been swishing bad-temperedly as we came in, and I am always a bit wary
of black cows anyway. She didn't seem to like our sudden entry and
lashed out with her right hind foot with the speed of light, catching
him with her flinty hoof full in the crutch as his legs were splayed.
He was wearing only frayed, much-washed overall trousers and the
protection was nil.
I winced as the foot went home with an appalling thud, but Mr Gilby
showed no emotion at all. He dropped as though on the receiving end of
a firing squad and lay motionless on the hard stones, his hands
clutched between his legs. It was only after several seconds that he
began to moan softly.
As I hurried to his aid I felt it was wrong that I should be witnessing
this disintegration of his modest facade. The little farmer, I was
sure, would rather have died than be caught in this inelegant position,
grovelling on the floor gripping frantically at an unmentionable area.
I kneeled on the cobbles and patted his shoulder while he fought his
inner battle with his agony.
After a while he felt well enough to sit up and I put my arm around him
and supported him while perspiration bedewed the greenish pallor of his
face. That was when the embarrassment began to creep in, because
though he had removed his hands from their compromising position he was
clearly deeply ashamed at being caught in a coarse attitude.
I felt strangely helpless. The little man couldn't relieve his
feelings in the usual way by cursing the animal and fate in general,
nor could I help him to laugh the thing off with a few earthly remarks.
This sort of thing happens now and then in the present day and usually
gives rise to a certain amount of ripe comment, often embracing the
possible effect on the victim's future sex life.
It all helps.
But here in Mr Gilby's byre there was only an uncomfortable silence.
After a time the colour began to return to his cheeks and the little
man struggled slowly to his feet. He took a couple of deep breaths
then looked at me unhappily.
Obviously he thought he owed me some explanation, even apology, for his
tasteless behaviour.
As the minutes passed the tension rose. Mr Gilby's mouth twitched once
or twice as though he were about to speak but he seemed unable to find
the words.
At length he appeared to come to a decision. He cleared his throat,
looked around him carefully then put his lips close to my ear. He
clarified the whole situation by one hoarsely whispered, deeply
confidential sentence.
"Right in the privates, Mr Herriot."
I referred earlier to the prevailing shyness about the natural
functions and this did indeed give rise to problems.
One slight difficulty which all country vets encounter is that there
comes a time on a long round when they have to urinate. When I first
came to Yorkshire it seemed the most natural thing in the world for me
to retire to a corner of a cow byre to relieve myself and it was
utterly incomprehensible that anybody of my own sex should find this
embarrassing. But it soon became obvious that the farmers were
shuffling their feet, loo king pointedly in the opposite direction or
showing other signs of unease.
My attempts to laugh the incident off met with no success. Jocular
remarks thrown over my shoulder like
"Just wringing out a kidney' or
"This method gives instant relief', were greeted with serious nods and
mutterings of
"Aye .
. .
aye . . . aye . . . that's right." I often had to resort to sneaking
into some deserted Outhouse as soon as I arrived, but very often the
farmer would burst in and catch me in the act and retreat bashfully.
The farmers themselves added to my difficulties by their hospitable
custom of pushing large mugs of tea into my hand at every opportunity.
At times I shrank from causing offence in the buildings and when under
stress took refuge in the open countryside. But even this was fraught
with peril, because though I always selected a deserted road with the
moors stretching empty to the far horizon the landscape within seconds
invariably became black with cars, all driven by women and all bearing
down on me at high speed.
I recall with quaking shame one occasion when a carload of middle-aged
Spinsters stopped and questioned me at length about the quickest way to
Darrow by while a dark pool spread accusingly around my feet.
But I suppose there are exceptions to every rule, and there was one
time when the reaction. to my predicament was different. I had
consumed my usual quota of tea and on top of this one kind chap had
opened a couple of pint bottles of brown ale after a sweating session
castrating calves in a tin-roofed shed. E the time I arrived at old Mr
Ainsley's I was in dire straits.
But there was nobody around. I tiptoed into the byre, slunk into a
corner and blessedly opened the flood gates. I was in mid flow when I
heard the clatter heavy boots on the cobbles behind me. The old man,
shoulders hunched, hands
in pockets, was standing there watching me.
Oh dear, it had happened again, but I wasn't going to stop now. With a
sick smile I looked over my shoulder at him.
"Sorry to make free with your cow house like this, Mr Ainsley," I said
in wh, I hoped was a light, bantering tone.
"But I had no option. When I have to I just have to go. Maybe I have
a weak bladder or something."
The old man regarded me impassively for a few moments then he nodded h
head several times.
"Aye, ah knew, ah knaw,"he said gloomily.
"You're like me, Mr Herriot. Ah's all us pis sin'.
Chapter Twenty-one Little pictures kept floating up into my mind.
Memories from the very early days at Skeldale House. Before the RAF,
before Helen.... Siegfried and I were at breakfast in the big
dining-room. My colleague looked up from a letter he was reading. '.
"James, do you remember Stewie Brannan?" . .
I smiled.
"I could hardly forget. That was quite a day at Braw ton races." I
would always carry a vivid recollection of Siegfried's amiable college
chum with me "Yes . . . yes, it was." Siegfried nodded briefly.
"Well I've got a letter from him here. He's got six kids now, and
though he doesn't complain, I don't think life is exactly a picnic
working in a dump like Hens field. Especially when he knoc~ a bare
living out of it." He pulled thoughtfully at the lobe of his ear.
"You know, James, it would be rather nice if he could have a break.
Would you be willing to go through there and run his practice for a
couple of weeks so that he could take his family on holiday?"
"Certainly. Glad to. But you'll be a bit pushed here on your own,
won't you?"] Siegfried waved a hand.
"It'll do me good. Anyway it's the quiet time for us: I'll write back
today."
Stewie grasped the opportunity eagerly and within a few days I was on
the road to Hens field. Yorkshire is the biggest county in England a
nd
it must be the.
most varied. I could hardly believe it when, less than two hours after
leaving the clean grassy fells and crystal air of Darrow by, I saw the
forest of factory.
chimneys sprouting from the brown pall of grime.
This was the industrial West Riding and I drove past mills as dark and
satanic as any I had dreamed of, past long rows of dreary featureless
houses where the workers lived. Everything was black; houses, mills,
walls, trees, eve."
: the surrounding hillsides, smeared and soiled from the smoke which
drifted across the town from a hundred belching stacks.
Stewie's surgery was right in the heart of it, a gloomy edifice in a
terrace of sooty Stone. As I rang the bell I read the painted board:
"Stewart Brannan ~RCVS, Veterinary Surgeon and Canine Specialist." I
was wondering what the Royal College would think about the last part
when the door opened and my colleague stood before me.
He seemed to fill the entrance. If any thing he was fatter than
before, but that was the only difference. Since it was August I
couldn't expect him to be wearing his navy nap overcoat, but otherwise
he was as I remembered him in Darrow by; the big, meaty, good-natured
face, the greasy black hair slicked across the brow which always seemed
to carry a gentle dew of perspiration.
He reached out, grabbed my hand and pulled me delightedly through the
doorway.
"Jim! Great to see you!" He put an arm round my shoulders as we
crossed a dark hallway.
"It's good of you to help me out like this. The family are thrilled -
they're all in the town shopping for the holiday. We've got fixed up
in a flat at Black pool." His permanent smile widened.
We went into a room at the back where a rickety kitchen-type table
stood on brown linoleum. I saw a sink in one corner, a few shelves
with bottles and a white-painted cupboard. The atmosphere held a faint
redolence of carbolic and cat's urine.
"This is where I see the animals," Stewie said contentedly. He looked
at his watch.
"Twenty past five I have a surgery at five thirty. I'll show you round
till then."
It didn't take long because there wasn't much to see. I knew there was
a more fashionable veterinary firm in Hens field and that Stewie made
his living from the poor people of the town; the whole set-up was an
illustration of practice on a shoestring. There didn't seem to be more
than one of any thing one straight suture needle, one curved needle,
one pair of scissors, one syringe. There was a sparse selection of
drugs and an extraordinary array of dispensing bottles and jars. These
bottles were of many strange shapes weird things which I had never seen
in a dispensary before.
Stewie seemed to read my thoughts.
"It's nothing great, Jim. I haven't a smart practice and I don't make
a lot, but we manage to clear the housekeeping and that's the main
thing."
The phrase was familiar.
"Clear the housekeeping'- that was how he had put it when I first met
him at Braw ton races. It seemed to be the lodestar of his life.
The end of the room was cut off by a curtain which my colleague drew to
one side.
"This is what you might call the waiting room." He smiled as I looked
in some surprise at half a dozen wooden chairs arranged round the three
walls.
"No high-powered stuff, Jim, no queues into the streets, but we get
by."
Some of Stewie's clients were already filing in; two little girls with
a black dog, a cloth-capped old man with a terrier on a string, a
teenage boy carrying a rabbit in a basket.
"Right," the big man said.
"We'll get started." He pulled on a white coat, opened the curtain and
said,
"First, please."
The little girls put their dog on the table. He was a long-tailed
mixture of breeds and he stood trembling with fear, rolling his eyes
apprehensively at the white coat.
"All right, lad," Stewie murmured;"I'm not going to hurt you." He
stroked and patted the quivering head before turning to the girls.
"What's the trouble, then?"
"It's'is leg, 'e's fame," one of them replied.
As if in confirmation the little dog raised a fore leg and held it up
with pitiful expression. Stewie engulfed the limb with his great hand
and palpatated it with the utmost care. And it struck me immediately
the gentleness of the shambling bear of a man.
"There's nothing broken," he said.
"He's just sprained his shoulder. Try to rest it for a few days and
rub this in night and morning." 5 He poured some whitish liniment from
a winchester bottle into one of odd-shaped bottles and handed it
over.
One of the little girls held out her hand and unclasped her fingers to
reveal.
a shilling in her palm. ,] "Thanks," said Stewie without surprise.
"Goodbye."
He saw several other cases, then as he was on his way to the curtain t'
grubby urchins appeared through the door at the other end of the room.
Th, carried a clothes basket containing a widely varied assortment of
glassware.
~ Stewie bent over the basket, lifting out HP sauce bottles, pickle
jars, ketchup .
containers and examining them with the air of a connoisseur. At length
appeared to come to a decision.
"Threepence," he said.
"Sixpence," said the urchins in unison.
"Fourpence," grunted Stewie.
"Sixpence," chorused the urchins.
"Five pence," my colleague muttered doggedly.
"Sixpence!" There was a hint of triumph in the cry.
Stewie sighed.
"Go on then." He passed over the coin and began to stack the bottles
under the sink.
"I just scrape off the labels and give them a good boil up, Jim." ~
"I see."
"It's a big saving."
"Yes, of course." The mystery of the strangely shaped dispensing
bottles was suddenly resolved. . r It was six thirty when the last
client came through the curtain. I had watched .
Stewie examining each animal carefully, taking his time and treating
their :.j conditions ably within the confines of his limited resources.
His charges were all around a shilling to two shillings and it was easy
to see why he only just cleared the housekeeping.
One other thing I noticed; the people all seemed to like him. He had
no 'from' but he was kind and concerned. I felt there was a lesson
there The last arrival was a stout lady with a prim manner and a very
correct manner of speech "My dog was bit last week," she announced,
'and I'm afraid the wound is goin' antiseptic." -~ "Ah yes." Stewie
nodded gravely. The banana fingers explored the tumefied area on the
animal's neck with a gossamer touch.
"It's quite nasty, really. H. could have an abscess there if we're not
careful." ; He took a long time over clipping the hair away, swabbing
out the deep puncture with peroxide of hydrogen. Then he puffed in
some dusting powder applied a pad of cotton wool and secured
it with a
bandage. He followed with an antistaphylococcal injection and finally
handed over a sauce bottle filled the rim with acriRavine solution.
"Use as directed on the label," he said, then stood back as the lady
opened her . , ~_ purse expectantly.
A long inward struggle showed in the occasional twitches of his cheeks
and flickerings of his eyelids but finally he squared his shoulders.
"That," he said resolutely, 'will be three and sixpence."
; ~j l & ~ ~ I ~ It was a vast fee by Stewie's standards, but probably
the minimum in other veterinary establishments, and I couldn't see how
he could make any profit from the transaction as the lady left, a
sudden uproar broke out within the house. Stewie gave me a seraphic
smile.
"That'll be Meg and the kids. Come and meet them."
We went out to the hall and into an incredible hubbub. Children
shouted, screamed and laughed, spades and pails clattered, a large ball
thumped from wall to wall and above it all a baby bawled
relentlessly.
Stewie moved into the mob and extracted a small woman.
"This," he murmured with quiet pride, 'is my wife." He gazed at her