As I left the pen I saw Mr. Stokill dragging a large object over the cobbles.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Dustbin,” the old man grunted in reply.
“Dustbin! What on earth …?”
He gave no further explanation but entered the pen. As the sow came at him he allowed her to run her head into the bin then, bent double, he began to back her towards the open door. The animal was clearly baffled. Suddenly finding herself in this strange dark place she naturally tried to retreat from it and all the farmer did was guide her.
Before she knew what was happening she was out in the yard. The old man calmly removed the bin and beckoned to me. “Right you are, Mr. Herriot, you can get on now.”
It had taken about twenty seconds.
Well, that was a relief, and anyway I knew what to do next. Lifting a sheet of corrugated iron which the farmer had ready I rushed in among the little pigs. I would pen them in a corner and the job would be over in no time.
But their mother’s irritation had been communicated to the family. It was a big litter and there were sixteen of them hurtling around like little pink racehorses. I spent a long time diving frantically after them, jamming the sheet at a bunch only to see half of them streaking out the other end, and I might have gone on indefinitely had I not felt a gentle touch on my arm.
“Haud on, young man, haud on.” The old farmer looked at me kindly. “If you’ll nobbut stop runnin’ after ’em they’ll settle down. Just bide a minute.”
Slightly breathless, I stood by his side and listened as he addressed the little creatures.
“Giss-giss, giss-giss,” murmured Mr. Stokill without moving. “Giss-giss, giss-giss.”
The piglets slowed their headlong gallop to a trot, then, as though controlled by telepathy, they all stopped at once and stood in a pink group in one corner.
“Giss-giss,” said Mr. Stokill approvingly, advancing almost imperceptibly with the sheet “Giss-giss.”
He unhurriedly placed the length of metal across the corner and jammed his foot against the bottom.
“Now then, put the toe of your Wellington against t’other end and we ’ave ’em,” he said quietly.
After that the injection of the litter was a matter of a few minutes. Mr. Stokill didn’t say, “Well, I’m teaching you a thing or two today, am I not?” There was no hint of triumph or self-congratulation in the calm old eyes. All he said was, “I’m keepin’ you busy this mornin’, young man. I want you to look at a cow now. She’s got a pea in her tit.”
“Peas” and other obstructions in the teats were very common in the days of hand milking. Some of them were floating milk calculi, others tiny pedunculated tumours, injuries to the teat lining, all sorts of things. It was a whole diverting little field in itself and I approached the cow with interest.
But I didn’t get very near before Mr. Stokill put his hand on my shoulder.
“Just a minute, Mr. Herriot, don’t touch ’er tit yet or shell clout ye. She’s an awd bitch. Wait a minute till ah rope ’er.”
“Oh right” I said. “But I’ll do it.”
He hesitated. “Ah reckon I ought to …”
“No, no, Mr. Stokill, that’s quite unnecessary, I know how to stop a cow kicking,” I said primly. “Kindly hand me that rope.”
“But … she’s a bugger . .. kicks like a ’oss. She’s a right good milker but …”
“Don’t worry,” I said, smiling. “I’ll stop her little games.”
I began to unwind the rope. It was good to be able to demonstrate that I did know something about handling animals even though I had been qualified for only a few months. And it made a change to be told before and not after the job that a cow was a kicker. A cow once kicked me nearly to the other end of the byre and as I picked myself up the farmer said unemotionally, “Aye, she’s allus had a habit o’ that.”
Yes, it was nice to be warned, and I passed the rope round the animal’s body in front of the udder and pulled it tight in a slip knot Just like they taught us at college. She was a scrawny red shorthorn with a woolly poll and she regarded me with a contemplative eye as I bent down.
“All right, lass,” I said soothingly, reaching under her and gently grasping the teat. I squirted a few jets of milk then something blocked the end. Ah yes, there it was, quite large and unattached. I felt sure I could work it through the orifice without cutting the sphincter.
I took a firmer grip, squeezed tightly and immediately a cloven foot shot out like a whip lash and smacked me solidly on the knee. It is a particularly painful spot to be kicked and I spent some time hopping round the byre and cursing in a fervent whisper.
The farmer followed me anxiously. “Ee, ah’m sorry, Mr. Herriot, she’s a right awd bugger. Better let me …”
I held up a hand. “No, Mr. Stokill. I already have her roped. I just didn’t tie it tight enough, that’s all.” I hobbled back to the animal, loosened the knot then retied it, pulling till my eyes popped. When I had finished, her abdomen was lifted high and nipped in like a wasp-waisted Victorian lady of fashion.
“That’ll fix you,” I grunted, and bent to my work again. A few spurts of milk then the thing was at the teat end again, a pinkish-white object peeping through the orifice. A little extra pressure and I would be able to fish it out with the hypodermic needle I had poised ready. I took a breath and gripped hard.
This time the hoof caught me half way up the shin bone. She hadn’t been able to get so much height into it but it was just as painful. I sat down on a milk stool, rolled up my trouser leg and examined the roll of skin which hung like a diploma at the end of a long graze where the sharp hoof had dragged along.
“Now then, you’ve ’ad enough, young man.” Mr. Stokill removed my rope and gazed at me with commiseration. “Ordinary methods don’t work with this ’un. I ’ave to milk her twice a day and ah knaw.”
He fetched a soiled length of plough cord which had obviously seen much service and fastened it round the cow’s hock. The other end had a hook which he fitted into a ring on the byre walk. It was just the right length to stretch taut, pulling the leg slightly back.
The old man nodded. “Now try.”
With a feeling of fatalism I grasped the teat again. And it was as if the cow knew she was beaten. She never moved as I nipped hard and winkled out the offending obstruction—a milk calculus. She couldn’t do a thing about it.
“Ah, thank ye, lad,” the farmer said. “That’s champion. Been bothering me a bit, has that. Didn’t know what it was.” He held up a finger. “One last job for ye. A young heifer with a bit o’ stomach trouble, ah think. Saw her last night and she was a bit blown. She’s in an outside buildin’.”
I put on my coat and we went out to where the wind welcomed us with savage glee. As the knife-like blast hit me, whistling up my nose and making my eyes water, I cowered in the lee of the stable.
“Where is this heifer?” I gasped.
Mr. Stokill did not reply immediately. He was lighting another cigarette, apparently oblivious of the elements. He clamped the lid on an ancient brass lighter and jerked his thumb.
“Across the road. Up there.”
I followed his gesture over the buried walls, across the narrow roadway between the ploughed-out snow dunes to where the fell rose steeply in a sweep of unbroken white to join the leaden sky. Unbroken, that is, except for a tiny barn, a grey stone speck just visible on the last airy swell hundreds of feet up where the hillside joined the moorland above.
“Sorry,” I said, still crouching against the wall. “I can’t see anything.”
The old man, lounging in the teeth of the wind, looked at me in surprise. “You can’t? Why, t’barn’s good enough to see, isn’t it?”
“The barn?” I pointed a shaking finger at the heights. “You mean that building? The heifer’s surely not in there!”
“Aye, she is. Ah keep a lot o’ me young beasts in them spots.”
“But … but …” I was gabbling now.
“We’ll never get up there! That snow’s three feet deep!”
He blew smoke pleasurably from his nostrils. “We will, don’t tha worry. Just hang on a second.”
He disappeared into the stable and after a few moments I peeped inside. He was saddling a fat brown cob and I stared as he led the little animal out, climbed stiffly on to a box and mounted.
Looking down at me he waved cheerfully. “Well, let’s be goin’. Have you got your stuff?”
Bewilderedly I filled my pockets. A bottle of bloat mixture, a trochar and cannula, a packet of gentian and nux vomica. I did it in the dull knowledge that there was no way I could get up that hill.
On the other side of the road an opening had been dug and Mr. Stokill rode through. I slithered in his wake, looking up hopelessly at the great smooth wilderness rearing above us.
Mr. Stokill turned in the saddle. “Get haud on t’tail,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Get a haud of ’is tail.”
As in a dream I seized the bristly hairs.
“No, both ’ands,” the farmer said patiently.
“Like this?”
“That’s grand, lad. Now ’ang on.”
He clicked his tongue, the cob plodded resolutely forward and so did I.
And it was easy! The whole world fell away beneath us as we soared upwards, and leaning back and enjoying it I watched the little valley unfold along its twisting length until I could see away into the main Dale with the great hills billowing round and white into the dark clouds.
At the barn the farmer dismounted. “All right, young man?”
“All right, Mr. Stokill.” As I followed him into the little building I smiled to myself. This old man had once told me that he left school when he was twelve, whereas I had spent most of the twenty-four years of my life in study. Yet when I looked back on the last hour or so I could come to only one conclusion.
I’d had more of books, but he had more of learning.
CHAPTER 9
I HAD PLENTY OF COMPANY for Christmas that year. We were billeted in the Grand Hotel, the massive Victorian pile which dominated Scarborough in turreted splendour from its eminence above the sea, and the big dining room was packed with several hundred shouting airmen. The iron discipline was relaxed for a few hours to let the Yuletide spirit run free.
It was so different from other Christmases I had known that it ought to have remained like a beacon in my mind, but I know that my strongest memory of Christmas will always be bound up with a certain little cat.
I first saw her one autumn day when I was called to see one of Mrs. Ainsworth’s dogs, and I looked in some surprise at the furry black creature sitting before the fire.
“I didn’t know you had a cat,” I said.
The lady smiled. “We haven’t, this is Debbie.”
“Debbie?”
“Yes, at least that’s what we call her. She’s a stray. Comes here two or three times a week and we give her some food. I don’t know where she lives but I believe she spends a lot of her time around one of the farms along the road.”
“Do you ever get the feeling that she wants to stay with you?”
“No.” Mrs. Ainsworth shook her head. “She’s a timid little thing. Just creeps in, has some food then flits away. There’s something so appealing about her but she doesn’t seem to want to let me or anybody into her life.”
I looked again at the little cat. “But she isn’t just having food today.”
“That’s right. It’s a funny thing but every now and again she slips through here into the lounge and sits by the fire for a few minutes. It’s as though she was giving herself a treat.”
“Yes … I see what you mean.” There was no doubt there was something unusual in the attitude of the little animal. She was sitting bolt upright on the thick rug which lay before the fireplace in which the coals glowed and flamed. She made no effort to curl up or wash herself or do anything other than gaze quietly ahead. And there was something in the dusty black of her coat, the half-wild scrawny look of her, that gave me a clue. This was a special event in her life, a rare and wonderful thing; she was lapping up a comfort undreamed of in her daily existence.
As I watched she turned, crept soundlessly from the room and was gone.
That’s always the way with Debbie,” Mrs. Ainsworth laughed. “She never stays more than ten minutes or so, then she’s off.”
Mrs. Ainsworth was a plumpish, pleasant-faced woman in her forties and the kind of client veterinary surgeons dream of; well off, generous, and the owner of three cosseted Basset hounds. And it only needed the habitually mournful expression of one of the dogs to deepen a little and I was round there post haste. Today one of the Bassets had raised its paw and scratched its ear a couple of times and that was enough to send its mistress scurrying to the ’phone in great alarm.
So my visits to the Ainsworth home were frequent but undemanding, and I had ample opportunity to look out for the little cat that had intrigued me. On one occasion I spotted her nibbling daintily from a saucer at the kitchen door. As I watched she turned and almost floated on light footsteps into the hall then through the lounge door.
The three Bassets were already in residence, draped snoring on the fireside rug, but they seemed to be used to Debbie because two of them sniffed her in a bored manner and the third merely cocked a sleepy eye at her before flopping back on the rich pile.
Debbie sat among them in her usual posture; upright, intent, gazing absorbedly into the glowing coals. This time I tried to make friends with her. I approached her carefully but she leaned away as I stretched out my hand. However, by patient wheedling and soft talk I managed to touch her and gently stroked her cheek with one finger. There was a moment when she responded by putting her head on one side and rubbing back against my hand but soon she was ready to leave. Once outside the house she darted quickly along the road then through a gap in a hedge and the last I saw was the little black figure flitting over the rain-swept grass of a field.
“I wonder where she goes,” I murmured half to myself.
Mrs. Ainsworth appeared at my elbow. “That’s something we’ve never been able to find out.”
It must have been nearly three months before I heard from Mrs. Ainsworth, and in fact I had begun to wonder at the Bassets’ long symptomless run when she came on the ’phone.
It was Christmas morning and she was apologetic. “Mr. Herriot, I’m so sorry to bother you today of all days. I should think you want a rest at Christmas like anybody else.” But her natural politeness could not hide the distress in her voice.
“Please don’t worry about that,” I said. “Which one is it this time?”
“It’s not one of the dogs. It’s … Debbie.”
“Debbie? She’s at your house now?”
“Yes … but there’s something wrong. Please come quickly.”
Driving through the market place I thought again that Darrowby on Christmas Day was like Dickens come to life; the empty square with the snow thick on the cobbles and hanging from the eaves of the fretted lines of roofs; the shops closed and the coloured lights of the Christmas trees winking at the windows of the clustering houses, warmly inviting against the cold white bulk of the fells behind.
Mrs. Ainsworth’s home was lavishly decorated with tinsel and holly, rows of drinks stood on the sideboard and the rich aroma of turkey and sage and onion stuffing wafted from the kitchen. But her eyes were full of pain as she led me through to the lounge.
Debbie was there all right, but this time everything was different. She wasn’t sitting upright in her usual position; she was stretched quite motionless on her side, and huddled close to her lay a tiny black kitten.
I looked down in bewilderment “What’s happened here?”
“It’s the strangest thing,” Mrs. Ainsworth replied. “I haven’t seen her for several weeks then she came in about two hours ago—sort of staggered into the kitchen, and she was carrying the kitten in her mouth. She took it t
hrough to the lounge and laid it on the rug and at first I was amused. But I could see all was not well because she sat as she usually does, but for a long time—over an hour—then she lay down like this and she hasn’t moved.”
I knelt on the rug and passed my hand over Debbie’s neck and ribs. She was thinner than ever, her fur dirty and mudcaked. She did not resist as I gently opened her mouth. The tongue and mucous membranes were abnormally pale and the lips ice-cold against my fingers. When I pulled down her eyelid and saw the dead white conjunctiva a knell sounded in my mind.
I palpated the abdomen with a grim certainty as to what I would find and there was no surprise, only a dull sadness as my fingers closed around a hard lobulated mass deep among the viscera. Massive lymphosarcoma. Terminal and hopeless. I put my stethoscope on her heart and listened to the increasingly faint, rapid beat then I straightened up and sat on the rug looking sightlessly into the fireplace, feeling the warmth of the flames on my face.
Mrs. Ainsworth’s voice seemed to come from afar. “Is she ill, Mr. Herriot?”
I hesitated. “Yes … yes, I’m afraid so. She has a malignant growth.” I stood up. “There’s absolutely nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”
“Oh!” Her hand went to her mouth and she looked at me wide-eyed. When at last she spoke her voice trembled. “Well, you must put her to sleep immediately. It’s the only thing to do. We can’t let her suffer.”
“Mrs. Ainsworth,” I said. “There’s no need. She’s dying now—in a coma—far beyond suffering.”
She turned quickly away from me and was very still as she fought with her emotions. Then she gave up the struggle and dropped on her knees beside Debbie.
“Oh, poor little thing!” she sobbed and stroked the cat’s head again and again as the tears fell unchecked on the matted fur. “What she must have come through. I feel I ought to have done more for her.”
For a few moments I was silent, feeling her sorrow, so discordant among the bright seasonal colours of this festive room. Then I spoke gently.