Джеймс Хэрриот: Every Living Thing

I felt chilled to the bone and miserable, but I had to say my piece. I took a long, quavering breath and was about to speak when the horse raised his head slightly. I said nothing, nor did Mr. Kettlewell, as the big animal eased himself onto his chest, looked around for a few seconds and got to his feet. He shook his head, then walked across to his master. The recovery was just as quick, just as incredible, as the devastating collapse, and he showed no ill effects from his crashing fall onto the cobbled yard.

The farmer reached up and patted the horse’s neck.

“You know, Mr. Herriot, them spots have nearly gone!”

I went over and had a look. “That’s right. You can hardly see them now.”

Mr. Kettlewell shook his head wonderingly. “Aye, well, it’s a wonderful new treatment. But I’ll tell tha summat. I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ this, but”—he put his hand on my arm and looked up into my face—“ah think it’s just a bit drastic.”

I drove away from the farm and pulled up my car in the lee of a dry-stone wall. A great weariness had descended upon me. This sort of thing wasn’t good for me. I was getting on in years now—well into my thirties—and I couldn’t stand these shocks like I used to. I tipped the driving mirror down and had a look at myself. I was a bit pale, but not as ghastly white as I felt. Still, the feeling of guilt and bewilderment persisted, and with it the recurring thought that there must be easier ways of earning a living than as a country veterinary surgeon. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, rough, dirty and peppered with traumatic incidents like that near catastrophe back there. I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes.

When I opened them a few minutes later, the sun had broken through the clouds, bringing the green hillsides and the sparkling ridges of snow to vivid life, painting the rocky outcrops with gold. I wound the window down and breathed in the cold, clean air, drifting down, fresh and tangy, from the moorland high above. A curlew cried, breaking the enveloping silence, and on the grassy bank by the roadside I saw the first primroses of spring.

Peace began to steal through me. Maybe I hadn’t done anything wrong with Mr. Kettlewell’s horse. Maybe antihistamines did sometimes cause these reactions. Anyway, as I started the engine and drove away, the old feeling began to well up in me and within minutes it was running strong; it was good to be able to work with animals in this thrilling countryside; I was lucky to be a vet in the Yorkshire Dales.

Chapter 2

THERE IS NO DOUBT that a shock to the system heightens the perception, because as I drove away from Mr. Kettlewell’s with my heart still fluttering to begin the rest of my morning round it was as though I was seeing everything for the first time. In my daily work I was always aware of the beauty around me and had never lost the sense of wonder that had filled me when I had my first sight of Yorkshire, but this morning the magic of the Dales was stronger than ever.

My eyes strayed again and again over the towering flanks of the fells, taking in the pattern of walled green fields won from the yellow moorland grass, and I gazed up at the high tops with the thrill of excitement that always came down to me from that untrodden land.

After visiting one isolated farm I couldn’t resist pulling my car off the unfenced road and climbing with my beagle, Dinah, to the high country that beckoned me. The snow had disappeared almost overnight, leaving only runnels of white lying behind the walls, and it was as though all the scents of the earth and growing things had been imprisoned and were released now by the spring sunshine in waves of a piercing sweetness. When I reached the summit I was breathless and gulped the crystal air greedily as though I could never get enough of it.

Here there was no evidence of the hand of man, and I walked with my dog among miles of heather, peat hags and bog pools with the black waters rippling and the tufts of rushes bending and swaying in the eternal wind.

As the cloud shadows, racing on the wind, flew over me, trailing ribbons of shade and brightness over the endless browns and greens, I felt a rising exhilaration at just being up there on the roof of Yorkshire. It was an empty landscape where no creature stirred and all was silent except for the cry of a distant bird, and yet I felt a further surge of excitement in the solitude, a tingling sense of the nearness of all creation.

As always, the siren song of the lonely uplands tempted me to stay, but the morning was wearing on and I had several more farms to visit.

It was with a lingering feeling of fulfilment that I finished my last call and headed for my town of Darrowby. Its square church tower pushed above the tumbled roofs of the little town as I came down the dale and soon I was driving through the cobbled market-place with the square of fretted roofs above the shops and pubs that served its three thousand inhabitants.

In the far corner I turned down Trengate, the street of our surgery, and drew up at the three storeys of mellow brick and climbing ivy of Skeldale House, my work place and happy home where my wife, Helen, and I had brought up our children.

The memories came back of the unforgettable times when my partner, Siegfried, and his inimitable brother, Tristan, had lived and laughed there with me in our bachelor days, but now they were both married and with their families in their own homes. Tristan had joined the Ministry of Agriculture, but Siegfried was still my partner, and for the thousandth time I thanked heaven that both the brothers were still my close friends.

My son, Jimmy, was ten now and daughter, Rosie, six, and they were at school, but Siegfried was coming down the steps, stuffing bottles into his pockets.

“Ah, James,” he cried. “I’ve just taken a message for you. One of your most esteemed clients—Mrs. Bartram. Puppy is in need of your services.” He was grinning as he spoke.

I smiled ruefully in reply. “Oh, fine. You didn’t fancy going there yourself, did you?”

“No, no, my boy. Wouldn’t dream of depriving you of the pleasure.” He waved cheerfully and climbed into his car.

I looked at my watch. I still had half an hour before lunch and Puppy was only walking distance away. I got my bag and set off.

The heavenly aroma of fish and chips drifted out on the spring air and I felt a quick stab of hunger as I looked through the shop window at the white-coated figures with their wire scoops, lifting out the crisply battered haddocks and laying them out to drain by the golden mounds of chips, those enticing morsels lovingly known in America as “French-fried potatoes.”

The lunch-time trade was brisk and the queue moved steadily round the shop, gathering up the newspaper-wrapped parcels, some customers hurrying home with them, others shaking on salt and vinegar before an alfresco meal in the street.

I always had my gastric juices titillated when I visited Mrs. Bartram’s dog in the flat above the fish and chip shop, and I took another rewarding breath as I went down the alley and climbed the stairs.

Mrs. Bartram was in her usual chair in the kitchen; fat, massive, deadpan, the invariable cigarette dangling from her lips. She was throwing chips from a bag in her lap to her dog, Puppy, sitting opposite. He caught them expertly one after the other.

Puppy belied his name. He was an enormous, shaggy creature of doubtful ancestry and with a short temper. I always treated him with respect.

“He’s still rather fat, Mrs. Bartram,” I said. “Haven’t you tried to change his diet as I advised? Remember I said he shouldn’t really be fed solely on fish and chips.”

She shrugged and a light shower of ash fell on her blouse. “Oh, aye, ah did for a bit. I cut out the chips and just gave ’im fish every day, but he didn’t like it. Loves his chips, ’e does.”