of hot tea well laced with whisky swam before me. "That's very kind of
you, Mr. Dinsdale, I'd love a drink. It's been a hard two hours."

"Nay," said Mr. Dinsdale looking at me steadily, "I meant for the cow."

I began to babble. "Oh yes, of course, certainly, by all means give her
a drink. She must be very thirsty. It'll do her good. Certainly,
certainly, give her a drink."

, , , I gathered up my tackle and stumbled out of the barn. On the moor
it was still dark and a bitter wind whipped over the snow, stinging my
eyes. As I plodded down the slope, Uncle's voice, strident and
undefeated, reached me for the last time.

"Mr. Broomfield doesn't believe in giving a drink after calving. Says it
chills the stomach."

Chapter Two.

It was hot in the rickety little bus and I was on the wrong side where
the July sun beat on the windows. I shifted uncomfortably inside my best
suit and eased a finger inside the constricting white collar. It was a
foolish outfit for this weather but a few miles ahead, my prospective
employer was waiting for me and I had to make a good impression.

There was a lot hanging on this interview; being a newly qualified
veterinary surgeon in this year of 1937 was like taking out a ticket for
the dole queue. Agriculture was depressed by a decade of government
neglect, the draught horse which had been the mainstay of the profession
was fast disappearing. It was easy to be a prophet of doom when the
young men emerging from the colleges after a hard five years" slog were
faced by a world indifferent to their enthusiasm and bursting knowledge.
There were usually two or three situations vacant in the "Record" each
week and an average of eighty applicants for each one.

It hadn't seemed true when the letter came from Darrowby in the
Yorkshire Dales. Mr. Siegfried Farnon MRCVS would like to see me on the
Friday afternoon; I was to come to tea and if we were mutually suited I
could stay on as assistant. I had grabbed at the lifeline unbelievingly;
so many friends who had qualified with me were unemployed or working in
shops or as labourers in the shipyards that I had given up hope of any
other future for myself.

The driver crashed his gears again as he went into another steep bend.
We had been climbing steadily now for the last fifteen miles or so,
moving closer to the distant blue swell of the Pennines. I had never
been in Yorkshire before but the name had always raised a picture of a
county as stodgy and unromantic as its pudding; I was prepared for solid
worth, dullness and a total lack of charm. But as the bus groaned its
way higher I began to wonder. The formless heights were resolving into
high, grassy hills and wide valleys. In the valley bottoms, rivers
twisted among the trees and solid grey-stone farmhouses lay among
islands of cultivated land which pushed bright green promontories up the
hillsides into the dark tide of heather which lapped from the summits.

I had seen the fences and hedges give way to dry stone walls which
bordered the roads, enclosed the fields and climbed endlessly over the
surrounding fells. The walls were everywhere, countless miles of them,
tracing their patterns high on the green uplands.

But as I neared my destination the horror stories kept forcing their way
into my mind; the tales brought back to college by veterans hardened and
embittered by a few months of practice. Assistants were just little bits
of dirt to be starved and worked into the ground by the principals who
were heartless and vicious to a man. Dave Stevens, lighting a cigarette
with trembling hand: "Never a night orf or a half day. He made me wash
the car, dig the garden, mow the lawn, do the family shopping. But when
he told me to sweep the chimney I left." Or Willie Johnstone: "First job
I had to do was pass the stomach tube on a horse. Got it into the
trachea instead of the oesophagus. Couple of quick pumps and down went
the horse with a hell of a crash - dead as a hammer. That's when I
started these grey hairs." Or that dreadful one they passed around about
Fred Pringle. Fred had trocharised a bloated cow and the farmer had been
so impressed by the pent up gas hissing from the abdomen that Fred had
got carried away and applied his cigarette lighter to the canula. A
roaring sheet of flame had swept onto some straw bales and burned the
byre to the ground. Fred had taken up a colonial appointment immediately
afterwards - Leeward Islands wasn't it?

Oh hell, that one couldn't be true. I cursed my fevered imagination and
tried to shut out the crackling of the inferno, the terrified bellowing
of the cattle as they were led to safety. No, it couldn't be as bad as
that; I rubbed my sweating palms on my knees and tried to concentrate on
the man I was going to meet.

Siegfried Farnon. Strange name for a vet in the Yorkshire Dales.
Probably a German who had done his training in this country and decided
to set up in practice. And it wouldn't have been Farnon in the
beginning; probably Farrenen. Yes, Siegfried Farrenen. He was beginning
to take shape; short, fat, roly poly type with merry eyes and a bubbling
laugh. But at the same time I had trouble with the obtruding image of a
hulking, cold-eyed, bristle-skulled Teuton more in keeping with the
popular idea of the practice boss.

I realised the bus was clattering along a narrow street which opened on
to a square where we stopped. Above the window of an unpretentious
grocer shop I read "Darrowby Co-operative Society". We had arrived.

I got out and stood beside my battered suitcase, looking about me. There
was something unusual and I couldn't put my finger on it at first. Then
I realised what it was - the silence. The other passengers had
dispersed, the driver had switched off his engine and there was not a
sound or a movement anywhere. The only visible sign of life was a group
of old men sitting round the clock tower in the centre of the square but
they might have been carved from stone.

Darrowby didn't get much space in the guide books but when it was
mentioned it was described as a grey little town on the river Darrow
with a cobbled market place and little of interest except its two
ancient bridges. But when you looked at it, its setting was beautiful on
the pebbly river where the houses clustered thickly and straggled
unevenly along the lower slopes of Herne Fell. Everywhere in Darrowby,
in the streets, through the windows of the houses you could see the Fell
rearing its calm, green bulk more than two thousand feet above the
huddled roofs.

There was a clarity in the air, a sense of space and airiness that made
me feel I had shed something on the plain, twenty miles behind. The
confinement of the city, the grime, the smoke - already they seemed to
be falling away from me.

Trengate was a quiet street leading off the square and I had my first
sight of Skeldale House. I knew it was the right place before I was near
enough to read "S. Farnon MRCVS" on the old fashioned brass plate
hanging slightly askew on the iron railings. I knew by the ivy which
climbed untidily over the mellow brick to the topmost windows. It was
what the letter had said - the only house with ivy; and this could be
where I would work for the first time as a veterinary surgeon.

Now that I was here, right on the doorstep, I felt breathless, as though
I had been running. If I got the job, this was where I would find out
about myself. There were many things to prove.

But I liked the look of the old house. It was Georgian with a fine,
white painted doorway. The windows, too, were white - wide and graceful
on the ground floor and first storey but small and square where they
peeped out from under the overhanging tiles far above. The paint was
Raking and the mortar looked crumbly between the bricks, but there was a
changeless elegance about the place. There was no front garden and only
the railings separated the house from the street a few feet away.

I rang the doorbell and instantly the afternoon peace was shattered by a
distant baying like a wolf pack in full cry. The upper half of the door
was of glass and, as I peered through, a river of dogs poured round the
corner of a long passage and dashed itself with frenzied yells against
the door. If I hadn't been used to animals I would have turned and run
formy life. As it was I stepped back warily and watched the dogs as they
appeared, sometimes two at a time, at the top of their leap, eyes
glaring, jaws slavering. After a minute or two of this I was able to
sort them out and I realised that my first rough count of about fourteen
was exaggerated. There were, in fact, five; a huge fawn greyhound who
appeared most often as he hadn't so far to jump as the others, a cocker
spaniel, a Scottie, a whippet and a tiny, short-legged hunt terrier.
This terrier was seldom seen since the glass was rather high for him,
but when he did make it he managed to get an even more frantic note into
his bark before he disappeared.

I was thinking of ringing the bell again when I saw a large woman in the
passage. She rapped out a single word and the noise stopped as if by
magic. When she opened the door the ravening pack was slinking round her
feet ingratiatingly, showing the whites of their eyes and wagging their
tucked-in tails. I had never seen such a servile crew.

"Good afternoon," I said with my best smile. "My name is Herriot."

The woman looked bigger than ever with the door open. She was about
sixty but her hair, tightly pulled back from her forehead, was jet black
and hardly streaked with grey. She nodded and looked at me with grim
benevolence, but she seemed to be waiting for further information.
Evidently, the name struck no answering spark.

"Mr. Farnon is expecting me. He wrote asking me to come today."

"Mr. Herriot?" she said thoughtfully. "Surgery is from six to seven
o'clock. If you wanted to bring a dog in, that would be your best time."

"No, no." I said, hanging on to my smile. "I'm applying for the position
of assistant. Mr. Farnon said to come in time for tea."

"Assistant? Well, now, that's nice." The lines in her face softened a
little. "I'm Mrs. Hall. I keep house for Mr. Farnon. He's a bachelor,
you know. He never said anything to me about you, but never mind, come
in and have a cup of tea. He shouldn't be long before he's back."

I followed her between whitewashed walls, my feet clattering on the
tiles. We turned right at the end into another passage and I was
beginning to wonder just how far back the house extended when I was
shown into a sunlit room.

It had been built in the grand manner, high-ceilinged and airy with a
massive fireplace flanked by arched alcoves. One end was taken up by a
french window which gave on a long, high-walled garden. I could see
unkempt lawns, a rockery and many fruit trees. A great bank of paeonies
blazed in the hot sunshine and at the far end, rooks cawed in the
branches of a group of tall elms. Above and beyond were the green hills
with their climbing walls.

Ordinary looking furniture stood around on a very worn carpet. Hunting
prints hung on the walls and books were scattered everywhere, some on
shelves in the alcoves but others piled on the floor in the corners. A
pewter pint pot occupied a prominent place at one end of the
mantelpiece. It was an interesting pot. Cheques and bank notes had been
stuffed into it till they bulged out of the top and overflowed on to the
hearth beneath. I was studying this with astonishment when Mrs. Hall
came in with a tea tray.

"I suppose Mr. Farnon is out on a case." I said.

"No, he's gone through to Brawton to visit his mother. I can't really
say when he'll be back." She left me with my tea.

The dogs arranged themselves peacefully around the room and, except for
a brief dispute between the Scottie and the cocker spaniel about the
occupancy of a deep chair, there was no sign of their previous violent
behaviour. They lay regarding me with friendly boredom and, at the same
time, fighting a losing battle against sleep. Soon the last nodding head
had fallen back and a chorus of heavy breathing filled the room.

But I was unable to relax with them. A feeling of let-down gripped me; I
had screwed myself up for an interview and I was left dangling. This was
all very odd. Why should anyone write for an assistant, arrange a time
to meet him and then go to visit his mother? Another thing - if I was
engaged, I would be living in this house, yet the housekeeper had no
instructions to prepare a room for me. In fact, she had never even heard
of me.

My musings were interrupted by the door bell ringing and the dogs, as if
touched by a live wire, leaped screaming into the air and launched
themselves in a solid mass through the door. I wished they didn't take
their duties so seriously. There was no sign of Mrs. Hall so I went out
to the front door where the dogs were putting everything into their
fierce act.

"Shut up!" I shouted and the din switched itself offf The five dogs
cringed abjectly round my ankles, almost walking on their knees. The big
greyhound got the best effect by drawing his lips back from his teeth in
an apologetic grin.

I opened the door and looked into a round, eager face. Its owner, a
plump man in wellington boots leaned confidently against the railings.

"Hello, 'ello, Mr. Farnon in?"

"Not at the moment. Can I help you?"

"Aye, give 'im a message when he comes in. Tell 'im Bert Sharpe of
Barrow Hills has a cow wot wants borin" out?"

"Boring out?"

"That's right, she's nobbut going on three cylinders."

"Three cylinders?"

"Aye and if we don't do summat she'll go wrang in 'er ewer, won't she?"

"Very probably."

"Don't want felon, do we?"

"Certainly not."

"O.K., you'll tell 'im, then. Ta-ta."

I returned thoughtfully to the sitting-room. It was disconcerting but I
had listened to my first case history without understanding a word of
it.

I had hardly sat down when the bell rang again. This time I unleashed a
frightening yell which froze the dogs when they were still in mid air;
they took the point and returned, abashed, to their chairs.

This time it was a solemn gentleman with a straightly adjusted cloth cap
resting on his ears, a muffler knotted precisely over his adam's apple
and a clay pipe growing from the exact centre of his mouth. He removed
the pipe and spoke with a rich, unexpected accent.

"Me name's Mulligan and I want Misther Farnon to make up some midicine
for me dog."

"Oh, what's the trouble with your dog, Mr. Mulligan?"

He raised a questioning eyebrow and put a hand to his ear. I tried again
with a full blooded shout.

"What's the trouble?"

He looked at me doubtfully for a moment. "He's womitin, sorr. Womitin"
bad."

I immediately felt on secure ground now and my brain began to seethe
with diagnostic procedures. "How long after eating does he vomit?"

The hand went to the ear again. "Phwhat's that?"

I leaned close to the side of his head, infiated my lungs and bawled:
"When does he womit - I mean vomit?"

Comprehension spread slowly across Mr. Mulligan's face. He gave a gentle
smile. "Oh aye, he's womitin". Womitin" bad, sorr."

I didn't feel up to another effort so I told him I would see to it and
asked him to call later. He must have been able to lipread me because he
seemed satisfied and walked away.

Back in the sitting-room, I sank into a chair and poured a cup of tea. I
had taken one sip when the bell rang again. This time, a wild glare from
me was enough to make the dogs cower back in their chairs; I was
relieved they had caught on so quickly.

Outside the front door a lovely, red-haired girl was standing. She
smiled, showing a lot of very white teeth.

"Good afternoon," she said in a loud, well-bred voice. "I am Diana
Brompton. Mr. Farnon is expecting me for tea." I gulped and clung to the
door handle. "He's asked YOU to tea?"

The smile became fixed. "Yes, that is correct," she said, spelling the
words out carefully, "He asked me to tea."

"I'm afraid Mr. Farnon isn't at home. I can't say when he'll be back."
The smile was plucked away. "Oh," she said, and she got a lot into the
word. "At any rate, perhaps I could come in."

"Oh, certainly, do come in. I'm sorry." I babbled, suddenly conscious
that I had been staring, open mouthed at her.

I held open the door and she brushed past me without a word. She knew
her way about because, when I got to the first corner, she had
disappeared into the room. I tiptoed past the door'and broke into a
gallop which took me along another thirty yards or so of twisting
passage to a huge, stone-flagged kitchen. Mrs. Hall was pottering about
there and I rushed at her.

"There's a young lady here, a Miss. Brompton. She's come to tea, too." I
had to fight an impulse to pluck at her sleeve.

Mrs. Hall's face was expressionless. I thought she might have started to
wave her arms about, but she didn't even seem surprised.

"You go through and talk to her and I'll bring a few more cakes," she
said.

"But what the heck am I going to talk to her about? How long is Mr.
Farnon going to be?"

"Oh, just chat to her for a bit. I shouldn't think he'll be very long,"
she said calmly.

Slowly, I made my way back to the sitting-room and when I opened the
door the girl turned quickly with the makings of another big smile. She
made no attempt to hide her disgust when she saw it was only me.

Mrs. Hall thinks he should be back fairly soon. Perhaps you would join
me in a cup of tea while you're waiting."

She gave me a quick glance which raked me from my rumpled hair to my
scuffed old shoes. I realised suddenly how grimy and sweaty I was after
the long JOURNEY Then she shrugged her shoulders and turned away. The
dogs regarded her apathetically. A heavy silence blanketed the room.

I poured a cup of tea and held it out to her. She ignored me and lit a
cigarette. This was going to be tough, but I could only try.

I cleared my throat and spoke lightly. "I've only just arrived myself. I
hope to be the new assistant."

This time she didn't trouble to look round. She just said "Oh" and again
the monosyllable carried a tremendous punch.

"Lovely part of the world, this." I said, returning to the attack.

"Yes."

"I've never been in Yorkshire before but I like what I've seen."

"Oh." '

"Have you known Mr. Farnon very long?"

"Yes."

"I believe he's quite young - about thirty?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful weather."

"Yes."

I kept at it with courage and tenacity for about five minutes, hunting
for something original or witty, but finally, Miss. Brompton, instead of
answering, took the cigarette from her mouth, turned towards me and gave
me a long, blank stare. I knew that was the end and shrank into silence.

After that, she sat staring out of the french window, pulling deeply at
her cigarette, narrowing her eyes as the smoke trickled from her lips.
As far as she was concerned, I just wasn't there.

I was able to observe her at will and she was interesting. I had never
met a living piece of a society magazine before. Cool, linen dress,
expensive-looking cardigan, elegant legs and the glorious red hair
falling on her shoulders.

And yet here was a fascinating thought. She was sitting there positively
hungering for a little fat German vet. This Farnon must have something.

The tableau was finally broken up when Miss. Brompton jumped to her
feet. She hurled her cigarette savagely into the fireplace and marched
from the room.

Wearily, I got out of my chair. My head began to ache as I shuffled
through the french window into the garden. I flopped down among the knee
deep grass on the lawn and rested my back against a towering acacia
tree. Where the devil was Farnon? Was he really expecting me or had
somebody played a horrible: practical joke on me? I felt suddenly cold.
I had spent my last few pounds getting here and if there was some
mistake I was in trouble.

But, looking around me, I began to feel better. The sunshine beat back
from the high old walls, bees droned among the bright masses of flowers.
A gentle breeze stirred the withered blooms of a magnificent wisteria
which almost covered the back of the house. There was peace here.

I leaned my head against the bark and closed my eyes. I could see Herr
Farrenen, looking just as I had imagined him, standing over me. He wore
a shocked expression.

"Wass is dis you haff done?" he spluttered, his fat jowls quivering with
rage. "You kom to my house under false pretences, you insult Fraulein
Brompton, you trink my tea, you eat my food. Vat else you do, hein?

Maybe you steal my spoons. You talk about assistant but I vant no
assistant. Is best I telephone the police."

Herr Farrenen seized the phone in a pudgy hand. Even in my dream, I
wondered how the man could use such a completely corny accent. I heard
the thick voice saying "Hello, hello."

And I opened my eyes. Somebody was saying "Hello", but it wasn't Herr
Farrenen. A tall, thin man was leaning against the wall, his hands in
his pockets. Something seemed to be amusing him. As I struggled to my
feet, he heaved himself away from the wall and held out his hand. "Sorry
you've had to wait. I'm Siegfried Farnon."

He was just about the most English looking man I had ever seen. Long,
humorous, strongjawed face. Small, clipped mustache, untidy, sandy
hair. He was wearing an old tweed jacket and shapeless flannel trousers.
The collar of his check shirt was frayed and the tie carelessly knotted.
He looked as though he didn't spend much time in front of a mirror.

Studying him, I began to feel better despite the ache in my neck where
it had rested against the tree. I shook my head to get my eyes fully
open and tufts of grass fell from my hair. "There was a Miss. Brompton
here" I blurted out. "She came to tea. I explained you had been called
away."

Farnon looked thoughtful, but not put out. He rubbed his chin slowly.
"Mm, yes - well, never mind. But I do apologise for being out when you
arrived. I have a shocking memory and I just forgot."

It was the most English voice, too.

Farnon gave me a long, searching look, then he grinned. "Let's go
inside. I want to show you round the place."

Chapter Three.

The long offshoot behind the house had been the servants" quarters in
grander days. Here, everything was dark and narrow and poky as if in
deliberate contrast with the front.

Farnon led me to the first of several doors which opened off a passage
where the smell of ether and carbolic hung on the air. "This," he said,
with a secret gleam in his eye as though he were about to unveil the
mysteries of Aladdin's cave,"is the dispensary."

The dispensary was an important place in the days before penicillin and
the sulphonamides Rows of gleaming Winchester bottles lined the white
walls from floor to ceiling. I savoured the familiar names: Sweet
Spirits of Nitre, Tincture of Camphor, Chlorodyne, Formalin,
Salammoniac, Hexamine, Sugar of Lead, Linimentum Album, Perchloride of
Mercury, Red Blister. The lines of labels were comforting.

I was an initiate among old friends. I had painfully accumulated their
lore, ferreting out their secrets over the years. I knew their origins,
actions and uses, and their maddeningly varied dosage. The examiner's
voice - "And what is the dose for the horse? - and the cow? and the
sheep? - and the pig? - and the dog? - and the cat?"

These shelves held the vets" entire armoury against disease and, on a
bench under the window, I could see the instruments for compounding
them; the graduated vessels and beakers, the mortars and pestles. And
underneath, in an open cupboard, the medicine bottles, piles of corks of
all sizes, pill boxes, powder papers.

As we moved around, Farnon's manner became more and more animated. His
eyes glittered and he talked rapidly. Often, he reached up and caressed
a Winchester on its shelf; or he would lift out a horse ball or an
electuary from its box, give it a friendly pat and replace it with
tenderness.

Look at this stuff, Herriot," he shouted without warning. "Adrevan!

This is the remedy, par excellence, for red worms in horses. A bit
expensive, mind you - ten bob a packet. And these gentian violet
pessaries. If you shove one of these into a cow's uterus after a dirty
cleansing, it turns the discharges a very pretty colour. Really looks as
though it's doing something. And have you seen this trick ?"

He placed a few crystals of resublimated iodine on a glass dish and
added a drop of turpentine. Nothing happened for a second then a dense
cloud of purple smoke rolled heavily to the ceiling. He gave a great
bellow of laughter at my startled face.

"Like witchcraft, isn't it? I use it for wounds in horses" feet. The
chemical reaction drives the iodine deep into the tissues."

"It does?"

"Well, I don't know, but that's the theory, and anyway, you must admit
it looks wonderful. Impresses the toughest client."

Some of the bottles on the shelves fell short of the ethical standards I
had learned in college. Like the one labelled "Colic Drench" and
featuring a floridly drawn picture of a horse rolling in agony. The
animal's face was turned outwards and wore an expression of very human
anguish. Another bore the legend "Universal Cattle Medicine" in ornate
script - "A sovereign Remedy for coughs, chills, scours, pneumonia, milk
fever, gargett and all forms of indigestion. At the bottom of the label,
in flaring black capitals was the assurance, "Never Fails to Give
Relief."

Farnon had something to say about most of the drugs. Each one had its
place in his five years" experience of practice; they all had their
fascination, their individual mystique. Many of the bottles were
beautifully shaped, with heavy glass stoppers and their Latin names cut
deeply into their sides; names familiar to physicians for centuries,
gathering fables through the years.

The two of us stood gazing at the gleaming rows without any idea that it
was nearly all useless and that the days of the old medicines were
nearly over. Soon they would be hustled into oblivion by the headlong
rush of the new discoveries and they would never return.

"This is where we keep the instruments." Farnon showed me into another
little room. The small animal equipment lay on green baize shelves, very
neat and impressively clean. Hypodermic syringes, whelping forceps,
tooth scalers, probes, searchers, and, in a place of prominence, an
ophthalmoscope.

Farnon lifted it lovingly from its black box. "My latest purchase," he
murmured, stroking its smooth shaft. "Wonderful thing. Here, have a peep
at my retina."

I switched on the bulb and gazed with interest at the glistening,
coloured tapestry in the depths of his eye. "Very pretty. I could write
you a certificate of soundness."

He laughed and thumped my shoulder. "Good, I'm glad to hear it. I always
fancied I had a touch of cataract in that one."

He began to show me the large animal instruments which hung from hooks
on the walls. Docking and firing irons, bloodless castrators,
emasculators, casting ropes and hobbles, calving ropes and hooks. A new,
silvery embryotome hung in the place of honour, but many of the
instruments, like the drugs, were museum pieces. Particularly the blood
stick and fleam, a relic of medieval times, but still used to bring the
rich blood spouting into a bucket.

"You still can't beat it for laminitis," Farnon declared seriously.

We finished up in the operating room with its bare white walls, high
table, oxygen and ether anaesthetic outfit and a small steriliser.

"Not much small animal work in this district." Farnon smoothed the table
with his palm. "But I'm trying to encourage it. It makes a pleasant
change from lying on your belly in a cow house. The thing is, we've got
to do the job right. The old castor oil and prussic acid doctrine is no
good at all. You probably know that a lot of the old hands won't look at
a dog or a cat, but the profession has got to change its ideas."

He went over to a cupboard in the corner and opened the door. I could
see glass shelves with a few scalpels, artery forceps, suture needles
and bottles of catgut in spirit. He took out his handkerchief and
flicked at an auroscope before closing the doors carefully "Well, what
do you think of it all?" he asked as he went out into the passage.

"Great," I replied. "You've got just about everything you need here. I'm
really impressed."

He seemed to swell visibly. The thin cheeks flushed and he hummed softly
to himself. Then he burst loudly into song in a shaky baritone, keeping
time with our steps as we marched along.

Back in the sitting-room, I told him about Bert Sharpe. "Something about
boring out a cow which was going on three cylinders. He talked about her
ewer and felon - I didn't quite get it."

Farnon laughed. "I think I can translate. He wants a Hudson's operation
doing on a blocked teat. Ewer is the udder and felon the local term for
mastitis."

"Well, thanks. And there was a deaf Irishman, a Mr. Mulligan  ..."

"Wait a minute." Farnon held up a hand. "Let me guess - womitin"?"

"Aye, womitin" bad, sorr."

"Right, I'll put up another pint of bismuth carte for him. I'm in favour
of long range treatment for this dog. He looks like an airedale but he's
as big as a donkey and has a moody disposition. He's had Joe Mulligan on
the floor a few times - just gets him down and worries him when he's got
nothing better to do. But Joe loves him."

"How about the womitin"?"

"Doesn't mean a thing. Natural reaction from eating every bit of rubbish
he finds. Well, we'd better get out to Sharpe's. And there are one or
two other visits - how about coming with me and I'll show you a bit of
the district."

Outside the house, Farnon motioned me towards a battered Hillman and, as
I moved round to the passenger's side, I shot a startled glance at the
treadless tyres, the rusty bodywork, the almost opaque windscreen with
its network of fine cracks. What I didn't notice was that the passenger
seat was not fixed to the floor but stood freely on its sledge-like
runners. I dropped into it and went over backwards, finishing with my
head on the rear seat and my feet against the roof. Farnon helped me up,
apologising with great charm, and we set off.

Once clear of the market place, the road dipped quite suddenly and we
could see all of the Dale stretching away from us in the evening
sunshine. The outlines of the great hills were softened in the gentle
light and a broken streak of silver showed where the Darrow wandered on
the valley floor.

Farnon was an unorthodox driver. Apparently captivated by the scene, he
drove slowly down the hill, elbows resting on the wheel, his chin cupped
in his hands. At the botton of the hill he came out of his reverie and
spurted to seventy miles an hour. The old car rocked crazily along the
narrow road and my movable seat slewed from side to side as I jammed my
feet against the floor boards.

Then he slammed on the brakes, pointed out some pedigree Shorthorns in a
field and jolted away again. He never looked at the road in front; all
his attention was on the countryside around and behind him. It was that
last bit that worried me, because he spent a lot of time driving fast
and looking over his shoulder at the same time.

We left the road at last and made our way up a gated lane. My years of
seeing practice had taught me to hop in and out very smartly as students
were regarded primarily as gate-opening machines. Farnon, however,
thanked me gravely every time and once I got over my surprise I found it
refreshing.

We drew up in a farmyard. "Lame horse here." Farnon said. A strapping
Clydesdale gelding was brought out and we watched attentively as the
farmer trotted him up and down.

"Which leg do you make it?" my colleague asked. "Near fore? Yes, I think
so, too. Like to examine it?"

I put my hand on the foot, feeling how much hotter it was than the
other. I called for a hammer and tapped the wall of the hoof. The horse
flinched, raised the foot and held it trembling for a few seconds before
replacing it carefully on the ground. "Looks like pus in the foot to
me."

"I'll bet you're right," Farnon said. "They call it gravel around here,
by the way. What do you suggest we do about it?"

"Open up the sole and evacuate the pus."

"Right." He held out a hoof knife. "I'll watch your technique."

With the uncomfortable feeling that I was on trial, I took the knife,
lifted the foot and tucked it between my knees. I knew what I had to do
- find the dark mark on the sole where the infection had entered and
follow it down till I reached the pus. I scraped away the caked dirt and
found not one, but several marks. After more tapping to find the painful
area I selected a likely spot and started to cut.

The horn seemed as hard as marble and only the thinnest little shaving
came away with each twist of the knife. The horse, too, appeared to
appreciate having his sore foot lifted off the ground and gratefully
leaned his full weight on my back. He hadn't been so comfortable all
day. I groaned and dug him in the ribs with my elbow and, though it made
him change his position for a second, he was soon leaning on again.

The mark was growing fainter and, after a final gouge with the knife it
disappeared altogether. I swore quietly and started on another mark.
With my back at breaking point and the sweat trickling into my eyes, I
knew that if this one petered out, too, I would have to let the foot go
and take a rest. And with Farnon's eye on me I didn't want to do that.

Agonisingly, I hacked away and, as the hole deepened, my knees began an
uncontrollable trembling. The horse rested happily, his fifteen
hundredweight cradled by this thoughtful human. I was wondering how it
would look when I finally fell flat on my face when, under the knife
blade, I saw a thin spurt of pus followed by a steady trickle.

"There it goes," the farmer grunted. "He'll get relief now."

I enlarged the drainage hole and dropped the foot. It took me a long
time to straighten up and when I stepped back, my shirt clung to my
back.

"Well done, Herriot." Farnon took the knife from me and slipped it into
his pocket. "It just isn't funny when the horn is as hard as that."

He gave the horse a shot of tetanus antitoxin then turned to the farmer.
"I wonder if you'd hold up the foot for a second while I disinfect the
cavity." The stocky little man gripped the foot between his knees and
looked down with interest as Farnon filled the hole with iodine crystals
and added some turpentine. Then he disappeared behind a billowing purple
curtain.

I watched, fascinated, as the thick pall mounted and spread. I could
locate the little man only by the spluttering noises from somewhere in
the middle.

As the smoke began to clear, a pair of round, startled eyes came into
view. "By Gaw, Mr. Farnon, I wondered what the 'ell had happened for a
minute," the farmer said between coughs. He looked down again at the
blackened hole in the hoof and spoke reverently: "It's wonderful what
science can do nowadays."

We did two more visits, one to a calf with a cut leg which I stitched,
dressed and bandaged, then to the cow with the blocked teat.

Mr. Sharpe was waiting, still looking eager. He led us into the byre and
Farnon gestured towards the cow. "See what you can make of it."

I squatted down and palpated the teat, feeling the mass of thickened
tissue half up. It would have to be broken down by a Hudson's instrument
and I began to work the thin metal spiral up the teat. One second later,
I was sitting gasping in the dung channel with the neat imprint of a
cloven hoof on my shirt front, just over the solar plexus.

It was embarrassing, but there was nothing I could do but sit there
fighting for breath, my mouth opening and shutting like a stranded fish.

Mr. Sharpe held his hand over his mouth, his innate politeness at war
with his natural amusement at seeing the vet come to grief. "I'm sorry,
young man, but I owl to'ave told you that this is a very friendly
cow. She allus likes to shake hands." Then, overcome by his own wit, he
rested his forehead on the cow's back and went into a long paroxysm of
silent mirth.

I took my time to recover, then rose with dignity from the channel. With
Mr. Sharpe holding the nose and Farnon lifting up the tail, I managed to
get the instrument past the fibrous mass and by a few downward tugs I
cleared the obstruction; but, though the precautions cramped the cow's
style a little, she still got in several telling blows on my arms and
legs.

When it was over, the farmer grasped the teat and sent a long white jet
frothing on the floor. "Capital! She's going on four cylinders now!"

Chapter Four.

"We'll go home a different way." Farnon leaned over the driving wheel
and wiped the cracked windscreen with his sleeve. "Over the Brenkstone
Pass and down Sildale. It's not much further and I'd like you to see
it."

We took a steep, winding road, climbing higher and still higher with the
hillside falling away sheer to a dark ravine where a rocky stream rushed
headlong to the gentler country below. On the top, we got out of the
car. In the summer dusk, a wild panorama of tumbling fells and peaks
rolled away and lost itself in the crimson and gold ribbons of the
Western sky. To the East, a black mountain overhung us, menacing in its
naked bulk. Huge, square-cut boulders littered the lower slopes.

I whistled softly as I looked around. This was different from the
friendly hill Country I had seen on the approach to Darrowby.

Farnon turned towards me. "Yes, one of the wildest spots in England. A
fearsome place in winter. I've known this pass to be blocked for weeks
on end."

I pulled the clean air deeply into my lungs. Nothing stirred in the
vastness, but a curlew cried faintly and I could just hear the distant
roar of the torrent a thousand feet below.

It was dark when we got into the car and started the long descent into
Sildale. The valley was a shapeless blur but points of light showed
where the lonely farms clung to the hillsides.

We came to a silent village and Farnon applied his brakes violently. I
tobogganed effortlessly across the floor on my mobile seat and collided
with the windscreen. My head made a ringing sound against the glass but
Farnon didn't seem to notice. "There's a grand little pub here. Let's go
in and have a beer."

The pub was something new to me. It was, simply, a large kitchen, square
and stone-flagged. An enormous fireplace and an old black cooking range
took up one end. A kettle stood on the hearth and a single large log
hissed and crackled, filling the room with its resinous scent.

About a dozen men sat on the high-backed settles which lined the walls.
In front of them, rows of pint mugs rested on oak tables which were
fissured and twisted with age.

There was a silence as we went in. Then somebody said "Now then, Mr.
Farnon," not enthusiastically, but politely, and this brought some
friendly grunts and nods from the company. They were mostly farmers or
farm workers taking their pleasure without fuss or excitement. Most were
burnt red by the sun and some of the younger ones were tieless, muscular
necks and chests showing through the open shirt fronts. Soft murmurs and
clicks rose from a peaceful domino game in the corner.

Farnon guided me to a seat, ordered two beers and turned to face me.
"Well, you can have this job if you want it. Four quid a week and full
board. O.K.?"

The suddenness struck me silent. I was in. And four pounds a week!

I remembered the pathetic entries in the Record. "Veterinary surgeon,
fully experienced, will work for keep." The BVMA had had to put pressure
on the editor to stop him printing these cries from the heart. It hadn't
looked so good to see members of the profession offering their services
free. Four pounds a week was affluence.

"Thank you," I said, trying hard not to look triumphant. "I accept."

"Good." Farnon took a hasty gulp at his beer. "Let me tell you about the
practice. I bought it a year ago from an old man of eighty. Still
practising, mind you, a real tough old character. But he'd got past
getting up in the middle of the night, which isn't surprising. And, of
course, in lots of other ways he had let things slide - hanging on to
all the old ideas. Some of those ancient instruments in the surgery were
his. One way and another, there was hardly any practice left and I'm
trying to work it up again now. There's very little profit in it so far,
but if we stick in for a few years, I'm confident we'll have a good
business. The farmers are pleased to see a younger man taking over and
they welcome new treatments and operations. But I'm having to educate
them out of the three and sixpenny consulting fee the old chap used to
charge and it's been a hard slog. These Dalesmen are wonderful people
and you'll like them, but they don't like parting with their brass
unless you can prove they are getting something in return."

He talked on enthusiastically of his plans for the future, the drinks
kept coming and the atmosphere in the pub thawed steadily. The place
filled up as the regulars from the village streamed in, the noise and
heat increased and by near closing time I had got separated from my
colleague and was in the middle of a laughing group I seemed to have
known for years.

But there was one odd character who swam repeatedly into my field of
vision. An elderly little man with a soiled white panama perched above a
smooth, brown, time-worn face like an old boot. He was dodging round the
edge of the group, beckoning and winking.

I could see there was something on his mind, so I broke away and allowed
myself to be led to a seat in the corner. The old man sat opposite me,
rested his hands and chin on the handle of his walking stick and
regarded me from under drooping eyelids.

"Now then, young man, ah've summat to tell thee. Ah've been among beasts
all me life and I'm going to tell the summa"."

My toes began to curl. I had been caught this way before. Early in my
college career I had discovered that all the older inhabitants of the
agricultural world seemed to have the idea that they had something
priceless to impart. And it usually took a long time. I looked around me
in alarm but I was trapped. The old man shuffled his chair closer and
began to talk in a conspiratorial whisper. Gusts of beery breath hit my
face from six inches range.

There was nothing new about the old man's tale - just the usual recital
of miraculous cures he had wrought, infallible remedies known only to
himself and many little sidetracks about how unscrupulous people had
tried in vain to worm his secrets from him. He paused only to take
expert pulls at his pint pot; his tiny frame seemed to be able to
accommodate a surprising amount of beer.

But he was enjoying himself and I let him ramble op. In fact I
encouraged him by expressing amazement and admiration at his feats.

The little man had never had such an audience. He was a retired
smallholder and it had been years since anybody had shown him the
appreciation he deserved.

His face wore a lopsided leer and his swimmy eyes were alight with
friendship. But suddenly he became serious and sat up straight.

"Now, afore ye go, young man, I'm going to tell thee summat nobody knows
but me. Ah could've made a lot o" money out o" this. Folks 'ave been
after me for years to tell 'em but I never 'ave."

He lowered the level in his glass by several inches then narrowed his
eyes to slits. "It's the cure for mallenders and sallenders in 'oases."

I started up in my chair as though the roof had begun to fall in. "You
can't mean it," I gasped. "Not mallenders and sallenders."

The old man looked smug. "Ah, but ah do mean it. All you have to do is
rub on this salve of mine and the 'oss walks away sound. He's better by
that!" His voice rose to a thin shout and he made a violent gesture with
his arm which swept his nearly empty glass to the floor.

I gave a low, incredulous whistle and ordered another pint. "And you're
really going to tell me the name of this salve?" I whispered.

"I am, young man, but only on one condition. Tha must tell no one. Tha
must keep it to thaself, then nobody'll know but thee and me." He
effortlessly tipped half of his fresh pint down his throat. "Just thee
and me, lad."

"All right, I promise you. I'll not tell a soul. Now what is this
wonderful stuff?"

The old man looked furtively round the crowded room. Then he took a deep
breath, laid his hand on my shoulder and put his lips close to my ear.
He hiccuped once, solemnly, and spoke in a hoarse whisper. "Marshmallow
ointment."

I grasped his hand and wrung it silently. The old man, deeply moved,
spilled most of his final half pint down his chin.

But Farnon was making signals from the door. It was time to go. We
surged out with our new friends, making a little island of noise and
light in the quiet village street. A tow-haired young fellow in shirt
sleeves opened the car door with natural courtesy and, waving a final
good night, I plunged in. This time, the seat went over quicker than
usual and I hurtled backwards, coming to rest with my head among some
Wellingtons and my knees tucked underneath my chin.

A row of surprised faces peered in at me through the back window, but
soon, willing hands were helping me up and the trick seat was placed
upright on its rockers again. I wondered how long it had been like that
and if my employer had ever thought of having it fixed.

We roared off into the darkness and I looked back at the waving group
could see the little man, his panama gleaming like new in the light from
the doorway. He was holding his finger to his lips.

Chapter Five.

The past five years had been leading up to one moment and it hadn't
arrived yet. I had been in Darrowby for twenty-four hours now and I
still hadn't been to a visit on my own.

Another day had passed in going around with Farnon. It was a funny
thing, but, for a man who seemed careless, forgetful and a few other
things, Farnon was frustratingly cautious about launching his new
assistant.

We had been over into Lidderdale today and I had met more of the clients
- friendly, polite farmers who received me pleasantly and wished me
success. But working under Farnon's supervision was like being back at
college with the professor's eye on me. I felt strongly that my
professional career would not start until I, James Herriot, went out and
attended a sick animal, unaided and unobserved.

However, the time couldn't be very far away now. Farnon had gone off to
Brawton to see his mother again. A devoted son, I thought wonderingly.
And he had said he would be back late, so the old lady must keep unusual
hours. But never mind about that - what mattered was that I was in
charge.

I sat in an armchair with a frayed loose cover and looked out through
the french windows at the shadows thrown by the evening sun across the
shaggy lawn. I had the feeling that I would be doing a lot of this.

I wondered idly what my first call would be. Probably an anti-climax
after the years of waiting. Something like a coughing calf or a pig with
constipation. And maybe that would be no bad thing - to start with
something I could easily put right. I was in the middle of these
comfortable musings when the telephone exploded out in the passage. The
insistent clamour sounded abnormally loud in the empty house. I lifted
the receiver.

"Is that Mr. Farnon?" It was a deep voice with a harsh edge to it. Not a
local accent; possibly a trace of the South West.

"No, I'm sorry, he's out. This is his assistant."

"When will he be back?"

"Not till late, I'm afraid. Can I do anything for you?"

"I don't know whether you can do anything for me or not." The voice took
on a hectoring tone. "I am Mr. Soames, Lord Hulton's farm manager. I
have a valuable hunting horse with colic. Do you know anything about
colic?"

I felt my hackles rising. "I am a veterinary surgeon, so I think I
should know something about it."

There was a long pause, and the voice barked again. "Well, I reckon
you'll have to do. In any case, I know the injection the horse wants.
Bring some arecoline with you. Mr. Farnon uses it. And for God's sake,
don't be all night getting here. How long will you be?"

"I'm leaving now."

"Right."

I heard the receiver bang down onto its rest. My face felt hot as I
walked away from the phone. So my first case wasn't going to be a
formality. Colics were tricky things and I had an aggressive know-all
called Soames thrown in for good measure On the eight mile journey to
the case, I re-read from memory that great classic, Caulton Reek's
Common Colics of the Horse. I had gone through it so often in my final
year that I could recite stretches of it like poetry. The wellthumbed
pages hovered in front of me, phantom-like, as I drove.

This would probably be a mild impaction or a bit of spasm. Might have
had a change of food or too much rich grass. Yet, that would be it; most
colics were like that. A quick shot of arecoline and maybe some
chlorodyne to relieve the discomfort and all would be well. My mind went
back to the case I had met while seeing practice. The horse standing
quietly except that it occasionally eased a hind leg or looked round at
its side. There was nothing to it, really.

I was elaborating this happy picture when I arrived. I drove into a
spotless, gravelled yard surrounded on three sides by substantial loose
boxes. A man was standing there, a broad-shouldered, thick-set figure,
very trim in check cap and jacket, well-cut breeches and shiny leggings.

The car drew up about thirty yards away and, as I got out, the man
slowly and deliberately turned his back on me. I walked across the yard,
taking my time, waiting for the other to turn round, but he stood
motionless, hands in pockets, looking in the other direction.

I stopped a few feet away but still the man did not turn. After a long
time, and when I had got tired of looking at the back, I spoke.

"Mr. Soames?"

At first the man did not move, then he turned very slowly. He had a
thick, red neck, a ruddy face and small, fiery eyes. He made no answer
but looked me over carefully from head to foot, taking in the worn
raincoat, my youth, my air of inexperience. When he had completed his
examination he looked away again.

"Yes, I am Mr. Soames." He stressed the "Mr." as though it meant a lot
to him. "I am a very great friend of Mr. Farnon."

"My name is Herriot."

Soames didn't appear to have heard. "Yes, a clever man is Mr. Farnon. We
are great friends."

"I understand you have a horse with colic." I wished my voice didn't
sound so high and unsteady.

Soames" gaze was still directed somewhere into the sky. He whistled a
little tune softly to himself before replying. "In there," he said,
jerking his head in the direction of one of the boxes. "One of his
lordship's best hunters. In need of expert assistance, I think." He put
a bit of emphasis on the 'expert".

I opened the door and went inside. And I stopped as though I had walked
into a wall. It was a very large box, deeply bedded with peat moss. A
bay horse was staggering round and round the perimeter where he had worn
a deep path in the peat. He was lathered in sweat from nose to tail, his
nostrils were dilated and his eyes stared blankly in front of him. His
head rolled about at every step and, through his clenched teeth, gobbets
of foam dripped to the floor. A rank steam rose from his body as though
he had been galloping.

My mouth had gone dry. I found it difficult to speak and when I did, it
was almost in a whisper. "How long has he been like this?"

"Oh, he started with a bit of belly ache this morning. I've been giving
him black draughts all day, or at least this fellow has. I wouldn't be
surprised if he's made a bloody mess of it like he does everything."

I saw that there was somebody standing in the shadows in the corner; a
large, fat man with a head collar in his hand.

"Oh, I got the draughts down him, right enough, Mr. Soames, but they
haven't done 'im no good." The big man looked scared.

"You call yourself a horseman," Soames said 'but I should have done the
damn job myself. I reckon he'd have been better by now."

"It would take more than a black draught to help him," I said. "This is
no ordinary colic."

"What the hell is it, then?"

"Well, I can't say till I've examined him, but severe, continuous pain
like that could mean a torsion - a twisted bowel."

"Twisted bowel, my foot! He's got a bit of belly ache, that's all. He
hasn't passed anything all day and he wants something to shift him. Have
you got the arecoline with you?"

"If this is a torsion, arecoline would be the worst thing you could give
him. He's in agony now, but that would drive him mad. It acts by
contracting the muscles of the intestines."

"God dammit," snarled Soames, "Don't start giving me a bloody lecture.
Are you going to start doing something for the horse or aren't you?"

I turned to the big man in the corner. "Slip on that head collar and
I'll examine him."

With the collar on, the horse was brought to a halt. He stood there,
trembling and groaning as I passed a hand between ribs and elbows,
feeling for the pulse. It was as bad as it could be - a racing, thready
beat. I everted an eyelid with my fingers; the mucous membrane was a
dark, brick red. The thermometer showed a temperature of a hundred and
three.

I looked across the box at Soames. "Could I have a bucket of hot water,
soap and a towel, please?"

"What the devil for? You've done nothing yet and you want to have a
wash?"

"I want to make a rectal examination. Will you please bring me the
water?"

"God help us, I've never seen anything like this." Soames passed a hand
wearily over his eyes then swung round on the big man. "Well, come on,
don't stand around there. Get him his water and we'll maybe get
something done."

When the water came, I soaped my arm and gently inserted it into the
animal's rectum. I could feel plainly the displacement of the small
intestine on the left side and a tense, tympanitic mass which should not
have been there. As I touched it, the horse shuddered and groaned again.

As I washed and dried my arms, my heart pounded. What was I to do?

What could I say?

Soames was stamping in and out of the box, muttering to himself as the
pain maddened animal writhed and twisted. "Hold the bloody thin"," he
bellowed at the horseman who was gripping the head collar. "What the
bloody hell are you playing at?" The big man said nothing. He was in no
way to blame but he just stared back stolidly at Soames.

I took a deep breath. "Everything points to the one thing. I'm convinced
this horse has a torsion."

"All right then, have it your own way. He's got a torsion. Only for
God's sake do something, will you? Are we going to stand in here all
night?"

"There's nothing anybody can do. There is no cure for this. The
important thing is to put him out of his pain as quickly as possible."

Soames screwed up his face. "No cure? Put him out of his pain? What
rubbish is this you're talking? Just what are you getting at?"

I took a hold on myself. "I suggest you let me put him down
immediately."

"What do you mean?" Soames" mouth fell open.

"I mean that I should shoot him now, straight away. I have a humane
killer in the car."

Soames looked as if he was going to explode. "Shoot him! Are you stark
raving mad? Do you know how much that horse is worth?"

"It makes no difference what he's worth, Mr. Soames. He has been going
through hell all day and he's dying now. You should have called me out
long ago. He might live a few hours more but the end would be the same.
And he's in dreadful pain, continuous pain."

Soames sunk his head in his hands. "Oh God, why did this have to happen
to me? His lordship is on holiday or I'd call him out to try to make you
see some sense. I tell you, if your boss had been here he'd have given
that horse an injection and put him right in half an hour. Look here,
can't we wait till Mr. Farnon gets back tonight and let him have a look
at him?"

Something in me leaped gladly at the idea. Give a shot of morphine and
get away out of it. Leave the responsibility to somebody else. It would
be easy. I looked again at the horse. He had recommenced his blind
circling of the box stumbling round and round in a despairing attempt to
leave his agony behind. As I watched, he raised his lolling head and
gave a little whinny. It was a desolate, uncomprehending, frantic sound
and it was enough for me.

I strode quickly out and got the killer from the car. "Steady his head,"
I said to the big man and placed the muzzle between the glazing eyes.
There was a sharp crack and the horse's legs buckled. He thudded down on
the peat and lay still.

I turned to Soames who was staring at the body in disbelief. "Mr. Farnon
will come round in the morning and carry out a post mortem. I'd like
Lord Hulton to have my diagnosis confirmed."

I put on my jacket and went out to the car. As I started the engine,
Soames opened the door and pushed his head in. He spoke quietly but his
voice was furious. "I'm going to inform his lordship about this night's
work. And Mr. Farnon too. I'll let him know what kind of an assistant
he's landed himself with. And let me tell you this. You'll be proved
wrong at that post mortem tomorrow and then I'm going to sue you.""He
banged the door shut and walked away.

Back at the surgery, I decided to wait up for my boss and I sat there
trying to rid myself of the feeling that I had blasted my career before
it had got started. Yet, looking back, I knew I couldn't have done
anything else. No matter how many times I went over the ground, the
conclusion was always the same.

It was 1 a.m. before Farnon got back. His evening with his mother had
stimulated him. His thin cheeks were flushed and he smelt pleasantly of
gin. I was surprised to see that he was wearing evening dress and though
the dinner jacket was of old-fashioned cut and hung in loose folds on
his bony frame, he still managed to look like an ambassador.

He listened in silence as I told him about the horse. He was about to
comment when the phone rang. "A late one," he whispered, then "Oh, it's
you, Mr. Soames." He nodded at me and settled down in his chair. He was
a long time saying "Yes" and "No" and "I see", then he sat up decisively
and began to speak.

"Thank you for ringing, Mr. Soames, and it seems as though Mr. Herriot
did the only possible thing in the circumstances. No, I cannot agree. It
would have been cruel to leave him. One of our duties is to prevent
suffering. Well, I'm Sorry you feel like that, but I consider Mr.
Herriot to be a highly capable veterinary surgeon. If I had been there I
have no doubt I'd have done the same thing. Good night, Mr. Soames, I'll
see you in the morning."

I felt so much better that I almost launched into a speech of gratitude
but in the end, all I said was "Thanks".

arnon reached up into the glass-fronted cupboard above the mantelpiece
and pulled out a bottle of whisky. He carelessly slopped out half a
tumblerful and pushed it at me. He gave himself a similar measure and
fell back into the armchair.

He took a deep swallow, stared for a few seconds at the amber fluid in
the glass then looked up with a smile. "Well, you certainly got chucked
in at the deep end tonight, my boy. Your first case" And it had to be
Soames, too."

"Do you know him very well?"

"Oh, I know all about him. A nasty piece of work and enough to put
anybody off their stroke. Believe me, he's no friend of mine. In fact,
rumour has it that he's a bit of a crook. They say he's been feathering
his nest for a long time at his lordship's expense. He'll slip up one
day, I expect."

The neat whisky burned a fiery path down to my stomach but I felt I
needed it. "I wouldn't like too many sessions like tonight's, but I
don't suppose veterinary practice is like that all the time."

"Well, not quite," Farnon replied, 'but you never know what's in store
for you. It's a funny profession, ours, you know. It offfers
unparalleled opportunities for making a chump of yourself."

"But I expect a lot depends on your ability."

"To a certain extent. It helps to be good at the job, of course, but
even if you're a positive genius humiliation and ridicule are lurking
just round the corner. I once got an eminent horse specialist along here
to do a rig operation and the horse stopped breathing half way through.
The sight of that man dancing frantically on his patient's ribs taught
me a great truth - that I was going to look just as big a fool at fairly
regular intervals throughout my career."

I laughed. "Then I might as well resign myself to it right at the
beginning."

"That's the idea. Animals are unpredictable things so our whole life is
unpredictable. It's a long tale of little triumphs and disasters and
you've got to really like it to stick it. Tonight it was Soames, but
another night it'll be something else. One thing, you never get bored.
Here, have some more whisky."

I drank the whisky and then some more and we talked. It seemed no time
at all before the dark bulk of the acacia tree began to emerge from the
grey light beyond the french window, a blackbird tried a few tentative
pipes and Farnon was regretfully shaking the last drops from the bottle
into his glass.

He yawned, jerked the knot out of his black tie and looked at his watch.
"Well, five o'clock. Who would have thought it? But I'm glad we had a
drink together - only right to celebrate your first case. It was a right
one, wasn't it?"

Chapter Six.

Two and a half hours" sleep was a meagre ration but I made a point of
being up by seven thirty and downstairs, shaved and scrubbed, by eight.

But I breakfasted alone. Mrs. Hall, impassively placing scrambled eggs
before me, told me that my employer had left some time ago to do the PM
on Lord Hulton's horse. I wondered if he had bothered to go to bed at
all.

I was busy with the last of the toast when Farnon burst into the room. I
was getting used to his entrances and hardly jumped at all as he
wrenched at the door handle and almost leaped into the middle of the
carpet. He looked rosy and in excellent spirits.

"Anything left in that coffee pot? I'll join you for a cup." He crashed
down on a protesting chair. "Well, you've nothing to worry about. The PM
showed a classical torsion. Several loops of bowel involved - black and
tympanitic. I'm glad you put the poor beggar down straight away."

"Did you see my friend Soames?"

"Oh, he was there, of course. He tried to get in a few digs about you
but I quietened him. I just pointed out that he had delayed far too long
in sending for us and that Lord Hulton wasn't going to be too pleased
when he heard how his horse had suffered. I left him chewing over that."

The news did a lot to lighten my outlook. I went overto the desk and got
the day book. "Here are this morning's calls. What would you like me to
do?"

Farnon picked out a round of visits, scribbled the list on a scrap of
paper and handed it over. "Here you are," he said, "A few nice,
trouble-free cases to get yourself worked in."

I was turning to leave when he called me back. "Oh, there's one other
thing I'd like you to do. My young brother is hitching from Edinburgh
today. He's at the Veterinary College there and the term finished
yesterday. When he gets within striking distance he'll probably give us
a ring. I wonder if you'd slip out and pick him up?"

"Certainly. Glad to."

"His name is Tristan, by the way."

"Tristan ?"

"Yes. Oh, I should have told you. You must have wondered about my own
queer name. It was my father. Great Wagnerian. It nearly ruled his life.
It was music all the time - mainly Wagner."

"I'm a bit partial myself."

"Ah well, yes, but you didn't get it morning noon and night like we did.
And then to be stuck with a name like Siegfried. Anyway, it could have
been worse - Wotan, for instance."

"Or Pogner." .

Farnon looked startled. "By golly, you're right. I'd forgotten about old
Pogner. I suppose I've a lot to be thankful for."

It was late afternoon before the expected call came. The voice at the
other end was uncannily familiar.

"This is Tristan Farnon."

"Gosh, you sound just like your brother."

A pleasant laugh answered me. "Everybody says that - oh, that's very
good of you. I'd be glad of a lift. I'm at the Holly Tree Cafe on the
Great North Road."

After the voice I had been expecting to find a younger edition of my
employer but the small, boyish-faced figure sitting on a rucksack could
hardly have been less like him. He got up, pushed back the dark hair
from his forehead and held out his hand. The smile was charming.

"Had much walking to do?" I asked.

"Oh, a fair bit, but I needed the exercise. We had a roughish end of
term party last night." He opened the car door and threw the rucksack
into the back. As I started the engine he settled himself in the
passenger seat as though it were a luxurious armchair, pulled out a
paper packet of Woodbines, lit one with tender concentration and gulped
the smoke down blissfully. He produced the daily Mirror from a side
pocket and shook it open with a sigh of utter content. the smoke, which
had been gone a long time, began to wisp from his nose and I turned West
off the great highway and the rumble of traffic faded rapidly behind us.
I glanced round at Tristan. "You'll have just finished exams?" I said.

"Yes, pathology and parasitology."

I almost broke one of my steadfast rules by asking him if he had passed,
but stopped myself in time. It is a chancy business. But in any case,
there was no shortage of conversation. Tristan had something to say
about most of the news items and now and then he read out an extract and
discussed it with me. I felt a growing conviction that I was in the
presence of a quicker and livelier mind than my own. It seemed no time
at all before we pulled up outside Skeldale House.

Siegfried was out when we arrived and it was early evening when he
returned. He came in through the french window, gave me a friendly
greeting and threw himself into an armchair. He had begun to talk about
one of his cases when Tristan walked in.

The atmosphere in the room changed as though somebody had clicked a
switch. Siegfried's smile became sardonic and he gave his brother a
long, appraising look. He grunted a 'hello", then reached up and began
to run his finger along the titles of the books in the alcove. He seemed
absorbed in this for a few minutes and I could feel the tension building
up. Tristan's expression had changed remarkably; his face had gone
completely deadpan but his eyes were wary.

Siegfried finally located the book he was looking for, took it down from
the shelf and began to leaf through it unhurriedly. Then, without
looking up, he said quietly: "Well, how did the exams go?"

Tristan swallowed carefully and took a deep breath. "Did all right in
parasitology," he replied in a flat monotone.

Siegfried didn't appear to have heard. He had found something
interesting in his book and settled back to read. He took his time over
it, then put the book back on the shelf. He began again the business of
going along the titles; still with his back to his brother, he spoke
again in the same soft voice.

"How about pathology?"

Tristan was on the edge of his chair now, as if ready to make a run for
it. His eyes darted from his brother to the book shelves and back again.
"Didn't get it," he said tonelessly.

There was no reaction from Siegfried. He kept up his patient search for
his book, occasionally pulling a volume out, glancing at it and
replacing it carefully. Then he gave up the hunt, lay back in the chair
with his arms dangling almost to the floor and looked at Tristan. "So
you failed pathology," he said conversationally.

I was surprised to hear myself babbling with an edge of hysteria in my
voice. "Well now that's pretty good you know. It puts him in the final
year and he'll be able to sit path. at Christmas. He won't lose any time
that way and, after all, it's a tough subject."

Siegfried turned a cold eye on me. "So you think it's pretty good, do
you?" There was a pause and a long silence which was broken by a totally
unexpected bellow as he rounded on his brother. "Well, I don't! I think
it is bloody awful! It's a damned disgrace, that's what it is. What the
hell have you been doing all this term, anyway?

Boozing, I should think, chasing women, spending my money, anything but
working. And now you've got the bloody nerve to walk in here and tell me
you've failed pathology. You're lazy, that's your trouble, isn't it?

You're bloody bone idle!"

He was almost unrecognisable. His face was darkly flushed and his eyes
glared. He yelled wildly again at his brother. "But I've had enough this
time. I'm sick of you. I'm not going to work my fingers to the bloody
bone to keep you up there idling your time away. This is the end. You're
sacked, do you hear me. Sacked once and for all. So get out of here - I
don't want to see you around any more. Go on, get out!"

Tristan, who had preserved an air of injured dignity throughout,
withdrew quietly.

Writhing with embarrassment, I looked at Siegfried. He was showing the
strain of the interview. His complexion had gone blotchy; he muttered to
himself and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.

I was aghast at having to witness this break-up and I was grateful when
Siegfried sent me on a call and I was able to get out of the room.

It was nearly dark when I got back and I drove round to the back lane
and into the yard at the foot of the garden. The creaking of the garage
doors disturbed the rooks in the great elms which overhung the
buildings. Far up in the darkness there was a faint fluttering, a
muffled cawing then silence. As I stood listening I became aware of a
figure in the gloom, standing by the yard door, looking down the garden.
As the face turned towards me I saw it was Tristan.

Again, I felt embarrassed. It was an unfortunate intrusion when the poor
fellow had come up here to brood alone. "Sorry about the way things
turned out," I said awkwardly.

The tip of the cigarette glowed brightly as Tristan took a long pull.
"No, no that's all right. Could have been a lot worse, you know."

"Worse? Well, it's bad enough, isn't it? What are you going to do?"

"Do? What do you mean?"

"Well, you've been kicked out, haven't you? Where are you going to sleep
tonight ?"

"I can see you don't understand," Tristan said. He took his cigarette
from his mouth and I saw the gleam of very white teeth as he smiled.
"You needn't worry I'm sleeping here and I'll be down to breakfast in
the morning."

"But how about your brother?"

"Siegfried? Oh, he'll have forgotten all about it by then."

"Are you sure?"

"Dead sure. He's always sacking me and he always forgets. Anyway, things
turned out very well. The only tricky bit back there was getting him to
swallow that bit about the parasitology."

I stared at the shadowy form by my side. Again, there was a rustling as
the rooks stirred in the tall trees then settled into silence.

"The parasitology?"

"Yes. If you think back, all I said was that I had done all right. I
wasn't any more specific than that."

"Then you mean .. ?"

Tristan laughed softly and thumped my shoulder.

"That's right, I didn't get parasitology. I failed in both. But don't
worry, I'll pass them at Christmas."

Chapter Seven.

I huddled deeper in the blankets as the strident brreeng-brreeng,
brreengbrreeng of the telephone echoed through the old house.

It was three weeks since Tristan's arrival and life at Skeldale House
had settled into a fairly regular pattern. Every day began much the same
with the phone ringing between seven and eight o'clock after the farmers
had had the first look at their stock.

There was only one phone in the house. It rested on a ledge in the tiled
passage downstairs. Siegfried had impressed on me that I shouldn't get
out of bed for these early calls. He had delegated the job to Tristan;
the responsibility would be good for him. Siegfried had been emphatic
about it.

I listened to the ringing. It went on and on - it seemed to get louder.
There was neither sound nor movement from Tristan's room and I waited
for the next move in the daily drama. It came, as always, with a door
crashing back on its hinges, then Siegfried rushed out on to the landing
and bounded down the stairs three at a time.

A long silence followed and I could picture him shivering in the
draughty passage, his bare feet freezing on the tiles as he listened to
the farmer's leisurely account of the animal's symptoms. Then the tink
of the phone in its rest and the mad pounding of feet on the stairs as
Siegfried made a dash for his brother's room.

Next a wrenching sound as the door was flung open, then a yell of rage.
I detected a note of triumph; it meant Tristan had been caught in bed a
definite victory for Siegfried and he didn't have many victories.
Usually, Tristan exploited his quick-dressing technique and confronted
his brother fully dressed. It gave him a psychological advantage to be
knotting his tie when Siegfried was still in pyjamas.

But this morning Tristan had overplayed his hand; trying to snatch the
extra few seconds he was caught between the sheets. I listened to the
shouts. "Why didn't you answer the bloody phone like I told you? Don't
tell me you're deaf as well as idle! Come on, out of it, out, out!"

But I knew Tristan would make a quick come-back. When he was caught in
bed he usually scored a few points by being half way through his
breakfast before his brother came in.

Later, I watched Siegfried's face as he entered the dining-room and saw
Tristan munching his toast happily, his Daily Mirror balanced against
the coffee pot. It was as if he had felt a sudden twinge of toothache.

It all made for a strained atmosphere and I was relieved when I was able
to escape to collect my things for the morning round. Down the narrow
passage with its familiar, exciting smell of ether and carbolic and out
into the highwalled garden which led to the yard where the cars were
kept.

It was the same every morning but, to me, there was always the feeling
of , surprise. When I stepped out into the sunshine and the scent of the
flowers it was as though I was doing it for the first time. The clear
air held a breath of the nearby moorland; after being buried in a city
for five years it was difficult to take it all in.

I never hurried over this part. There could be an urgent case waiting
but I still took my time. Along the narrow part between the ivy-covered
wall and the long offshoot of the house where the wisteria climbed,
pushing its tendrils and its withered blooms into the very rooms. Then
past the rockery where the garden widened to the lawn, unkempt and lost
looking but lending coolness and softness to the weathered brick. Around
its borders flowers blazed in untidy profusion, battling with a jungle
of weeds.

And so to the rose garden, then an asparagus bed whose fleshy fingers
had grown into tall fronds. Further on were strawberries and
raspberries. Fruit trees were everywhere, their branches dangling low
over the path. Peaches, pears, cherries and plums were trained against
the South wall where they fought for a place with wild-growing rambler
roses.

Bees were at work among the flowers and the song of blackbirds and
thrushes competed with the cawing of the rooks high up in the elms.

Life was full for me. There were so many things to find out and a lot I
had to prove to myself. The days were quick and challenging and they
pressed on me with their very newness. But it all stopped here in the
garden. Everything seemed to have stopped here a long time ago. I looked
back before going through the door into the yard and it was like
suddenly coming across a picture in an old book; the empty, wild garden
and the tall, silent house beyond. I could never quite believe it was
there and that I was a part of it.

And the feeling was heightened when I went into the yard. It was square
and cobbled and the grass grew in thick tufts between the stones.
Buildings took up two sides; the two garages, once coach houses, a
stable and saddle room, a loose box and a pig sty. Against the free wall
a rusty iron pump hung over a stone water trough.

Above the stable was a hay loft and over one of the garages a dovecot.
And there was old Boardman. He too, seemed to have been left behind from
grander days, hobbling round on his lame leg, doing nothing in
particular.

He grunted good morning from his cubby hole where he kept a few tools
and garden implements. Above his head his reminders of the war looked
down; a row of coloured prints of Bruce Bairnsfather cartoons. He had
stuck them up when he came home in 1918 and there they were still, dusty
and curled at the edges but still speaking to him of Kaiser Bill and the
shell holes and muddy trenches.

Boardman washed a car sometimes or did a little work in the garden, but
he was content to earn a pound or two and get back to his yard. He spent
a lot of time in the saddle room, just sitting. Sometimes he looked
round the empty hooks where the harness used to hang and then he would
make a rubbing movement with his fist against his palm.

He often talked to me of the great days. "I can see t'owd doctor now,
standing on top step waiting for his carriage to come round. Big, smart
looking feller he was. Allus wore a top hat and frock coat, and I can
remember him when I was a lad, standing there, pulling on 'is gloves and
giving his hat a tilt while he waited."

Boardman's features seemed to soften and a light came into his eyes as
though he were talking more to himself than to me. "The old house was
different then. A housekeeper and six servants there were and everything
just so. And a full time gardener. There weren't a blade of grass out of
place in them days and the flowers all in rows and the trees pruned,
tidy-like. And this yard - it were t'owd doctor's favourite spot. He'd
come and look over t" door at me sitting here p'lishing the harness and
pass time o" day, quiet like. Ide were a real gentleman but you couldn't
cross 'im. A few specks o" dust anywhere down here and he'd go nearly
mad."

"But the war finished it all. Everybody's rushing about now. They don't
care about them things now. They've no time, no time at all."

He would look round in disbelief at the overgrown cobbles, the peeling
garage doors hanging crazily on their hinges. At the empty stable and
the pump from which no water flowed.

He was always friendly with me in an absent way, but with Siegfried he
seemed to step back into his former character, holding himself up
smartly and saying 'very good, sir," and saluting repeatedly with one
finger. It was as though he recognised something there - something of
the strength of authority of t'owd doctor - and reached out eagerly
towards the lost days.

"Morning, Boardman," I said, as I opened the garage door. "How are you
today ?"

"Oh, middlin" lad, just middlin"." He limped across and watched me get
the starting handle and begin the next part of the daily routine. The
car allotted to me was a tiny Austin of an almost forgotten vintage and
one of Boardman's voluntary duties was towing it off when it wouldn't
start. But this morning, surprisingly, the engine coughed into life
after six turns.

As I drove round the corner of the back lane, I had the feeling, as I
did every morning, that this was where things really got started. The
problems and pressures of my job were waiting for me out there and at
the moment I seemed to have plenty.

I had arrived in the Dales, I felt, at a bad time. The farmers, after a
generation of neglect, had seen the coming of a prophet, the wonderful
new vet, Mr. Farnon. He appeared like a comet, trailing his new ideas in
his wake. He was able, energetic and charming and they received him as a
maiden would a lover. And now, at the height of the honeymoon, I had to
push my way into the act, and I just wasn't wanted.

I was beginning to get used to the questions. "Where's Mr. Farnon?"

"Is he ill or something?" - "I expected Mr. Farnon." It was a bit
daunting to watch their faces fall when they saw me walking on to their
farms. Usually they looked past me hopefully and some even went and
peered into the car to see if the man they really wanted was hiding in
there.

And it was uphill work examining an animal when its owner was chafing in
the background, wishing with all his heart that I was somebody else.

But I had to admit they were fair. I got no effusive welcomes and when I
started to tell them what I thought about the case they listened with
open scepticism, but I found that if I got my jacket off and really
worked at the job they began to thaw a little. And they were hospitable.
Even though they were disappointed at having me they asked me into their
homes. "Come in and have a bit o" dinner," was a phrase I heard nearly
every day. Sometimes I was glad to accept and I ate some memorable meals
with them.

Often, too, they would slip half a dozen eggs or a pound of butter into
the car as I was leaving. This hospitality was traditional in the Dales
and I knew they would probably do the same for any visitor, but it
showed the core of friendliness which lay under the often unsmiling
surface of these people and it helped.

I was beginning to learn about the farmers and what I found I liked.
They had a toughness and a philosophical attitude which was new to me.
Misfortunes which would make the city dweller want to bang his head
against a wall were shrugged off with "Aye, well, these things happen."

It looked like being another hot day and I wound down the car windows as
far as they would go. I was on my way to do a tuberculin test; the
national scheme was beginning to make its first impact in the Dales and
the more progressive farmers were asking for survey tests.

And this was no ordinary herd. Mr. Copfield's Galloway cattle were
famous in their way. Siegfried had told me about them. "The toughest lot
in this practice. There's eighty five of them and none has ever been
tied up. In fact, they've scarcely been touched by hand. They live out
on the fells, they calve and rear their calves outside. It isn't often
anybody goes near them so they're practically wild animals."

"What do you do when there's anything wrong with them?" I had asked.

"Well, you have to depend on Frank and George - they're the two Copfield
sons. They've been reared with those cattle since they were babies
started tackling the little calves as soon as they could walk, then
worked up to the big ones. They're about as tough as the Galloways."

Copfield's place was one of the bleak ones. Looking across the sparse
pastures to the bald heights with their spreading smudges of heather it
was easy to see why the farmer had chosen a breed hardier then the local
shorthorns. But this morning the grim outlines were softened by the
sunshine and there was a desert peace in the endless greens and browns.

Frank and George were not as I expected. The durable men who helped me
in my daily jobs tended to be dark and lean with stringy muscles but the
Copfields were golden haired and smooth skinned. They were good looking
young men about my own age and their massive necks and wide spread of
shoulder made their heads look small. Neither of them was tall but they
looked formidable with their shirt sleeves rolled high to reveal
wrestlers" arms and their thick legs encased in cloth gaiters. Both wore
clogs.

The cattle had been herded into the buildings and they just about filled
all the available accommodation. There were about twenty-five in a long
passage down the side of the fold yard; I could see the ragged line of
heads above the rails, the steam rising from their bodies. Twenty more
occupied an old stable and two lots of twenty milled about in large
loose boxes.

I looked at the black, untamed animals and they looked back at me, their
reddish eyes glinting through the rough fringe of hair which fell over
their faces. They kept up a menacing, bad-tempered swishing with their
tails.

It wasn't going to be easy to get an intradermal injection into every
one of them. I turned to Frank.

"Can you catch these beggars?" I asked.

"We'll 'ave a bloody good try," he replied calmly, throwing a halter
over his shoulder. He and his brother lit cigarettes before climbing
into the passage where the biggest beasts were packed. I followed them
and soon found that the tales I had heard about the Galloways hadn't
been exaggerated. If I approached them from the front they came at me
with their great hairy heads and if I went behind them they kicked me as
a matter of course.

But the brothers amazed me. One of them would drop a halter on a beast,
get his fingers into its nose and then be carried away as the animal
took off like a rocket. They were thrown about like dolls but they never
let go; their fair heads bobbed about incongruously among the black
backs; and the thing that fascinated me was that through all the
contortions the cigarettes dangled undisturbed.

The heat increased till it was like an oven in the buildings and the
animals their bowels highly fluid with their grass diet, ejected
greenish-brown muck like non-stop geysers.

The affair was conducted in the spirit of a game with encouragement
shouted to the man in action: "Thou 'as 'im, Frank."

"Sniggle 'im, George." In moments of stress the brothers cursed softly
and without heat: "Get off ma bloody foot, thou awd bitch." they both
stopped work and laughed with sincere appreciation when a cow slashed me
across the face with her sodden tail; and another little turn which was
well received was when I was filling my syringe with both arms raised
and a bullock, backing in alarm from the halter, crashed its craggy
behind into my midriff. The wind shot out of me in a sharp hiccup, then
the animal decided to turn round in the narrow passage, squashing me
like a fly against the railings. I was pop-eyed as it scrambled round; I
wondered whether the creaking was coming from my ribs or the wood behind
me.

We finished up with the smallest calves and they were just about the
most difficult to handle. The shaggy little creatures kicked, bucked,
sprang into the air, ran through our legs and even hurtled straight up
the walls. Often the brothers had to throw themselves on top of them and
bear them to the ground before I could inject them and when the calves
felt the needle they stuck out their tongues and bawled deafeningly;
outside, the anxious mothers bellowed back in chorus.

It was midday when I reeled out of the buildings. I seemed to have been
a month in there, in the suffocating heat, the continuous din, the
fusillade of muck.

Frank and George produced a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush and
gave me a rough clean-up before I left. A mile from the farm I drove off
the unfenced road, got out of the car and dropped down on the cool
fell-side. Throwing wide my arms I wriggled my shoulders and my
sweat-soaked shirt into the tough grass and let the sweet breeze play
over me. With the sun on my face I looked through half closed eyes at
the hazy-blue sky.

My ribs ached and I could feel the bruises of a dozen kicks on my legs.
I knew I didn't smell so good either. I closed my eyes and grinned at
the ridiculous thought that I had been conducting a diagnostic
investigation for tuberculosis back there. A strange way to carry out a
scientific procedure; a strange way, in fact, to earn a living.

But then I might have been in an office with the windows tight shut
against the petrol fumes and the traffic noise, the desk light shining
on the columns of figures, my bowler hat hanging on the wall.

Lazily I opened my eyes again and watched a cloud shadow riding over the
face of the green hill across the valley. No, no ... I wasn't
complaining.

Chapter Eight.

I hardly noticed the passage of the weeks as I rattled along the
moorland roads on my daily rounds; but the district was beginning to
take shape, the people to emerge as separate personalities. Most days I
had a puncture. The tyres were through to the canvas on all wheels; it
surprised me that they took me anywhere at all.

One of the few refinements on the car was a rusty 'sunshine roof". It
grated dismally when I slid it back, but most of the time I kept it open
and the windows too, and I drove in my shirt sleeves with the delicious
air swirling about me. On wet days it didn't help much to close the roof
because the rain dripped through the joints and formed pools on my lap
and the passenger seat.

I developed great skill in zig-zagging round puddles. To drive through
was a mistake as the muddy water fountained up through the gaps in the
floor boards.

But it was a fine Summer and long days in the open gave me a tan which .
rivalled the farmers". Even mending a puncture was no penance on the
high, unfenced roads with the wheeling curlews for company and the wind
bringing the scents of flowers and trees up from the valleys. And I
could find other excuses to get out and sit on the crisp grass and look
out over the airy roof of Yorkshire. It was like taking time out of
life. Time to get things into perspective and assess my progress.
Everything was so different that it confused me. This countryside after
years of city streets, the sense of release from exams and study, the
job with its daily challenge. And then there was my boss.

Siegfried Farnon charged round the practice with fierce energy from dawn
till dark and I often wondered what drove him on. It wasn't money
because he treated it with scant respect. When the bills were paid, the
cash went into the pint pot on the mantelpiece and he grabbed handfuls
when he wanted it. I never saw him take out a wallet, but his pockets
bulged with loose silver and balled up notes. When he pulled out a
thermometer they flew around him in a cloud.

After a week or two of headlong rush he would disappear; maybe for the
evening, maybe overnight and often without saying where he was going.
Mrs. Hall would serve a meal for two, but when she saw I was eating
alone she would remove the food without comment.

He dashed off the list of calls each morning with such speed that I was
quite often sent hurrying off to the wrong farm or to do the wrong
thing. When I told him later of my embarrassment he would laugh
heartily.

There was one time when he got involved himself. I had just taken a call
from a Mr. Heaton of Bronsett about doing a PM on a dead sheep.

"I'd like you to come with me James," Siegfried said. "Things are quiet
this morning and I believe they teach you blokes a pretty hot post
mortem procedure. I want to see you in action."

We drove into the village of Bronsett and Siegfried swung the car left
into a gated lane.

"Where are you going?" I said. "Heaton's is at the other end of the
village."

"But you said Seaton's."

"No, I assure you  ..."

"Look, James, I was right by you when you were talking to the man. I
distinctly heard you say the name."

I opened my mouth to argue further but the car was hurtling down the
lane and Siegfried's jaw was jutting. I decided to let him find out for
himself.

We arrived outside the farmhouse with a screaming of brakes. Siegeried
had left his seat and was rummaging in the boot before the car had
stopped shuddering "Hell!" he shouted, "No post mortem knife. Never
mind, I'll borrow something from the house." He slammed down the lid and
bustled over to the door.

The farmer's wife answered and Siegfried beamed on her. "Good morning to
you, Mrs. Seaton, have you a carving knife?"

The good lady raised her eyebrows. "What was that you said?"

"A carving knife, Mrs. Seaton, a carving knife, and a good sharp one,
please."

"You want a carving knife?"

"Yes, that's right, a carving knife!" Siegfried cried, his scanty store
of patience beginning to run out. "And I wonder if you'd mind hurrying.
I haven't much time."

The bewildered woman withdrew to the kitchen and I could hear whispering
and muttering. Children's heads peeped out at intervals to get a quick
look at Siegfried stamping irritably on the step. After some delay, one
of the daughters advanced timidly, holding out a long, dangerous-looking
knife.

Siegfried snatched it from her hand and ran his thumb up and down the
edge. "This is no damn good!" he shouted in exasperation. "Don't you
understand I want something really sharp. Fetch me a steel."

The girl fled back into the kitchen and there was a low rumble of voices
It was some minutes before another young girl was pushed round the door.
She inched her way up to Siegfried, gave him the steel at arm's length
and dashed back to safety.

Siegfried prided himself on his skill at sharpening a knife. It was
something he enjoyed doing. As he stropped the knife on the steel, he
warmed to his work and finally burst into song. There was no sound from
the kitchen, only the ring of steel backed by the tuneless singing;
there were silent intervals when he carefully tested the edge, then the
noise would start again.

When he had completed the job to his satisfaction he peered inside the
door. "Where is your husband?" he called.

There was no reply so he strode into the kitchen, waving the gleaming
blade in front of him. I followed him and saw Mrs. Seaton and her
daughters cowering in the far corner, staring at Siegfried with large,
frightened eyes.

He made a sweeping gesture at them with the knife. "Well, come on, I can
get started now!"

"Started whet?" the mother whispered, holding her family close to her.

"I want to PM this sheep. You have a dead sheep, haven't you?"

Explanations and apologies followed.

Later, Siegfried remonstrated gravely with me for sending him to the
wrong farm.

"You'll have to be a bit more careful in future, James," he said
seriously. "Creates a very bad impression, that sort of thing."

Another thing about my new life which interested me was the regular
traffic of women through Skeldale House. They were all upper class,
mostly beautiful and they had one thing in common - eagerness. They came
for drinks, for tea, to dinner, but the real reason was to gaze at
Siegfried like parched travellers in the desert sighting an oasis.

I found it damaging to my own ego when their eyes passed over me without
recognition or interest and fastened themselves hungrily on my
colleague. I wasn't envious, but I was puzzled. I used to study him
furtively, trying to fathom the secret of his appeal. Looking at the
worn jacket hanging from the thin shoulders, the frayed shirt collar and
anonymous tie, I had to conclude that clothes had nothing to do with it.

There was something attractive in the long, bony face and humorous blue
eyes, but a lot of the time he was so haggard and sunken-cheeked that I
wondered if he was ill.

I often spotted Diana Brompton in the queue and at these times I had to
fight down an impulse to dive under the sofa. She was difficult to
recognise as the brassy beauty of that afternoon as she looked up
meltingly at Siegferied, hanging on his words, giggling like a
schoolgirl.

I used to grow cold at the thought that Siegfried might pick her out of
the mob and marry her. It worried me a lot because I knew I would have
to leave just when I was beginning to enjoy everything about Darrowby.

But Siegfried showed no sign of marrying any of them and the procession
continued hopefully. I finally got used to it and stopped worrying.

I got used, too, to my employer's violent changes of front. There was
morning when Siegfried came down to breakfast, rubbing a hand wearily
over red-rimmed eyes.

"Out at 4 a.m.," he groaned, buttering his toast listlessly. "And I
don't like to have to say this, James, but it's all your fault."

"My fault?" I said, startled.

"Yes, lad, your fault. This was a cow with a mild impaction of the
rumen. The farmer had been mucking about with it himself for days, a
pint of linseed oil one day, a bit of bicarb and ginger the next, and at
four o'clock in the morning he decides it is time to call the vet. When
I pointed out it could have waited a few hours more he said Mr. Herriot
told him never to hesitate to ring - he'd come out any hour of the day
or night."

He tapped the top of his egg as though the effort was almost too much
for him. "Well, it's all very well being conscientious and all that, but
if a thing has waited several days it can wait till morning. You're
spoiling these chaps, James, and I'm getting the backwash of it. I'm
sick and tired of being dragged out of my bed for trifles."

"I'm truly sorry, Siegfried. I honestly had no wish to do that to you.
Maybe it's just my inexperience. If I didn't go out, I'd be worried the
animal might die. If I left it till morning and it died, how would I
feel?"

"That's all right," snapped Siegfried. "There's nothing like a dead
animal to bring them to their senses. They'll call us out a bit earlier
next time."

I absorbed this bit of advice and tried to act on it. A week later,
Siegfried said he wanted a word with me.

"James, I know you won't mind my saying this, but old Sumner was
complaining to me today. He says he rang you the other night and you
refused to come out to his cow. He's a good client, you know, and a very
nice fellow, but he was quite shirty about it. We don't want to lose a
chap like that."

"But it was just a chronic mastitis," I said. "A bit of thickening in
the milk, that's all. He'd been dosing it himself for nearly a week with
some quack remedy. The cow was eating all right, so I thought it would
be quite safe to leave it till next day."

Siegfried put a hand on my shoulder and an excessively patient look
spread over his face. I steeled myself. I didn't mind his impatience, I
was used to it and could stand it. But the patience was hard to take.

"James," he said in a gentle voice, "There is one fundamental rule in
our job which transcends all others, and I'll tell you what it is. YOU
MUST ATTEND. That is it and it ought to be written on your soul in
letters of fire." He raised a portentous forefinger. "YOU MUST ATTEND.
Always remember that, James; it is the basis of everything. No matter
what the circumstances, whether it be wet or fine, night or day, if a
client calls you out, you must go; and go cheerfully. You say this
didn't sound like an urgent case. Well, after all, you have only the
owner's description to guide you and he is not equipped with the
knowledge to decide whether it is urgent or not. No, lad, you have to
go. Even if they have been treating the animal themselves, it may have
taken a turn for the worse. And don't forget," wagging the finger
solemnly'the animal may die."

"But I thought you said there was nothing like a dead animal to bring
them to their senses." I said querulously "What's that?" barked
Siegfried, utterly astonished. "Never heard such rubbish. Let's have no
more of it. Just remember - YOU MUST ATTEND."

Sometimes he would give me advice on how to live. As when he found me
hunched over the phone which I had just crashed down; I was staring at
the wall, swearing softly to myself.

Siegfried smiled whimsically. "Now what is it, James?"

"I've just have a torrid ten minutes with Rolston. You remember that
outbreak of calf pneumonia? Well, I spent hours with those calves,
poured expensive drugs into them. There wasn't a single death. And now
he's complaining about his bill. Not a word of thanks. Hell, there's no
justice."

Siegfried walked over and put his arm round my shoulders. He was wearing
his patient look again. "My dear chap," he coo'd. "Just look at you. Red
in the face, all tensed up. You mustn't let yourself get upset like
this; you must try to relax. Why do you think professional men are
cracking up all over the country with coronaries and ulcers?

Just because they allow themselves to get all steamed up over piffling
little things like you are doing now. Yes, yes, I know these things are
annoying, but you've got to take them in your stride. Keep calm, James,
calm. It just isn't worth it - I mean, it will all be the same in a
hundred years."

He delivered the sermon with a serene smile, patting my shoulder
reassuringly like a psychiatrist soothing a violent patient.

I was writing a label on a jar of red blister a few days later when
Siegfried catapulted into the room He must have kicked the door open
because it flew back viciously against the rubber stop and rebounded
almost into his face. He rushed over to the desk where I was sitting and
began to pound on it with the flat of his hand. His eyes glared wildly
from a fiushed face.

"I've just come from that bloody swine Holt!" he shouted.

"Ned Holt, you mean?"

"Yes, that's who I mean, damn him!"

I was surprised. Mr. Holt was a little man who worked on the roads for
the county council. He kept four cows as a sideline and had never been
known to pay a veterinary bill; but he was a cheerful character and
Siegfried had rendered his unpaid services over the years without
objection.

"One of your favourites, isn't he?" I said.

"Was, by God, was," Siegfried snarled. "I've been treating Muriel for
him. You know, the big red cow second from the far end of his byre.
She's had recurrent tympany - coming in from the field every night badly
blown - and I'd tried about everything. Nothing did any good. Then it
struck me that it might be actinobacillosis of the reticulum. I shot
some sodium iodide into the vein and when I saw her today the difference
was incredible - she was standing there, chewing her cud, right as rain.
I was just patting myself on the back for a smart piece of diagnosis,
and do you know what Holt said? He said he knew she'd be better today
because last night he gave her half a pound of epsom salts in a bran
mash. That was what had cured her."

Siegfried took some empty cartons and bottles from his pockets and
hurled them savagely into the wastepaper basket. He began to shout
again.

"Do you know, for the past fortnight I've puzzled and worried and damn
nearly dreamt about that cow. Now I've found the cause of the trouble,
applied the most modern treatment and the animal has recovered. And what
happens? Does the owner express his grateful thanks for my skill?

Does he hell - the entire credit goes to the half pound of epsom salts.
What I did was a pure waste of time."

He dealt the desk another sickening blow.

"But I frightened him, James," he said, his eyes staring, "By God, I
frightened him. When he made that crack about the salts, I yelled out
"You bugger!" and made a grab for him. I think I would have strangled
him, but he shot into the house and stayed there. I didn't see him
again."

Siegfried threw himself into a chair and began to churn his hair about.
"Epsom salts!" he groaned. "Oh God, it makes you despair."

I thought of telling him to relax and pointing out that it would all be
the same in a hundred years, but my employer still had an empty serum
bottle dangling from one hand. I discarded the idea.

Then there came the day when Siegfried decided to have my car rebored.
It had been using a steady two pints of oil a day and he hadn't thought
this excessive, but when it got to half a gallon a day he felt something
ought to be done. What probably decided him was a farmer on market day
saying he always knew when the young vet was coming because he could see
the cloud of blue smoke miles away.

When the tiny Austin came back from the garage, Siegfried fussed round
it like an old hen. "Come over here, James," he called. "I want to talk
to you."

I saw he was looking patient again and braced myself.

"James," he said, pacing round the battered vehicle, whisking specks
from the paintwork. "You see this car?"

I nodded.

"Well, it has been rebored, James, rebored at great expense, and that's
what I want to talk to you about. You now have in your possession what
amounts to a new car." With an effort he unfastened the catch and the
bonnet creaked open in a shower of rust and dirt. He pointed down at the
engine, black and oily, with unrelated pieces of flex and rubber tubing
hanging around it like garlands. "You have a piece of fine mechanism
here and I want you to treat it with respect. I've seen you belting
along like a maniac and it won't do. You've got to nurse this machine
for the next two or three thousand miles; thirty miles an hour is quite
fast enough. I think it's a crime the way some people abuse a new engine
- they should be locked up - so remember, lad, no flogging or I'll be
down on you."

He closed the bonnet with care, gave the cracked windscreen a polish
with the cuff of his coat and left.

These strong words made such an impression on me that I crawled round
the visits all day almost at walking pace.

The same night, I was getting readyfor bed when Siegfried came in. He
had two farm lads with him and they both wore silly grins. A powerful
smell of beer filled the room.

Siegfried spoke with dignity, slurring his words only slightly. "James,
I met these gentlemen in the Black Bull this evening. We have had
several excellent games of dominoes but unfortunately they have missed
the last bus. Will you kindly bring the Austin round and I will run them
home."

I drove the car to the front of the house and the farm lads piled in,
one in the front, the other in the back. I looked at Siegfried lowering
himself unsteadily into the driving seat and decided to go along. I got
into the back.

The two young men lived in a farm far up on the North Moors and, three
miles out of the town, we left the main road and our headlights picked
out a strip of track twisting along the dark hillside.

Siegfried was in a hurry. He kept his foot on the boards, the note of
the engine rose to a tortured scream and the little car hurtled on into
the blackness. Hanging on grimly, I leaned forward so that I could shout
into my employer's ear "Remember this is the car which has just been
rebored," I bellowed above the din.

Siegfried look round with an indulgent smile. "Yes, yes, I remember,
James. What are you fussing about?" As he spoke, the car shot o if the
road and bounded over the grass at sixty miles an hour. We all bounced
around like corks till he found his way back. Unperturbed, he carried on
at the same speed. The silly grins had left the lads" faces and they sat
rigid in their seats Nobody said anything. The passengers were unloaded
at a silent farmhouse and the return journey began. Since it was
downhill all the way, Siegfried found he could go even faster. The car
leaped and bumped over the uneven surface with its engine whining. We
made several brief but tense visits to the surrounding moors, but we got
home.

It was a month later that Siegfried had occasion to take his assistant
to task once more. "James, my boy," he said sorrowfully, 'you are a
grand chap, but by God, you're hard on cars. Look at this Austin. Newly
rebored a short time ago, in tip top condition, and look at it now
drinking oil. I don't know how you did it in the time. You're a real
terror."

Chapter Nine.

"First, please," I called as I looked into the waiting room. There was
an old lady with a cat in a cardboard box, two small boys trying to keep
hold of a rabbit, and somebody I didn't recognise at first. Then I
remembered - it was Soames.

When it was his turn, he came into the surgery but he was a vastly
different character from the one I knew. He wore an ingratiating smile.
His head bobbed up and down as he spoke. He radiated anxiety to please.
And the most interesting thing was that his right eye was puffed and
closed and surrounded by an extensive area of bluish-black flesh.

"I hope you don't mind my coming to see you, Mr. Herriot,"he said. "The
fact is I have resigned my position with his lordship and am looking for
another post. I was wondering if you and Mr. Farnon would put in a word
for me if you heard of anything."

I was too astonished at the transformation to say much. I replied that
we would do what we could and Soames thanked me effusively and bowed
himself out.

I turned to Siegfried after he had gone. "Well, what do you make of
that?"

"Oh, I know all about it." Siegfried looked at me with a wry smile.
"Remember I told you he was working one or two shady sidelines up there
- selling a few bags of corn or a hundredweight of fertiliser here and
there. It all mounted up. But it didn't last; he got a bit careless and
he was out on his ear before he knew what had happened."

"And how about the lovely black eye?"

"Oh, he got that from Tommy. You must have seen Tommy when you were
there. He's the horseman."

My mind went back to that uncomfortable night and to the quiet man
holding the horse's head. "I remember him - big fat chap."

"Yes, he's a big lad and I'd hate to have him punch me in the eye.
Soames gave him a hell of a life and as soon as Tommy heard about the
sacking he paid a visit just to settle the score."

I was now comfortably settled into the way of life in Skeldale House. At
first I wondered where Tristan fitted into the set up. Was he supposed
to be seeing practice, having a holiday, working or what? But it soon
became clear that he was a factotum who dispensed and delivered
medicines, washed the cars, answered the phone and even, in an
emergency, went to a case.

At least, that was how Siegfried saw him and he had a repertoire of
tricks aimed at keeping him on his toes. Like returning unexpectedly or
bursting into a room in the hope of catching him doing nothing. He never
seemed to notice the obvious fact that the college vacation was over and
Tristan should have been back there. I came to the conclusion over the
next few months that Tristan must have had some flexible arrangement
with the college authorities because, for a student, he seemed to spend
a surprising amount of time at home.

He interpreted his role rather differently from his brother and, while
resident in Darrowby, he devoted a considerable amount of his acute
intelligence to the cause of doing as little as possible. Tristan did,
in fact,spend much of his time sleeping in a chair. When he was left
behind to dispense when we went out on our rounds he followed an
unvarying procedure. He half filled a sixteen ounce bottle with water,
added a few drachms of chlorodyne and a little epicacuanha, pushed the
cork in and took it through to the sitting-room to stand by his
favourite chair. It was a wonderful chair for his purpose; old fashioned
and high backed with wings to support the head.

He would get out his Daily Mirror, light a Woodbine and settle down till
sleep overcame him. If Siegfried rushed in on him he grabbed the bottle
and started to shake it madly, inspecting the contents at intervals.
Then he went through to the dispensary, filled up the bottle and
labelled it.

It was a sound, workable system but it had one big snag. He never knew
whether it was Siegfried or not when the door opened and often I walked
in and found him half lying in his chair, staring up with startled,
sleep-blurred eyes while he agitated his bottle.

Most evenings found him sitting on a high stool at the bar counter of
the Drovers" Arms, conversing effortlessly with the barmaid. At other
times he would be out with one of the young nurses from the local
hospital which he seemed to regard as an agency to provide him with
female company. All in all, he managed to lead a fairly full life.

Saturday night, 10.30 p.m. and I was writing up my visits when the phone
rang. I swore, crossed my fingers and lifted the receiver.

"Hello, Herriot speaking."

"Oh, it's you is it," growled a dour voice in broadest Yorkshire. "Well,
ah want Mr. Farnon."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Farnon is out. Can I help you?"

"Well, I 'ope so, but I'd far raither'ave your boss. This is Sims of
Beal Close."

(Oh no, please no, not Beal Close on a Saturday night. Miles up in the
hills at the end of a rough lane with about eight gates.)

"Yes, Mr. Sims, and what is the trouble?"

"Ah'll tell you, there is some trouble an'all. I 'ave a grand big show
'oss here. All of seventeen hands. He's cut 'isself badly on the hind
leg, just above the hock. I want him stitched immediately."

(Glory be! Above the hock! What a charming place to have to stitch a
horse. Unless he's very quiet, this is going to be a real picnic.)

"How big is the wound, Mr. Sims?"

"Big? It's a gurt big thing about a foot long and bleedin" like 'ell.
And this oss is as wick as an eel. Could kick a fly's eye out. Ah can't
get near 'im nohow. Goes straight up wall when he sees anybody. By yaw,
I tell you I had 'im to t blacksmith t'other day and feller was dead
scared of 'im. Twiltin" gurt 'oss 'e (Damn you, Mr. Sims, damn Beal
Close and damn your twiltin'gurt 'oss.)

"Well, I'll be along straight away. Try to have some men handy just in
case we have to throw him."

"Throw 'im? Throw 'im? You'd never throw this 'oss. He'd kill yer first.
Anyways, I 'ave no men here so you'll have to manage on your own. Ah
know Mr. Farnon wouldn't want a lot of men to help 'im."

(Oh lovely, lovely. This is going to be one for the diary.)

"Very well, I'm leaving now, Mr. Sims."

"Oh, ah nearly forgot. My road got washed away in the floods yesterday.
You'll 'ave to walk the last mile and a half. So get a move on and don't
keep me waiting all night."

(This is just a bit much.)

"Look here, Mr. Sims, I don't like your tone. I said I would leave now
and I will get there just as soon as I can."

"You don't like ma tone, eh? Well, ah don't like useless young
apprentices practising on my good stock, so ah don't want no cheek from
you. You know nowt about t'damn job, any road."

(That finally does it.)

"Now just listen to me, Sims. If it wasn't for the sake of the horse I'd
refuse to come out at all. Who do you think you are, anyway? If you ever
try to speak to me like that again  ..."

"Now, now, Jim, get a grip on yourself. Take it easy old boy. You'll
burst a blood vessel if you go on like this."

"Who the devil  ... ?"

"Ah, ah, Jim, calm yourself now. That temper of yours, you know. You'll
really have to watch it."

"Tristan! Where the hell are you speaking from?"

"The kiosk outside the Drovers. Five pints inside me and feeling a bit
puckish. Thought I'd give you a ring."

"By God, I'll murder you one of these days if you don't stop this game.
It's putting years on me. Now and again isn't so bad, but this is the
third time this week."

"Ah, but this was by far the best, Jim. It was really wonderful. When
you started drawing yourself up to your full height - it nearly killed
me. Oh God, I wish you could have heard yourself." He trailed off into
helpless laughter.

And then my feeble attempts at retaliation; creeping, trembling, into
some lonely phone box.

"Is that young Mr. Farnon?" in a guttural croak. "Well, this is Tilson
of High Woods. Ah want you to come out here immediately. I 'ave a
terrible case of  ..."

"Excuse me for interrupting, Jim, but is there something the matter with
your tonsils? Oh, good. Well, go on with what you were saying, old lad.
Sounds very interesting."

There was only one time when I was not on the receiving end. It was
Tuesday - my half day - and at 11.30 a.m. a call came in. An eversion of
the uterus in a cow. This is the tough job in country practice and I
felt the usual chill.

It happens when the cow, after calving, continues to strain until it
pushes the entire uterus out and it hangs down as far as the animal's
hocks. It is a vast organ and desperately difficult to replace, mainly
because the cow, having once got rid of it, doesn't want it back. And in
a straightforward contest between man and beast the odds were very much
on the cow.

The old practitioners, in an effort to even things up a bit, used to
sling the cow up by its hind limbs and the more inventive among them
came up with all sorts of contraptions like the uterine valise which was
supposed to squeeze the organ into smaller bulk. But the result was
usually the same - hours of backbreaking work.

The introduction of the epidural anaesthetic made everything easier by
removing sensation from the uterus and preventing the cow from straining
but, for all that, the words 'calf bed out" coming over the line were
guaranteed to wipe the smile off any vet's face.

I decided to take Tristan in case I needed a few pounds of extra push.
He came along but showed little enthusiasm for the idea. He showed still
less when he saw the patient, a very fat shorthorn lying, quite
unconcerned, in her stall. Behind her, a bloody mass of uterus,
afterbirth, muck and straw spilled over into the channel.

She wasn't at all keen to get up, but after we had done a bit of
shouting and pushing at her shoulder she rose to her feet, looking
bored.

The epidural space was difficult to find among the rolls of fat and I
wasn't sure if I had injected all the anaesthetic into the right place.
I removed the afterbirth, cleaned the uterus and placed it on a clean
sheet held by the farmer and his brother. They were frail men and it was
all they could do to keep the sheet level. I wouldn't be able to count
on them to help me much.

I nodded to Tristan; we stripped off our shirts, tied clean sacks round
our waists and gathered the uterus in our arms.

It was badly engorged and swollen and it took us just an hour to get it
back. There was a long spell at the beginning when we made no progress
at all and the whole idea of pushing the enormous organ through a small
hole seemed ludicrous, like trying to thread a needle with a sausage.
Then there was a few minutes when we thought we were doing famously only
to find we were feeding the thing down through a tear in the sheet,
(Siegfried once told me he had spent half a morning trying to stuff a
uterus up a cow's rectum. What really worried him, he said, was that he
nearly succeeded) and at the end when hope was fading, there was the
blissful moment when the whole thing began to slip inside and incredibly
disappeared from sight.

Somewhere half way through we both took a breather at the same time and
stood panting, our faces almost touching. Tristan's cheeks were prettily
patterned where a spouting artery had sprayed him; I was able to look
deep into his eyes and I read there a deep distaste for the whole
business.

Lathering myself in the bucket and feeling the ache in my shoulders and
back, I looked over at Tristan. He was pulling his shirt over his head
as though it cost him the last of his strength. The cow, chewing
contentedly at a mouthful of hay, had come best out of the affair.

Out in the car, Tristan groaned. "I'm sure that sort of thing isn't good
for me. I feel as though I've been run over by a steam roller. Hell,
what a life this is at times."

After lunch I rose from the table. "I'm off to Brawton now, Triss, and I
think I'd better mention that you may not have seen the last of that
cow. These bad cases sometime recur and there's a chance that little lot
may come out again. If it does, it's all yours because Siegfried won't
be back for hours and nothing is going to stop me having my half day."

For once Tristan's sense of humour failed him. He became haggard, he
Seemed to age suddenly. "Oh God," he moaned, 'don't even talk about it.
I'm all in - another session like that would kill me. And on my own! It
would be the end of me, I tell you" Ah well," I said sadistically, 'try
not to worry. It may never happen."

It was when I saw the phone box about ten miles along the Brawton road
that the thought struck me. I slowed down and got out of the car. "I
wonder," I muttered"

"I wonder if I could do it just once."

Inside the box, inspiration was strong in me. I wrapped my handkerchief
over the mouthpiece, dialled the practice number and when I heard
Tristan on the line I shouted at the top of my voice. "Are you t'young
feller that put our cow's calf bed back this morning?"

"Yes, I'm one of them." Tension sprang into Tristan's voice. "Why, is
there something wrong?"

"Aye, there is summat wrong," I bawled. "She's putten it out again."

"Out again? Out again? All of it?" He was almost screaming.

"Aye, it's a terrible mess. Pourin" blood and about twice size it was
this morning. You'll 'ave some job with 'er."

There was a long silence and I wondered if he had fainted. Then I heard
him again, hoarse but resolute. "Very well, I'll come straight away."

There was another pause then he spoke again almost in a whisper. "Is it
out completely ?"

I broke down then. There was a wistful quality about the words which
defeated me; a hint of a wild hope that the farmer may have been
exaggerating and that there might be only a tiny piece peeping out. I
began to laugh. I would have liked to toy with my victim a little longer
but it was impossible. I laughed louder and took my handkerchief from
the mouthpiece so that Tristan could hear me.

I listened for a few seconds to the frenzied swearing at the other end
then gently replaced the receiver. It would probably never happen again
but it was sweet, very sweet.

Chapter Ten.

"You want Mr. Herriot? Certainly, I'll get him for you." siegfried
cupped the phone with his hand. "Come on, James, here's another one
prefers you to me.

I glanced at him quickly, but he was smiling. He was pleased.

I thought, as I took the phone, of the tales I had heard of the other
kind of boss, the man who couldn't bear to be knocked off his little
pedestal. And I thought, too, of the difference a few weeks had made in
the farmers" attitude; they didn't look past me now, hoping that Mr.
Farnon had come with me. They were beginning to accept me, and I liked
to think that it wasn't only their hospitable traditions that made them
ask me in for a 'bit o" dinner"..

This really meant something, because, with the passage of time, an
appreciation of the Dales people had grown in me; a sense of the value
of their carefully given friendship. The higher up the country, the more
I liked them. At the bottom of the valley, where it widened into the
plain, the farmers were like farmers everywhere, but the people grew
more interesting as the land heightened, and in the scattered hamlets
and isolated farms near the bleak tops I found their characteristics
most marked; their simplicity and dignity, their rugged independence and
their hospitality.

This Sunday morning it was the Bellerbys and they lived at the top of
Halden, a little valley branching off the main Dale. My car bumped and
rattled over the last rough mile of an earth road with the tops of
boulders sticking up every few yards.

;

I got out and from where I stood, high at the head, I could see all of
the strangely formed cleft in the hills, its steep sides grooved and
furrowed by countless streams feeding the boisterous Halden Beck which
tumbled over its rocky bed far below. Down there, were trees and some
cultivated fields, but immediately behind me the wild country came
crowding in on the bowl where the farmhouse lay. Halsten Pike, Alstang,
Birnside - the huge fells with their barbarous names were very near.

Up here, the trappings of civilisation seemed far away. The farm
buildings had been built massively of stone hundreds of years ago with
the simple object of sheltering the animals. Those ancient masons were
untroubled by regulations about the light and ventilation and the cow
byre was gloomy, thick walled, almost windowless. The floor was broken
and pitted, and rotting wooden partitions separated the cows from each
other.

I went in, groping my way until my eyes grew accustomed to the dim
light. There was nobody there but a roan cow had a label tied to its
tail. Since this was a common way of communicating with the vet I lifted
the tail and read "Felon, back quarters."

I pushed the cow over and began to examine the back teats. I was drawing
out the stringy, discoloured milk when a voice addressed me from the
doorway: "Oh, it's you, Mr. Herriot. I'm right glad you've come to see
us this morning. You could do us such a great favour if you would."

I looked up and saw Ruth Bellerby, a fine looking woman in her late
thirties. She was the go-ahead member of the family and had an
intelligent, questing mind. She was a great believer in self-improvement
for the Dales people.

"I'll be glad to help you if I can Miss. Bellerby. What is it you'd like
me to do? '

"Well, Mr. Herriot, you know they are putting on the Messiah at Darrowby
church this afternoon and we did badly want to go, but it's such a job
getting the pony and trap ready and it's so slow. If you could give us a
lift down in your car, I know we'd be able to get a ride back. It would
be such a help."

"Of course I'll run you down" I replied. "I'll be delighted to do it.
I'm going myself as a matter of fact. You don't get many chances to hear
good music in Darrowby."

It was good to have a chance to help these kindly people. I had always
marvelled at the Bellerbys. They seemed to me to be survivors from
another age and their world had a timeless quality. They were never in a
hurry; they rose when it was light, went to bed when they were tired,
ate when they were hungry and seldom looked at a clock.

Ruth led the way over to the house. "There's just mother and dad and me
going. Bob's not interested, I'm afraid."

I was slightly taken aback when I entered the house. The family were
just sitting down to Sunday dinner and were still in their working
clothes. I stole a look at my watch; a quarter to twelve and the
performance started at 2 p.m. Oh well, I probably had plenty of time.

"Come on, young man," said little Mr. Bellerby. "Sit down and have a bit
o" dinner."

It was always a bit tricky refusing these invitations without causing
offence, but I pointed out that my own meal would be ready when I got
back and it would be hard on Mrs. Hall if it were wasted.

They were quick to appreciate this argument and settled down round the
Scrubbed kitchen table. Mrs. Bellerby served a large, round Yorkshire
pudding to each of them and poured a pool of gravy into it from a quart
size enamel jug. I had had a hard morning and the delicious scent that
rose from the gravy as it ran over the golden slabs was a sweet torture.
But I consoled myself with the thought that the fact of my sitting there
would make them hurry.

The pudding was consumed in leisurely silence, then Bob, an amiable,
thick-set youth in his twenties, pushed out his empty plate. He did not
say anything, but his mother planked down another pudding on the plate
and plied the gravy jug again. His parents and sister watched him
benevolently as he methodically demolished the thick, doughy mass.

Next, a tremendous roast appeared from the oven and Mr. Bellerby hacked
and sawed at it till they all had a heap of thick slices on their
plates. Then mountains of mashed potatoes were served from something
that looked like a washing-up bowl. Chopped turnip followed and the
family went into action again.

There was no sign of haste. They ate calmly and quietly without any
small talk. Bob had an extra helping of mashed potatoes.

The Bellerbys were relaxed and happy, but I couldn't say the same about
myself. Hunger was tearing fiercely at me and the minutes on my watch
were ticking away relentlessly.

There was a decent interval before Mrs. Bellerby went over to the old
fire oven in the corner, opened the door and pulled forth a great flat
baking tin of steaming apple pie. She then proceeded to carve off about
a square foot for each of them and deluged it with something like a pint
of custard from another towering enamel jug.

The family set to as though they were just beginning the meal and once
more a busy silence fell on the group. Bob cleared his plate in
effortless style and pushed it wordlessly into the middle of the table.
His mother was ready with another great rectangle of pie and another
copious libation of custard.

It was going to be a close thing, I thought, but this surely must be the
end. They would realise time was getting short and start to change. But,
to my consternation, Mrs. Bellerby moved slowly over to the fire and put
the kettle on, while her husband and Bob pushed their chairs back and
stretched out their legs. They both wore corduroy breeches with the
lacing undone and on their feet were enormous hobnailed boots. Bob,
after a search through his pockets, brought out a battered packet of
cigarettes and lay back in a happy coma as his mother put a cup of tea
in front of him. Mr. Bellerby produced a clasp knife and began to cut up
some plug tobacco for his pipe.

As they rearranged themselves round the table and began to slowly sip
the; hot tea, I found I had started to exhibit all the classical
symptoms of tension.

Pounding pulse, tightly clenched jaws and the beginnings of a headache.

After a second cup of tea, there were signs of activity. Mr. Bellerby
rose with a groan, scratched his shirt front and stretched luxuriously.
"Well, young man, we'll just have a bit of a wash and get changed.
Bob'll stay and talk to you he" s not coming with us."

There was a lot of splashing and spluttering in the big stone sink at
the far end of the kitchen as they made their ablutions, then they
disappeared upstairs. I was greatly relieved to find that it didn't take
them long to change. Mr. Bellerbg was down very soon, transformed in
appearance by a stifj and shiny suit of navy blue serge with a faint
greenish tinge. His wife and daughter followed soon in a blaze of
flowered cotton.

"Ah well, now, here we are. All ready, eh?" There was a note of hysteria
i my heartiness. "Right, then, off we go. After you, ladies."

But Ruth did not move. She was pulling on a pair of white gloves and
lookin at her brother sprawled in his chair. "You know, Bob, you're nowt
but disgrace!" she burst out. "Here we are going off to hear this lovely
music an you're lying there in your muck, not caring. You've no interest
in culture at all. You care no more about bettering yourself than one of
them bullocks out there."

Bob stirred uneasily under this sudden attack, but there was more to
come.

Ruth stamped her foot. "Really, it makes my blood boil to look at you.
And I know we won't be right out of t'door before you're asleep. Aye,
snoring there all afternoon like a pi"." She swung round to Mrs.
Bellerby. "Mother! I've made up my mind I'm not going to leave him
snoring here. He's got to come with us!"

I felt the sweat start out on my brow. I began to babble. "But don't you
think perhaps ... might be just a little late ... starts at two o'clock
... my lunch  ..."

But my words were utterly lost. Ruth had the bit properly between her
teeth. "Get up out of there, Bob! Get up this minute and get dressed!"

She shut her mouth tightly and thrust out her lower jaw.

She was too much for Bob. Although an impressive eater, he didn't seem
to have much mind of his own. He mumbled sulkily and shuffled over to
the sink. He took off his shirt and they all sat down and watched as he
lathered his torso with a large block of White Windsor and sluiced his
head and neck by working the pump handle by the side of the sink.

The family regarded him happily, pleased that he was coming with them
and content in the knowledge that it would be good for him. Ruth watched
his splashings with the light of love in her eyes. She kept looking over
at me as if to say "Isn't this grand."

For my part, I was only just stopping myself from tearing out my hair in
great handfuls. A compulsion to leap up and pace the floor, to scream at
the top of my voice showed that I was nearing the end of my tether. I
fought this feeling by closing my eyes and I must have kept them closed
for a long time because when I opened them, Bob was standing by my side
in a suit exactly like his father's.

I could never remember much about that ride to Darrowby. I had only a
vague recollection of the car hurtling down the stony track at forty
miles an hour. Of myself staring straight ahead with protruding eyes and
the family, tightly packed but cheerful, thoroughly enjoying the ride.

Even the imperturbable Mrshall was a little tight lipped as I shot into
the house at ten to two and out again at two after bolting her good
food.

I was late for the Messiah. The music had started as I crept into the
church and I ran a gauntlet of disapproving stares. Out of the corner of
my eye I saw the Bellerbys sitting very upright, all in a row. It seemed
to me that they looked disapproving, too.

Chapter Eleven.

I looked again at the slip of paper where I had written my visits.
"Dean, 3 Thompson's Yard. Old dog ill."

There were a lot of these 'yards" in Darrowby. They were, in fact, tiny
streets like pictures from a Dickens novel. Some of them opened off the
market place and many more were scattered behind the main thoroughfares
in the old part of the town From the outside you could see only an
archway and it was always a Surprise to me to go down a narrow passage
and come suddenly upon the uneven rows of little houses with no two
alike, looking into each other's windows across eight feet of cobbles.

In front of some of the houses a strip of garden had been dug out and
marigolds and nasturtiums straggled over the rough stones; but at the
far end the houses were in a tumbledown condition and some were
abandoned with their windows boarded up.

Number three was down at this end and looked as though it wouldn't be
able to hold out much longer.

The flakes of paint quivered on the rotten wood of the door as I
knocked; above, the outer wall bulged dangerously on either side of a
long crack in the masonry.

A small, white haired man answered. His face, pinched and lined, was
enlivened by a pair of cheerful eyes; he wore a much-darned woollen
cardigan, patched trousers and slippers.

"I've come to see your dog," I said, and the old man smiled.

"Oh, I'm glad you've come, sir," he said. "I'm getting a bit worried
about the old chap. Come inside, please."

He led me into the tiny living-room. "I'm alone now, sir. Lost my missus
over a year ago. She used to think the world of the old dog."

The grim evidence of poverty was everywhere. In the worn out lino, the
fireless hearth, the dank, musty smell of the place. The wallpaper hung
away from the damp patches and on the table the old man's solitary
dinner was laid; a fragment of bacon, a few fried potatoes and a cup of
tea. This was life on the old age pension.

In the corner, on a blanket, lay my patient, a cross-bred labrador. He
must have been a big, powerful dog in his time, but the signs of age
showed in the white hairs round his muzzle and the pale opacity in the
depth of his eyes. He lay quietly and looked at me without hostility.

"Getting on a bit, isn't he, Mr. Dean?"

"Aye he is that. Nearly fourteen, but he's been like a pup galloping
about until these last few weeks. Wonderful dog for his age, is old Bob
and he's never offered to bite anybody in his life. Children can do
anything with him. He's my only friend now - I hope you'll soon be able
to put him right."

"Is he off his food, Mr. dean?"

"Yes, clean off, and that's a strange thing because by gum, he could
eat. He always sat by me and put his head on my knee at meal times, but
he hasn't been doing it lately."

I looked at the dog with growing uneasiness. The abdomen was grossly
distended and I could read the tell-tale symptoms of pain; the catch in
the respirations, the retracted commissures of the lips, the anxious,
preoccupied expression in the eyes.

When his master spoke, the tail thumped twice on the blankets and a
momentary interest showed in the white old eyes; but it quickly
disappeared and the blank, inward look returned.

I passed my hand carefully over the dog's abdomen. Ascites was
pronounced and the dropsical fluid had gathered till the pressure was
intense. "Come on, old chap," I said,"Let's see if we can roll you
over." The dog made no resistance as I eased him slowly on to his other
side, but, just as the movement was completed; he whimpered and looked
round. The cause of the trouble was now only too easy to find.

I palpated gently. Through the thin muscle of the flank I could feel a
hard" corrugated mass; certainly a splenic or hepatic carcinoma,
enormous and completely inoperable. I stroked the old dog's head as I
tried to collect my thoughts This wasn't going to be easy.

.:

"Is he going to be ill for long?" the old man asked, and again came the
thump, thump of the tail at the sound of the loved voice. "It's
miserable when Bob isn't following me round the house when I'm doing my
little jobs."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Dean, but I'm afraid this is something very serious. You
see this large swelling. It is caused by an internal growth."

"You mean ... cancer?" the little man said faintly.

"I'm afraid so, and it has progressed too far for anything to be done. I
wish there was something I could do to help him, but there isn't."

The old man looked bewildered and his lips trembled. "Then he's going to
die ?"

I swallowed hard. "We really can't just leave him to die, can we? He's
in some distress now, but it will soon be an awful lot worse. Don't you
think it would be kindest to put him to sleep? After all, he's had a
good, long innings." I always aimed at a brisk, matter-of-fact approach,
but the old cliches had an empty ring.

The old man was silent, then he said, "Just a minute," and slowly and
painfully knelt down by the side of the dog. He did not speak, but ran
his hand again and again over the grey old muzzle and the ears, while
the tail thump, thump thumped on the floor.

He knelt there a long time while I stood in the cheerless room, my eyes
taking in the faded pictures on the walls, the frayed, grimy curtains,
the brokenspringed armchair.

At length the old man struggled to his feet and gulped once or twice.
Without looking at me, he said huskily, "All right, will you do it now?"
I filled the syringe and said the things I always said. "You needn't
worry, this is absolutely painless. Just an overdose of an anaesthetic.
It is really an easy way out for the old fellow."

The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate
began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and
the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the
breathing had stopped.

"Is that it?" the old man whispered.

"Yes, that's it," I said. "He is out of his pain now."

The old man stood motionless except for the clasping and unclasping of
his hands. When he turned to face me his eyes were bright. "That's
right, we couldn't let him suffer, and I'm grateful for what you've
done. And now, what do I owe you for your services, sir?"

"Oh, that's all right, Mr. Dean," I said quickly, "It's nothing nothing
at all. I was passing right by here - it was no trouble."

The old man was astonished. "But you can't do that for nothing."

"Now please say no more about it, Mr. Dean. As I told you, I was passing
right by your door." I said goodbye and went out of the house, through
the passage and into the street. In the bustle of people and the bright
sunshine, I could still see only the stark, little room, the old man and
his dead dog.

As I walked towards my car, I heard a shout behind me. The old man was
shuffling excitedly towards me in his slippers. His cheeks were streaked
and wet, but he was smiling. In his hand he held a small, brown object.

You've been very kind, sir. I've got something for you." He held out the
object and I looked at it. It was tattered but just recognisable as a
precious relic of a bygone celebration.

Go on, it's for you," said the old man. "Have a cigar."

Chapter Twelve.

It was unfortunate that Siegfried ever had the idea of delegating the
bookkeeping to his brother, because Skeldale House had been passing
through a period of peace and I found it soothing.

For nearly a fortnight there had been hardly a raised voice or an angry
word . except for one unpleasant interlude when Siegfried had come in
and found his brother cycling along the passage. Tristan found all the
rage and shouting quite incomprehensible - he had been given the job of
setting the table and it was a long way from kitchen to dining-room; it
seemed the most natural thing in the world to bring his bike in.."

Autumn had come with a sharpness in the air and at nights the log fire
burned bright in the big room, sending shadows flickering over the
graceful alcoves and up to the high, carved ceiling. It was always a
good time when the work of the day was through and the three of us lay
back in the shabby arm chairs and stretched our feet out to the blaze.

Tristan was occupied with The Daily Telegraph crossword -which he did
every night. Siegfried was reading and I was dozing. It embarrassed me
to be drawn into the crossword; Siegfried could usually make a
contribution after a minute's thought but Tristan could have the whole
thing worked out while I wrestled with the first clue.

The carpet round our feet was hidden by the dogs, all five of them,
draped over each other in heavy-breathing layers and adding to the
atmosphere of camaraderie and content.

It seemed to me that a chill breath struck through the comfort of the
room as Siegfried spoke. "Market day tomorrow and the bills have just
gone out. They'l be queueing up to give us their money so I want you,
Tristan, to devote the entire day to taking it from them. James and I
are going to be busy, so you'll be in sole charge. All you have to do is
take their cheques, give them a receipt and enter their names in the
receipt book. Now do you think you can manage that without making a
bloody hash of it?"

I winced. It was the first discordant note for a long time and it struck
deep.

"I think I might just about cope with that," Tristan replied haughtily.

"Good. Let's get to bed then."

But, next day, it was easy to see that the assignment was right up
Tristan's street. Stationed behind the desk, he took in the money in
handfuls; and all the time he talked. But he did not talk at random;
each character got a personal approach.

With the upright methodist, it was the weather, the price of cows and
the activities of the village institute. The raffish type with his cap
on one side exhaling fumes of market ale, got the latest stories which
Tristan kept on the backs of envelopes. But with the ladies he rose to
his greatest heights. They were on his side from the first because of
his innocent, boyish face, and when he turned the full blast of his
charm on them their surrender was complete.

I was amazed at the giggles which came from behind the door. I was
please the lad was doing well. Nothing was going wrong this time.

Tristan was smug at lunch time and cock-a-hoop at tea. Siegfried too,
was satisfied with the day's takings which his brother presented in the
form of a column of neat figures accurately totalled at the bottom.
"Thank you, Tristan, very efficient ' All was sweetness.

At the end of the day I was in the yard, throwing the used bottles from
the boot of my car into a bin. It had been a busy day and I had
accumulated a bigger than usual load of empties.

Tristan came panting in from the garden. "Jim, I've lost the receipt
book!"

"Always trying to pull my leg, always joking," I said, "Why don't you
give your sense of humour a rest some time?" I laughed heartily and sent
a liniment bottle crashing among the others.

He plucked at my sleeve, "I'm not joking, Jim, believe me. I really have
lost the bloody thing." For once, his sang froid had deserted him. His
eyes were wide, his face pale.

"But it can't just have disappeared," I said. "It's bound to turn up."

"It'll never turn up." Tristan wrung his hands and did a bit of pacing
on the cobbles. "Do you know I've spent about two hours searching for
it. I've ransacked the house. It's gone, I tell you."

"But it doesn't matter, does it? You'll have transferred all the names
into the ledger."

"That's just it. I haven't. I was going to do it tonight."

"So that means that all the farmers who have been handing you money
today are going to get the same bill next month?"

"Looks like it. I can't remember the names of more than two or three of
them."

I sat down heavily on the stone trough. "Then God help us all,
especially you. These Yorkshire lads don't like parting with their brass
once, but when you ask them to do it twice - oh, brother!"

Another thought struck me and I said with a touch of cruelty: "And how
about Siegfried. Have you told him yet?"

A spasm crossed Tristan's face. "No, he's just come in. I'm going to do
it now." He squared his shoulders and strode from the yard.

I decided not to follow him to the house. I didn't feel strong enough
for the scene which was bound to follow. Instead, I went out into the
back lane and round behind the house to the market place where the
lighted entrance of the Drovers" Arms beckoned in the dusk.

I was sitting behind a pint when Tristan came in looking as though
somebody had just drained half a gallon of blood from him.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"Oh, the usual, you know. Bit worse this time, maybe. But I can tell you
this, Jim. I'm not looking forward to a month from today."

The receipt book was never found and, a month later, all the bills were
sent out again, timed, as usual, to arrive on market day morning.

The practice was quiet that particular day and I had finished my round
by mid morning. I didn't go into the house, because through the waiting
room window I could see rows of farmers sitting round the walls; they
all wore the same offended, self-righteous expression.

I stole away to the market place. When I had time, I enjoyed moving
among the stalls which crowded the ancient square. You could buy fruit,
fish, secondhand books, cheeses, clothes, in fact nearly everything; but
the china stall was my favourite..It was run by a Jewish gentleman from
Leeds - fat, confident, sweating, and With a hypnotic selling technique.
I never got tired of watching him. He fascinated me. He was in his best
form today standine in a little clearing surrounded on all sides by
heaps of crockery, while beyond, the farmers" wives listened
open-mouthed to his oratory.

"Ah'm not good lookin","he was saying. "Ah'm not clever, but by God ah
can talk. Ah can talk the hind leg off a donkey. Now look 'ere." He
lifted a cheap cup and held it aloft, but tenderly, gripping it between
his thick thumb and forefinger, his little finger daintily outspread.
"Beautiful, isn't it? Now isn't that lovely?" Then he placed it
reverently on the palm of his hand and displayed it to the audience.
"Now I tell you ladies, you can buy this self same tea-set in Conners in
Bradford for three pounds fifteen. I'm not jokin" nor jestin", it's
there and that's the price. But my price, ladies?" and here he fished
out an old walking stick with a splintered handle, "My price for this
beautiful tea-set?" He held the stick by its end and brought it crashing
down on an empty tea-chest. "Never mind three pound fifteen." Crash!

"Never mind three pound." Crash! "Never mind two pound." Crash! "Never
mind thirty bob." Crash! "ere, 'ere, come on, who'll give me a quid?"

Not a soul moved. "All right, all right, I can see ah've met me match
today. Go on, seventeen and a tanner the lot." A final devastating crash
and the ladies began to make signals and fumble in their handbags. A
little man emerged from the back of the stall and started to hand out
the tea-sets. The ritual had been observed and everybody was happy.

I was waiting, deeply content, for the next item from the virtuoso when
I saw a burly figure in a check cap waving wildly at me from the edge of
the crowd. He had his hand inside his jacket and I knew what he was
feeling for. I didn't hesitate but dodged quickly behind a stall laden
with pig troughs and wire netting. I had gone only a few steps before
another farmer hailed me purposefully. He was brandishing an envelope.

I felt trapped, then I saw a way of escape. Rapidly skirting a counter
displaying cheap jewellery, I plunged into the doorway of the Drovers"
Arms and, avoiding the bar which was full of farmers, slipped into the
manager's office. I was safe, this was one place where I was always
welcome.

The manager looked up from his desk, but he did not smile. "Look here,"
he said sharply, "I brought my dog in to see you some time ago and in
due course I received an account from you." I cringed inwardly. "I paid
by return and was extremely surprised this morning to find that another
account had been rendered. I have here a receipt signed by  ..."

I couldn't stand any more. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Brooke, but there's been
a mistake. I'll put it right. Please accept our apologies."

This became a familiar refrain over the next few days, but it was
Siegfried who had the most unfortunate experience. It was in the bar of
his favourite pub, -the Black Swan. He was approached by Billy
Breckenridge, a friendly, jocular little character, one of Darrowby's
worthies. "Hey, remember that three and six I paid at your surgery?

I've had another bill for it."

Siegfried made a polished apology - he'd had a lot of practice - and
bought the man a drink. They parted on good terms.

The pity of it was that Siegfried, who seldom remembered anything,
didn't remember this. A month later, also in the Swan, he ran into Billy
Breckenridge: again. This time, Billy wasn't so jocular. "Hey, remember
that bill you sent me twice? Well, I've had it again." . 

Siegfried did his best, but his charm bounced off the little man. He was
offended. "Right, I can see you don't believe I paid your bill. I had a
recei from your brother, but I've lost it." He brushed aside Siegfried's
protestation "No, no, there's only one way to settle this. I say I've
paid the three and six, yo say I haven't. All right, I'll toss you for
it."

Miserably, Siegfried demurred, but Billy was adamant. He produced a penn
and, with great dignity, balanced it on his thumbnail. "O.K., you-call."

"Heads," muttered Siegfried and heads it was. The little man did not
change expression Still dignified, he handed the three and six to
Siegfried. "Perhaps we might be able to consider the matter closed." He
walked out of the bar.

Now there are all kinds of bad memories, but Siegfried's was of the
inspired type. He somehow forgot to make a note of this last transaction
and, at the end of the month, Billy Breckenridge received a fourth
request for the amount which he had already paid twice. It was about
then that Siegfried changed his pub and started going to the Cross Keys.

Chapter Thirteen.

As Autumn wore into Winter and the high tops were streaked with the
first snows, the discomforts of practice in the Dales began to make
themselves felt.

Driving for hours with frozen feet, climbing to the high barns in biting
winds which seared and flattened the wiry hill grass. The interminable
stripping off in draughty buildings and the washing of hands and chest
in buckets of cold water, using scrubbing soap and often a piece of
sacking for a towel.

I really found out the meaning of chapped hands. When there was a rush
of work, my hands were never quite dry and the little red fissures crept
up almost to my elbows.

This was when some small animal work came as a blessed relief. To step
out of the rough, hard routine for a while, to walk into a warm
drawing-room instead of a cow house and tackle something less formidable
than a horse or a bull. And among all those comfortable drawing-rooms
there was none so beguiling as Mrs. Pumphrey's. '

Mrs. Pumphrey was an elderly widow. Her late husband, a beer baron whose
breweries and pubs were scattered widely over the broad bosom of
Yorkshire had left her a vast fortune and a beautiful house on the
outskirts of Darrowby. Here she lived with a large staff of servants, a
gardener, a chauffeur and Tricki Woo. Tricki Woo was a Pekingese and the
apple of his mistress" eye.

Standing now in the magnificent doorway, I furtively rubbed the toes of
my shoes on the backs of my trousers and blew on my cold hands. I could
almost see the deep armchair drawn close to the leaping flames, the tray
of cocktail biscuits, the bottle of excellent sherry. Because of the
sherry, I was always careful to time my visits for half an hour before
lunch.

A maid answered my ring, beaming on me as an honoured guest and led me
to the room, crammed with expensive furniture and littered with glossy
magazines and the latest novels. Mrs. Pumphrey, in the high backed chair
by the fire, put down her book with a cry of delight. "Trick!

Tricki! Here is your uncle Herriot. I had been made an uncle very early
and, sensing the advantages of the relationship" had made no objection
Tricki, as always, bounded from his cushion, leaped on to the back of a
sofa and put his paws on my shoulders. He then licked my face thoroughly
before retiring, exhausted. He was soon exhausted because he was given
roughly twice the amount of food needed for a dog Ofr his size. And it
was the wrong kind of "Oh, Mr. Herriot," Mrs. Pumphrey said, looking at
her pet anxiously. "I'm so glad you've come. Tricki has gone flop-bott
again."

This ailment, not to be found in any text book, was her way of
describing the symptoms of Tricki's impacted anal glands. When the
glands filled up, he showed discomfort by sitting down suddenly in mid
walk and his mistress would rush to the phone in great agitation.

"Mr. Herriot! Please come, he's going flop-bott again!"

I hoisted the little dog on to a table and, by pressure on the anus with
a pad of cotton wool, I evacuated the glands.

It baffled me that the Peke was always so pleased to see me. Any dog who
could still like a man who grabbed him and squeezed his bottom hard
every time they met had to have an incredibly forgiving nature. But
Tricki never showed any resentment; in fact he was an outstandingly
equable little animal, bursting with intelligence, and I was genuinely
attached to him. It was a pleasure to be his personal physician.

The squeezing over, I lifted my patient from the table, noticing the
increased weight, the padding of extra flesh over the ribs. "You know,
Mrs. Pumphrey, you're overfeeding him again. Didn't I tell you to cut
out all those pieces of cake and give him more protein?"

"Oh yes, Mr. Herriot," Mrs. Pumphrey wailed. "But what can I do? He's so
tired of chicken."

I shrugged; it was hopeless. I allowed the maid to lead me to the
palatial bathroom where I always performed a ritual handwashing after
the operation. It was a huge room with a fully stocked dressing table,
massive green ware and rows of glass shelves laden with toilet
preparations. My private guest towel was laid out next to the slab of
expensive soap.

Then I returned to the drawing-room, my sherry glass was filled and I
settled down by the fire to listen to Mrs. Pumphrey. It couldn't be
called a conversation because she did all the talking, but I always
found it rewarding.

Mrs. Pumphrey was likeable, gave widely to charities and would help
anybody in trouble. She was intelligent and amusing and had a lot of
waffling charm; but most people have a blind spot and her's was Tricki
Woo. The tales she told about her darling ranged far into the realms of
fantasy and I waited eagerly for the next instalment.

"Oh Mr. Herriot, I have the most exciting news. Tricki has a pen pal!

Yes, he wrote a letter to the editor of Doggy World enclosing a
donation, and told him that even though he was descended from a long
line of Chinese emperors, he had decided to come down and mingle freely
with the common dogs. He asked the editor to seek out a pen pal for him
among the dogs he knew so that they could correspond to their mutual
benefit. And for this purpose, Tricki said he would adopt the name of
Mr. Utterbunkum. And, do you know, he received the most beautiful letter
from the editor" (I could imagine the sensible man leaping upon this
potential gold mine) 'who said he would like to introduce Bonzo
Fotheringham, a lonely Dalmatian who would be delighted to exchange
letters with a new friend in Yorkshire."

I sipped the sherry. Tricki snored on my lap. Mrs. Pumphrey went on.

"But I'm so disappointed about the new Summerhouse - you know I got it
specially for Tricki so we could sit out together on warm afternoons.
It's such a nice little rustic shelter, but he's taken a passionate
dislike to it. Simply loathes it - absolutely refuses to go inside. You
should see the dreadful expression on his face when he looks at it. And
do you know what he called it yesterday? Oh, I hardly dare tell you."

She looked around the room before leaning over and whispering: "He
called it "the bloody hut"!"

The maid struck fresh life into the fire and refilled my glass. The wind
hurled a handful of sleet against the window. This, I thought, was the
life. I listened for more.

"And did I tell you, Mr. Herriot, Tricki had another good win yesterday?

You know, I'm sure he must study the racing columns, he's such a
tremendous judge Of form. Well, he told me to back Canny Lad in the
three o'clock at Redcar yesterday and, as usual, it won. He put on a
shilling each way and got back nine shillings."

These bets were always placed in the name of Tricki Woo and I thought
with compassion of the reactions of the local bookies. The Darrowby turf
accountants were a harassed and fugitive body of men. A board would
appear at the end of some alley urging the population to invest with Joe
Downs and enjoy perfect security. Joe would live for a few months on a
knife edge while he pitted his wits against the knowledgeable citizens,
but the end was always the same; a few favourites would win in a row and
Joe would be gone in the night, taking his board with him. Once I had
asked a local inhabitant about the sudden departure of one of these
luckless nomads. He replied unemotionally: "Oh, we brok 'im."

Losing a regular flow of shillings to a dog must have been a heavy cross
for these unfortunate men to bear.

"I had such a frightening experience last week," Mrs. Pumphrey
continued. "I was sure I would have to call you out. Poor little Tricki
went crackerdog!"

I mentally lined this up with flop-bott among the new canine diseases
and asked for more information.

"It was awful. I was terrified. The gardener was throwing rings for
Tricki - you know he does this for half an hour every day." I had
witnessed this spectacle several times. Hodgkin, a dour, bent old
Yorkshireman who looked as though he hated all dogs and Tricki in
particular, had to go out on the lawn every day and throw little rubber
rings over and over again. Tricki bounded after them and brought them
back, barking madly till the process was repeated. The bitter lines on
the old man's face deepened as the game progressed. His lips moved
continually, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying.

Mrs. Pumphrey went on: "Well, he was playing his game, and he does adore
it so, when suddenly, without warning, he went cracker dog. He forgot
all about his rings and began to run around in circles, barking and
yelping in such a strange way. Then he fell over on his side and lay
like a little dead thing. Do you know, Mr. Herriot, I really thought he
was dead, he lay so perfectly still. And what hurt me most was that
Hodgkin began to laugh. He has been with me for twenty-four years and I
have never even seen him smile, and yet, when he looked down at that
still form, he broke into a queer, high-pitched cackle. It was horrid. I
was just going to rush to the telephone when Tricki got up and walked
away - he seemed perfectly normal."

Hysteria, I thought, brought on by wrong feeding and over-excitement. I
put down my glass and fixed Mrs. Pumphrey with a severe glare. "Now
look, this is just what I was talking about. If you persist in feeding
all that fancy rubbish to tricki you are going to ruin his health. You
really must get him on to a sensible dog diet of one or, at the most,
two small meals a day of meat and brown bread or a little biscuit. And
nothing in between."

Mrs. Pumphrey shrank into her chair, a picture of abject guilt. "Oh,
please don't speak to me like that. I do try to give him the right
things, but it is so difficult When he begs for his little titbits, I
can't refuse him." She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief But I was
unrelenting. "All right, Mrs. Pumphrey, it's up to you, but I warn you
that if you go on as you are doing, Tricki will go crackerdog more and
more often." I left the cosy haven with reluctance, pausing on the
gravelled drive to look back at Mrs. Pumphrey waving and Tricki, as
always, standing against the window, his wide-mouthed face apparently in
the middle of a hearty laugh.

Driving home, I mused on the many advantages of being Tricki's uncle.
When he went to the seaside he sent me boxes of oak-smoked kippers; and
when the tomatoes ripened in his greenhouse, he sent a pound or two
every week. Tins of tobacco arrived regularly, sometimes with a
photograph carrying a loving inscription.

But it was when the Christmas hamper arrived from Fortnum and Mason's
that I decided that I was on a really good thing which should be helped
along a bit. Hitherto, I had merely rung up and thanked Mrs. Pumphrey
for the gifts, and she had been rather cool, pointing out that it was
Tricki who had sent the things and he was the one who should be thanked.

With the arrival of the hamper it came to me, blindingly, that I had
been guilty of a grave error of tactics. I set myself to compose a
letter to Tricki. Avoiding Siegfried's sardonic eye, I thanked my doggy
nephew for his Christmas gifts and for all his generosity in the past. I
expressed my sincere hopes that the festive fare had not upset his
delicate digestion and suggested that if he did experience any
discomfort he should have recourse to the black powder his uncle always
prescribed. A vague feeling of professional shame was easily swamped by
floating visions of kippers, tomatoes and hampers. I addressed the
envelope to Master Tricki Pumphrey, Barlby Grange and slipped it into
the post box with only a slight feeling of guilt.

On my next visit, Mrs. Pumphrey drew me to one side. "Mr. Herriot," she
whispered, "Trick) adored your charming letter and he will keep it
always, but he was very put out about one thing - you addressed it to
Master Tricki and he does insist upon Mister. He was dreadfully
affronted at first, quite beside himself, but when he saw it was from
you he soon recovered his good temper. I can't think why he should have
these little prejudices. Perhaps it is because he is an only dog - I do
think an only dog develops more prejudices than one from a large
family."

Entering Skeldale House was like returning to a colder world. Siegfried
bumped into me in the passage. "Ah, who have we here? Why I do believe
it's dear Uncle Herriot. And what have you been doing, Uncle? Slaving
away at Barlby Grange, I expect. Poor fellow, you must be tired out. Do
you really think it's worth it, working your fingers to the bone for
another hamper?"

Chapter Fourteen.

Looking back, I can scarcely believe we used to spend all those hours in
making up medicines. But our drugs didn't come to us in proprietary
packages and before we could get out on the road we had to fill our cars
with a wide variety of carefully compounded and largely useless
remedies.

When Siegfried came upon me that morning I was holding a twelve ounce
bottle at eye level while I poured syrup of coccilana into it. Tristan
was moodily mixing stomach powders with a mortar and pestle and he
stepped up his speed of stroke when he saw his brother's eye on him. He
was surrounded by packets Of the powder and, further along the bench,
were orderly piles of pessaries which he had made by filling cellophane
cylinders with boric acid.

Tristan looked industrious; his elbow jogged furiously as he ground away
at the ammon carte and nux vomica. Siegfried smiled benevolently.

I smiled too. I felt the strain badly when the brothers were at
variance, but I could see that this was going to be one of the happy
mornings. There had been a distinct improvement in the atmosphere since
Christmas when Tristan had slipped casually back to college and,
apparently without having done any work, had re-sat and passed his
exams. And there was something else about my boss today; he seemed to
glow with inner satisfaction as though he knew for certain that
something good was on the way. He came in and closed the door.

"I've got a bit of good news."

I screwed the cork into the bottle. "Well, don't keep us in suspense.
Let's have it."

Siegfried looked from one of us to the other. He was almost smirking.
"You remember that bloody awful shambles when Tristan took charge of the
bills?"

His brother looked away and began to grind still faster, but Siegfried
laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. "No, don't worry, I'm not going to
ask you to do it again. In fact, you'll never have to do it again
because, from now on, the job will be done by an expert." He paused and
cleared his throat. "We're going to have a secretary."

As we stared blankly at him he went on. "Yes, I picked her myself and I
consider she's perfect."

"Well, what's she like?" I asked.

Siegfried pursed his lips. "It's difficult to describe her. But just
think - what do we want here? We don't want some flighty young thing
hanging about the place. We don't want a pretty little blonde sitting
behind that desk powdering her nose and making eyes at everybody."

"We don't?" Tristan interrupted, plainly puzzled.

"No, we don't!" Siegfried rounded on him. "She'd be day-dreaming about
her boy friends half the time and just when we'd got her trained to our
ways she'd be running off to get married."

Tristan still looked unconvinced and it seemed to exasperate his
brother. Siegfried's face reddened. "And there's another thing. How
could we have an attractive young girl in here with somebody like you in
the house. You'd never leave her alone."

Tristan was nettled. "How about you?"

"I'm talking about you, not me!"Siegfried roared. I closed my eyes. The
peace hadn't lasted long. I decided to cut in. "All right, tell us about
the new secretary."

With an effort, he mastered his emotion. "Well, she's in her fifties and
she has retired after thirty years with Green and Moulton in Bradford.
She was company secretary there and I've had the most wonderful
reference from the firm. They say she is a model of efficiency and
that's what we want in this practice efficiency. We're far too slack.
It's just a stroke of luck for us that she decided to come and live in
Darrowby. Anyway, you'll be able to meet her in a few minutes - she's
coming at ten o'clock this morning."

The church clock was chiming when the door bell rang. Siegfried hastened
out to answer it and led his great discovery into the room in triumph.
"Gentlemen, I want you to meet Miss. Harbottle."

She was a big, high-bosomed woman with a round healthy face and
goldrimmed spectacles. A mass of curls, incongruous and very dark,
peeped from under her hat; they looked as if they might be dyed and they
didn't go with her severe clothes and brogue shoes.

It occurred to me that we wouldn't have to worry about her rushing off
to get married. It wasn't that she was ugly, but she had a jutting chin
and an air of effortless command that would send any man running for his
life.

I shook hands and was astonished at the power of Miss. Harbottle's grip.
We looked into each other's eyes and had a friendly trial of strength
for a few seconds, then she seemed happy to call it a draw and turned
away. Tristan was entirely unprepared and a look of alarm spread over
his face as his hand was engulfed, he was released only when his knees
started to buckle.

She began a tour of the office while Siegfried hovered behind her,
rubbing his hands and looking like a shopwalker with his favourite
customer. She paused at the desk, heaped high with in-coming and
out-going bills, Ministry of Agriculture forms, circulars from drug
firms with here and there stray boxes of pills and tubes of udder
ointment.

Stirring distastefully among the mess, she extracted the dog-eared old
ledger and held it up between finger and thumb. "What's this?"

Siegfried trotted forward. "Oh, that's our ledger. We enter the visits
into it from our day book which is here somewhere." He scrabbled about
on the desk. "Ah, here it is. This is where we write the calls as they
come in."

She studied the two books for a few minutes with an expression of
amazement which gave way to a grim humour. "You gentlemen will have to
learn to write if I am going to look after your books. There are three
different hands here, but this one is by far the worst. Quite dreadful.
Whose is it?"

She pointed to an entry which consisted of a long, broken line with an
occasional undulation.

"That's mine, actually," said Siegfried, shuffling his feet. "Must.have
been in a hurry that day."

"But it's all like that, Mr. Farnon. Look here and here and here. It
won't do, you know."

Siegfried put his hands behind his back and hung his head.

"I expect you keep your stationery and envelopes in here." She pulled
open a drawer in the desk. It appeare'd to be filled entirely with old
seed packets, many of which had burst open. A few peas and french beans
rolled gently from the top of the heap. The next drawer was crammed
tightly with soiled calving ropes which somebody had forgotten to wash.
They didn't smell so good and Miss. Harbottle drew back hurriedly; but
she was not easily deterred and tugged hopefully at the third drawer. It
came open with a musical clinking and she looked down on a dusty row of
empty pale ale bottles.

She straightened up slowly and spoke patiently. "And where, may I ask,
is your cash box?"

"Well, we just stuff it in there, you know." Siegfried pointed to the
pint pot on the corner of the mantelpiece. "Haven't got what you'd call
a proper cash box, but this does the job all right."

Miss. Harbottle looked at the pot with horror. "You just stuff ..."

Crumpled cheques and notes peeped over the brim at her; many of their
companions had burst out on to the hearth below. "And you mean to say
that you go out and leave that money there day after day?"

"Never seems to come to any harm," Siegfried replied.

"And how about your petty cash?"

Siegfried gave an uneasy giggle. "All in there, you know. All cash petty
and otherwise."

Miss. Harbottle's ruddy face had lost some of its colour. "Really, Mr.
Farnon, this is too bad. I don't know how you have gone on so long like
this. I simply do not know. However, I'm confident I will be able to
straighten things out very soon. There is obviously nothing complicated
about your business - a simple card index system would be the thing for
your accounts. The other little things," - she glanced back
unbelievingly at the pot - "I will put right very quickly."

"Fine, Miss. Harbottle, fine." Siegfried was rubbing his hands harder
than ever. "We'll expect you on Monday morning."

"Nine o'clock sharp, Mr. Farnon."

After she had gone there was a silence. Tristan had enjoyed her visit
and was smiling thoughtfully, but I felt uncertain.

"You know, Siegfried," I said, "Maybe she is a demon of efficiency but
isn't she just a bit tough?"

"Tough?" Siegfried gave a loud, rather cracked laugh. "Not a bit of it.
You leave her to me. I can handle her."

Chapter Fifteen.

There was little furniture in the dining-room but the noble lines and
the very size of the place lent grace to the long sideboard and the
modest mahogany table where Tristan and I sat at breakfast.

The single large window was patterned with frost and in the street
outside, the footsteps of the passers by crunched in the crisp snow. I
looked up from my boiled egg as a car drew up. There was a stamping in
the porch, the outer door banged shut and Siegfried burst into the room.
Without a word he made for the fire and hung over it, leaning his elbows
on the grey marble mantelpiece. He was muffled almost to the eyes in
greatcoat and scarf but what you could see of his face was purplish
blue.

He turned a pair of streaming eyes to the table. "A milk fever up at old
Heseltine's. One of the high buildings. God, it was cold up there. I
could hardly breathe."

As he pulled off his gloves and shook his numbed fingers in front of the
flames, he darted sidelong glances at his brother. Tristan's chair was
nearest the fire and he was enjoying his breakfast as he enjoyed
everything, slapping the butter happily on to his toast and whistling as
he applied the marmalade. His Daily Mirror was balanced against the
coffee pot. You could almost see the waves of comfort and contentment
coming from him.

Siegfried dragged himself unwillingly from the fire and dropped into a
chair. "I'll just have a cup of coffee, James. Heseltine was very kind
asked me to sit down and have breakfast with him. He gave me a lovely
slice of home fed bacon - a bit fat, maybe, but what a flavour!

I can taste it now."

He put down his cup with a clatter. "You know, there's no reason why we
should have to go to the grocer for our bacon and eggs. There's a
perfectly good hen house at the bottom of the garden and a pig sty in
the yard with a boiler for the swill. All our household waste could go
towards feeding a pig. We'd probably do it quite cheaply."

He rounded on Tristan who had just lit a Woodbine and was shaking out
his Mirror with the air of ineffable pleasure which was peculiar to him.
"And it would be a useful job for you. You're not producing much sitting
around here on your arse all day. A bit of stock keeping would do you
good."

Tristan put down his paper as though the charm had gone out of it.
"Stock keeping? Well, I feed your mare as it is." He didn't enjoy
looking after Siegfried's new hunter because every time he turned her
out to water in the yard she would take a playful kick at him in
passing.

Siegfried jumped up. "I know you do, and it doesn't take all day, does
it? It won't kill you to take on the hens and pigs."

"Pigs?" Tristan looked startled. "I thought you said pig?"

"Yes, pigs. I've just been thinking. If I buy a litter of weaners we can
sell the others and keep one for ourselves. Won't cost a thing that
way."

"Not with free labour, certainly."

"Labour? Labour? You don't know what it means! Look at you lying back
there puffing your head off. You smoke too many of those bloody
cigarettes!"

"So do you."

"Never mind me, I'm talking about you!" Siegfried shouted.

I got up from the table with a sigh. Another day had begun.

When Siegfried got an idea he didn't muck about. Immediate action was
his watchword. Within forty-eight hours a litter of ten little pigs had
taken up residence in the sty and twelve Light Sussex pullets were
pecking about behind the wire of the hen house. He was particularly
pleased with the pullets. "Look at them, James; just on point of lay and
a very good strain, too. There'll be just a trickle of eggs at first,
but once they get cracking we'll be snowed under. Nothing like a nice
fresh egg warm from the nest."

It was plain from the first that Tristan didn't share his brother's
enthusiasm for the hens. I often found him hanging about outside the hen
house, looking bored and occasionally throwing bread crusts over the
wire. There was no evidence of the regular feeding, the balanced diet
recommended by the experts. As egg producers, the hens held no appeal
for him, but he did become mildly interested in them as personalities.
An odd way of clucking, a peculiarity in gait - these things amused him.

But there were no eggs and as the weeks passed, Siegfried became
increasingly irritable. "Wait till I see the chap that sold me those
hens. Damned scoundrel. Good laying strain my foot!" It was pathetic to
see him anxiously exploring empty nesting boxes every morning. , One
afternoon, I was going down the garden when Tristan called to me. "Come
over here, Jim. This is something new. I bet you've never seen anything
like it before." He pointed upwards and I saw a group of unusually
coloured large birds perched in the branches of the elms. There were
more of them in the neighbour's apple trees.

I stared in astonishment. "You're right, I've never seen anything like
them. What are they?"

"Oh, come on," said Tristan, grinning in delight, "Surely there's
something familiar about them. Take another look."

I peered upwards again. "No, I've never seen birds as big as that and
with such exotic plumage. What is it- a freak migration?"

Tristan gave a shout of laughter. "They're our hens!"

"How the devil did they get up there?"

"They've left home. Hopped it."

"But I can only see seven. Where are the rest of them?"

"God knows. Let's have a look over the wall."

The crumbling mortar gave plenty of toe holds between the bricks and we
looked down into the next garden. The other five hens were there,
pecking contentedly among some cabbages.

It took a long time to get them all back into the hen house and the
tedious business had to be repeated several times a day thereafter. For
the hens had clearly grown tired of life under Tristan and decided that
they would do better living off the country. They became nomads, ranging
ever further afield in their search for sustenance.

At first the neighbours chuckled. They phoned to say their children
were" rounding up the hens and would we come and get them; but with the
passage of time their jocularity wore thin. Finally Siegfried was
involved in some painful interviews. His hens, he was told, were an
unmitigated nuisance.

It was after one particularly unpleasant session that Siegfried decided
that the hens must go. It was a bitter blow and as usual he vented his
fury on Tristan. "I must have been mad to think that any hens under your
care would ever lay eggs. But really, isn't it just a bit hard? I give
you this simple little job and one would have thought that even you
would be hard put to it to make a mess of it. But look at the situation
after only three weeks. Not one solitary egg have we seen. The bloody
hens are flying about the countryside like pigeons. We are permanently
estranged from our neighbours. You've done a thorough job haven't
you?" All the frustrated egg producer in Siegfried welled out in his
shrill tones.

Tristan's expression registered only wounded virtue, but he was rash
enough to try to defend himself. "You know, I thought there was
something queer about those hens from the start," he muttered.

Siegfried shed the last vestiges of his self control. "Queer!" he yelled
wildly, "You're the one that's queer, not the poor bloody hens. You're
the queerest bugger there is. For God's sake get out - get out of my
sight!"

Tristan withdrew with quiet dignity.

It took some time for the last echoes of the poultry venture to die away
but after a fortnight, sitting again at the dining-table with Tristan, I
felt sure that all was forgotten. So that it was with a strange sense of
the workings of fate that I saw Siegfried stride into the room and lean
menacingly over his brother. "You remember those hens, I suppose," he
said almost in a whisper, "You'll recall that I gave them away to Mrs.
Dale, that old aged pensioner down Brown's Yard. Well, I've just been
speaking to her. She's delighted with them. Gives them a hot mash night
and morning and she's collecting ten eggs a day." His voice rose almost
to a scream. "Ten eggs do you hear, ten eggs!"

I hurriedly swallowed the last of my tea and excused myself. I trotted
along the passage out the back door and up the garden to my car. On the
way I passed the empty hen house. It had a forlorn look. It was a long
way to the dining room but I could still hear Siegfried.

Chapter Sixteen.

"Jim! Come over here and look at these little beggars." Tristan laughed
excitedly as he leaned over the door of the pig sty.

I walked across the yard. "What is it?"

"I've just given them their swill and it's a bit hot. Just look at
them!"

The little pigs were seizing the food, dropping it and walking
suspiciously round it. Then they would creep up, touch the hot potatoes
with their muzzles and leap back in alarm. There was none of the usual
meal time slobbering, just a puzzled grunting. Right from the start
Tristan had found the pigs more interesting than the hens which was a
good thing because he had to retrieve himself after the poultry
disaster. He spent a lot of time in the yard, sometimes feeding or
mucking out but more often resting his elbows on the door watching his
charges.

As with the hens, he was more interested in their characters than their
ability to produce pork or bacon. After he poured the swill into the
long trough he always watched, entranced, while the pigs made their
first rush. Soon, in the desperate gobbling there would be signs of
uneasiness. The tiny animals would begin to glance sideways till their
urge to find out what their mates were enjoying so much became
unbearable; they would start to change position frantically, climbing
over each other's backs and falling into the swill.

Old Boardman was a willing collaborator, but mainly in an advisory
capacity. Like all countrymen he considered he knew all about the
husbandry and diseases of animals and, it turned out, pigs were his
speciality. There were long conferences in the dark room under the
Bairnsfather cartoons and the old man grew animated over his
descriptions of the vast, beautiful animals he had reared in that very
sty.

Tristan listened with respect because he had solid proof of Boardman's
expertise in the way he handled the old brick boiler. Tristan could
light the thing but it went out if he turned his back on it; but it was
docile in Boardman's hands. I often saw Tristan listening wonderingly to
the steady blub-blub while the old man rambled on and the delicious
scent of cooking pig potatoes drifted over them both.

But no animal converts food more quickly into flesh than a pig and as
the weeks passed the little pink creatures changed with alarming speed
into ten solid, no-nonsense porkers. Their characters deteriorated, too.
They lost all their charm. Meal times stopped being fun and became a
battle with the odds growing heavier against Tristan all the time.

I could see that it brought a lot of colour into old Boardman's life and
he always dropped whatever he was doing when he saw Tristan scooping the
swill from the boiler.

He obviously enjoyed watching the daily contest from his seat on the
stone trough. Tristan bracing himself, listening to the pigs squealing
at the rattle of the bucket; giving a few fearsome shouts to encourage
himself then shooting the bolt and plunging among the grunting, jostling
animals; broad, greedy snouts forcing into the bucket, sharp feet
grinding his toes, heavy bodies thrusting against his legs.

I couldn't help smiling when I remembered the light-hearted game it used
to be. There was no laughter now. Tristan finally took to brandishing a
heavy stick at the pigs before he dared to go in. Once inside his only
hope of staying on his feet was to clear a little space by beating on
the backs.

It was on a market day when the pigs had almost reached bacon weight
that I came upon Tristan sprawled in his favourite chair. But there was
something unusual about him; he wasn't asleep, no medicine bottle, no
Woodbines, no Daily Mirror. His arms hung limply over the sides of the
chair, his eyes were half closed and sweat glistened on his forehead.

'dim," he whispered. "I've had the most hellish afternoon I've ever had
in my life."

I was alarmed at his appearance. "What's happened."

"The pigs," he croaked. "They escaped today."

"Escaped! How the devil could they do that?"

Tristan tugged at his hair. "It was when I was feeding the mare. I gave
her her hay and thought I might as well feed the pigs at the same time.
You know what they've been like lately - well, today they went berserk.
Soon as I opened the door they charged out in a solid block. Sent me up
in the air, bucket and all, then ran over the top of me." He shuddered
and looked up at me wide-eyed. "I'll tell you this, Jim, when I was
lying there on the cobbles, covered with swill and that lot trampling on
me, I thought it was all over. But they didn't savage me. They belted
out through the yard door at full gallop."

"The yard door was open then?"

"Too true it was. I would just choose this one day to leave it open."

Tristan sat up and wrung his hands. "Well, you know, I thought it was
all right at first. You see, they slowed down when they got into the
lane and trotted quietly round into the front street with Boardman and I
hard on their heels. They formed a group there. Didn't seem to know
where to go next. I was sure we were going to be able to head them off,
but just then one of them caught sight of itself in Robson's shop
window."

He gave a remarkable impression of a pig staring at its reflection for a
few moments then leaping back with a startled grunt.

"Well, that did it, Jim. The bloody animal panicked and shot off into
the market place at about fifty miles an hour with the rest after it."

I gasped. Ten large pigs loose among the packed stalls and market day
crowds was difficult even to imagine.

"Oh God, you should have seen it." Tristan fell back wearily into his
chair. "Women and kids screaming. The stall holders, police and
everybody else cursing me. There was a terrific traffic jam too miles of
cars tooting like hell while the policeman on point duty concentrated on
browbeating me." He wiped his brow. "You know that fast talking merchant
on the china stall - well, today I saw him at a loss for words. He was
balancing a cup on his palm and in full cry when one of the pigs got its
fore feet on his stall and stared him straight in the face. He stopped
as if he'd been shot. Any other time it would have been funny but I
thought the perishing animal was going to wreck the stall. The counter
was beginning to rock when the pig changed its mind and made off."

"What's the position now?" I asked. "Have you got them back?"

"I've got nine of them back," Tristan replied, leaning back and closing
his eyes. "With the help of almost the entire male population of the
district I've got nine of them back. The tenth was last seen heading
North at a good pace. God knows where it is now. Oh, I didn't tell you
one of them got into the post office. Spent quite some time in there."

He put his hands over his face. "I'm for it this time, Jim. I'll be in
the hands of the law after this lot. There's no doubt about it."

I leaned over and slapped his leg. "Oh, I shouldn't worry. I don't
suppose there's been any serious damage done."

Tristan replied with a groan. "But there's something else. When I
finally closed the door after getting the pigs back in their sty I was
on the verge of collapse. I was leaning against the wall gasping for
breath when I saw the mare had gone. Yes, gone. I'd gone straight out
after the pigs and forgot to close her box. I don't know where she is.
Boardman said he'd look around - I haven't the strength."

Tristan lit a trembling Woodbine. "This is the end, Jim. Siegfried will
have no mercy this time."

As he spoke, the door flew open and his brother rushed in. "What the
hell is going on?" he roared. "I've just been speaking to the vicar and
he says my mare is in his garden eating his wallflowers. He's hopping
mad and I don't blame him. Go on, you lazy young scoundrel. Don't lie
there, get over to the vicarage this instant and bring her back!"

Tristan did not stir. He lay inert, looking up at his brother. His lips
moved feebly.

"No," he said.

'what's that?" Siegfried shouted incredulously. "Get out of that chair
immediately. Go and get that mare!"

"No," replied Tristan.

I felt a chill of horror. This sort of mutiny was unprecedented.
Siegfried had gone very red in the face and I steeled myself for an
eruption; but it was Tristan who spoke.

"If you want your mare you can get her yourself." His voice was quiet
with no note of defiance. He had the air of a man to whom the future is
of no account.

Even Siegfried could see that this was one time when Tristan had had
enough. After glaring down at his brother for a few seconds he turned
and walked. He got the mare himself.

Nothing more was said about the incident but the pigs were moved
hurriedly to the bacon factory and were never replaced. The stock
keeping project was at an end.

Chapter Seventeen.

When I came in, Miss. Harbottle was sitting, head bowed, over the empty
cash box; she looked bereaved. It was a new, shiny, black box with the
words "Petty Cash" printed on top in white letters. Inside was a red
book with the incomings and outgoings recorded in neat columns. But
there was no money.

Miss. Harbottle's sturdy shoulders sagged. She listlessly took up the
red book between finger and thumb and a lonely sixpence rolled from
between its pages and tinkled into the box. "He's been at it again," she
whispered.

A stealthy footstep sounded in the passage. "Mr. Farnon!" she called
out. And to me: "It's really absurd the way the man always tries to
slink past the door."

Siegfried shuffled in. He was carrying a stomach tube and pump, calcium
bottles bulged from his jacket pockets and a bloodless castrator dangled
from the other hand.

He smiled cheerfully but I could see he was uncomfortable, not only
because of the load he carried, but because of his poor tactical
position. Miss. Harbottle had arranged her desk across the corner
diagonally opposite the door and he had to walk across a long stretch of
carpet to reach her. From her point of view it was strategically
perfect. From her corner she could see every inch of the big room, into
the passage when the door was open and out on to the front street from
the window on her left. Nothing escaped her - it was a position of
power.

Siegfried looked down at the square figure behind the desk. "Good
morning, Miss. Harbottle, can I do anything for you?"

The grey eyes glinted behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. "You can,
indeed, Mr. Farnon. You can explain why you have once more emptied my
petty cash box."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I had to rush through to Brawton last night and I
found myself a bit short. There was really nowhere else to turn to."

"But Mr. Farnon, in the two months I have been here, we must have been
over this a dozen times. What is the good of my trying to keep an
accurate record of the money in the practice if you keep stealing it and
spending it?"

"Well, I suppose I got into the habit in the old pint pot days. It
wasn't a bad system, really."

"It wasn't a system at all. It was anarchy. You cannot run a business
that way. But I've told you this so many times and each time you have
promised to alter your ways. I feel almost at my wits" end."

"Oh, never mind, Miss. Harbottle. Get some more out of the bank and put
it in your box. That'll put it right." Siegfried gathered up the loose
coils of the stomach tube from the floor and turned to go, but Miss.
Harbottle cleared her throat warningly.

"There are one or two other matters. Will you please try to keep your
other promise to enter your visits in the book every day and to price
them as you do so. Nearly a week has gone by since you wrote anything
in. How can I possibly get the bills out on the first of the month?

This is most important, but how do you expect me to do it when you
impede me like this?"

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, but I have a string of calls waiting. I really
must go." He was halfway across the floor and the tube was uncoiling
itself again when he heard the ominous throat clearing behind him.

"And one more thing, Mr. Farnon. I still can't decipher your writing.
These medical terms are difficult enough, so please take a little care
and don't scribble."

"Very wel! Miss. Harbottle." He quickened his pace through the door and
into the passage where, it seemed, was safety and peace. He was
clattering thankfully over the tiles when the familiar rumbling reached
him. She could project that sound a surprising distance by giving it a
bit of extra pressure, and it was a summons which had to be obeyed. I
could hear him wearily putting the tube and pump on the floor; the
calcium bottles must have been digging into his ribs because I heard
them go down too.

He presented himself again before the desk. Miss. Harbottle wagged a
finger at him. "While I have you here I'd like to mention another point
which troubles me. Look at this day book. You see all these slips
sticking out of the pages? They are all queries - there must be scores
of them - and I am at a standstill until you clear them for me. When I
ask you you never have the time. Can you go over them with me now?"

Siegfried backed away hurriedly. "No, no, not just now. As I said, I
have some urgent calls waiting. I'm very sorry but it will have to be
some other time. First chance I get I'll come in and see you". He felt
the door behind him and with a last glance at the massive, disapproving
figure behind the desk, he turned and Chapter Eighteen.

I could look back now on six months of hard practical experience. I had
treated cows, horses, pigs, dogs and cats seven days a week; in the
morning, afternoon, evening and through the hours when the world was
asleep. I had calved cows and farrowed sows till my arms ached and the
skin peeled off, I had been knocked down, trampled on and sprayed
liberally with every kind of muck. I had seen a fair cross section of
the diseases of animals. And yet a little voice had begun to niggle at
the back of my mind; it said I knew nothing, nothing at all.

This was strange, because those six months had been built upon five
years of theory; a slow, painful assimilation of thousands of facts and
a careful storage of fragments of knowledge like a squirrel with its
nuts. Beginning with the study of plants and the lowest forms of life,
working up to dissection in the anatomy lab and physiology and the vast,
soul-less territory of materia medica. Then pathology which tore down
the curtain of ignorance and let me look for the first time into the
deep secrets. And parasitology, the teeming other world of the worms and
fleas and mange mites. Finally, medicine and surgery, the
crystallisation of my learning and its application to the everyday
troubles of animals.

And there were many others, like physics, chemistry, hygiene; they
didn't seem to have missed a thing. Why then should I feel I knew
nothing? Why had I begun to feel like an astronomer looking through a
telescope at an unknown galaxy? This sensation that I was only groping
about on the fringes of limitless space was depressing. It was a funny
thing, because everybody else seemed to know all about sick animals. The
chap who held the cow's tail, the neighbour from the next farm, men in
pubs, jobbing gardeners; they all knew and were free and confident with
their advice.

I tried to think back over my life. Was there any time when I had felt
this supreme faith in my own knowledge. And then I remembered.

I was back in Scotland, I was seventeen and I was walking under the arch
of the Veterinary College into Montrose Street. I had been a student for
three days but not until this afternoon had I felt the thrill of
fulfilment. Messing about with botany and zoology was all right but this
afternoon had been the real thing; I had had my first lecture in animal
husbandry.

The subject had been the points of the horse. Professor Grant had hung
up a life size picture of a horse and gone over it from nose to tail,
indicating the withers, the stifle, the hock, the poll and all the other
rich, equine terms. And the professor had been wise; to make his lecture
more interesting he kept throwing in little practical points like "This
is where we find curb," or "Here is the site for windgalls." He talked
of thoroughpins and sidebones, splints and quittor; things the students
wouldn't learn about for another four years, but it brought it all to
life.

The words were still spinning in my head as I walked slowly down the
sloping street. This was what I had come for. I felt as though I had
undergone an initiation and become a member of an exclusive club. I
really knew about horses. And I was wearing a brand new riding mac with
all sorts of extra straps and buckles which slapped against my legs as I
turned the corner of the hill into busy Newton Road.

I could hardly believe my luck when I saw the horse. It was standing
outside the library below Queen's Cross like something left over from
another age. It drooped dispiritedly between the shafts of a coal cart
which stood like an island in an eddying stream of cars and buses.
Pedestrians hurried by, uncaring, but I had the feeling that fortune was
smiling on me.

A horse. Not just a picture but a real, genuine horse. Stray words from
the lecture floated up into my mind; the pastern, cannon bone, coronet
and all those markings - snip, blaze, white sock near hind. I stood on
the pavement and examined the animal critically.

I thought it must be obvious to every passer-by that here was a true
expert. Not just an inquisitive onlooker but a man who knew and
understood all. I felt clothed in a visible aura of horsiness.

I took a few steps up and down, hands deep in the pockets of the new
riding mac, eyes probing for possible shoeing faults or curbs or bog
spavins. So thorough was my inspection that I worked round to the off
side of the horse and stood perilously among the racing traffic.

I glanced around at the people hurrying past. Nobody seemed to care, not
even the horse. He was a large one. at least seventeen hands, and he
gazed apathetically down the street, easing his hind legs alternatively
in a bored manner. I hated to leave him but I had completed my
examination and it was time I was on my way. But I felt that I ought to
make a gesture before I left; something to communicate to the horse that
I understood his problems and that we belonged to the same brotherhood.
I stepped briskly forward and patted him on the neck.

Quick as a striking snake, the horse whipped downwards and seized my
shoulder in his great strong teeth. He laid back his ears, rolled his
eyes wickedly and hoisted me up, almost ofl my feet. I hung there
helplessly, suspended like a lopsided puppet. I wriggled and kicked but
the teeth were clamped immovably in the material of my coat.

There was no doubt about the interest of the passers by now. The
grotesque sight of a man hanging from a horse's mouth brought them to a
sudden halt and a crowd formed with people looking over each other's
shoulders and others fighting at the back to see what was going on.

A horrified old lady was crying: "Oh, poor boy! Help him, somebody!"

Some of the braver characters tried pulling at me but the horse
whickered ominously and hung on tighter. Conflicting advice was shouted
from all sides. With deep shame I saw two attractive girls in the front
row giggling helplessly.

Appalled at the absurdity of my position, I began to thrash about
wildly; my shirt collar tightened round my throat; a stream of the
horse's saliva trickled down the front of my mac. I could feel myself
choking and was giving up hope when a man pushed his way through the
crowd.

He was very small. Angry eyes glared from a face blackened by coal dust.
Two empty sacks were draped over an arm.

"Whit the hell's this?" he shouted. A dozen replies babbled in the air.

"Can ye no leave the bloody hoarse alone?" he yelled into my face. I
made no reply, being pop-eyed, half throttled and in no mood for
conversation.

The coalman turned his fury on the horse. "Drop him, ya big bastard!

Go on, let go, drop him!"

Getting no response he dug the animal viciously in the belly with his
thumb. The horse took the point at once and released me like an obedient
dog dropping a bone. I fell on my knees and ruminated in the gutter for
a while till I could breathe more easily. As from a great distance I
could still hear the little man shouting at me.

After some time I stood up. The coalman was still shouting and the crowd
was listening appreciatively. "Whit d'ye think you're playing at - keep
yer hands off ma bloody hoarse - get the poliss tee ye."

I looked down at my new mac. The shoulder was chewed to a sodden mass. I
felt I must escape and began to edge my way through the crowd. Some of
the faces were concerned but most were grinning. Once clear I started to
walk away rapidly and as I turned the corner the last faint cry from the
coalman reached me.

"Dinna meddle wi" things ye ken nuthint aboot!"

Chapter Nineteen.

I flipped idly through the morning mail. The usual stack of bills,
circulars, brightly coloured advertisements for new drugs; after a few
months the novelty had worn off and I hardly bothered to read them. I
had almost reached the bottom of the pile when I came on something
different; an expensive looking envelope in heavy, deckle-edged paper
addressed to me personally. I ripped it open and pulled out a gilt
bordered card which I scanned quickly. I felt my face redden as I
slipped the card into an inside pocket.

Siegfried finished ticking off the visits and looked up. "What are you
looking so guilty about, James? Your past catching up with you? What is
it, anyway - a letter from an outraged mother?"

"Go on then," I said sheepishly, pulling out the card and handing it to
him, 'have a good laugh. I suppose you'd find out, anyway."

Siegfried's face was expressionless as he read the card aloud. "Tricki
requests the pleasure of Uncle Herriot's company on Friday February 5th.
Drinks and dancing." He looked up and spoke seriously. "Now isn't that
nice.-You know, that must be one of the most generous Pekingeses in
England. Sending you kippers and tomatoes and hampers isn't enough - he
has to ask you to his home for a party."

I grabbed the card and slipped it out of sight. "All right, all right, I
know. But what am I supposed to do?"

"Do? What you do is to sit down right away and get a letter off saying
thank you very much, you'll be there on February the fifth. Mrs.
Pumphrey's parties are famous. Mountains of exotic food, rivers of
champagne. Don't Miss. it whatever you do."

"Will there be a lot of people there?" I asked, shuffling my feet.

Siegfried struck himself on the forehead with his open hand. "Of course
there'll be a lot of people. What d'you think. Did you expect it would
be just you and Tricki? You'd have a few beers together and then you'd
dance a slow foxtrot with him? The cream of the county will be there in
full regalia but my guess is that there will be no more honoured guest
than Uncle Herriot. Why? Because Mrs. Pumphrey invited the others but
Tricki invited you."

"OK, OK," I groaned. "I'll be on my own and I haven't got a proper
evening suit. I don't fancy it."

Siegfried rose and put a hand on my shoulder. "My dear chap, don't mess
about. Sit down and accept the invitation and then go into Brawton and
hire a suit for the night. You won't be on your own for long - the debs
will be tramping over each other for a dance with you." He gave the
shoulder a final pat before walking to the door. Before leaving he
turned round and his expression was grave. "And remember for Pete's sake
don't write to Mrs. Pumphrey. Address your letter to Tricki himself or
you're sunk."

I had a lot of mixed feelings churning around in me when I presented
myself at the Pumphrey home on the night of February 5th. A maid let me
into the hall and I could see Mrs. Pumphrey at the entrance to the
ballroom receiving her guests and beyond, an elegant throng standing
around with drinks. There was a well bred clamour, a general atmosphere
of wealth. I straightened the tie on my hired outfit, took a deep breath
and waited.

Mrs. Pumphrey was smiling sweetly as she shook hands with the couple in
front of me but when she saw me her face became radiant. "Oh Mr.
Herriot, how nice of you to come. Tricki was so delighted to have your
letter - in fact we really must go in and see him now." She led me
across the hall.

"He's in the morning-room," she whispered. "Between ourselves he finds
these affairs rather a bore, but he'll be simply furious if I don't take
you in for a moment."

Tricki was curled up in an armchair by the side of a bright fire. When
he saw me he jumped on the back of the chair barking in delight, his
huge, laughing mouth bisecting his face. I was trying to fend off his
attempts to lick my face when I caught sight of two large food bowls on
the carpet. One contained about a pound of chopped chicken, the other a
mass of crumbled cake.

"Mrs. Pumphrey!" I thundered, pointing at the bowls. The poor woman put
her hand to her mouth and shrank away from me.

"Oh do forgive me," she wailed, her face a picture of guilt. "It's just
a special treat because he's alone tonight. And the weather is so cold,
too." She clasped her hands and looked at me abjectly.

"I'll forgive you," I said sternly, "If you will remove half the chicken
and all the cake."

Fluttering, like a little girl caught in naughtiness, she did as I said.

I parted regretfully from the little Peke. It had been a busy day and I
was sleepy from the hours in the biting cold. This room with its fire
and soft lighting looked more inviting than the noisy glitter of the
ballroom and I would have preferred to curl up here with Tricki on my
knee for an hour or two.

Mrs. Pumphrey became brisk. "Now you must come and meet some of my
friends." We went into the ballroom where light blazed down from three
cut glass chandeliers and was reflected dazzlingly from the cream and
gold, many-mirrored walls. We moved from group to group as Mrs. Pumphrey
introduced me and I squirmed in embarrassment as I heard myself
described as "Tricki's dear kind uncle". But either they were people of
superb self control or they were familiar with their hostess's blind
spot because the information was received with complete gravity.

Along one wall a five piece orchestra was tuning up; whitejacketed
waiters hurried among the guests with trays of food and drinks. Mrs.
Pumphrey stopped one of the waiters. "Francois, some champagne for this
gentleman."

"Yes, Madame." The waiter proffered his tray.

"No, no, no, not those. One of the big glasses."

Frqnf^;c l~'rri^A q. ~,q~, qr. A r-~,rr"-A t47;ffl something like a soup
plate With a stem. It was brimming with champagne.

"Francois."

"Yes, Madame?"

"This is Mr. Herriot. I want you to take a good look at him."

The waiter turned a pair of sad, spaniel eyes on me and drank me in for
a few moments.

"I want you to look after him. See that his glass is full and that he
has plenty to eat."

"Certainly, Madame." He bowed and moved away.

I buried my face in the ice cold champagne and when I looked up, there
was Francois holding out a tray of smoked salmon sandwiches.

It was like that all the evening. Francois seemed always to be at my
elbow, filling up the enormous glass or pushing dainties at me. I found
it delightful;

the salty snacks brought on a thirst which I quenched with deep draughts
of champagne, then I had more snacks which made me thirsty again and
Francois would unfailingly pop up with the magnum.

It was the first time I had had the opportunity of drinking champagne by
the pint and it was a rewarding experience. I was quickly aware of a
glorious lightness, a heightening of the perceptions. I stopped being
overawed by this new world and began to enjoy it. I danced with
everybody in sight - sleek young beauties, elderly dowagers and twice
with a giggling Mrs. Pumphrey.

Or I just talked. And it was witty talk; I repeatedly amazed myself by
my lightning shafts. Once I caught sight of myself in a mirror - a
distinguished figure, glass in hand, the hired suit hanging on me with
quiet grace. It took my breath away.

Eating, drinking, talking, dancing, the evening winged past. When it was
time to go and I had my coat on and was shaking hands with Mrs. Pumphrey
in the hall, Francois appeared again with a bowl of hot soup. He seemed
to be worried lest I grow faint on the journey home.

After the soup, Mrs. Pumphrey said: "And now you must come and say good
night to Tricki. He'll never forgive you if you don't." We went into his
room and the little dog yawned from the depths of the chair and wagged
his tail. Mrs. Pumphrey put her hand on my sleeve. "While you're here, I
wonder if you would be so kind as to examine his claws. I've been so
worried in case they might be growing too long."

I lifted up the paws one by one and scrutinised the claws while Tricki
lazily licked my hands. "No, you needn't worry, they're perfectly all
right."

"Thank you so much, I'm so grateful to you. Now you must wash your
hands."

In the familiar bathroom with the sea green basins and the enamelled
fishes on the walls and the dressing-table and the bottles on the glass
shelves, I looked around as the steaming water ran from the tap. There
was my own towel by the basin and the usual new slab of soap soap that
lathered in an instant and gave off an expensive scent. It was the final
touch of balm on a gracious evening. It had been a few hours of luxury
and light and I carried the memory back with me to Skeldale House.

I got into bed, switched off the light and lay on my back looking up
into the darkness. Snatches of music still tinkled about in my head and
I was beginning to swim back to the ballroom when the phone rang.

"This is Atkinson of Beck Cottage," a far away voice said. "I 'ave a sow
'ere what can't get pigged. She's been on all night. Will you come?"

I looked at the clock as I put down the receiver. It was two a.m. I felt
numbed. A farrowing right on top of the champagne and the smoked salmon
and those little biscuits with the black heaps of caviare. And at Beck
Cottage, one of the most primitive smallholdings in the district. It
wasn't fair.

Sleepily, I took off my pyjamas and pulled on my shirt. As I reached for
the stiff, worn corduroys I used for work, I tried not to look at the
hired suit hanging on a corner of the wardrobe.

I groped my way down the long garden to the garage. In the darkness of
the yard I closed my eyes and the great chandeliers blazed again, the
mirrors flashed and the music played.

It was only two miles out to Beck Cottage. It lay in a hollow and in the
winter the place was a sea of mud. I left my car and squelched through
the blackness to the door of the house. My knock was unanswered and I
moved across to the cluster of buildings opposite and opened the half
door into the byre. The warm, sweet bovine smell met me as I peered
towards a light showing dimly at the far end where a figure was
standing.

I went inside past the shadowy row of cows standing side by side with
broken wooden partitions between them and past the mounds of manure
piled behind them. Mr. Atkinson didn't believe in mucking out too often.

Stumbling over the broken floor, splashing through pools of urine, I
arrived at the end where a pen had been made by closing off a corner
with a gate. I could just make out the form of a pig, pale in the gloom,
lying on her side. There was a scanty bed of straw under her and she lay
very still except for the trembling of her flanks. As I watched, she
caught her breath and strained for a few seconds then the straining
began again.

Mr. Atkinson received me without enthusiasm. He was middle-aged, sported
a week's growth of beard and wore an ancient hat with a brim which
flopped round his ears. He stood hunched against a wall, one hand deep
in a ragged pocket, the other holding a bicycle lamp with a fast-failing
battery.

"Is this all the light we've got?" I asked.

"Aye, it is," Mr. Atkinson replied, obviously surprised. He looked from
the lamp to me with a 'what more does he want?" expression.

"Let's have it, then." I trained the feeble beam on my patient. "Just a
young pig, isn't she?"

"Aye, nobbut a gilt. Just litter."

The pig strained again, shuddered and lay still.

"Something stuck there, I reckon," I said. "Will you bring me a bucket
of hot water some soap and a towel, please."

"Haven't got no 'ot water. Fire's out."

"OK, bring me whatever you've got."

The farmer clattered away down the byre taking the light with him and,
with the darkness, the music came back again. It was a Strauss waltz and
I was dancing with Lady Frenswick; she was young and very fair and she
laughed as I swung her round. I could see her white shoulders and the
diamonds winking at her throat and the wheeling mirrors.

Mr. Atkinson came shuffling back and dumped a bucket of water on the
floor. I dipped a finger in the water; it was ice cold. And the bucket
had seen many hard years - I would have to watch my arms on that jagged
rim.

Quickly stripping off jacket and shirt, I sucked in my breath as a
villainous draught blew through a crack on to my back.

"Soap, please," I said through clenched teeth.

"In "'bucket."

I plunged an arm into the water, shivered, and felt my way round till I
found a roundish object about the size of a golf ball. I pulled it out
and examined it; it was hard and smooth and speckled like a pebble from
the sea shore and, optimistically, I began to rub it between my hands
and up my arms, waiting for the lather to form. But the soap was
impervious; it yielded nothing.

I discarded the idea of asking for another piece in case this would be
construed as another complaint. Instead, I borrowed the light and
tracked down the byre into the yard, the mud sucking at my Wellingtons,
goose pimples rearing on my chest. I searched around in the car boot,
listening to my teeth chattering, till I came on a jar of antiseptic
lubricating cream.

Back in the pen, I smeared the cream on my arm, knelt behind the pig and
gently inserted my hand into the vagina. I moved my hand forward and as
wrist and elbow disappeared inside the pig I was forced to roll over on
my side. The Stones were cold and wet but I forgot my discomfort when my
fingers touched something; it was a tiny tail. Almost a transverse
presentation, biggish piglet stuck like a cork in a bottle.

Using one finger, I worked the hind legs back until I was able to grasp
them and draw the piglet out. "This is the one that's been causing the
trouble. He's dead, I'm afraid - been squashed in there too long. But
there could be some live ones still inside. I'll have another feel."

I greased my arm and got down again. Just inside the os uteri, almost at
arm's length, I found another piglet and I was feeling at the face when
a set of minute but very sharp teeth sank into my finger.

I yelped and looked up at the farmer from my stony bed. "This one's
alive, anyway. I'll soon have him out."

But the piglet had other ideas. He showed no desire to leave his warm
haven and every time I got hold of his slippery little foot between my
fingers he jerked it away. After a minute or two of this game I felt a
cramping in my arm. I relaxed and lay back, my head resting on the
cobbles, my arm still inside the pig. I closed my eyes and immediately I
was back in the ballroom, in the warmth and the brilliant light. I was
holding out my immense glass while Francois poured from the magnum; then
I was dancing, close to the orchestra this time and the leader, beating
time with one hand, turned round and smiled into my face; smiled and
bowed as though he had been looking for me all his life.

I smiled back but the bandleader's face disolved and there was only Mr.
Atkinson looking down at me expressionlessly, his unshaven jaw and
shaggy eyebrows thrown into sinister relief by the light striking up
from the bicycle lamp.

I shook myself and raised my cheek from the floor. This wouldn't do.
Falling asleep on the job; either I was very tired or there was still
some champagne in me. I reached again and grasped the foot firmly
between two fingers and this time, despite his struggles, the piglet was
hauled out into the world. Once arrived, he seemed to accept the
situation and tottered round philosophically to his mother's udder.

"She's not helping at all," I said. "Been on so long that she's
exhausted. I'm going to give her an injection."

Another numbing expedition through the mud to the car, a shot of
pituitrin into the gilt's thigh and within minutes the action began with
powerful contractions of the uterus. There was no obstruction now and
soon a wriggling pink piglet was deposited in the straw; then quite
quickly another and another.

"Coming off the assembly line now, all right," I said. Mr. Atkinson
grunted.

Eight piglets had been born and the light from the lamp had almost given
out when a dark mass of afterbirth welled from the gilt's vulva.

I rubbed my cold arms. "Well, I should say that's the lot now." I felt
suddenly chilled; I couldn't say how long I had been standing there
looking at the wonder that never grew stale; the little pigs struggling
on to their legs and making their way unguided to the long double row of
teats; the mother with her first family easing herself over to expose as
much as possible of her udder to the hungry mouths.

Better get dressed quickly. I had another try at the marble-like soap
but it defeated me as easily as the first time. I wondered how long it
had been in the family. Down my right side my cheek and ribs were caked
with dirt and mucus. I did my best to scrape some off with my finger
nails then I swilled myself down with the cold water from the bucket.

"Have you a towel there?" I gasped.

Mr. Atkinson wordlessly handed me a sack. Its edges were stiff with old
manure and it smelled musty from the meal it had long since contained. I
took it and began to rub my chest and as the sour grains of the meal
powdered my skin, the last bubbles of champagne left me, drifted up
through the gaps in the tiles and burst sadly in the darkness beyond.

I dragged my shirt over my gritty back, feeling a sense of coming back
to my own world. I buttoned my coat, picked up the syringe and the
bottle of pituitrin and climbed out of the pen. I had a last look before
I left. The bicycle lamp was shedding its final faint glow and I had to
lean over the gate to see the row of little pigs sucking busily, utterly
absorbed. The gilt carefully shifted her position and grunted. It was a
grunt of deep content.

Yes, I was back and it was all right. I drove through the mud and up the
hill where I had to get out to open a gate and the wind, with the cold,
clean smell of the frosty grass in it caught at my face. I stood for a
while looking across the dark fields, thinking of the night which was
ending now. My mind went back to my schooldays and an old gentleman
talking to the class about careers. He had said: "If you decide to
become a veterinary surgeon you will never grow rich but you will have a
life of endless interest and variety."

I laughed aloud in the darkness and as I got into the car I was still
chuckling. That old chap certainly wasn't kidding. Variety. That was it
- variety.

Chapter Twenty.

As I checked my list of calls it occurred to me that, this time,
Siegfried didn't look so much like a schoolboy as he faced Miss.
Harbottle. For one thing, he hadn't marched straight in and stood in
front of the desk, that was disastrous and he always looked beaten
before he started. Instead, he had veered off over the last few yards
till he stood with his back to the window. This way she had to turn her
head slightly to face him and besides, he had the light at his back.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the window
frame. He was wearing his patient look, his eyes were kind and his face
was illumined by an almost saintly smile. Miss. Harbottle's eyes
narrowed.

"I just wanted a word with you, Miss. Harbottle. One or two little
points I'd like to discuss. First, about your petty cash box. It's a
nice box and I think you were quite right to institute it, but I think
you would be the first to agree that the main function of a cash box is
to have cash in it." He gave a light laugh. "Now last night I had a few
dogs in the surgery and the owners wanted to pay on the spot. I had no
change and went for some to your box - it was quite empty. I had to say
I would send them a bill, and that isn't good business, is it Miss.
Harbottle? It didn't look good, so I really must ask you to keep some
cash in your cash box."

Miss. Harbottle's eyes widened incredulously. "But Mr. Farnon, you
removed the entire contents to go to the hunt ball at ..."

Siegfried held up a hand and his smile took on an unearthly quality.
"Please hear me out. There is another very small thing I want to bring
to your attention. It is now the tenth day of the month and the accounts
have not gone out. Now this is a very undesirable state of affairs and
there are several points to consider here."

"But Mr. Farnon  ... !"

"Just one moment, Miss. Harbottle, till I explain this to you. It is a
known fact that farmers pay their bills more readily if they receive
them on the first of the month. And there is another, even more
important factor." The beautiful smile left his face and was replaced by
an expression of sorrowing gravity. "Have you ever stopped to work out
just how much interest the practice is losing on all the money lying out
there because you are late in sending out the accounts."

"Mr. Farnon  ... !"

"I am almost finished, Miss. Harbottle, and, believe me, it grieves me
to have to speak like this. But the fact is, I can't afford to lose
money in this way." He spread out his hands in a gesture of charming
frankness. "So if you will just apply yourself to this little matter I'm
sure all will be well."

"But will you tell me how I can possibly send the accounts when you
refuse to write up the  ..."

"In conclusion, Miss. Harbottle, let me say this. I have been very
satisfied with your progress since you joined us, and I am sure that
with time you will tighten up on those little points I have just
mentioned." A certain roguishness crept into his smile and he put his
head on one side. Miss. Harbottle's strong fingers closed tightly round
a heavy ebony ruler.

"Efficiency," he said, crinkling his eyes. "That's what we must have
efficiency."

Chapter Twenty-one.

I dropped the suture needle into the tray and stepped back to survey the
finished job. "Well though I say it myself, that looks rather nice."

Tristan leaned over the unconscious dog and examined the neat incision
with its row of regular stitches. "Very pretty indeed, my boy. Couldn't
have done better myself."

The big black labrador lay peacefully on the table, his tongue lolling,
his eyes glazed and unseeing. He had been brought in with an ugly growth
over his ribs and I had decided that it was a simple lipoma, quite
benign and very suitable for surgery. And so it had turned out. The
tumour had come away with almost ridiculous ease, round, intact and
shining, like a hard boiled egg from its shell. No haemorrhage, no fear
of recurrence.

The unsightly swelling had been replaced by this tidy scar which would
be invisible in a few weeks. I was pleased.

"We'd better keep him here till he comes round," I said. "Give me a hand
to get him on to these blankets." We made the dog comfortable in front
of an electric stove and I left to start my morning round.

It was during lunch that we first heard the strange sound. It was
something between a moan and a howl, starting quite softly but rising to
a piercing pitch before shuddering back down the scale to silence.

Siegfried looked up, startled, from his soup. "What in God's name is
that?"

"Must be that dog I operated on this morning," I replied. "The odd one
does that coming out of barbiturates. I expect he'll stop soon."

Siegfried looked at me doubtfully. "Well, I hope so - I could soon get
tired of that. Gives me the creeps."

We went through and looked at the dog, Pulse strong, respirations deep
and regular, mucous membranes a good colour. He was still stretched out,
immobile, and the only sign of returning consciousness was the howl
which seemed to have settled down into a groove of one every ten
seconds. "Yes, he's perfectly all right," Siegfried said. "But what a
bloody noise! Let's get out of here."

Lunch was finished hastily and in silence except for the ceaseless
background wailing. Siegfried had scarcely swallowed his last mouthful
before he was on his feet. "Well, I must fly. Got a lot on this
afternoon. Tristan, I think it would be a good idea to bring that dog
through to the sitting-room and put him by the fire. Then you could stay
by him and keep an eye on him."

Tristan was stunned. "You mean I have to stay in the same room as that
noise all afternoon?"

"Yes, I mean just that. We can't send him home as he is and I don't want
anything to happen to him. He needs care and attention."

"Maybe you'd like me to hold his paw or perhaps wheel him round the
market place ?"

"Don't give me any of your bloody cheek. You stay with the dog and
that's an order!"

Tristan and I stretchered the heavy animal along the passage on the
blankets, then I had to leave for the afternoon round. I paused and
looked back at the big black form by the fire and Tristan crouched
miserably in his chair. The noise was overpowering. I closed the door
hurriedly.

It was dark when I got back and the old house hung over me, black and
silent against the frosty sky. Silent, that is, except for the howling
which still echoed along the passage and filtered eerily into the
deserted street.

I glanced at my watch as I slammed the car door. It was six o'clock, so
Tristan had had four hours of it. I ran up the steps and along the
passage and when I opened the sitting-room door the noise jarred in my
head. Tristan was standing with his back to me, looking through the
french window into the darkness of the garden. His hands were deep in
his pockets; tufts of cotton wool drooped from his ears.

"Well, how is it going?" I asked.

There was no reply so I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. The
effect was spectacular. Tristan leaped into the air and cork-screwed
round. His face was ashen and he was trembling violently.

"God help us, Jim, you nearly killed me there. I can't hear a damn thing
through these ear plugs - except the dog, of course. Nothing keeps that
out."

I knelt by the labrador and examined him. The dog's condition was
excellent but, except for a faint eye reflex there was no sign that he
was regaining consciousness. And all the time there were the piercing,
evenly spaced howls.

"He's taking a hell of a time to come out of it," I said. "Has he been
like this all afternoon?"

"Yes, just like that. Not one bit different. And don't waste any
sympathy on him, the yowling devil. He's as happy as a sandboy down by
the fire - doesn't know a thing about it. But how about me? My nerves
are about shot to bits listening to him hour after hour. Much more of it
and you'll have to give me a shot too." He ran a shaking hand through
his hair and a twitching started in his cheek.

I took his arm. "Well, come through and eat. You'll feel better after
some food." I led him unresisting into the dining-room.

Siegfried was in excellent form over the meal. He seemed to be in a mood
of exhilaration and monopolised the conversation but he did not once
refer to the shrill obligato from the other room. There was no doubt,
however, that it was still getting through to Tristan.

As they were leaving the room, Siegfried put his hand on my shoulder.
"Remember we've got that meeting in Brawton tonight, James. Old Reeves
on diseases of sheep - he's usually very good. Pity you can't come too,
Tristan, but I'm afraid you'll have to stay with the dog till he comes
round."

Tristan flinched as if he had been struck. "Oh not another session with
that bloody animal! He's driving me mad!"

"I'm afraid there's nothing else for it. James or I could have taken
over tonight but we have to show up at this meeting. It would look bad
if we missed it."

Tristan stumbled back into the room and I put on my coat. As I went out
into the street I paused for a moment and listened. The dog was still
howling.

The meeting was a success. It was held in one of Brawton's lush hotels
and, as usual, the best part was the get together of the vets in the bar
afterwards. It was infinitely soothing to hear the other man's problems
and mistakes - especially the mistakes.

It amused me to look round the crowded room and try to guess what the
little knots of men were talking about. That man over there, bent double
and slashing away at the air with one hand - he was castrating a colt in
the standing position. And the one with his arm out at full stretch, his
fingers working busily at nothing - almost certainly foaling a mare;
probably correcting a carpal flexion. And doing it effortlessly too.
Veterinary surgery was a childishly simple matter in a warm bar with a
few drinks inside you.

It was eleven o'clock before we all got into our cars and headed for our
own particular niche in Yorkshire - some to the big industrial towns of
the West Riding, others to the seaside places of the East coast and
Siegfried and I hurrying thankfully back on the narrow road which
twisted between its stone walls into the Northern Pennines.

I thought guiltily that for the last few hours I had completely
forgotten about Tristan and his vigil. Still, it must have been better
tonight. The dog would surely have quietened down by now. But, jumping
from the car in Darrowby, I froze in mid stride as a thin wail came out
faintly from Skeldale House. This was incredible; it was after midnight
and the dog was still at it. And what of Tristan? I hated to think what
kind of shape he'd be in. Almost fearfully I turned the knob on the
sitting-room door.

Tristan's chair made a little island in a sea of empty beer bottles. An
upturned crate lay against the wall and Tristan was sitting very upright
and looking solemn. I picked my way over the debris.

"Well, has it been rough, Triss? How do you feel now?"

"Could be worse, old lad, could be worse. Soon as you'd gone I slipped
over to the Drovers for a crate of pint Magnets. Made all the
difference. After three or four the dog stopped worrying me - matter of
fact, I've been yowling back at him for hours now. We've had quite an
interesting evening. Anyway, he's coming out now. Look at him."

The big dog had his head up and there-was recognition in his eyes. The
howling had stopped. I went over and patted him and the long black tail
jerked in a fair attempt at a wag.

"That's better, old boy," I said. "But you'd better behave yourself now.
You've given your uncle Tristan one hell of a day."

The labrador responded immediately by struggling to his feet. He took a
few swaying steps and collapsed among the bottles.

Siegfried appeared in the doorway and looked distastefully at Tristan,
still very upright and wearing a judicial expression, and at the dog
scrabbling among the bottles. "What an infernal mess! Surely you can do
a little job without making an orgy out of it."

At the sound of his voice the labrador staggered up and, in a flush of
over confidence, tried to run towards him, wagging his tail unsteadily.
He didn't get ,.)

very far and went down in a heap, sending a Magnet empty rolling gently
up to Siegfried's feet.

Siegfried bent over and stroked the shining black head. "Nice friendly
animal that. I should think he's a grand dog when he's got his senses
about him. He'll be normal in the morning, but the problem is what to do
with him now. We can't leave him staggering about down here - he could
break a leg." He glanced at Tristan who had not moved a muscle. He was
sitting up straighter than ever stiff and motionless like a Prussian
general. "You know, I think the best thing would be for you to take him
up to your room tonight. Now we've got him so far, we don't want him to
hurt himself. Yes, that's it, he can spend the night with you."

"Thank you, thank you very much indeed," Tristan said in a flat voice,
still looking straight to his front.

Siegfried looked at him narrowly for a moment, then turned away. "Right
then, clear away this rubbish and let's get to bed."

My bedroom and Tristan's were connected by a door. Mine was the main
room, huge, square, with a high ceiling, pillared fireplace and graceful
alcoves like the ones downstairs. I always felt a little like a duke
lying there.

Tristan's had been the old dressing-room and was long and narrow with
his small bed crouching at one end as if trying to hide. There were no
carpets on the smooth, varnished boards so I laid the dog on a heap of
blankets and talked down soothingly at Tristan's wan face on the pillow.

"He's quiet now - sleeping like a baby and looks as though he's going to
stay that way. You'll be able to have a well earned rest now."

I went back to my own room, undressed quickly and got into bed. I went
to sleep immediately and I couldn't tell just when the noises started
next door, but I came suddenly wide awake with an angry yell ringing in
my ears. Then there was a slithering and a bump followed by another
distracted cry from Tristan.

I quailed at the idea of going into the dressing-room - there was
nothing I could do, anyway - so I huddled closer into the sheets and
listened. I kept sliding into a half sleep then starting into
wakefulness as more bumping and shouting came through the wall.

After about two hours the noises began to change. The labrador seemed to
have gained mastery over his legs and was marching up and down the room,
his claws making a regular tck-a-tck, tck-a-tck, tck-a-tck on the wooden
floor. It went on and on, interminably. At intervals, Tristan's voice,
hoarse now, burst out. "Stop it, for Christ's sake!

Sit down, you bloody dog!"

I must have fallen into a deeper sleep because when I awoke the room was
grey with the cold light of morning. I rolled on to my back and
listened. I could still hear the tck-a-tck of the claws but it had
become irregular as though the labrador was strolling about instead of
blundering blindly from one end of the room to the other. There was no
sound from Tristan.

I got out of bed, shivering as the icy air of the room gripped me, and
pulled on my shirt and trousers. Tiptoeing across the floor, I opened
the co.nnecting door and was almost floored as two large feet were
planted on my chest. The labrador was delighted to see me and appeared
to be thoroughly at home. His fine brown eyes shone with intelligence
and well-being and he showed rows of glittering teeth and a flawlessly
pink tongue in a wide, panting grin. Far below, the tail lashed
ecstatically.

"Well, you're all right, chum," I said. "Let's have a look at that
wound." I removed the horny paws from my chest and explored the line of
stitches over the ribs. No swelling, no pain, no reaction at all.

"Lovely!" I cried. "Beautiful. You're as good as new again." I gave the
dog a ou playful slap on the rump which sent him into a transport of
joy. He leaped all over me, clawing and kicking.

I was fighting him off when I heard a dismal groan from the bed. In the
dim light Tristan looked ghastly. He was lying on his back, both hands
clutching the quilt and there was a wild look in his eyes. "Not a wink
of sleep, Jim," he whispered. "Not a bloody wink. He's got a wonderful
sense of humour, my brother, making me spend the night with this animal.
It'll really make his day when he hears what I've been through. Just
watch him - I'll bet you anything you like he'll look pleased."

Later, over breakfast, Siegfried heard the details of his brother's
harrowing night and was very sympathetic. He condoled with him at length
and apologised for all the trouble the dog had given him. But Tristan
was right. He did look pleased.

Chapter Twenty-two.

As I came into the operating room I saw that Siegfried had a patient on
the table. He was thoughtfully stroking the head of an elderly and
rather woebegone border terrier.

"James," he said, "I want you to take this little dog through to Grier."

"Grier?"

"Vet at Brawton. He was treating the case before the owner moved into
our district. I've seen it a couple of times - stones in the bladder. It
needs an immediate operation and I think I'd better let Grier do it.
He's a touchy devil and I don't want to stand on his toes."

"Oh, I think I've heard of him," I said.

"Probably you have. A cantankerous Aberdonian. Since he practises in a
fashionable town he gets quite a few students and he gives them hell.
That sort of thing gets around." He lifted the terrier from the table
and handed him to me. "The sooner you get through there the better. You
can see the op and bring the dog back here afterwards. But watch
yourself - don't rub Grier the wrong way or he'll take it out of you
somehow."

At my first sight of Angus Grier I thought immediately of whisky. He was
about fifty and something had to be responsible for the fleshy, mottled
cheeks, the swimmy eyes and the pattern of purple veins which chased
each other over his prominent nose. He wore a permanently insulted
expression.

He didn't waste any charm on me; a nod and a grunt and he grabbed the
dog from my arms. Then he stabbed a finger at a slight, fairish youth in
a white coat. "That's Clinton - final year student. Do ye no" think
there's some pansy lookin" buggers coming in to this profession?"

During the operation he niggled constantly at the young man and, in an
attempt to create a diversion, I asked when he was going back to
college.

"Beginning of next week," he replied.

"Aye, but he's awe hame tomorrow," Grier rasped. "Wasting his time when
he could be gettin" good experience here." The student blushed. "Well,
I've been seeing practice for over a month and I felt I ought to spend a
couple of days with my mother before the term starts."

"Oh, I ken, I ken. You're all the same - canna stay away from the
titty."

The operation was uneventful and as Grier inserted the last stitch he
looked up at me. "You'll no" want to take the dog back till he's out of
the anaesthetic. I've got a case to visit - you can come with me to pass
the time."

We didn't have what you could call a conversation in the car. It was a
monologue; a long recital of wrongs suffered at the hands of wicked
clients and predatory colleagues. The story I liked best was about a
retired admiral who had asked Grier to examine his horse for soundness.
Grier said the animal had a bad heart and was not fit to ride, whereupon
the admiral flew into a fury and got another vet to examine the horse.
The second vet said there was nothing the matter with the heart and
passed the animal sound.

The admiral wrote Grier a letter and told him what he thought of him in
fairly ripe quarter-deck language. Having got this out of his system he
felt refreshed and went out for a ride during which, in the middle of a
full gallop the horse fell down dead and rolled on the admiral who
sustained a compound fracture of the leg and a crushed pelvis.

"Man," said Grier with deep sincerity, "Man, I was awfu' glad."

We drew up in a particularly dirty farmyard and Grier turned to me.
"I've got a cow tee cleanse here."

"Right," I said, 'fine". I settled down in my seat and took out my pipe.
Grier paused, half way out of the car. "Are you no" coming to give me a
hand?"

I couldn't understand him. "Cleansing" of cows is simply the removal of
retained afterbirth and is a one man job.

"Well, there isn't much I can do is there?" I said. "And my Wellingtons
and coat are back in my car. I didn't realise it was a farm visit - I'd
probably get messed up for nothing."

I knew immediately that I'd said the wrong thing. The toad-skin jowls
flushed darker and he gave me a malevolent glance before turning away;
but half way across the yard he stopped and stood for a few moments in
thought before coming back to the car. "I've just remembered. I've got
something here you can put on. You might as well come in with me you'll
be able to pass me a pessary when I want one."

It sounded nutty to me, but I got out of the car and went round to the
back. Grier was fishing out a large wooden box from his boot.

"Here, ye can put this on. It's a calving outfit I got a bit ago. I
haven't used it much because I found it a mite heavy, but it'll keep ye
grand and clean."

I looked in the box and saw a suit of thick, black, shining rubber. I
lifted out the jacket; it bristled with zip fasteners and press studs
and felt as heavy as lead. The trousers were even more weighty, with
many clips and fasteners. The whole thing was a most imposing creation,
obviously designed by somebody who had never seen a cow calved and
having the disadvantage that anybody wearing it would be pretty well
immobilised.

I studied Grier's face for a moment but the watery eyes told me nothing.
I began to take off my jacket - it was crazy but I didn't want to offend
the man.

And, in truth, Grier seemed anxious to get me into the suit because he
was holding it up in a helpful manner. It was a two man operation. First
the gleaming trousers were pulled on and zipped up fore and aft, then it
was the turn of the jacket, a wonderful piece of work, fitting tightly
round the waist and possessing short sheeves about six inches long with
powerful elastic gripping my biceps.

Before I could get it on I had to roll my shirt sleeves to the shoulder,
then Grier, heaving and straining, worked me into it. I could hear the
zips squeaking into place, the final one being at the back of my neck to
close a high, stiff collar which held my head in an attitude of
supplication, my chin pointing at the sky.

Grier's heart really seemed to be in his work and, for the final touch,
he produced a black rubber skull cap. I shrank away from the thing and
began to mouth such objections as the collar would allow, but Grier
insisted. "Stand still a wee minute longer. We might as well do the job
right."

When he had finished he stood back admiringly. I must have been a
grotesque sight, sheathed from head to foot in gleaming black, my arms,
bare to the shoulders, sticking out almost at right angles. Grier
appeared well satisfied. "Well, come on, it's time we got on wi" the
job." He turned and hurried towards the byre; I plodded ponderously
after him like an automaton.

Our arrival in the byre caused a sensation. There were present the
farmer, two cowmen and a little girl. The men's cheerful greeting froze
on their lips as the menacing figure paced slowly, deliberately in. The
little girl burst into tears and ran outside.

"Cleansing" is a dirty, smelly job for the operator and a bore for the
onlooker who may have to stand around for twenty minutes without being
able to see anything. But this was one time the spectators were not
bored. Grier was working away inside the cow and mumbling about the
weather, but the men weren't listening; they never took their eyes away
from me as I stood rigid, like a suit of armour against the wall. They
studied each part of the outfit in turn, wonderingly. I knew what they
were thinking. Just what was going to happen when this formidable
unknown finally went into action. Anybody dressed like that must have
some tremendous task ahead of him.

The intense pressure of the collar against my larynx kept me emirely out
of any conversation and this must have added to my air of mystery. I
began to sweat inside the suit.

The little girl had plucked up courage and brought her brothers and
sisters to look at me. I could see the row of little heads peeping round
the door and, screwing my head round painfully, I tried to give them a
reassuring smile; but the heads disappeared and I heard their feet
clattering across the yard.

I couldn't say how long I stood there, but Grier at last finished his
job and called out, "All right, I'm ready for you now." The atmosphere
became suddenly electric. The men straightened up and stared at me with
slightly open mouths. This was the moment they had been waiting for.

I pushed myself away from the wall and did a right turn with some
difficulty before heading for the tin of pessaries. It was only a few
yards away but it seemed a long way as I approached it like a robot,
head in the air, arms extended stiffly on either side. When I arrived at
the tin I met a fresh difficulty; I could not bend. After a few
contortions I got my hand into the tin, then had to take the paper off
the pessary with one hand; a new purgatory. The men watched in
fascinated silence.

Having removed the paper, I did a careful about turn and paced back
along the byre with measured tread. When I came level with the cow I
extended my arm stiffly to Grier who took the pessary and inserted it in
the uterus.

I then took up my old position against the wall while my colleague
cleaned himself down. I glanced down my nose at the men; their
expressions had changed to open disbelief. Surely the mystery man's
assignment was tougher than that - he couldn't be wearing that outfit
just to hand over a pessary. But when Grier started the complicated
business of snapping open the studs and sliding the zips they realised
the show was over; and fast on the feeling of let-down came amusement.

As I tried to rub some life back into my swollen arms which had been
strangulated by the elastic sleeves, I was surrounded by grinning faces.
They could hardly wait, I imagined, to get round to the local that night
to tell the tale. Pulling together the shreds of my dignity, I put on my
jacket and got into the car. Grier stayed to say a few words to the men,
but he wasn't holding their attention; it was all on me, huddling in the
seat. They couldn't believe I was true Back at the surgery the border
terrier was coming out of the anaesthetic. He raised his head and tried
bravely to wag his tail when he saw me. I wrapped him in a blanket,
gathered him up and was preparing to leave when I saw Grier through the
partly open door of a small store room. He had the wooden box on a table
and he was lifting out the rubber suit, but there was something peculiar
about the way he was doing it; the man seemed to be afflicted by a kind
of rigor - his body shook and jerked, the mottled face was strangely
contorted and a half stifled wailing issued from his lips.

I stared in amazement. I would have said it was impossible, yet it was
happening right in front of me. There was not a shadow of a doubt about
it Angus Grier was laughing.

Chapter Twenty-three.

Milk fever is one of the straightforward conditions, but, looking down
into the beck in the dreary dawn light, I realised that this was one of
its more bizarre manifestations. The illness had struck immediately
after calving and the cow had slithered down the muddy bank into the
water. She was unconscious when I arrived, her hindquarters completely
submerged, the head resting on a shelf of rock. Her calf, sodden and
pathetic in the driving rain, trembled by her side.

Dan Cooper's eyes were anxious as we made our way down. "I doubt we're
too late. She's dead, isn't she? I can't see her breathing."

"Pretty far gone, I'm afraid," I replied, 'but I think there's still
life there. If I can get some calcium into her vein she might still come
round."

"Damn, I 'ope so," Dan grunted. "She's one of my best milkers. It allus
happens to the good 'uns."

"It does with milk fever, anyway. Here, hold these bottles for me." I
pulled out the syringe box and selected a wide-bored needle. My fingers,
numb with the special kind of cold you felt in the early morning with
your circulation sluggish and your stomach empty, could hardly hold it.
The water was deeper than I thought and it was over my Wellington tops
at the first stride. Gasping, I bent down and dug my thumb into the
jugular furrow at the base of the neck. The vein came up and as I pushed
the needle in, the blood ran warm and dark over my hand. I fumbled the
flutter valve from my pocket, pushed a bottle into the cup end and
inserted the other end into the needle. The calcium began to flow into
the vein.

Standing there in the icy beck, holding the bottle aloft with bloody
fingers and feeling the rain working its way inside my collar, I tried
to keep out the black thoughts; about all those people I knew who were
still in bed and would only leave it when their alarm clocks rang, and
they would read their papers over breakfast and drive out to their cosy
banks or insurance offices. Maybe I should have been a doctor they
treated their patients in nice, warm bedrooms.

I pulled the needle from the vein and threw the empty bottle on to the
bank. There was no response to the injection. I took the other bottle
and began to run more calcium under the skin. Might as well go through
the motions, futile though it seemed now. It was when I was rubbing away
the subcutaneous ; injection that I noticed the eyelids quiver.

A quick ripple of relief and excitement went through me. I looked up at
the farmer and laughed. "She's still with us, Dan." I flicked her ear
and her eyes opened wide. "We'll wait a few minutes and then try to roll
her on to her chest."

Within a quarter of an hour she was beginning to toss her head about and
I knew it was time. I caught hold of her horns and pulled while Dan and
his tall son pushed at her shoulder. We made slow progress but after
several concerted heaves the cow took over herself and settled on her
chest. Immediately everything looked rosier; when a cow is lying on her
side she always has the look of death on her.

I was pretty sure then that she would recover, but I couldn't go away
and leave her lying in the beck. Milk fever cows can stay down for days
on end but I had the feeling this one would be up soon. I decided to
stick it out a bit longer.

She didn't seem to relish her situation in the peaty water and began to
make determined efforts to rise, but it was another half hour and my
teeth were chattering uncontrollably before she finally staggered to her
feet.

"Well, that's a licker!" Dan said. "Ah never thought she'd stand again.
Must be good stuff you gave her."

"It's a bit quicker than the old bicycle pump," I laughed. The
spectacular effects of intravenous calcium were still enough of a
novelty to intrigue me. For generations, cows with milk fever had just
died. Then inflation of the udder had saved many; but the calcium was
the thing - when they got up within an hour like this one, I always felt
like a successful conjurer. :, We guided the cow up the bank and at the
top, the full force of the wind and rain struck us. The house was only a
hundred yards away and we battled towards it, Dan and his son leading,
holding the calf in a sack slung between them. The tiny animal swung to
and fro, screwing up its eyes against the hard world it had entered.
Close behind followed the anxious mother, still rocky on her legs but
doing her best to poke her muzzle into the sack. I squelched along in
the rear.

We left the cow knee deep in straw in a warm shed, licking her calf
vigorously. In the porch of the house, the others dutifully pulled off
their Wellingtons; I did the same, pouring about a pint of beck water
from each boot. Mrs. Cooper had the reputation of being a firebrand who
exercised an iron rule over Dan and her family, but from my previous
contacts with her I had the feeling that Dan didn't do so badly.

I thought so again as I saw her, square built but comely, plaiting a
little girl's pigtails in readiness for school. A crackling fire was
mirrored in the gleaming brass of the hearth and above the clean
farmhouse smell there was a hint of home-cured bacon just beginning to
fry.

Mrs. Cooper sent Dan and the boy scurrying upstairs to change their
socks then she turned a calm gaze on me as I dripped on her linoleum.
She shook her head as though I were a naughty child.

"All right, off with the socks," she rapped out. "And your coat, and
roll up your trousers, and sit down here, and dry your hair with this."

A clean towel landed on my lap and Mrs. Cooper bent over me. "Don't you
ever think of wearing a hat?"

"Not keen on them, I'm afraid," I mumbled, and she shook her head again.

She poured hot water from a kettle into a large bowl and added mustard
from a pound tin. "Here, stick your feet in this."

I had obeyed all her commands with alacrity and I gave an involuntary
yelp as I made contact with the bubbling mixture. At this, she shot a
fierce glance at me and I took care to keep my feet in the bowl. I was
sitting, teeth clenched, enveloped in steam, when she pushed a pint pot
of tea into my hand.

It was old fashioned treatment but effective. By the time I was half way
down the pint pot I felt as though I were being consumed by fire. The
river bed chill was a dream which vanished completely as Mrs. Cooper
topped up my bowl with another scalding quart from the kettle.

Next, she grabbed chair and bowl and swivelled me round till I was
sitting at the table, still with my feet in the water. Dan and the
children were already at their breakfast and in front of me was a plate
with two eggs, a rough cut piece of bacon and several sausages. I had
learned enough of Dales ways to keep quiet at meals; when I first came
to the district I had thought it incumbent on me to provide light
conversation in return for their hospitality but the questioning glances
they exchanged with each other silenced me effectively.

So this morning, I attacked the food without preamble, but the first
mouthful almost made me break my new found rule. It was the first time I
had tasted a home made Yorkshire sausage and it was an effort to
restrain the cries of congratulation which would have been natural in
other circles. But Mrs. Cooper had been watching me out of the corner of
her eye and she must have noticed my rapt expression. Casually, she
rose, brought over the frying pan and rolled a few more links on to my
plate.

"Killed a pig last week," she said, pulling open the pantry door. I
could see the dishes heaped with chopped meat, spare rib, liver, the
rows of pies with the jelly gleaming on their pale gold crusts.

I finished my meal, pulled on a thick pair of socks borrowed from Dan
and my dry shoes. I was about to leave when Mrs. Cooper tucked a parcel
under my arm I knew it contained further samples from the pantry but her
eyes dared me to say much about it. I muttered a few words of thanks and
went out to the car.

The church clock was chiming a quarter past nine when I pulled up
outside Skeldale House. I felt good - warm, full of superb food and with
the satisfying memory of the cow's quick recovery. And there was my
parcel on the back seat it was always a stroke of luck to land on a farm
after a pig killing and there was usually a gift from the hospitable
farmers, but these sausages were something I would never forget.

I took the surgery steps at a jump and trotted along the passage, but as
I rounded the corner my progress was halted. Siegfried was standing
there, rigid, his back pressed against the wall. Over his shoulder
dangled a long, flexible leather probang. Between us was the half open
door of the office with Miss. Harbottle clearly visible at her desk.

I waved cheerfully. "Hello, hello, off to a choke?"

Siegfried's face twisted in anguish and he held up a warning hand. Then
he began to creep past the door, balancing on the balls of his feet like
a tightrope walker. He was beyond the door and the tense lines of his
body had begun to relax when the brass end of the swinging probang
clattered against the wall and, as if in reply came the familiar rumble
from Miss. Harbottle's corner. Siegfried gave me a single despairing
glance then, shoulders drooping, he went slowly into the room.

Watching him go, I thought wonderingly of how things had built up since
the secretary's arrival. It was naked war now and it gave life an added
interest to observe the tactics of the two sides.

At the beginning it seemed that Siegfried must run out an easy winner.
He was the employer; he held the reins and it appeared that Miss. be
helpless in the face of his obstructive strategy. But Miss. Harbottle
was a fighter and a resourceful one and it was impossible not to admire
the way she made use of the weapons at her command.

In fact, over the past week the tide had been running in her favour. She
had been playing Siegfried like an expert fisherman with a salmon;
bringing him repeatedly back to her desk to answer footling questions.
Her throat clearing had developed into an angry bark which could
penetrate the full extent of the house. And she had a new weapon; she
had taken to writing Siegfried's clerical idiocies on slips of paper;
mix-spellings, errors in addition, wrong entries - they were all
faithfully copied down.

Miss. Harbottle used these slips as ammunition. She never brought one
out when things were slack and her employer was hanging about the
surgery. She saved them until he was under pressure, then she would push
a slip under his nose and say "How about this?"

She always kept an expressionless face at these times and it was
impossible to say how much pleasure it gave her to see him cower back
like a whipped animal. But the end was unvarying - mumbled explanations
and apologies from Siegfried and Miss. Harbottle, radiating
self-righteousness, correcting the entry.

As Siegfried went into the room I watched through the partly open door.
I knew my morning round was waiting but I was impelled by morbid
curiosity. Miss. Harbottle, looking brisk and businesslike, was tapping
an entry in the book with her pen while Siegfried shuffled his feet and
muttered replies. He made several vain attempts to escape and, as the
time passed, I could see he was nearing breaking point. His teeth were
clenched and his eyes had started to bulge.

The phone rang and the secretary answered it. Her employer was making
again for the door when she called happily, "Colonel Brent for you."

Like a man in a dream he turned back. The Colonel, a racehorse owner had
been a thorn in our flesh for a long time with his complaints and his
continual questioning and probing; a call from him was always liable to
send up the blood pressure.

I could see it was that way this morning. The minutes ticked away and
Siegfried's face got redder. He made his replies in a choked voice which
finally rose almost to a shout. At the end he crashed the receiver down
and leaned on the desk, breathing heavily.

Then, as I watched, unbelieving, Miss. Harbottle began to open the
drawer where she kept her slips. She fished one out, coughed and held it
in Siegfried's face.

"How about this?" she asked.

I resisted the impulse to close my eyes and stared in horror. For a few
seconds nothing happened and there was a tense interval while Siegfried
stood quite motionless. Then his face seemed to break up and with a
scything sweep of his arm he snatched the slip from the secretary's hand
and began to tear at it with fierce intensity. He didn't say a word but
as he tore, he leaned forward over the desk and his glaring eyes
approached ever nearer to Miss. Harbottle who slowly edged her chair
back till it was jammed against the wall.

It was a weird picture Miss. Harbottle straining back, her mouth
slightly open, her tinted curls bobbing in alarm, and Siegfried, his
ravaged features close to hers, still tearing with insane vigour at the
piece of paper. The scene ended when Siegfried, putting every ounce of
his strength into an action like a javelin thrower, hurled the torn up
slip at the waste paper basket It fell in a gentle shower, like
confetti, in and around the basket and Siegfried, still without
speaking, wrapped his probang around him and strode from the room.

In the kitchen, Mrs. Hall opened the parcel and extracted a pie, a chunk
of liver and a cluster of the exquisite sausages. She turned a quizzical
eye on me. "You look kind of pleased with yourself this morning, Mr.
Herriot."

I leaned back against the oak dresser. "Yes, Mrs. Hall, I've just been
thinking. It must be very nice to be the principal of a practice but,
you know, it's not such a bad life being an assistant."

Chapter Twenty-four.

The day had started badly. Tristan had been trapped by his brother at 4
a.m. returning from the Bellringers" Outing.

This function took place annually when a bus load of the bellringers of
all the local churches made a trip to Morecambe. They spent very little
time on the beach, however, and when they weren't working their way from
one pub to another, they were attacking the crates of beer they had
brought with them.

When they rolled into Darrowby in the small hours most of the occupants
of the bus were unconscious. Tristan, an honoured guest of the party,
had been tipped out in the back lane behind Skeldale House. He waved
weakly as the bus moved away, but drew no response from the unseeing
faces at the windows. Lurching down the garden path, he was horrified to
see a light in Siegfried's room. Escape was impossible and, when asked
to explain where he had been, he made a series of attempts to articulate
"Bellringers" Outing" without success.

Siegfried, seeing he was wasting his time, had saved his wrath till
breakfast time. That was when Tristan told me the story - just before
his brother came into the dining-room and started on him.

But, as usual, it seemed to take more out of Siegfried who went off on
his rounds glowering and hoarse from shouting. Ten minutes after he had
gone I found Tristan closeted cheerfully in Boardman's cubby hole.
Boardman listening to some fresh material from the backs of the
envelopes and sniggering appreciatively.

The old man had cheered up greatly since Tristan came home and the two
of them spent a lot of time in the gloom where the light from the tiny
window picked out the rows of rusting tools, the Bairnsfather cartoons
looking down from the wall. The place was usually kept locked and
visitors were not encouraged; but Tristan was always welcome.

Often, when I was passing by, I would peep in and see Tristan patiently
pulling at a Woodbine while Boardman rambled on. "We was six weeks up
the line. The French was on our right and the Jocks on our left  ..." or
"Poor old Fred - one minute 'e was standing by me and next 'e was gone.
Never found as much as a trouser button ..."

This morning, Tristan hailed me boisterously and I marvelled again at
his resilience and his power to bend like a willow before the winds of
misfortune and spring back unscathed. He held up two tickets.

"Village dance tonight, Jim, and I can guarantee it. Some of my harem
from the hospital are going, so I'll see you're all right. And that's
not all - look here." He went into the saddle room, lifted out a loose
board and produced a bottle of sherry "We'll be able to have a toothful
between dances."

I didn't ask where the tickets or the sherry had come from. I liked the
village dances. The packed hall with the three piece band at one end
piano, scraping fiddle and drums - and at the other end, the older
ladies looking after the refreshments. Glasses of milk, mounds of
sandwiches, ham, home-made brawn, trifles heaped high with cream.

That evening, Tristan came out with me on my last visit and, in the car,
the talk was all about the dance. The case was simple enough - a cow
with an infected eye - but the farm was in a village high up the dale,
and when we finished, it was dusk. I felt good, and everything seemed to
stand out, clear and meaningful. The single, empty, grey stone street,
the last red streaks in the sky, the dark purple of the enclosing fells.
There was no wind, but a soft breath came from the quiet moors, sweet
and fresh and full of promise. Among the houses, the thrilling smell of
wood smoke was everywhere.

When we got back to the surgery, Siegfried was out but there was a note
for Tristan propped up on the mantelpiece. It said simply: "Tristan. Go
home. Siegfried."

This had happened before, everything in Skeldale House being in short
supply, especially beds and blankets. When unexpected visitors arrived,
Tristan was packed off to stay with his mother in Brawton. Normally he
would board a train without comment, but tonight was different.

"Good God," he said. "Somebody must be coming for the night and, of
course, I'm the one who's just expected to disappear. It's a nice bloody
carry on, I must say! And isn't that a charming letter! It doesn't
matter if I've made any private arrangements. Oh no! There's no question
of asking me if it's convenient to leave. It's just "Tristan, go home."

Polite and thoughtful, isn't it?"

It was unusual for him to get worked up like this. I spoke soothingly.
"Look, Triss. Maybe we'd better just skip this dance. There'll be
others."

Tristan clenched his fists. "Why should I let him push me around like
this?" he fumed. "I'm a person, am I not? I have my own life to lead and
I tell you I am not going to Brawton tonight. I've arranged to go to a
dance and I am damn well going to a dance."

This was fighting talk but I felt a twinge of alarm. "Wait a minute.
What about Siegfried? What's he going to say when he comes in and finds
you still here ?"

"To hell with Siegfried!" said Tristan. So I left it at that.

Siegfried came home when we were upstairs, changing. I was first down
and found him sitting by the fire, reading. I said nothing but sat down
and waited for the explosion.

After a few minutes, Tristan came in. He had chosen with care among his
limited wardrobe and was resplendent in a dark grey suit; a scrubbed
face shone under carefully combed hair; he was wearing a clean collar.

Siegfried flushed as he looked up from his book. "What the bloody hell
are you doing here? I told you to go to Brawton. Joe Ramage is coming
tonight."

"Couldn't go."

"Why not?"

"No trains."

"What the hell do you mean, no trains?"

"Just that - no trains."

The cross talk was bringing on the usual sense of strain in me. The
interview was falling into the habitual pattern; Siegfried red faced,
exasperated, his brother expressionless, answering in a flat monotone,
fighting a defensive battle with the skill of long practice.

Siegfried sank back in his chair, baffled for the moment, but he kept a
sliteyed gaze on his brother. The smart suit, the slicked hair and
polished shoes all. seemed to irritate him further.

h "All right," he said suddenly, "It's maybe just as well you are
staying. I want you to do a job for me. You can open that haematoma on
Charlie Dent's pig's ear."

This was a bombshell. Charlie Dent's pig's ear was something we didn't
talk about.

A few weeks earlier, Siegfried himself had gone to the smallholding half
way along a street on the outskirts of the town to see a pig with a
swollen ear. It was an aural haematoma and the only treatment was to
lance it, but, for some reason, Siegfried had not done the job but had
sent me the following day.

I had wondered about it, but not for long. When I climbed into the sty,
the biggest sow I had ever seen rose from the straw, gave an explosive
bark and rushed at me with its huge mouth gaping. I didn't stop to
argue. I made the wall about six inches ahead of the pig and vaulted
over into the passage. I stood there, considering the position, looking
thoughtfully at the mean.little red eyes, the slavering mouth with its
long, yellow teeth.

Usually, I paid no attention when pigs barked and grumbled at me but
this one really seemed to mean it. As I wondered what the next step
would be, the pig gave an angry roar, reared up on its hind legs and
tried to get over the wall at me. I made up my mind quickly.

"I'm afraid I haven't got the right instrument with me, Mr. Dent. I'll
pop back another day and open the ear for you. It's nothing serious only
a small job. Goodbye."

There the matter had rested, with nobody caring to mention it till now.

Tristan was aghast. "You mean you want me to go along there tonight.
Saturday night? Surely some other time would do? I'm going to a dance."

Siegfried smiled bitterly from the depths of his chair. "It has to be
done now. That's an order. You can go to your dance afterwards."

Tristan started to say something, but he knew he had pushed his luck far
enough. "Right," he said, "I'll go and do it."

He left the room with dignity, Siegfried resumed his book, and I stared
into the fire, wondering how Tristan was going to handle this one. He
was a lad of infinite resource, but was going to be tested this time.

Within ten minutes he was back. Siegfried looked at him
suspiciously,"Have you opened that ear?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Couldn't find the place. You must have given me the wrong address.
Number 98, you said."

"It's number 89 and you know damn well it is. Now get back there and do
your job."

The door closed behind Tristan and again, I waited. Fifteen minutes
later it opened again and Tristan reappeared looking faintly triumphant.
His brother looked up from his book.

"Done it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"The family are all out at the pictures. Saturday night, you know."

"I don't care a damn where the family are. Just get into that sty and
lance that ear. Now get out, and this time I want the job done."

Again Tristan retreated and a new vigil began. Siegfried did not say a
word, but I could feel the tension building up. Twenty minutes passed
and Tristan was with us again.

"Have you opened that ear?"

"No."

' Why not?"

"It's pitch dark in there. How do you expect me to work? I've only got
two hands - one for the knife and one for the torch. How can I hold the
ear?"

Siegfried had been keeping a tight hold on himself, but now his control
snapped. "Don't give me any more of your bloody excuses," he shouted,
leaping from his chair. "I don't care how you do it, but, by God, you
are going to open that pig's ear tonight or I've finished with you. Now
get to hell out of here and don't come back till it's done!"

My heart bled for Tristan. He had been dealt a poor hand and had played
his cards with rare skill, but he had nothing left now. He stood silent
in the doorway for a few moments, then he turned and walked out.

The next hour was a long one. Siegfried seemed to be enjoying his book
and I even tried to read myself; but I got no meaning out of the words
and it made my head ache to sit staring at them. It would have helped if
I could have paced up and down the carpet but that was pretty well
impossible in Siegfried's presence. I had just decided to excuse myself
and go out for a walk when I heard the outer door open, then Tristan's
footsteps in the passage.

A moment later, the man of destiny entered but the penetrating smell of
pig got into the room just ahead of him, and as he walked over to the
fire, pungent waves seemed to billow round him. Pig muck was spattered
freely over his nice suit, and on his clean collar, his face and hair.
There was a great smear of the stuff on the seat of his trousers but
despite his ravaged appearance he still maintained his poise.

Siegfried pushed his chair back hurriedly but did not change expression.

"Have you got that ear opened?" he asked quietly.

"Yes."

Siegfried returned to his book without comment. It seemed that the
matter was closed and Tristan, after staring briefly at his brother's
bent head, turned and marched from the room. But even after he had gone,
the odour of the pigsty hung in the room like a cloud.

Later, in the Drovers", I watched Tristan draining his third pint. He
had changed, and if he didn't look as impressive as when he started the
evening, at least he was clean and hardly smelt at all. I had said
nothing yet, but the old light was returning to his eye. I went over to
the bar and ordered my second half and Tristan's fourth pint and, as I
set the glasses on the table, I thought that perhaps it was time.

"Well, what happened?"

Tristan took a long, contented pull at his glass and lit a Woodbine.
"Well now, all in all, Jim, it was rather a smooth operation, but I'll
start at the beginning. You can imagine me standing all alone outside
the sty in the pitch darkness with that bloody great pig grunting and
growling on the other side of the wall. I didn't feel so good, I can
tell you.

"I shone my torch on the thing's face and it jumped up and ran at me,
making a noise like a lion and showing all those dirty yellow teeth. I
nearly wrapped it up and came home there and then, but I got to thinking
about the dance and all and, on the spur of the moment, I hopped over
the wall.

"Two seconds later, I was on my back. It must have charged me but
couldn't see enough to get a bite in. I just heard a bark, then a
terrific weight against my legs and I was down.

"Well, it's a funny thing, Jim. You know I'm not a violent chap, but as
I lay there, all my fears vanished and all I felt was a cold hatred of
that bloody animal. I saw it as the cause of all my troubles and before
I knew what I was doing I was up on my feet and booting its arse round
and round the sty. And, do you know, it showed no fight at all. That pig
was a coward at heart."

I was still puzzled. "But the ear - how did you manage to open the
haematoma ?"

"No problem, Jim. That was done for me."

"You don't mean to say  ..."

"Yes," Tristan said, holding his pint up to the light and studying a
small foreign body floating in the depths. "Yes, it was really very
fortunate. In the scuffle in the dark, the pig ran up against the wall
and burst the thing itself. Made a beautiful job."

Chapter Twenty-five.

I realised, quite suddenly, that spring had come. It was late March and
I had been examining some sheep in a hillside fold. On my way down, in
the lee of a small pine wood I leaned my back against a tree and was
aware, all at once, of the sunshine, warm on my closed eyelids, the
clamour of the larks, the muted sea-sound of the wind in the high
branches. And though the snow still lay in long runners behind the walls
and the grass was lifeless and winter-yellowed, there was the feeling of
change; almost of liberation, because, unknowing, I had surrounded
myself with a carapace against the iron months, the relentless cold.

It wasn't a warm spring but it was dry with sharp winds which fluttered
the white heads of the snowdrops and bent the clumps of daffodils on the
village greens. In April the roadside banks were bright with the fresh
yellow of the primroses.

And in April, too, came the lambing. It came in a great tidal wave, the
most vivid and interesting part of the veterinary surgeon's year, the
zenith of the annual cycle, and it came as it always does when we were
busiest with our other work.

In the spring the livestock were feeling the effects of the long winter.
Cows had stood for months in the same few feet of byre and were in dire
need of the green grass and the sun on their backs, while their calves
had very little resistance to disease. And just when we were wondering
how we could cope with the coughs and colds and pneumonias and
acetonaemi as the wave struck us.

The odd thing is that for about ten months of the year, sheep hardly
entered into the scheme of our lives. They were just woolly things on
the hills. But for the other two months they almost blotted out
everything else.

First came the early troubles, the pregnancy toxaemias, the prolapses.
Then the lambings in a concentrated rush followed by the calcium
deficiencies, the horrible gangrenous mastitis when the udder turns
black and sloughs away; and the diseases which beset the lambs
themselves - swayback, pulpy kidney, dysentery Then the flood slackened,
became a trickle and by the end of May had almost dried up. Sheep became
woolly things on the hills again.

But in this first year I found a fascination in the work which has
remained with me. Lambing, it seemed to me, had all the thrill and
interest of calving without the hard labour. It was usually
uncomfortable in that it was performed in the open; either in draughty
pens improvised from straw bales and gates or more often out in the
fields. It didn't seem to occur to the farmers that the ewe might prefer
to produce her family in a warm place or that the vet may not enjoy
kneeling for an hour in his shirt sleeves in the rain.

But the actual job was as easy as a song. After my experiences in
correcting the malpresentations of calves it was delightful to
manipulate these tiny creatures.. Lambs are usually born in twos or
threes and some wonderful mix-ups occur; tangles of heads and legs all
trying to be first out and it is the vet's job to sort them around and
decide which leg belonged to which head. I revelled in this. It was a
pleasant change to be for once stronger and bigger than my patient, but
I didn't over-stress this advantage; I have not changed the opinion I
formed then that there are just two things to remember in lambing
cleanliness and gentleness.

And the lambs. All young animals are appealing but the lamb has been
given an unfair share of charm. The moments come back; of a bitterly
cold evening when I had delivered twins on a wind-scoured hillside; the
lambs shaking their heads convulsively and within minutes one of them
struggling upright and making its way, unsteady, knock-kneed, towards
the udder while the other followed resolutely on its knees.

The shepherd, his purpled, weather-roughened face almost hidden by the
heavy coat which muffled him to his ears, gave a slow chuckle. "How the
'ell do they know?"

He had seen it happen thousands of times and he still wondered. So do I.
And another memory of two hundred lambs in a barn on a warm afternoon.
We were inoculating them against pulpy kidney and there was no
conversation because of the high pitched protests of the lambs and the
unremitting deep baa-in" from nearly a hundred ewes milling anxiously
around outside. I couldn't conceive how these ewes could ever get their
own families sorted out from that mass of almost identical little
creatures. It would take hours.

It took about twenty-five secon'ds. When we had finished injecting we
opened the barn doors and the outpouring lambs were met by a concerted
rush of distraught mothers. At first the noise was deafening but it died
away rapidly to an occasional bleat as the last stray was rounded up.
Then, neatly paired off, the flock headed calmly for the field.

Through May and early June my world became softer and warmer. The cold
wind dropped and the air, fresh as the sea, carried a faint breath of
the thousands of wild flowers which speckled the pastures. At times it
seemed unfair that I should be paid for my work; for driving out in the
early morning with the fields glittering under the first pale sunshine
and the wisps of mist still hanging on the high tops.

At Skeldale House the wisteria exploded into a riot of mauve blooms
which thrust themselves through the open windows and each morning as I
shaved I breathed in the heady fragrance from the long clusters drooping
by the side of the mirror. Life was idyllic.

There was only one jarring note; it was the time of the horse. In the
thirties there were still quite a lot of horses on the farms though the
tractors had already sounded their warning knell. In the farms near the
foot of the Dale where their was a fair amount of arable land the rows
of stables were half empty but there were still enough horses to make
May and June uncomfortable. This was when the castrations were done.

Before that came the foaling and it was a common enough thing to see a
mare with her foal either trotting beside her or stretched flat on the
ground as its mother nibbled at the grass. Nowadays the sight of a cart
mare and foal in a field would make me pull up my car to have another
look.

There was all the work connected with the foalings, cleansing the mares,
docking the foals" tails, treating the illnesses of the new born - joint
ill, retained meconium. It was hard and interesting but as the weather
grew warmer the farmers began to think of having the year old colts
castrated.

I didn't like the job and since there might be up to a hundred to be
done, it cast a shadow over this and many subsequent springs. For
generations the operation had been done by casting the colt and tying
him up very like a trussed chicken. It was a bit laborious but the
animal was under complete restraint and it was possible to concentrate
entirely on the job; but about the time I qualified, standing castration
was coming very much to the fore. It consisted simply of applying a
twitch to the colt's upper lip, injecting a shot of local anaesthetic
into each testicle and going straight ahead. There was no doubt it was a
lot quicker.

The obvious disadvantage was that the danger of injury to the operator
and his helpers was increased tenfold, but for all that the method
rapidly became more popular. A local farmer called Kenny Bright who
considered himself an advanced thinker took the step of introducing it
to the district. He engaged Major Farley, the horse specialist, to give
a demonstration on one of his colts, and a large gathering of farmers
came to spectate. Kenny, smug and full of self importance was holding
the twitch and beaming round the company as his protege prepared to
disinfect the operation site, but as soon as the Major touched the
scrotum with his antiseptic the colt reared and brought a fore foot
crashing down on Kenny's head. He was carried away on a gate with his
skull fractured and spent a long time in hospital. The other farmers
didn't stop laughing for weeks but the example failed to deter them.
Standing castration was in.

I said it was quicker. It was when everything went smoothly, but there
were other times when the colt kicked or threw himself on top of us or
just went generally mad. Out of ten jobs nine would be easy and the
tenth would be a rodeo. I don't know how much apprehension this state of
affairs built up in other vets but I was undeniably tense on castration
mornings.

Of course, one of the reasons was that I was not, am not and never will
be a horseman. It is difficult to define the term but I am convinced
that horsemen are either born or acquire the talent in early childhood.
I knew it was no good my trying to start in my mid twenties. I had the
knowledge of equine diseases I believed I had the ability to treat sick
horses efficiently but that power the real horseman had to soothe and
quieten and mentally dominate an animal was beyond my reach. I didn't
even try to kid myself.

It was unfortunate because there is no doubt horses know. It is quite
different with cows; they don't care either way; if a cow feels like
kicking you she will kick you, she doesn't give a damn whether you are
an expert or not. But horses know.

So on those mornings my morale was never very high as I drove out with
my instruments rattling and rolling about on an enamel tray on the back
seat. Would he be wild or quiet? How big would he be? I had heard my
colleagues airily stating their preference for big horses - the two year
olds were far easier, they said, you could get a better grip on the
testicles. But there was never any doubt in my own mind. I liked them
small, the smaller the better.

One morning when the season was at its height and I had had about enough
of the equine race, Siegfried called to me as he was going out. "James,
there's a horse with a tumour on its belly at Wilkinson's of White
Cross. Get along and take it off - today if possible but otherwise fix
your own time; I'll leave it with you."

Feeling a little disgruntled at fate having handed me something on top
of the seasonal tasks, I boiled up a scalpel, tumour spoons and syringe
and put them on my tray with local anaesthetic, iodine and tetanus
antitoxin.

I drove to the farm with the tray rattling ominously behind me. That
sound always had a connotation of doom for me. I wondered about the
horse - maybe it was just a yearling; they did get those little dangling
growths sometimes nanberries, the farmers called them. Over the six
miles I managed to build up a comfortable pictureof a soft-eyed little
colt with pendulous abdomen and over-long hair; it hadn't done well over
the winter and was probably full of worms - shaky on its legs with
weakness, in fact.

At Wilkinson's all was quiet. The yard was empty except for a lad of
about ten who didn't know where the boss was.

"Well, where is the horse?" I asked.

The lad pointed to the stable. "He's in there."

I went inside. At one end stood a high, open-topped loose box with a
metal grill topping the wooden walls and from within I heard a
deep-throated whinnying and snorting followed by a series of tremendous
thuds against the sides of the box. A chill crept through me. That was
no little colt in there.

I opened the top half door and there, looking down at me was an enormous
animal; I hadn't realised horses ever came quite as big as this; a
chestnut stallion with a proud arch to his neck and feet like manhole
covers. Surging swathes of muscle shone on his shoulders and quarters
and when he saw me he laid back his ears, showed the whites of his eyes
and lashed out viciously against the wall. A foot long splinter flew
high in the air as the great hoof crashed against the boards.

"God almighty," I breathed and closed the half door hurriedly. I leaned
my back against the door and listened to my heart thumping.

I turned to the lad. "How old is that horse?"

"Over six years, sir."

I tried a little calm thinking. How did you go about tackling a
man-eater like this. I had never seen such a horse - he must weigh over
a ton. I shook myself; I hadn't even had a look at the tumour I was
supposed to remove.-! lifted the latch, opened the door about two inches
and peeped inside. I could see it plainly dangling from the belly;
probably a papilloma, about the size of a cricket ball, with a lobulated
surface which made it look like a little cauliflower. It swung gently
from side to side as the horse moved about.

No trouble to take it off. Nice narrow neck to it; a few c.c."s of local
in there and I could twist it off easily with the spoons.

But the snag was obvious. I would have to go under that shining barrel
of an abdomen within easy reach of the great feet and stick a needle
into those few inches of skin. Not a happy thought.

But I pulled my mind back to practical things; like a bucket of hot
water, soap and a towel. And I'd need a good man on the twitch. I began
to walk towards the house.

There was no answer to my knock. I tried again; still nothing - there
was nobody at home. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to
leave everything till another day; the idea of going round the buildings
and fields till I found somebody never entered my head.

I almost broke into a gallop on my way to the car, backed it round with
the tyres squealing and roared out of the yard.

Siegfried was surprised. "Nobody there? Well that's a damn funny thing.
I'm nearly sure they were expecting you today. But never mind, it's in
your hands, James. Give them a ring and fix it up again as soon as
possible."

!

I found it wonderfully easy to forget about the stallion over the days
and weeks that followed; except when my defences were down. At least
once a night it thundered through my dreams with gaping nostrils and
flying mane and I developed an uncomfortable habit of coming bolt awake
at five o'clock in the morning and starting immediately to operate on
the horse. On an average, I took that tumour off twenty times before
breakfast each morning.

I told myself it would be a lot easier to fix the job up and get it
over. What was I waiting for, anyway Was there a subconscious hope that
if I put it off long enough something would happen to get me off the
hook? The tumour might fall off or shrink away and disappear, or the
horse might drop down dead.

I could have passed the whole thing on to Siegfried - he was good with
horses - but my confidence was low enough without that.

All my doubts were resolved one morning when Mr. Wilkinson came on the
phone. He wasn't in the least upset at the long delay but he made it
quite clear that he could wait no longer. "You see, I want to sell this
'oss, young man, but I can't let him go with that thing on him, can I?"

My journey to Wilkinson's wasn't enlivened by the familiar clatter of
the tray on the back seat; it reminded me of the last timewhen I was
wondering what was ahead of me. This time I knew.

Stepping out of the car, I felt almost disembodied. It was like walking
a few inches above the ground. I was greeted by a reverberating din from
the loose box; the same angry whinneys and splintering crashes I had
heard before. I tried to twist my stiff face into a smile as the farmer
came over.

"My chaps are getting a halter on him," he said, but his words were cut
short by an enraged squealing from the box and two tremendous blows
against the wooden sides. I felt my mouth going dry.

The noise was coming nearer; then the stable doors flew open and the
great horse catapulted out into the yard, dragging two big fellows along
on the end of the halter shank. The cobbles struck sparks from the men's
boots as they slithered about but they were unable to stop the stallion
backing and plunging. I imagined I could feel the ground shudder under
my feet as the hooves crashed down.

At length, after much manoeuvring, the men got the horse standing with
his off side against the wall of the barn. One of them looped the twitch
on to the upper lip and tightened it expertly, the other took a firm
grip on the halter and turned towards me. "Ready for you now, sir."

I pierced the rubber cap on the bottle of cocaine, withdrew the plunger
of the syringe and watched the clear fluid flow into the glass barrel.
Seven, eight, ten c.c."s. If I could get that in, the,rest would be
easy; but my hands were trembling.

Walking up to the horse was like watching an action from a film. It
wasn't really me doing this - the whole thing was unreal. The near side
eye flickered dangerously at me as I raised my left hand and passed it
over the muscles of the neck, down the smooth, quivering flank and along
the abdomen till I was able to grasp the tumour. I had the thing in my
hand now, the lobulations firm and lumpy under my fingers. I pulled
gently downwards, stretching the brown skin joining the growth to the
body. I would put the local in there - a few good weals. It wasn't going
to be so bad. The stallion laid back his ears and gave a warning
whicker.

I took a long, careful breath, brought up the syringe with my right
hand, placed the needle against the skin then thrust it in.

The kick was so explosively quick that at first I felt only surprise
that such a huge animal could move so swiftly. It was a lightning
outward slash that I never even saw and the hoof struck the inside of my
right thigh, spinning me round helplessly. When I hit the ground I lay
still, feeling only a curious numbness. Then I tried to move and a stab
of pain went through my leg.

When I opened my eyes Mr. Wilkinson was bending over me. "Are you all
right, Mr. Herriot?" The voice was anxious.

"I don't think so." I was astonished at the matter of fact sound of my
own words; but stranger still was the feeling of being at peace with
myself for the first time for weeks. I was calm and completely in charge
of the situation.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Wilkinson. You'd better put the horse back in his
box for now - we'll have a go at him another day - and I wonder if you'd
ring Mr. Farnon to come and pick me up. I don't think I'll be able to
drive."

My leg wasn't broken but it developed a massive haematoma at the point
of impact and then the whole limb blossomed into an unbelievable range
of colours from delicate orange to deepest black. I was still hobbling
like a Crimean veteran when, a fortnight later, Siegfried and I with a
small army of helpers went back and roped the stallion, chloroformed him
and removed that little growth.

I have a cavity in the muscle of my thigh to remind me of that day, but
some good came out of the incident. I found that the fear is worse than
the reality and horse work has never worried me as much since then.

Chapter Twenty-six.

The first time I saw Phin Calvert was in the street outside the surgery
when I was talking to Brigadier Julian Coutts-Browne about his shooting
dogs. The Brigadier was almost a stage version of an English aristocrat;
immensely tall with a pronounced stoop, hawk features and a high
drawling voice. As he spoke, smoke from a narrow cigar trickled from his
lips.

I turned my head at the clatter of heavy boots on the pavement. A thick
set figure was stumping rapidly towards us, hands tucked behind his
braces, ragged jacket pulled wide to display a curving expanse of
collarless shirt, wisps of grizzled hair hanging in a fringe beneath a
greasy cap. He was smiling widely at nobody in particular and he hummed
busily to himself.

The Brigadier glanced at him. "Morning, Calvert," he grunted coldly.

Phineas threw up his head in pleased recognition. "Now then, Charlie,
'ow is ta?" he shouted.

The Brigadier looked as though he had swallowed a swift pint of vinegar.
He removed his cigar with a shaking hand and stared after the retreating
back. "Impudent devil," he muttered.

Looking at Phin, you would never have thought he was a prosperous
farmer. I was called to his place a week later and was surprised to find
a substantial house and buildings and a fine dairy herd grazing in the
fields.

I could hear him even before I got out of the car.

"Hello, 'ello, 'ello! Who's this we've got then? New chap eh? Now we're
going to learn summat!" He still had his hands inside his braces and was
grinning wider than ever.

"My name is Herriot," I said.

"Is it now?" Phin cocked his head and surveyed me, then he turned to
three young men standing by. "Hasn't he a nice smile, lads. He's a real
Happy Harry!"

He turned and began to lead the way across the yard. "Come on, then and
we'll see what you're made of. I 'ope you know a bit about calves
because I've got some here that are right dowry." , As he went into the
calf house I was hoping I would be able to do something impressive
perhaps use some of the new drugs and sera I had in my car; it was going
to take something special to make an impact here.

There were six well grown young animals, almost stirk size, and three of
them were behaving very strangely; grinding their teeth, frothing at the
mouth and blundering about the pen as though they couldn't see. As I
watched, one of them walked straight into the wall and stood with his
nose pressed against the stone.

Phin, apparently unconcerned, was humming to himself in a corner. When I
started to take my thermometer from its case he burst into a noisy
commentary. "Now what's he doing? Ah, we're off now, get up there!"

The half minute which my thermometer spends in an animal's rectum is
usually devoted to hectic thought. But this time I didn't need the time
to work out my diagnosis; the blindness made it easy. I began to look
round the walls of the calf house; it was dark and I had to get my face
close to the stone.

Phin gave tongue again. "Hey, what's going on? You're as bad as t"
calves, nosing about there, dozy like. What d'you think you're lookin"
for?"

"Paint, Mr. Calvert. I'm nearly sure your calves have got lead
poisoning." Phin said what all farmers say at this juncture. "They can't
have. I've had calves in here for thirty years and they've never taken
any harm before. There's no paint in here, anyway."

"How about this, then?" I peered into the darkest corner and pulled at a
piece of loose board.

"Oh, that's nobbut a bit of wood I nailed down there last week to block
up a hole. Came off an old hen house."

I looked at the twenty year old paint hanging off in the loose flakes
which calves find so irresistible. "This is what's done the damage," I
said. "Look, you can see the tooth marks where they've been at it."

Phin studied the board at close quarters and grunted doubtfully. "All
right, what do we do now?"

"First thing is to get this painted board out of here and then give all
the calves epsom salts. Have you got any?"

Phin gave a bark of laughter. "Aye, I've got a bloody great sack full,
but can't you do owl better than that? Aren't you going to inject them?"

It was a little embarrassing. The specific antidotes to metal poisoning
had not been discovered and the only thing which sometimes did a bit of
good was magnesium sulphate which caused the precipitation of insoluble
lead sulphate. The homely term for magnesium sulphate is of course,
epsom salts.

"No," I said. "There's nothing I can inject that will help at all and I
can't even guarantee the salts will. But I'd like you to give the calves
two heaped tablespoonfuls three times a day."

"Oh 'ell, you'll skitter the poor buggers to death!"

"Maybe so, but there's nothing else for it." I said.

Phin took a step towards me so that his face, dark-skinned and deeply
wrinkled, was close to mine. The suddenly shrewd, mottled brown eyes
regarded me steadily for a few seconds then he turned away quickly.
"Right," he said. "Come in and have a drink."

Phin stumped into the farm kitchen ahead of me, threw back his head and
let loose a bellow that shook the windows. "Mother! Feller 'ere wants a
glass o" beer Come and meet Happy Harry!"

Mrs. Calvert appeared with magical speed and put down glasses and
bottles. I glanced at the labels - "Smith's Nutty Brown Ale", and filled
my glass. It was a historic moment though I didn't know it then; it was
the first of an incredible series of Nutty Browns I was to drink at that
table.

Mrs. Calvert sat down for a moment, crossed her hands on her lap and
smiled encouragingly. "Can you do anything for the calves, then?" she
asked.

Phin butted in before I could reply. "Oh aye, he can an" all. He's put
them on to epsom salts."

"Epsom salts?"

"That's it, Missis. I said when he came that we'd get summat real smart
and scientific like. You can't beat new blood and modern ideas" Phin
sipped his beer gravely.

Over the following days the calves gradually improved and at the end of
a fortnight they were all eating normally. The worst one still showed a
trace of blindness, but I was confident this too would clear up.

It wasn't long before I saw Phin again. It was early afternoon and I was
in the office with Siegfried when the outer door banged and the passage
echoed to the clumping of hob nails. I heard a voice raised in song
hi-ti-tiddly-rum-tetum. Phineas was in our midst once more.

"Well, well, well!" he bawled heartily at Miss. Harbottle. "It's
Flossie! And what's my little darling" doing this fine day?"

There was not a flicker from Miss. Harbottle's granite features. She
directed an icy stare at the intruder but Phin swung round on Siegfried
with a yellowtoothed grin. "Now, gaffer, 'ow's tricks?"

"Everything's fine, Mr. Calvert," Siegfried replied. "What can we do for
you?"

Phin stabbed a finger at me. "There's my man. I want him out to my place
right sharpish."

"What's the trouble?" I asked. "Is it the calves again?"

"Damn, no! Wish it was. It's me good bull. He's puffin" like a bellows
bit like pneumonia but worse than I've known. He's in a 'ell of a state.
Looks like he's peggin" out." For an instant Phin lost his jocularity.

I had heard of this bull; pedigree shorthorn, show winner, the
foundation of his herd. "I'll be right after you, Mr. Calvert. I'll
follow you along."

"Good lad. I'm off, then." Phin paused at the door, a wild figure,
tieless, tattered; baggy trousers ballooning from his ample middle. He
turned again to Miss. Harbottle and contorted his leathery features into
a preposterous leer. "Ta-ra, Floss!" he cried and was gone.

For a moment the room seemed very empty and quiet except for Miss.
Harbottle's acid "Oh, that man! Dreadful! Dreadful!"

I made good time to the farm and found Phin waiting with his three sons.
The young men looked gloomy but Phin was still indomitable. "Here 'e
is," he shouted. "Happy Harry again. Now we'll be all right." He even
managed a little tune as we crossed to the bull pen but when he looked
over the door his head sank on his chest and his hands worked deeper
behind his braces.

The bull was standing as though rooted to the middle of the pen. His
great rib cage rose and fell with the most laboured respirations I had
ever seen. His mouth gaped wide, a bubbling foam hung round his lips and
his flaring nostrils; his eyes, almost starting from his head in terror,
stared at the wall in front of him. This wasn't pneumonia, it was a
frantic battle for breath; and it looked like a losing one.

He didn't move when I inserted my thermometer and though my mind was
racing I suspected the half minute wasn't going to be long enough this
time. I had expected accelerated breathing, but nothing like this.

"Poor aud beggar," Phin muttered. "He's bred me the finest calves I've
ever had and he's as quiet as a sheep, too. I've seen me little
grandchildren walk under 'is belly and he's took no notice. I hate to
see him sufferin" like this. If you can't do no good, just tell me and
I'll get the gun out."

I took the thermometer out and read it. One hundred and ten degrees
fahrenheit. This was ridiculous; I shook it vigorously and pushed it
back into the rectum.

I gave it nearly a minute this time so that I could get in some extra
thinking. The second reading said a hundred and ten again and I had an
unpleasant conviction that if the thermometer had been a foot long the
mercury would still have been jammed against the top.

What in the name of God was this? Could be Anthrax ... must be ... and
yet ... I looked over at the row of heads above the half door; they were
waiting for me to say something and their silence accentuated the
agonised groaning and panting. I looked above the heads to the square of
deep blue and a tufted cloud moving across the sun As it passed, a
single dazzling ray made me close my eyes and a faint bell rang in my
mind.

"Has he been out today?" I asked.

"Aye, he's been out on the grass on his tether all morning. It was that
grand and warm."

The bell became a triumphant gong. "Get a hosepipe in here quick. You
can rig it to that tap in the yard."

"A hosepipe? What the 'ell ... ?"

"Yes, quick as you can - he's got sunstroke."

They had the hose fixed in less than a minute. I turned it full on and
began to play the jet of cold water all over the huge form - his face
and neck, along the ribs, up and down the legs. I kept this up for about
five minutes but it seemed a lot longer as I waited for some sign of
improvement. I was beginning to think I was on the wrong track when the
bull gulped just once It was something - he had been unable to swallow
his saliva before in his desperate efforts to get the air into his
lungs; and I really began to notice a change in the big animal. Surely
he was looking just a little less distressed and wasn't the breathing
slowing down a bit?

Then the bull shook himself, turned his head and looked at us. There was
an awed whisper from one of the young men: "By yaw, it's working!"

I enjoyed myself after that. I can't think of anything in my working
life that has given me more pleasure than standing in that pen directing
the life-saving jet and watching the bull savouring it. He liked it on
his face best and as I worked my way up from the tail and along the
steaming back he would turn his nose full into the water, rocking his
head from side to side and blinking blissfully. '

Within half an hour he looked almost normal. His chest was still heaving
a little but he was in no discomfort. I tried the temperature again.
Down to a hundred and five.

"He'll be all right now," I said, 'but I think one of the lads should
keep the water on him for another twenty minutes or so. I'll have to go
now."

"You've time for a drink," Phin grunted.

In the farm kitchen his bellow of "Mother" lacked some of its usual
timbre. He dropped into a chair and stared into his glass of Nutty
Brown. "Harry," he said, "I'll tell you, you've flummoxed me this time."

He sighed and rubbed his chin in apparent disbelief. "I don't know what
the 'ell to say to you."

It wasn't often that Phin lost his voice, but he found it again very
soon at the next meeting of the farmers" discussion group.

A learned and earnest gentleman had been expounding on the advances in
veterinary medicine and how the farmers could now expect their stock to
be treated as the doctors treated their human patients with the newest
drugs and procedures.

It was too much for Phin. He jumped to his feet and cried: "Ah think
you're talking a lot of rubbish. There's a young feller in Darrowby not
long out of college and it doesn't matter what you call 'im out for he
uses nowt but epsom salts and cold water."

Chapter Twenty-seven.

It was during one of Siegfried's efficiency drives that Colonel
Merrick's cow picked up a wire. The colonel was a personal friend, which
made things even more uncomfortable.

Everybody suffered when Siegfried had these spells. They usually came on
after he had been reading a technical work or when he had seen a film of
some new technical procedure. He would rampage around, calling on the
cowering household to stir themselves and be better men. He would be
obsessed, for a time, with a craving for perfection.

"We must put on a better show at these operation's on the farms. It just
isn't good enough to fish out a few old instruments from a bag and start
hacking at the animal. We must have cleanliness, asepsis if possible,
and an orderly technique."

So he was jubilant when he diagnosed traumatic reticulitis (foreign body
in the second stomach) in the colonel's cow. "We'll really show old
Hubert something. We'll give him a picture of veterinary surgery he'll
never-forget."

Tristan and I were pressed into service as assistants, and our arrival
at the farm was really impressive. Siegfried led the procession, looking
unusually smart in a brand new tweed jacket of which he was very proud.
He was a debonair figure as he shook hands with his friend.

The colonel was jovial. "Hear you're going to operate on my cow. Take
out a wire, eh? Like to watch you do it, if it's all right with you."

"By all means, Hubert, please do. You'll find it very interesting."

In the byre, Tristan and I had to bustle about. We arranged tabjes
alongside the cow and on these we placed new metal trays with rows of
shining, sterilised instruments. Scalpels, directors, probes, artery
forceps, hypodermic syringes, suture needles, gut and silk in glass
phials, rolls of cotton wool and various bottles of spirit and other
antiseptics.

Siegfried fussed around, happy as a schoolboy. He had clever hands and,
as a surgeon, he was worth watching. I could read his mind without much
trouble. This, he was thinking, was going to be good.

When all was to his liking, he took off his jacket and donned a
brilliantly white smock. He handed the jacket to Tristan and almost
instantly gave a roar of anger. Hey, don't just throw it down on that
meal bin! Here, give it to me. I'll find a safe place for it." He dusted
the new garment down tenderly and hung it on a nail on the wall.

Meanwhile, I had shaved and disinfected the operation site on the flank
and everything was ready for the local anaesthetic. Siegfried took the
syringe and quickly infiltrated the area. "This is where we go inside,
Hubert. I hope you aren't squeamish."

The colonel beamed. "Oh, I've seen blood before. You needn't worry, I
shall't faint."

With a bold sweep of the scalpel, Siegfried incised the skin, then the
muscles and finally, with delicate, the glistening peritoneum. The
smooth wall of the rumen (the large first stomach) lay exposed.
Siegfried reached for a fresh scalpel and looked for the best place to
cut in. But as he poised his knife, the wall of the rumen suddenly
bulged out through the skin incision. "Unusual," he muttered. "Probably
a bit of rumenal gas." Unflurried, he gently thrust back the protrusion
and prepared again to make his cut; but as he withdrew his hand, the
rumen welled out after it, a pinkish mass bigger than a football.
Siegfried pushed it back and it shot out again immediately, ballooning
to a startling size. This time, he took two hands to the job, pushing
and pressing till he forced the thing once more out of sight. He stood
for a moment with his hands inside the cow, breathing heavily. Two beads
of sweat trickled down his forehead.

Carefully, he withdrew his hands. Nothing happened. It must have settled
down. He was reaching back for his knife when, like a live thing, the
rumen again came leaping and surging out. It seemed almost as though the
entire organ had escaped through the incision - a slippery, gleaming
mass rising and swelling till it was level with his eyes.

Siegfried had dropped all pretence of calm and was fighting desperately,
both arms round the thing, pressing downwards with all his strength. I
hastened forward to help and, as I drew near, he whispered hoarsely:
"What the hell is it?" Clearly, he was wondering if this pulsating heap
of tissue was some part of the bovine anatomy he had never even heard
of.

Silently, we fought the mass down till it was level with the skin. The
colonel was watching intently. He hadn't expected the operation to be so
interesting. His eyebrows were slightly raised.

"It must be gas that's doing this," panted Siegfried. "Pass me the knife
and stand back."

He inserted the knife into the rumen and cut sharply downwards. I was
glad I had moved away because through the incision shot a high pressure
jet of semi-liquid stomach contents - a greenish-brown, foul-smelling
cascade which erupted from the depths of the cow as from an invisible
pump.

The first direct hit was on Siegfried's face. He couldn't release his
hold of the rumen or it would have slipped back into the abdomen and
contaminated the peritoneum. So he hung on to each side of the opening
while the evil torrent poured onto his hair, down his neck and all over
his lovely white smock.

Now and then, the steady stream would be varied by a sudden explosion
which sent the fermenting broth spouting viciously over everything in
the immediate vicinity. Within a minute, the trays with their gleaming
instruments were thoroughly covered. The tidy rows of swabs, the snowy
tufts of cotton wool disappeared without trace, but it was the unkindest
cut of all when a particular powerful jet sent a liberal spray over the
new jacket hanging on the wall. Siegfried's face was too obscured for me
to detect any change of expression but at this disaster, I saw real
anguish in his eyes.

The colonel's eyebrows were now raised to the maximum and his mouth hung
open as he gazed in disbelief at the chaotic scene. Siegfried, still
hanging grimly on, was the centre of it all, paddling about in a reeking
swamp which came half way up his Wellington boots. He looked very like a
Fiji Islander with his hair stiffened and frizzled and his eyes rolling
whitely in the brown face.

Eventually, the flood slowed to a trickle and stopped. I was able to
hold the lips of the wound while Siegfried inserted his arm and felt his
way to the reticulum I watched him as he groped inside the honeycombed
organ far out of sight against the diaphragm. A satisfied grunt told me
he had located the piercing wire and within seconds he had removed it.

Tristan had been frantically salvaging and washing suture materials and
soon the incision in the rumen was stitched. Siegfried's heroic stand
had not been in vain; there was no contamination of the peritoneum.

Silently and neatly, he secured the skin and muscles with retention
sutures and swabbed round the wound. Everything looked fine. The cow
seemed unperturbed; under the anaesthetic she had known nothing of the
titanic struggle with her insides. In fact, freed from the discomfort of
the transfixing wire, she appeared already to be feeling better.

It took quite a time to tidy up the mess and the most difficult job was
to make Siegfried presentable. We did our best by swilling him down with
buckets of water while, all the time, he scraped sadly at his new jacket
with a flat stick. It didn't make much difference.

The colonel was hearty and full of congratulations. "Come in, my dear
chap. Come in and have a drink." But the invitation had a hollow ring
and he took care to stand at least ten feet away from his friend.

Siegfried threw his bedraggled jacket over his shoulder. "No thank you,
Hubert. It's most kind of you, but we must be off." He went out of the
byre. "I think you'll find the cow will be eating in a day or two. I'll
be back in a fortnight to take out the stitches."

In the confined space of the car, Tristan and I were unable to get as
far away from him as we could have liked. Even with our heads stuck out
of the windows it was still pretty bad.

Siegfried drove for a mile or two in silence, then he turned to me and
his streaked features broke into a grin. There was something indomitable
about him. "You never know what's round the corner in this game, my
boys, but just think of this - that operation was a success."

Chapter Twenty-eight.

There were three of us in the cheerless yard, Isaac Cranford, Jeff
Mallock and myself. The only one who looked at ease was Mallock and it
was fitting that it should be so, since he was, in a manner of speaking,
the host. He owned the knacker yard and he looked on benignly as we
peered into the carcass of the cow he had just opened.

In Darrowby the name Mallock had a ring of doom. It was the graveyard of
livestock, of farmers" ambitions, of veterinary surgeons" hopes. If ever
an animal was very ill somebody was bound to say: "I reckon she'll be
off to Mallock's afore long." or "Jeff Mallock'll have 'er in t"
finish." And the premises fitted perfectly into the picture; a group of
drab, red-brick buildings standing a few fields back from the road with
a stumpy chimney from which rolled endlessly a dolorous black smoke.

It didn't pay to approach Mallock's too closely unless you had a strong
stomach, so the place was avoided by the townspeople, but if you
ventured up the lane and peeped through the sliding metal doors you
could look in on a nightmare world. Dead animals lay everywhere. Most of
them were dismembered and great chunks of meat hung on hooks, but here
and there you could see a bloated sheep or a greenish, swollen pig which
not even Jeff could bring himself to open.

Skulls and dry bones were piled to the roof in places and brown mounds
of; meat meal stood in the corners. The smell was bad at any time but
when Jeff was boiling up the carcasses it was indescribable. The Mallock
family bungalow stood in the middle of the buildings and strangers could
be pardoned if they expected a collection of wizened gnomes to dwell
there. But Jeff was a pinkfaced, cherubic man in his forties, his wife
plump, smiling and comely. Their family ranged from a positively
beautiful girl of nineteen down to a robust five year old boy. There
were eight young Mallocks and they had spent their lifetimes playing
among tuberculous lungs and a vast spectrum of bacteria from Salmonella
to Anthrax. They were the healthiest children in the district.

It was said in the pubs that Jeff was one of the richest men in the town
but the locals, as they supped their beer, had to admit that he earned
his money. At any hour of the day or night he would rattle out into the
country in his ramshackle lorry, winch on a carcass, bring it back to
the yard and cut it up. A dog food dealer came twice a week from Brawton
with a van and bought the fresh meat. The rest of the stuff Jeff
shovelled into his boiler to make the meat meal which was in great
demand for mixing in pig and poultry rations. The bones went for making
fertiliser, the hides to the tanner and the nameless odds and ends were
collected by a wild-eyed individual known only as the 'ket feller".
Sometimes, for a bit of variety, Ted would make long slabs of
strange-smelling soap which found a brisk sale for scrubbing shop
floors. Yes, people said, there was no doubt Jeff did all right. But, by
yaw, he earned it.

My contacts with Mallock were fairly frequent. A knacker's yard had a
useful function for a vet. It served as a crude post mortem room, a
place where he could check on his diagnosis in fatal cases; and on the
occasions where he had been completely baffled, the mysteries would be
revealed under Jeff's knife.

Often, of course, farmers would send in an animal which I had been
treating and ask Jeff to tell them 'what had been wrong wi't" and this
was where a certain amount of friction arose. Because Jeff was placed in
a position of power and seldom resisted the temptation to wield it.
Although he could neither read nor write, he was a man of great
professional pride; he didn't like to be called a knacker man but
preferred ifell-monger". He considered in his heart that, after twenty
odd years of cutting up diseased animals he knew more than any vet
alive, and it made things rather awkward that the farming community
unhesitatingly agreed with him.

It never failed to spoil my day if a farmer called in at the surgery and
told me that, once more, Jeff Mallock had confounded my diagnosis. "Hey,
remember that cow you were treating for magnesium deficiency?

She never did no good and ah sent 'er into Mallocks. Well, you know what
was really the matter wi" 'er? Worm i" the tail. Jeff said if you'd
nobbut cut tail off, that cow would have gotten up and walked away." It
was no good arguing or saying there was no such thing as worm in the
tail. Jeff knew - that was all about it.

If only Jeff had taken his priceless opportunities to acquire a
commonsense knowledge it wouldn't have been so bad. But instead, he had
built up a weird pathology of his own and backed it up by black magic
remedies gleaned from his contacts with the more primitive members of
the farming community. His four stock diseases were Stagnation of
"'lungs, Black Rot, Gastric Ulsters and Golf Stones. It was a quartet
which made the vets tremble for miles around.

Another cross which the vets had to bear was his unique gift of being
able to take one look at a dead animal on a farm and pronounce
immediately on the cause of death. The farmers, awe-struck by his
powers, were always asking me why I couldn't do it. But I was unable to
dislike the man. He would have had to be more than human to resist the
chance to be important and there was no malice in his actions. Still, it
made things uncomfortable at times and I liked to be on the spot myself
whenever possible. Especially when Isaac Cranford was involved.

Cranford was a hard man, a man who had cast his life in a mould of iron
austerity. A sharp bargainer, a win-at-all-cost character and, in a
region where thrift was general, he was noted for meanness. He farmed
some of the best land in the lower Dale, his Shorthorns won prizes
regularly at the shows but he was nobody's friend. Mr. Bateson, his
neighbour to the North, summed it up: "That feller 'ud skin a flea for
its hide." Mr. Dickon, his neighbour to the South, put it differently:
"If he gets haud on a pound note, by gaw it's a prisoner."

This morning's meeting had had its origin the previous day. A phone call
mid afternoon from Mr. Cranford. "I've had a cow struck by lightning.
She's laid dead in the field."

I was surprised. "Lightning? Are you sure? We haven't had a storm
today."

"Maybe you haven't but we have 'ere."

"Mmm, all right, I'li come and have a look at her."

Driving to the farm, I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the
impending interview. This lightning business could be a bit of a
headache. All farmers were insured against lightning stroke - it was
usually part of their fire policy - and after a severe thunder storm it
was common enough for the vets" phones to start ringing with requests to
examine dead beasts.

The insurance companies were reasonable about it. If they received a
certificate from the vet that he believed lightning to be the cause of
death they would usually pay up without fuss. In cases of doubt they
would ask for a post mortem or a second opinion from another
practitioner. The difficulty was that there are no diagnostic post
mortem features to go on; occasionally a bruising of the tissues under
the skin, but very little else. The happiest situation was when the
beast was found with the tell-tale scorch marks running from an ear down
the leg to earth into the ground. Often the animal would be found under
a tree which itself had obviously been blasted and torn by lightning.
Diagnosis was easy then.

Ninety-nine per cent of the farmers were looking only for a square deal
and if their vet found some other clear cause of death they would accept
his verdict philosophically. But the odd one could be very difficult.

I had heard Siegfried tell of one old chap who had called him out to
verify a lightning death. The long scorch marks on the carcass were
absolutely classical and Siegfried, viewing them, had been almost
lyrical. "Beautiful, Charlie, beautiful, I've never seen more typical
marks. But there's just one thing." He put an arm round the old man's
shoulder. "What a great pity you let the candle grease fall on the
skin."

The old man looked closer and thumped a fist into his palm. "Dang it,
you're right, maister! Ah've mucked t'job up. And ah took pains ower it
an" all - been on for clang near an hour." He walked away muttering. He
showed no embarrassment, only disgust at his own technological
shortcomings.

But this, I thought, as the stone walls fffipped past the car windows,
would be very different. Cranford was in the habit of getting his own
way, right or wrong, and if he didn't get it today there would be
trouble.

I drove through the farm gate and along a neat tarmac road across the
single field. Mr. Cranford was standing motionless in the middle of the
yard and I was struck, not for the first time, by the man's resemblance
to a big, hungry bird. The hunched, narrow shoulders, the
forward-thrust, sharp-beaked face, the dark overcoat hanging loosely on
the bony frame. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had spread his
wings and flapped his way on to the byre roof. Instead, he nodded
impatiently at me and began to hasten with short, tripping steps to a
field at the back of the house.

It was a large field and the dead cow lay almost in the centre. There
were no trees, no hedges, not even a small bush. My hopeful picture of
the body under a stricken tree melted immediately, leaving an anxious
void. We stopped beside the cow and Mr. Cranford was the first to speak.
"Bound to be lightning. Can't be owl else. Nasty storm, then this good
beast dropping down dead."

I looked at the grass around the big Shorthorn. It had been churned and
torn out, leaving patches of bare earth. "But it hasn't exactly dropped
down, has it? It died in convulsions - you can see where its feet have
kicked out the grass."

"All right then, it 'ad a convulsion, but it was lightning that caused
it." Mr. Cranford had fierce little eyes and they darted fiitting
glances at my shirt collar, macintosh belt, Wellingtons. He never could
quite bring himself to look anybody in the eye.

"I doubt it, Mr. Cranford. One of the signs of lightning stroke is that
the beast has fallen without a struggle. Some of them even have grass in
their mouths."

"Oh, I know all about that," Cranford snapped, his thin face flushing.
"I've been among livestock for half a century and this isn't the first
beast I've seen that's been struck. They're not all t'same, you know."

"Oh, I realise that, but, you see, this death could have been caused by
so many things."

"What sort o" things?"

"Well, Anthrax for a start, magnesium deficiency, heart trouble there's
quite a list. I really think we ought to do a post mortem to make sure."

"Now see here, are you saying I'm trying to do summat I shouldn't?"

"Not at all. I'm only saying we should make sure before I write a
certificate. We can go and see her opened at Mallock's and, believe me,
if there's no other obvious cause of death you'll get the benefit of the
doubt. The insurance people are pretty good about it."

Mr. Cranford's predatory features sank lower into his coat collar. He
dug his hands viciously into his pockets. "I've had vitneries at these
jobs afore. Proper, experienced vitneries, too." The little eyes flashed
in the direction of my left ear. "They've never messed about like this.
What's the use of going to all that trouble? Why do you have to be so
damn particular?"

Why indeed, I thought. Why make an enemy of this man? He wielded a lot
of power in the district. Prominent in the local Farmers" Union, a
member of every agricultural committee for miles around. He was a
wealthy, successful man and, if people didn't like him they respected
his knowledge and listened to him. He could do a young vet a lot of
harm. Why not write the certificate and go home? This is to certify that
I have examined that above mentioned animal and, in my opinion,
lightning stroke was the cause of death. It would be easy and Cranford
would be mollified. It would be the end of the whole thing. Why
antagonise this dangerous character for nothing? Maybe it really was
lightning, anyway.

I turned to face Mr. Cranford, trying in vain to look into the eyes that
always veered away at the last moment. "I'm sorry, but I feel we ought
to have a look inside this cow. I'll ring Mallock and ask him to pick
her up and we can see her in the morning. I'll meet you there at ten
o'clock. Will that be all right?"

"Reckon it'll have to be," Cranford spat out. "It's a piece o" nonsense,
but I suppose I've got to humour you. But just let me remind you - this
was a good cow, worth all of eighty pounds. I can't afford to lose that
amount of money. I want my rights."

"I'm sure you'll get them, Mr. Cranford. And before I have her moved I'd
better take a blood film to eliminate Anthrax."

The farmer had been under a mounting load of pressure. As a pillar of
the methodist chapel his range of language was restricted, so he vented
his pent up feelings by kicking out savagely at the carcass. His toe
made contact with the unyielding backbone and he hopped around on one
leg for a few seconds. Then he limped off towards the house.

I was alone as I nicked the dead ear with my knife and drew a film of
blood across a couple of glass slides. It hadn't been a happy session
and the one tomorrow didn't hold out much more promise. I enclosed the
blood films carefully in a cardboard box and set off for Skeldale House
to examine them under the microscope.

So it wasn't a particularly cheerful group which assembled at the
knacker yard the following morning. Even Jeff, though he preserved his
usual Buddha-like expression, was, in fact, deeply offended. The account
he had given me when I first arrived at the yard was fragmentary, but I
could piece the scene together. Jeff, leaping from his lorry at
Cranford's, sweeping the carcass with a piercing glance and making his
brilliant spot diagnosis. "Stagnation o't'lungs. I can allus tell by the
look in their eyes and the way their hair lies along "'back." Waiting
confidently for the wondering gasps, the congratulatory speeches which
always followed his tour de force.

Then Mr. Cranford, almost dancing with rage. "Shut your big, stupid
mouth, Mallock, the knows nowt about it. This cow was struck by
lightning and you'd better remember that."

And now, bending my head over the carcass, I couldn't find a clue
anyway. No sign of bruising when the skin was removed. The internal
organs clean and normal.

I straightened up and pushed my fingers through my hair. The boiler
bubbled softly, puffing out odoriferous wisps into the already highly
charged atmosphere. Two dogs licked busily at a pile of meat meal.

Then a chill of horror struck through me. The dogs had competition. A
little boy with golden curls was pushing a forefinger into the heap,
inserting it in his mouth and sucking with rapt enjoyment.

"Look at that!" I quavered.

The knacker man's face lit up with paternal pride. "Aye," he said
happily, "It isn't only the four legged 'uns wot likes my meal.
Wonderful stuff - full of nourishment!

His good humour completely restored, he struck a match and began to puff
appreciatively at a short pipe which was thickly encrusted with evidence
of his grisly trade.

I dragged my attention back to the job in hand. "Cut into the heart,
will you, Jeff," I said.

Jeff deftly sliced the big organ from top to bottom and I knew
immediately my search was over. The auricles and ventricles were almost
completely occluded by a cauliflower-like mass growing from the valves.
Verrucose endocarditis, common in pigs but seldom seen in cattle.

"There's what killed your cow, Mr. Cranford." I said.

Cranford aimed his nose at the heart. "Fiddlesticks! You're not telling
me them little things could kill a great beast like that."

"They're not so little. Big enough to stop the flow of blood. I'm sorry,
but there's no doubt about it - your cow died of heart failure."

"And how about lightning?"

"No sign of it, I'm afraid. You can see for yourself."

"And what about my eighty pounds?"

"I'm truly sorry about that, but it doesn't alter the facts."

"Facts! What facts? I've come along this morning and you've shown me
nowt to make me change my opinion."

"Well, there's nothing more I can say. It's a clear cut case." Mr.
Cranford stiffened in his perching stance. He held his hands against the
front of his coat and the fingers and thumbs rubbed together unceasingly
as though fondling the beloved bank notes which were slipping away from
him. His face, sunk deeper in his collar, appeared still sharper in
outline.

Then he turned to me and made a ghastly attempt to smile. And his eyes,
trained on my lapels, tried valiantly to inch their way upwards. There
was a Reeting instance when they met my gaze before flickering away in
alarm.

He drew me to one side and addressed himself to my larynx. There was a
wheedling note in the hoarse whisper.

"Now look here, Mr. Herriot, we're both men of the world. You know as
well as I do that the insurance company can afford this loss a lot
better nor me. So why can't you just say it is lightning?"

"Even though I think it isn't?"

"Well, what the hangmen" does it matter? You can say it is, can't you?

Nobody's going to know."

I scratched my head. "But what would bother me, Mr. Cranford, is that I
would know."

"You would know?" The farmer was mystified.

"That's right. And it's no good - I can't give you a certificate for
this cow and that's the end of it."

Dismay, disbelief, frustration chased across Mr. Cranford's features.
"Well, I'll tell you this. I'm not leaving the matter here. I'm going to
see your boss about you." He swung round and pointed at the cow.
"There's no sign of disease there. Trying to tell me it's due to little
things in the heart. You don't know your job - you don't even know what
them things are!"

Jeff Mallock removed his unspeakable pipe from his mouth. "But ah know.
It's what ah said. Stagnation o't'lungs is caused by milk from milk vein
getting back into the body. Finally it gets to t'heart and then it's
over wi't. Them's milk clots you're looking at."

Cranford rounded on him. "Shut up, you great gumph! You're as bad as
this feller here. It was lightning killed my good cow. Lightning!" He
was almost screaming. Then he controlled himself and spoke quietly to
me. "You'll hear more of this, Mr. Knowledge, and I'll just tell you one
thing. You'll never walk on to my farm again." He turned and hurried
away with his quick-stepping gait.

I said good morning to Jeff and climbed wearily into my car. Well,
everything had worked out just great. If only vetting just consisted of
treating sick animals. But it didn't. There were so many other things. I
started the engine and drove away.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

It didn't take Mr. Cranford long to make good his threat. He called at
the surgery shortly after lunch the following day and Siegfried and I,
enjoying a post prandial cigarette in the sitting-room, heard the jangle
of the door bell. We didn't get up, because most of the farmers walked
in after ringing.

The dogs, however, went into their usual routine. They had had a long
run on the high moor that morning and had just finished licking out
their dinner bowls. Tired and distended, they had collapsed in a snoring
heap around Siegfried's feet. There was nothing they wanted more than
ten minutes" peace but, dedicated as they were to their self appointed
role of fierce guardians of the house, they did not hesitate. They
leaped, baying, from the rug and hurled themselves into the passage.

People often wondered why Siegfried kept five dogs. Not only kept them
but took them everywhere with him. Driving on his rounds it was
difficult to see him at all among the shaggy heads and waving tails; and
anybody approaching the car would recoil in terror from the savage
barking and the bared fangs and glaring eyes framed in the windows.

"I cannot for the life of me understand," Siegfried would declare,
thumping his fist on his knee, 'why people keep dogs as pets. A dog
should have a useful function. Let it be used for farm work, for
shooting, for guiding; but why anybody should keep the things just
hanging around the place beats me."

It was a pronouncement he was continually making, often through a screen
of flapping ears and lolling tongues as he sat in his car. His listener
would look wonderingly from the huge greyhound to the tiny terrier, from
the spaniel to the whippet to the Scottie; but nobody ever asked
Siegfried why he kept his own dogs.

I judged that the pack fell upon Mr. Cranford about the bend of the
passage and many a lesser man would have fled; but I could hear him
fighting his way doggedly forward. When he came through the sitting-room
door he had removed his hat and was beating the dogs off with it. It
wasn't a wise move and the barking rose to a higher pitch. The man's
eyes stared and his lips moved continuously, but nothing came through.

Siegfried, courteous as ever, rose and indicated a chair. His lips, too,
were moving, no doubt in a few gracious words of welcome. Mr. Cranford
flapped his black coat, swooped across the carpet and perched. The dogs
sat in a ring round him and yelled up into his face. Usually they
collapsed after their exhausting performance but there was something in
the look or smell of Mr. Cranford that they didn't like.

Siegfried leaned back in his arm chair, put his fingers together and
assumed a judicial expression. Now and again he nodded understandingly
or narrowed his eyes as if taking an interesting point. Practically
nothing could be heard from Mr. Cranford but occasionally a word or
phrase penetrated.

' ...  have a serious complaint to make ..."

' ...  doesn't know his job  ..."

' ...  can't afford ... not a rich man  ..."

' ...  these clanged dogs ..."

' ...  won't have 'im again ..."

' ...  down dog, get by  ..."

' ...  nowt but robbery ..."

Siegfried, completely relaxed and apparently oblivious of the din,
listened attentively but as the minutes passed I could see the strain
beginning to tell on Mr. Cranford. His eyes began to start from their
sockets and the veins corded on his scrawny neck as he tried to get his
message across. Finally it was too much for him; he jumped up and a
leaping brown tide bore him to the door. He gave a last defiant cry,
lashed out again with his hat and was gone.

Pushing open the dispensary door a few weeks later, I found my boss
mixing an ointment. He was working with great care, turning and
returning the glutinous mass on a marble slab.

"What's this you're doing?" I asked.

Siegfried threw down his spatula and straightened his back. "Ointment
for a boar." He looked past me at Tristan who had just come in. "And I
don't know why the hell I'm doing it when some people are sitting around
on their backsides." He indicated the spatula. "Right, Tristan, you can
have a go. When you've finished your cigarette, that is."

His expression softened as Tristan hastily nipped out his Woodbine and
began to work away on the slab. "Pretty stiff concoction, that. Takes a
bit of mixing," Siegfried said with satisfaction, looking at his
brother's bent head. "The back of my neck was beginning to ache with
it."

He turned to me. "By the way, you'll be interested to hear it's for your
old friend Cranford. For that prize boar of his. It's got a nasty sore
across its back and he's worried to death about it. Wins him a lot of
money at the shows and a blemish there would be disastrous."

"Cranford's still with us, then."

"Yes, it's a funny thing, but we can't get rid of him. I don't like
losing clients but I'd gladly make an exception of this chap. He won't
have you near the place after that lightning job and he makes it very
clear he doesn't think much of me either. Tells me I never do his beasts
any good - says it would have been a lot better if he'd never called me.
And moans like hell when he gets his bill. He's more bother than he's
worth and on top of everything he gives me the creeps. But he won't
leave - he damn well won't leave."

"He knows which side his bread's buttered," I said. "He gets first rate
service and the moaning is part of the system to keep the bills down."

"Maybe you're right, but I wish there was a simple way to get rid of
him." He tapped Tristan on the shoulder. "All right, don't strain
yourself. That'll do. Put it into this ointment box and label it: "Apply
liberally to the boar's back three times daily, working it well in with
the fingers." And post it to Mr. Cranford. And while you're on, will you
post this faeces sample to the laboratory at Leeds to test for Johne's
disease." He held out a treacle tin brimming with foul-smelling, liquid
diarrhoea.

It was a common thing to collect such samples and send them away for
Johne's tests, worm counts, etc., and there was always one thing all the
samples had in common - they were very large. All that was needed for
the tests was a couple of teaspoonfuls but the farmers were lavish in
their quantities. They seemed pleasantly surprised that all the vet
wanted was a bit of muck from the dung channel; they threw aside their
natural caution and shovelled the stuff up cheerfully into the biggest
container they could find. They brushed aside all protests; 'take
plenty, we've lots of it" was their attitude.

Tristan took hold of the tin gingerly and began to look along the
shelves. "We don't seem to have any of those little glass sample jars."

"That's right, we're out of them," said Siegfried. "I meant to order
some more. But never mind - shove the lid on that tin and press it down
tight, then parcel it up well in brown paper. It'll travel to the lab
all right."

It took only three days for Mr. Cranford's name to come up again.
Siegfried was opening the morning mail, throwing the circulars to one
side and making a pile of the bills and receipts when he became suddenly
very still. He had frozen over a letter on blue notepaper and he sat
like a statue till he read it through. At length he raised his head; his
face was expressionless. "James, this is just about the most vitriolic
letter I have ever read. It's from Cranford. He's finished with us for
good and all and is considering taking legal action against us."

"What have we done this time?" I asked.

"He accuses us of grossly insulting him and endangering the health of
his boar. He says we sent him a treacle tin full of cow shit with
instructions to rub it on the boar's back three times daily."

Tristan, who had been sitting with his eyes half closed, became fully
awake. He rose unhurriedly and began to make his way towards the door.
His hand was on the knob when his brother's voice thundered out.

"Tristan! Come back here! Sit down - I think we have something to talk
about."

Tristan looked up resolutely, waiting for the storm to break, but
Siegfried was unexpectedly calm. His voice was gentle.

"So you've done it again. When will I ever learn that I can't trust you
to carry out the simplest task. It wasn't much to ask, was it? Two
little parcels to post - hardly a tough assignment. But you managed to
botch it. You got the labels wrong, didn't you?"

Tristan wriggled in his chair. "I'm sorry, I can't think how  ..."

Siegfried held up his hand. "Oh, don't worry. Your usual luck has come
to your aid. With anybody else this bloomer would be catastrophic but
with Cranford - it's like divine providence." He paused for a moment and
a dreamy expression crept into his eyes. "The label said to work it well
in with the fingers, I seem to recall. And Mr. Cranford says he opened
the package at the breakfast table .. Yes, Tristan, I think you have
found the way. This, I do believe, has done It."

I said, "But how about the legal action?"

"Oh, I think we can forget about that. Mr. Cranford has a great sense of
his own dignity. Just think how it would sound in court." He crumpled
the letter and dropped it into the waste paper basket. "Well, let's get
on with some work."

He led the way out and stopped abruptly in the passage. He turned to
face us. "There's another thing, of course. I wonder how the lab is
making out, testing that ointment for Johne's disease?"

Chapter Thirty.

I was really worried about Tricki this time. I had pulled up my car when
I saw him in the street with his mistress and I was shocked at his
appearance. He had become hugely fat, like a bloated sausage with a leg
at each corner. His eyes, bloodshot and rheumy, stared straight ahead
and his tongue lolled from his jaws.

Mrs. Pumphrey hastened to explain. "He was so listless, Mr. Herriot. He
seemed to have no energy. I thought he must be suffering from
malnutrition, so I have been giving him some little extras between meals
to build him up. Some calf's foot jelly and malt and cod liver oil and a
bowl of Horlick's at night to make him sleep - nothing much really."

"And did you cut down on the sweet things as I told you?"

"Oh, I did for a bit, but he seemed to be so weak. I had to relent. He
does love cream cakes and chocolates so. I can't bear to refuse him."

I looked down again at the little dog. That was the trouble. Tricki's
only fault was greed. He had never been known to refuse food; he would
tackle a meal at any hour of the day or night. And I wondered about all
the things Mrs. Pumphrey hadn't mentioned; the pate on thin biscuits,
the fudge, the rich trifles - Tricki loved them all.

"Are you giving him plenty of exercise?"

"Well, he has his little walks with me as you can see, but Hodgkin has
been down with lumbago, so there has been no ring-throwing lately."

I tried to sound severe. "Now I really mean this. If you don't cut his
food right down and give him more exercise he is going to be really ill.
You must harden your heart and keep him on a very strict diet."

Mrs. Pumphrey wrung her hands. "Oh I will, Mr. Herriot. I'm sure you are
right, but it is so difficult, so very difficult." She set off, head
down, along the road, as if determined to put the new regime into
practice immediately.

I watched their progress with growing concern. Tricki was tottering
along in his little tweed coat; he had a whole wardrobe of these coats
warm tweed or tartan ones for the cold weather and macintoshes for the
wet days. He struggled on, drooping in his harness. I thought it
wouldn't be long before I heard from Mrs. Pumphrey.

The expected call came within a few days. Mrs. Pumphrey was distraught.
Tricki would eat nothing. Refused even his favourite dishes; and
besides, he had bouts of vomiting. He spent all his time lying on a rug,
panting. Didn't want to go walks, didn't want to do anything.

I had made my plans in advance. The only way was to get Tricki out of
the house for a period. I suggested that he be hospitalised for about a
fortnight to be kept under observation.

The poor lady almost swooned. She had never been separated from her
darling before; she was sure he would pine and die if he did not see her
every day.

But I took a firm line. Tricki was very ill and this was the only way to
save him; in fact, I thought it best to take him without delay and,
followed by Mrs. Pumphrey's wailings, I marched out to the car carrying
the little dog wrapped in a blanket.

The entire staff was roused and maids rushed in and out bringing his day
bed, his night bed, favourite cushions, toys and rubber rings, breakfast
bowl, lunch bowl, supper bowl. Realising that my car would never hold
all the stuff, I started to drive away. As I moved off, Mrs. Pumphrey,
with a despairing cry, threw an armful of the little coats through the
window. I looked in the mirror before I turned the corner of the drive;
everybody was in tears.

Out on the road, I glanced down at the pathetic little animal gasping on
the seat by my side. I patted the head and Tricki made a brave effort to
wag his tail. "Poor old lad," I said, "You haven't a kick in you but I
think I know a cure for you."

At the surgery, the household dogs surged round me. Tricki looked down
at the noisy pack with dull eyes and, when put down, lay motionless on
the carpet. The other dogs, after sniffing round him for a few seconds,
decided he was an uninteresting object and ignored him.

I made up a bed for him in a warm loose box next to the one where the
other dogs slept. For two days I kept an eye on him, giving him no food
but plenty of water. At the end of the second day he started to show
some interest in his surroundings and on the third he began to whimper
when he heard the dogs in the yard.

When I opened the door, Tricki trotted out and was immediately engulfed
by Joe the greyhound and his friends. After rolling him over and
thoroughly inspecting him, the dogs moved off down the garden. Tricki
followed them, rolling slightly with his surplus fat but obviously
intrigued.

Later that day, I was present at feeding time. I watched while Tristan
slopped the food into the bowls. There was the usual headlong rush
followed by the sounds of high-speed eating; every dog knew that if he
fell behind the others he was liable to have some competition for the
last part of his meal.

When they had finished. Tricki took a walk round the shining bowls,
licking casually inside one or two of them. Next day, an extra bowl was
put out for him and I was pleased to see him jostling his way towards
it.

From then on, his progress was rapid. He had no medicinal treatment of
any kind but all day he ran about with the dogs, joining in their
friendly scrimmages. He discovered the joys of being bowled over,
trampled on and squashed every few minutes. He became an accepted member
of the gang, an unlikely, silky little object among the shaggy crew,
fighting like a tiger for his share at meal times and hunting rats in
the old hen house at night. He had never had such a time in his life.

All the while, Mrs. Pumphrey hovered anxiously in the background,
ringing a dozen times a day for the latest bulletins. I dodged the
questions about whether his cushions were being turned regularly or his
correct coat worn according to the weather; but I was able to tell her
that the little fellow was out of danger and convalescing rapidly.

The word 'convalescing" seemed to do something to Mrs. Pumphrey. She
started to bring round fresh eggs, two dozen at a time, to build up
Tricki's strength. For a happy period there were two eggs each for
breakfast, but when the bottles of sherry began to arrive, the real
possibilities of the situation began to dawn on the household.

It was the same delicious vintage that I knew so well and it was to
enrich Tricki's blood. Lunch became a ceremonial occasion with two
glasses before and several during the meal. Siegfried and Tristan took
turns at proposing Tricki's health and the standard of speech-making
improved daily. As the sponsor, I was always called upon to reply.

We could hardly believe it when the brandy came. Two bottles of Cordon
Bleu, intended to put a final edge on Tricki's constitution. Siegfried
dug out some balloon glasses belonging to his mother. I had never seen
them before, but for a few nights they saw constant service as the fine
spirit was rolled around, inhaled and reverently drunk.

They were days of deep content, starting well with the extra egg in the
morning, bolstered up and sustained by the midday sherry and finishing
luxuriously round the fire with the brandy.

It was a temptation to keep Tricki on as a permanent guest, but I knew
Mrs. Pumphrey was suffering and after a fortnight, felt compelled to
phone and tell her that the little dog had recovered and was awaiting
collection.

Within minutes, about thirty feet of gleaming black metal drew up
outside the surgery. The chauffeur opened the door and I could just make
out the figure of Mrs. Pumphrey almost lost in the interior. Her hands
were tightly clasped in front of her; her lips trembled. "Oh, Mr.
Herriot, do tell me the truth. Is he really better?"

"Yes, he's fine. There's no need for you to get out of the car - I'll go
and fetch him."

I walked through the house into the garden. A mass of dogs was hurtling
round and round the lawn and in their midst, ears flapping, tail waving,
was the little golden figure of Tricki. In two weeks he had been
transformed into a lithe, hard-muscled animal; he was keeping up well
with the pack, stretching out in great bounds, his chest almost brushing
the ground.

I carried him back along the passage to the front of the house. The
chauffeur was still holding the car door open and when Tricki saw his
mistress he took off from my arms in a tremendous leap and sailed into
Mrs. Pumphrey's lap. She gave a startled "Ooh!" and then had to defend
herself as he swarmed over her, licking her face and barking.

During the excitement, I helped the chauffeur to bring out the beds,
toys, cushions, coats and bowls, none of which had been used. As the car
moved away, Mrs. Pumphrey leaned out of the window. Tears shone in her
eyes. Her lips trembled.

"Oh, Mr. Herriot," she cried, "How can I ever thank you? This is a
triumph of surgery!"

Chapter Thirty-one.

_ _ _

I came suddenly and violently awake, my heart thudding and pounding in
time with the insistent summons of the telephone. These bedside phones
were undoubtedly an improvement on the old system when you had to gallop
downstairs and stand shivering with your bare feet on the tiles of the
passage; but this explosion a few inches from your ear in the small
hours when the body was weak and the resistance low was shattering. I
felt sure it couldn't be good for me.

The voice at the other end was offensively cheerful. "I have a mare on
foaling. She doesn't seem to be getting on wi" t'job. Reckon foal must
be laid wrong can you come and give me a hand?"

My stomach contracted to a tight ball. This was just a little bit too
much; once out of bed in the middle of the night was bad enough, but
twice was unfair, in fact it was sheer cruelty. I had had a hard day and
had been glad to crawl between the sheets at midnight. I had been hauled
out at one o'clock to a damned awkward calving and hadn't got back till
nearly three. What was the time now? Three fifteen. Good God, I had only
had a few minutes sleep. And a foaling! Twice as difficult as a calving
as a rule.. What a life! What a bloody awful life!

I muttered into the receiver, "Right, Mr. Dixon, I'll come straight
away" and shuffled across the room, yawning and stretching, feeling the
ache in my shoulders and arms. I looked down at the pile of clothing in
the chair; I had taken them off, put them on again, taken them off
already tonight and something in me rebelled at the thought of putting
them on yet again. With a weary grunt I took my macintosh from the back
of the door and donned it over my pyjamas, went downstairs to where my
Wellingtons stood outside the dispensary door and stuck my feet into
them. It was a warm night, what was the point of getting dressed up; I'd
only have to strip off again at the farm.

I opened the back door and trailed slowly down the long garden, my tired
mind only faintly aware of the fragrance that came from the darkness. I
reached the yard at the bottom, opened the double doors into the lane
and got the car out of the garage. In the silent town the buildings
glowed whitely as the headlights swept across the shuttered shop fronts,
the tight-drawn curtains. Everybody was asleep. Everybody except me,
James Herriot, creeping sore and exhausted towards another spell of hard
labour. Why the hell had I ever decided to become a country vet? I must
have been crazy to pick a job where you worked seven days a week and
through the night as well. Sometimes I felt as though the practice was a
malignant, living entity; testing me, trying me out; putting the
pressure on more and more to see just when at what point I would drop
down dead.

It was a completely unconscious reaction which hoisted me from my bath
of self pity and left me dripping on the brink, regarding the immediate
future with a return of some of my natural optimism. For one thing,
Dixon's place was down at the foot of the Dale just off the main road
and they had that unusual luxury, electric light in the buildings. And I
couldn't be all that tired; not at the age of twenty-four with all my
faculties unimpaired. I'd take a bit of killing yet.

I smiled to myself and relapsed into the state of half suspended
animation which was normal to me at these times; a sleepy blanketing of
all the senses except those required for the job in hand. Many times
over the past months I had got out of bed, driven far into the country,
done my job efficiently and returned to bed without ever having been
fully awake.

I was right about Dixon's. The graceful Clydesdale mare was in a
well-lit loose box and I laid out my ropes and instruments with a
feeling of deep thankfulness. As I tipped antiseptic into the steaming
bucket I watched the mare straining and paddling her limbs. The effort
produced nothing; there were no feet protruding from the vulva. There
was almost certainly a malpresentation.

Still thinking hard, I removed my macintosh and was jerked out of my
reverie by a shout of laughter from the farmer. "God 'elp us, what's
this, the Fol-derols?"

I looked down at my pyjamas which were pale blue with an arresting broad
red stripe. "This, Mr. Dixon," I replied with dignity, 'is my night
attire. I didn't bother to dress."

"Oh, I see now." The farmer's eyes glinted impishly. "I'm sorry, but I
thought I'd got the wrong chap for a second. I saw a feller just like
you at Blackpool last year - same suit exactly, but he 'ad a stripy top
hat too and a stick. Did a champion little dance."

"Can't oblige you, I'm afraid," I said with a wan smile. "I'm just not
in the mood right now."

I stripped off, noting with interest the deep red grooves caused by the
calf's teeth a couple of hours ago. Those teeth had been like razors,
peeling off neat little rolls of skin every time I pushed my arm past
them.

The mare trembled as I felt my way inside her. Nothing, nothing, then
just a tail and the pelvic bones and the body and hind legs disappearing
away beyond my reach. Breech presentation; easy in the cow for a man who
knew his job but tricky in the mare because of the tremendous length of
the foal's legs.

It took me a sweating, panting half hour with ropes and a blunt hook on
the end of a flexible cane to bring the first leg round. The second leg
came more easily and the mare seemed to know there was no obstruction
now. She gave a great heave and the foal shot out onto the straw with
myself, arms around its body, sprawling on top of it. To my delight I
felt the small form jerking convulsively; I had felt no movement while I
was working and had decided that it was dead, but the foal was very much
alive, shaking its head and snorting out the placental fluid it had
inhaled during its delayed entry.

When I had finished towelling myself I turned to see the farmer with an
abnormally straight face, holding out my colourful jacket like a valet.
"Allow me, sir," he said gravely.

"O.K., O.K.," I laughed, "I'll get properly dressed next time." As I was
putting my things in the car boot the farmer carelessly threw a parcel
on to the back seat.

"Bit o" butter for you," he muttered. When I started the engine he bent
level with the window. "I think a bit about that mare and I've been
badly wanting a foal out of her. Thank ye lad, thank ye very much."

He waved as I moved away and I heard his parting cry. "You did all right
for a Kentucky Minstrel!"

I leaned back in my seat and peered through heavy lids at the empty road
unwinding in the pale morning light. The sun had come up - a dark ball
hanging low over the misted fields. I felt utterly content, warm with
the memory of the foal trying to struggle on to its knees, its absurdly
long legs still out of control. Grand that the little beggar had been
alive after all - there was something desolate about delivering a
lifeless creature.

The Dixon farm was in the low country where the Dale widened out and
gave on to the great plain of York. I had to cross a loop of the busy
road which connected the West Riding with the industrial North East. A
thin tendril of smoke rose from the chimney of the all night transport
cafe which stood there and as I slowed down to take the corner a faint
but piercing smell of cooking found its way into the car; the merest
breath but rich in the imagery of fried sausages and beans and tomatoes
and chips.

God, I was starving. I looked at my watch; five fifteen, I wouldn't be
eating for a long time yet. I turned in among the lorries on the broad
strip of tarmac.

Hastening towards the still lighted building I decided that I wouldn't
be greedy. Nothing spectacular, just a nice sandwich. I had been here a
few times before and the sandwiches were very good; and I deserved some
nourishment after my hard night.

I stepped into the warm interior where groups. of lorry drivers sat
behind mounded plates, but as I crossed the Roor the busy clatter died
and was replaced by a tense silence. A fat man in a leather jacket sat
transfixed, a loaded fork half way to his mouth, while his neighbour,
gripping a huge mug of tea in an oily hand stared with bulging eyes at
my ensemble.

It occurred to me then that bright red striped pyjamas and Wellingtons
might seem a little unusual in those surroundings and I hastily buttoned
my macintosh which had been billowing behind me. Even closed, it was on
the short side and at least a foot of pyjama leg showed above my boots.

Resolutely I strode over to the counter. An expressionless blonde
bulging out of a dirty white overall on the breast pocket of which was
inscribed "Dora" regarded me blankly.

"A ham sandwich and a cup of Bovril, please," I said huskily. As the
blonde put a teaspoonful of Bovril into a cup and filled it with a
hissing jet of hot water I was uncomfortably aware of the silence behind
me and of the battery of eyes focused on my legs. On my right I could
just see the leather jacketed man. He filled his mouth and chewed
reflectively for a few moments.

"Takes all kinds, don't it Ernest," he said in a judicial tone.

"Does indeed, Kenneth, does indeed," replied his companion.

"Would you say, Ernest, that this is what the Yorkshire country
gentleman is wearing this spring?"

"Could be, Kenneth, could be."

Listening to the titters from the rear, I concluded that these two were
the accepted cafe wags. Best to eat up quickly and get out. Dora pushed
the thickly meated sandwich across the counter and spoke with all the
animation of a sleep walker. "That'll be a shillin"."

I slipped my hand inside my coat and encountered the pocketless
flannelette beneath. God almighty, my money was in my trousers back in
Darrowby! A wave of sickly horror flooded me as I began a frantic,
meaningless search through my macintosh.

I looked wildly at the blonde and saw her slip the sandwich under the
counter. "Look, I've come out without any money. I've been in here
before - do you know who I am?"

Dora gave a single bored shake of her head.

"Well, never mind," I babbled, "I'll pop in with the money next time I'm
passing."

Dora's expression did not alter but she raised one eyebrow fractionally;
she made no effort to retrieve the sandwich from its hiding place.

Escape was the only thing in my mind now. Desperately I sipped at the
scalding fluid.

Kenneth pushed back his plate and began to pick his teeth with a match.
"Ernest," he said as though coming to a weighty conclusion. "It's my
opinion that this 'ere gentleman is eccentric."

"Eccentric?" Ernest sniggered into his tea. "Bloody daft, more like."

"Ah, but not so daft, Ernest. Not daft enough to pay for 'is grub."

"You 'ave a point there, Kenneth, a definite point."

"You bet I have. He's enjoying a nice cup of Bovril on the house and if
'e hadn't mistimed his fumble he'd be at the sandwich too. Dora moved a
bit sharpish for 'im there - another five seconds and he'd have had 'is
choppers in the ham."

"True, true," mustered Ernest, seemingly content with his role of
straight man.

Kenneth put away his match, sucked his teeth noisily and leaned back.
"There's another possibility we 'aven't considered. He could be on the
run."

"Escaped convict, you mean, Kenneth?"

"I do, Ernest, I do indeed."

"But them fellers allus have arrows on their uniforms."

"Ah, some of 'em do. But I 'eard somewhere that some of the prisons is
going in for stripes now."

I had had enough. Tipping the last searing drops of Bovril down my
throat I made headlong for the door. As I stepped out into the early
sunshine Kenneth's final pronouncement reached me.

"Prob'ly got away from a working party. Look at them Wellingtons ..."

Postscript I remember it was an afternoon when the sun blazed. I filled
my car with Siegfried's dogs and drove to where an old mine track
climbed green and inviting on the side of a steep hill. We walked a mile
or two on the smooth turf then turned off and headed straight up the
hillside through the hot bracken scent and the hum of flies to the very
top where the wind was sweet and welcome and you could see nearly all of
the Dale laid out there beneath, nearly all of it from the head where
the great bare hills stood on the edge of the wild right down to the
rich plain, chequered and hazy, at the foot.

I was sitting in the heather with the dogs in an expectant ring when the
Dales smell came up on the breeze, the fragrance which the wind stole
from the miles of warm grass and the shy flowers of the moorland. It had
met me when I first stepped off the bus at Darrowby a year ago. And I
realised that I had worked my way through the full cycle: I had
travelled that magical first time round.

And it had all happened down there. Many of the farms in the practice
were visible from where I sat; splashes of grey stone with their
livestock, motionless dots from this distance, scattered in the fields
around them. They were unrecognisable as the battle grounds of the past
year, the scenes of my first struggles where everything had happened
from heady success to abject failure. There were people down there who
thought I was a pretty fair vet, some who regarded me as an amiable
idiot, a few who were convinced I was a genius and one or two who would
set their dogs on me if I put a foot inside their gates.

All this in a year. What would be the position in thirty years? Well, as
it has turned out, very much the same.

And what of the animals around whom the whole little drama revolves?

It is a pity they cannot talk because it would be charming to have their
views. There are a few things I would like to know. What do they think
of their widely varying lives? What do they think of us? And do they
manage to get a laugh out of it all?

