woollen tammy which he always wore pulled down over his ears were clean
and regular and the tall figure lean and straight. He was a fine looking
man and must have been handsome in his youth, yet he had never married.
I often felt there was a story there but he seemed content to live here
alone, a 'bit of a 'ermit' as they said in the village. Alone, that is,
except for Benjamin.
As I followed him into the kitchen he casually shooed out a couple of
hens who had been perching on a dusty dresser. Ther) I saw Benjamin and
pulled up with a jerk.
The big dog was sitting quite motionless by the side of the table and
this time the eyes behind the overhanging hair were big and liquid with
fright. He appeared to be too terrified to move and when I saw his left
fore leg I couldn't blame him. Arnold had been right after all; it was
indeed sticking out with a vengeance, at an angle which made my heart
give a quick double thud; a complete lateral dislocation of the elbow,
the radius projecting away out from the humerus at an almost impossible
obliquity.
I swallowed carefully. "When did this happen, Mr Summergill?'
"Just an hour since.' He tugged worriedly at his strange headgear. "I
was changing the cows into another field and awd Benjamin likes to have
a nip at; their heels when he's behind 'em. Well he did it once ower
often and one of them lashed lashed out and got 'im on the leg.'
"I see.' My mind was racing. This thing was grotesque. I had never seen
anything like it, in fact thirty years later I still haven't seen
anything like it. How on earth was I going to reduce the thing away up
here in the hills? By the look of it I would need general anaesthesia
and a skilled assistant.
"Poor old lad,' I said, resting my hand on the shaggy head as I tried to
think. "What are we going to do with you?'
~ _
The tail whisked along the flags in reply and the mouth opened in a
nervous parting' giving a glimpse of flawlessly white teeth.
Arnold cleared his throat. "Can you put 'im right?'
Well it was a good question. An airy answer might give the wrong
impression yet I didn't want to worry him with my doubts. It would be a
mammoth task to get the enormous dog down to Darrowby; he nearly filled
the kitchen, never mind my little car. And with that leg sticking out
and with Sam already in residence. And would I be able to get the joint
back in place when I got him there? And even if I did manage it I would
still have to bring him all the way back up here. It would just about
take care of the rest of the day.
Gently I passed my fingers over the dislocated joint and searched my
memory for details of the anatomy of the elbow. For the leg to be in
this position the processus anconeus must have been completely
disengaged from the supracondyloid fossa where it normally Iay; and to
get it back the joint would have to be fiexed until the anconeus was
clear of the epicondyles.
"Now let's see,' I murmured to myself. "If I had this dog anaesthetised
and on the table I would have to get hold of him like this.' I grasped
the leg just above the elbow and began to move the radius slowly
upwards. Benjamin gave me a quick glance then turned his head away, a
gesture typical of good-natured dogs, conveying the message that he was
going to put up with whatever I thought it necessary to do.
I flexed the joint still further until I was sure the anconeus was
clear, then carefully rotated the radius and ulna inwards.
"Yes ... yes ... ' I muttered again. "This must be about the right
position .. .' But my soliloquy was interrupted by a sudden movement of
the bones under my hand; a springing, flicking sensation.
I looked incredulously at the leg. It was perfectly straight.
Benjamin, too, seemed unable to take it in right away, because he peered
cautiously round through his shaggy curtain before lowering his nose and
sniffing around the elbow. Then he seemed to realise all was well and
ambled over to his master.
And he was perfectly sound. Not a trace of a limp.
A slow smile spread over Arnold's face. "You've mended him, then.'
"Looks like it, Mr Summergill.' I tried to keep my voice casual, but I
felt like cheering or bursting into hysterical laughter. I had only been
making an examination, feeling things out a little, and the joint had
popped back into place. A glorious accident.
"Aye well, that's grand,' the farmer said. "Isn't it, awd lad?' He bent
and tickled Benjamin's ear.
I could have been disappointed by this laconic reception of my
performance, but I realised it was a compliment to me that he wasn't
surprised that I, James Herriot, his vet, should effortlessly produce a
miracle when it was required.
A theatre-full of cheering students would have rounded off the incident
or it would be nice to do this kind of thing to some millionaire's
animal in a crowded drawing room, but it never happened that way. I
looked around the kitchen, at the cluttered table, the pile of unwashed
crockery in the sink, a couple of Arnold's ragged shirts drying before
the fire, and I smiled to myself. This was the sort of setting in which
I usually pulled off my spectacular cures. The only spectators here,
apart from Arnold, were the two hens who had made their way back on to
the dresser and they didn't seem particularly impressed.
"Well, I'll be getting back down the hill,' I said. And Arnold walked
with me across the yard to the car.
"I hear you're off to join up,' he said as I put my hand on the door.
"Yes, I'm away tomorrow, Mr Summergill.'
"Tomorrow, eh?' he raised his eyebrows.
"Yes, to London. Ever been there?'
"Nay, nay, be damned!' The woollen cap quivered as he shook his head.
"That'd be no good to me.'
I laughed. "Why do you say that?'
"Well now, I'll tell ye.' He scratched his chin ruminatively. "Ah nobbut
went once to Brawton and that was enough. Ah couldn't walk on "'street!'
"Couldn't walk?'
"Nay. There were that many people about. I 'ad to take big steps and
little 'uns, then big steps and little 'uns again. Couldn't get going'.'
I had often seen Arnold stalking over his fields with the long, even
stride of the hillman with nothing in his way and I knew exactly what he
meant. "Big steps and little 'tins.' that put it perfectly.
I started the engine and waved and as I moved away the old man raised a
hand.
"Tek care, lad,' he murmured.
I spotted Benjamin's nose just peeping round the kitchen door. Any other
time he would have been out with his master to see me off the premises
but it had been a strange day for him culminating with my descending on
him and mauling his leg about. He wasn't taking any more chances.
I drove gingerly down through the wood and before starting up the track
on the other side I stopped the car and got out with Sam leaping eagerly
after me.
This was a little lost valley in the hills, a green cleft cut off from
the wild country above. One of the bonuses in a country vet's lif
e is
that he sees these hidden places. Apart from old Arnold nobody ever came
down here, not even the postman who left the infrequent mail in a box at
the top of the track and nobody saw the blazing scarlets and golds of
the autumn trees nor heard the busy clucking and murmuring of the beck
among its clean-washed stones.
I walked along the water's edge watching the little fish darting and
Ritting in the cool depths. In the spring these banks were bright with
primroses and in May a great sea of bluebells Rowed among the trees but
today, though the sky: was an untroubled blue, the clean air was touched
with the sweetness of the dying year.
I climbed a little way up the hillside and sat down among the bracken
now fast turning to bronze. Sam, as was his way, Ropped by my side and I
ran a hand over the silky hair of his ears. The far st~de of the valley
rose steeply to where, above the gleaming ridge of limestone cliffs, I
could just see the sunlit rim of the moor.
I looked back to where the farm chimney sent a thin tendril of smoke
from behind the brow of the hill, and it seemed that the episode with
Benjamin, mylast job in veterinary practice before I left Darrowby, was
a fitting epilogue. A little triumph, intensely satisfying but by no
means world shaking; like all the other little triumphs and disasters
which make up a veterinary surgeon's life but go unnoticed by the world.
Last night, after Helen had packed my bag I had pushed Black's
Veterinary Dictionary in among the shirts and socks. It was a bulky
volume but I had been gripped momentarily by a fear that I might forget
the things I had learned, and conceived on an impulse the scheme of
reading a page or two each day to keep my memory fresh. And here among
the bracken the thought came back to me; that it was the greatest good
fortune not only to be fascinated by animals but to know about them.
Suddenly the knowing became a precious thing.
I went back and opened the car door. Sam jumped on to the seat and
before I got in I looked away down in the other direction from the house
to the valley's mouth where the hills parted to give a glimpse of the
plain below. And the endless wash of pale tints, the gold of the
stubble, the dark smudges of wood, the mottled greens of the pasture
land were like a perfect water colour. I found myself staring greedily
as if for the first time at the scene which had so often lifted my
heart, the great wide clean-blown face of Yorkshire.
I would come back to it all, I thought as I drove away; back to my work
.. . how was it that book had described it .. . my hard, honest and fine
profession.
Chapter Thirty-six.
I had to catch the early train and Bob Cooper was at the door with his
ancient taxi before eight o'clock next morning.
Sam followed me across the room expectantly as he always did but I
closed the door gently against his puzzled face. Clattering down the
long flight of stairs I caught a glimpse through the landing window of
the garden with the sunshine beginning to pierce the autumn mist,
turning the dewy grass into a glittering coverlet, glinting on the
bright colours of the apples and the last roses.
In the passage I paused at the side door where I had started my day's
work so many times since coming to Darrowby, but then I hurried past.
This was one time I went out the front.
Bob pushed open the taxi door and I threw my bag in before looking up
over the ivy-covered brick of the old house to our little room under the
tiles. Helen was in the window. She was crying. When she saw me she
waved gaily and smiled, but it was a twisted smile as the tears flowed.
And as we drove round the corner and I swallowed the biggest ever lump
in my throat a fierce resolve welled in me; men all over the country
were leaving their wives and I had to leave Helen now, but nothing,
nothing, nothing would ever get me away from her again.
The shops were still closed and nothing stirred in the market place. As
we left I turned and looked back at the cobbled square with the old
clock tower and the row of irregular roofs with the green fells quiet
and peaceful behind, and it seemed that I was losing something for ever.
I wish I had known then that it was not the end of everything. I wish I
had known it was only the beginning. But at that moment I knew only that
soon I would be far from here; in London, pushing my way through the
crowds. Taking big steps and little 'uns.
Localwords: Ower Ingledew's Darrowby tuberculin Corner's Rolie barrister
ye Localwords: ye ye Stilboestrol Trengate mongrels Granville's
James Herriot, Vet in Harness
(Series: # )
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