and the corrugated uterine cervix. But the farmer had wasted no time in
calling for assistance; the mass was clean and undamaged.
He watched me attentively as I swabbed the prolapse with antiseptic and
pushed it back out of sight, then he helped me build a platform with
soil and planks for the cow's hind feet. When we had finished she was
standing on a slope with her tail higher than her head.
"And you say that if I give her linseed oil for a few days that thing
won't come out again."
"That's the idea," I said. "Be sure to keep her built up like this."
"I will, young man, and thank you very much. I'm sure you've done a good
job for me and I'll look forward to seeing you again."
Back in the car, I groaned to myself. Good job! How the hell could that
thing stay in without stitches? But I had to do as I was told and Grier,
even if he was unpleasant, wasn't a complete fool. Maybe he was right. I
put it out of my mind and got on with the other visits.
It was less than a week lateral the breakfast table and I was prodding
at the inevitable porridge when Grier, who had ventured downstairs,
barked suddenly at me.
"I've got a card here free Adamson. He says he's not satisfied with your
work. We'd better get out there this morning and see what's wrong. I
dinna like these complaints." His normal expression of being perpetually
offended deepened and the big pale eyes swam and brimmed till I was sure
he was going to weep into his porridge.
At the farm, Mr. Adamson led us into the byre. "Well, what do you think
of that, young man."
I looked at the prolapse and my stomach lurched. The innocuous-looking
pink projection had been transformed into a great bloated purple mass.
It was caked with filth and an ugly wound ran down one side of it.
"It didn't stay in very long, did it?" the farmer said quietly.
I was too ashamed to speak. This was a dreadful thing to do to a good
cow. I felt my face reddening, but luckily I had my employer with me; he
would be able to explain everything. I turned towards Grier who
snuffled, mumbled blinked his eyes rapidly but didn't say anything.
The farmer went on. "And you see she's damaged it. Must have caught it
on something. I'll tell you I don't like the look of it."
It was against this decent man's nature to be unpleasant, but he was
upset all right. "Maybe it would be better if you would take the job on
this time, Mr. Grier, he said.
Grier, who still had not uttered an intelligible word, now sprang into
action. He clipped the hair over the base of the spine, inserted an
epidural anaesthetic, washed and disinfected the mass and, with an
effort, pushed it back to its place. Then he fastened it in with several
strong retention sutures with little one-inch lengths of rubber tubing
to stop them cutting into the flesh. The finished job looked neat and
workmanlike.
The farmer took me gently by the shoulder. "Now that's something like.
You can see it's not going to come out again now, can't you? Why didn't
you do something like that when you came before."
I turned again to Grier, but this time he was seized by a violent fit of
coughing. I continued to stare at him but when he still said nothing I
turned and walked out of the byre.
"No hard feelings, though, young man," Mr. Adamson called after me. "I
reckon we've all got to learn and there's no substitute for experience.
That's so, Mr. Grier, isn't it."
"Aye, och aye, that's right enough. Aye, aye, rightly so, rightly so,
there's no doubt aboot that," Grier mumbled. We got into the car.
I settled down and waited for some explanation from him. I was
interested to know just what he would say. But the blue-veined nose
pointed straight ahead and the bulging eyes fixed themselves blankly on
the road ahead of us.
We drove back to the surgery in silence.
Chapter Four.
It wasn't long before Grier had to return to bed; he began to groan a
lot and hold his injured ribs and soon he was reinstalled upstairs with
the pillows at his back and the little pink jacket buttoned to the neck.
Whisky was the only thing that gave him relief from his pain and the
level of his bedside bottle went down with remarkable speed.
Life resumed its dreary pattern. Mrs. Grier was usually around when I
had to report to her husband; beyond the bedroom door there would be a
lot of whispering which stopped as soon as I entered. I would receive my
instructions while Mrs. Grier fussed round the bed tucking things in,
patting her husband's brow with a folded handkerchief and all the time
darting little glances of dislike at me. Immediately I got outside the
door the whispering started again.
It was quite late one evening - about ten o'clock -when the call from
Mrs. Mallard came in. Her dog had a bone in its throat and would Mr.
Grier come at once. I was starting to say that he was ill and I was
doing his work but it was too late; there was a click as the receiver
went down at the other end.
Grier reacted to the news by going into a sort of trance; his chin sank
on his chest and he sat immobile for nearly a minute while he gave the
matter careful thought. Then he straightened up suddenly and stabbed a
finger at me.
"It'll not be a bone in its throat. It'll only be a touch of pharyngitis
making it cough."
I was surprised at his confidence. "Don't you think I'd better take some
long forceps just in case."
"Na, na, I've told ye now. There'll be no bone, so go down and put up
some of the syrup of squills and ipecacuanha mixture. That's all it'll
want. And another thing - if ye can't find anything wrong don't say so.
Tell the lady it's pharyngitis and how to treat it - you have to justify
your visit, ye ken."
I felt a little bewildered as I filled a four ounce bottle in the
dispensary, but I took a few pairs of forceps with me too; I had lost a
bit of faith in Grier's long-range diagnosis.
I was surprised when Mrs. Mallard opened the door of the smart
semi-detached house. For some reason I had been expecting an old lady,
and here was a striking-looking blonde woman of about forty with her
hair piled high in glamorous layers as was the fashion at that time. And
I hadn't expected the long ballroom dress in shimmering green, the
enormous swaying earrings, the heavily made up face.
Mrs. Mallard seemed surprised too. She stared blankly at me till I
explained the position. "I've come to see your dog - I'm Mr. Grier's
locum. He's ill at the moment, I'm afraid."
It took a fair time for the information to get through because she still
stood on the doorstep as if she didn't know what I was talking about;
then she came to life and opened the door wide. "Oh yes, of course, I'm
sorry, do come in." I walked past her through an almost palpable wall of
perfume and into a room on the left of the hall. The perfume was even
stronger in here but it was in keeping with the single, pink-tinted lamp
which shed a dim but rosy light on the wide divan drawn close to the
fli
ckering fire. Somewhere in the shadows a radiogram was softly pouring
out "Body and Soul'.
There was no sign of my patient and Mrs. Mallard looked at me
irresolutely, fingering one of her earrings.
"Do you want me to see him in here?" I asked.
"Oh yes, certainly." She became brisk and opened a door at the end of
the room. Immediately a little West Highland Terrier bounded across the
carpet and hurled himself at me with a woof of delight. He tried his
best to lick my face by a series of mighty springs and this might have
gone on for quite a long time had I not caught him in mid air.
Mrs. Mallard smiled nervously. "He seems a lot better now," she said.
I flopped down on the divan still with the little dog in my arms and
prised open his jaws. Even in that dim light it was obvious that there
was nothing in his throat. I gently slid my forefinger over the back of
his tongue and the terrier made no protest as I explored his gullet.
Then I dropped him down on the carpet and took his temperature - normal.
"Well, Mrs. Mallard," I said, 'there is certainly no bone in his throat
and he has no fever." I was about to add that the dog seemed perfectly
fit to me when I remembered Grier's parting admonition - I had to
justify my visit.
I cleared my throat. "It's just possible, though, that he has a little
pharyngitis which has been making him cough or retch." I opened the
terrier's mouth again. "As you see, the back of his throat is rather
inflamed. He may have got a mild infection in there or perhaps swallowed
some irritant. I have some medicine in the car which will soon put him
right." Realizing I was beginning to gabble, I brought my speech to a
close.
Mrs. Mallard hung on every word, peering anxiously into the little dog's
mouth and nodding her head rapidly. "Oh yes, I do see," she said. "Thank
you so much. What a good thing I sent for you."
On the following evening I was half way through a busy surgery when a
fat man in a particularly vivid tweed jacket bustled in and deposited a
sad-eyed Basset Hound on the table.
"Shaking his head about a bit," he boomed. "Think he must have a touch
of canker."
I got an auroscope from the instrument cupboard and had begun to examine
the ear when the fat man started again.
"I see you wereout our way last night. I live next door to Mrs.
Mallard."
"Oh yes," I said peering down the lighted metal tube. "That's right, I
was."
The man drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. "Aye, that dog
must have a lot of ailments. The vet's car seems always to be outside
the house."
"Really, I shouldn't have thought so. Seemed a healthy little thing to
me." I finished examining one ear and started on the other.
"Well, it's just as I say," said the man. "The poor creature's always in
trouble, and it's funny how often it happens at night."
I looked up quickly. There was something odd in the way he said that. He
looked at me for a moment with a kind wide-eyed innocence, then his
whole face creased into a knowing leer.
I stared at him. "You can't mean ... "Not with that ugly old devil, you
mean, eh? Takes a bit of reckoning up, doesn't it?" The eyes in the big
red face twinkled with amusement.
I dropped the auroscope on the table with a clatter and my arms fell by
my sides.
"Don't look like that, lad!" shouted the fat man, giving me a playful
punch in the chest. "It's a rum old world, you know."
But it wasn't just the thought of Grier that was filling me with horror;
it was the picture of myself in that harem atmosphere pontificating
about pharyngitis against a background of "Body and Soul' to a woman who
knew I was talking rubbish.
In another two days Angus Grier was out of bed and apparently recovered;
also, a replacement assistant had been engaged and was due to take up
his post immediately. I was free to go.
Having said I would leave first thing in the morning I was out of the
house by 6.30 a.m. in order to make Darrowby by breakfast. I wasn't
going to face any more of that porridge.
As I drove west across the Plain of York I began to catch glimpses over
the hedge tops and between the trees of the long spine of the Pennines
lifting into the morning sky; they were pale violet at this distance and
still hazy in the early sunshine but they beckoned to me. And later,
when the little car pulled harder against the rising ground and the
trees became fewer and the hedges gave way to the clean limestone walls
I had the feeling I always had of the world opening out, of shackles
falling away. And there, at last, was Darrowby sleeping under the
familiar bulk of Herne Fell and beyond, the great green folds of the
Dales.
Nothing stirred as I rattled across the cobbled market place then down
the quiet street to Skeldale House with the ivy hanging in untidy
profusion from its old bricks and "Siegfried Farnon MRCVS'on the
lopsided brass plate.
I think I would have galloped along the passage beyond the glass door
but I had to fight my way through the family dogs, all five of them, who
surged around me, leaping and barking in delight.
I almost collided with the formidable bulk of Mrs. Hall who was carrying
the coffee-pot out of the dining-room. "You're back then," she said and
I could see she was really pleased because she almost smiled. "Well, go
in and get sat down. I've got a bit of home-cured in the pan for you."
My hand was on the door when I heard the brothers' voices inside.
Tristan was mumbling something and Siegfried was in full cry. "Where the
hell were you last night, anyway? I heard you banging about at three
o'clock in the morning and your room stinks like a brewery. God, I wish
you could see yourself - eyes like piss-holes in the snow."
Smiling to myself, I pushed open the door, I went over to Tristan who
stared up in surprise as I seized his hand and began to pump it; he
looked as boyishly innocent as ever except for the eyes which, though a
little sunken, still held their old gleam. Then I approached Siegfried
at the head of the table. Obviously startled at my formal entry, he had
choked in mid-chew; he reddened, tears coursed down his thin cheeks and
the small sandy mustache quivered. Nevertheless, he rose from his
chair, inclined his head and extended his hand with the grace of a
marquis.
"Welcome, James," he spluttered, spraying me lightly with toast crumbs.
"Welcome home."
Chapter Five.
I had been away for only two weeks but it was enough to bring it home to
me afresh that working in the high country had something for me that was
missing elsewhere. My first visit took me up on one of the narrow,
unfenced roads which join Sildale and Cosdale and when I had ground my
way to the top in bottom gear I did what I so often did - pulled the car
on to the roadside turf and got out.
That quotation about not having time to stand and stare has never
applied to me. I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably
/>
too much - in just standing and staring and I was at it again this
morning. From up here you could see away over the Plain of York to the
sprawl of the Hambleton Hills forty miles to the east, while behind me,
the ragged miles of moorland rolled away, dipping and rising over $he
flat fell-top. In my year at Darrowby I must have stood here scores of
times and the view across the plain always looked different; sometimes
in the winter the low country was a dark trough between the snow-covered
Pennines and the distant white gleam of the Hambletons, and in April the
rain squalls drifted in slow, heavy veils across the great green and
brown dappled expanse. There was a day, too, when I stood in brilliant
sunshine looking down over miles of thick fog like a rippling layer of
cotton wool with dark tufts of trees and hilltops pushing through here
and there.
But today the endless patchwork of fields slumbered in the sun, and the
air, even on the hill, was heavy with the scents of summer. There must
be people working among the farms down there, I knew, but I couldn't see
a living soul; and the peace which I always found in the silence and the
emptiness of the moors filled me utterly.
At these times I often seemed to stand outside myself, calmly assessing
my progress It was easy to flick back over the years - right back to the
time I had decided to become a veterinary surgeon. I could remember the
very moment. I was thirteen and I was reading an article about careers
for boys in the Meccano Magazine and as I read, I felt a surging
conviction that this was for me. And yet what was it based upon? Only
that I liked dogs and cats and didn't care much for the idea of an
office life; it seemed a frail basis on which to build a career I knew
nothing about agriculture or about farm animals and though, during the
years in college, I learned about these things I could see only one
future for myself; I was going to be a small animal surgeon. This lasted
right up to the time I qualified - a kind of vision of treating people's
pets in my own animal hospital where everything would be not just modern
but revolutionary. The fully equipped operating theatre, laboratory and
X-ray room; they had all stayed crystal clear in my mind until I had
graduated MRCVS.
How on earth, then, did I come to be sitting on a high Yorkshire moor in
shirt sleeves and wellingtons, smelling vaguely of cows?
The change in my outlook had come quite quickly - in fact almost
immediately after my arrival in Darrowby. The job had been a godsend in
those days of high unemployment, but only, I had thought, a
stepping-stone to my real ambition. But everything had switched round,
almost in a flash.
Maybe it was something to do with the incredible sweetness of the air
which still took me by surprise when I stepped out into the old wild
garden at Skeldale House every morning. Or perhaps the daily piquancy of
life in the graceful old house with my gifted but mercurial boss,
Siegfried, and his reluctant student brother, Tristan. Or it could be
that it was just the realisation that treating cows and pigs and sheep
and horses had a fascination I had never even suspected; and this
brought with it a new concept of myself as a tiny wheel in the great
machine of British agriculture. There was a kind of solid satisfaction
in that.
Probably it was because I hadn't dreamed there was a place like the
Dales. I hadn't thought it possible that I could spend all my days in a
high, cleanblown land where the scent of grass or trees was never far
away; and where even in the driving rain of winter I could snuff the air
and find the freshness of growing things hidden somewhere in the cold
clasp of the wind.