Джеймс Хэрриот - The Lord God Made Them All

It was the first time I had been there since I had left the service, and I suppose I had been expecting to find something different. But the old iron gate was just the same, except that it was even more rusty than before. With a growing feeling of doom I fought my way through the other gates, untying the strings and shouldering the top spars round till finally I came to number seven.

This last and most terrible of the gates was still there, and unchanged. It couldn’t be true, I told myself as I almost tiptoed towards it. All sorts of things had happened to me since I had last seen it. I had been away in a different world of marching and drilling and learning navigation and finally flying an aeroplane, while this rickety structure stood there unheeding.

I eyed it closely. The loose-nailed wobbly timbers were as before, as was the single string hinge—probably the same piece of string. It was unbelievable. And then I noticed something different. Mr. Ripley, apparently worried lest his livestock might rub against and damage the ancient bastion, had festooned the thing with barbed wire.

Maybe it had mellowed with time. It couldn’t be as vicious as before. Gingerly I loosened the bottom string on the right-hand side, then with infinite care I untied the bow at the top. I was just thinking that it was going to be easy when the binder twine fell away and the gate swung with all its old venom on the left-hand string.

It got me on the chest first, then whacked against my legs, and this time the steel barbs bit through my trousers. Frantically I tried to throw the thing away from me, but it pounded me high and low and when I leaned back to protect my chest, my legs slid from under me and I fell on my back. And as my shoulders hit the track, the gate, with a soft woody crunch, fell on top of me.

I had been nearly underneath this gate several times in the past and had got clear at the last moment, but this time it had really happened. I tried to wriggle out, but the barbed wire had my clothing in its iron grip. I was trapped.

I craned desperately over the timbers. The farm was only fifty yards away, but there was not a soul in sight. And that was a funny thing. Where was the anxious farmer? I had expected to find him pacing up and down the yard, wringing his hands, but the place seemed deserted.

I dallied with the idea of shouting for help, but that would have been just too absurd. There was nothing else for it. I seized the top rail in both hands and pushed upwards, trying to close my ears to the tearing sounds from my garments, then, very slowly, I eased my way to safety.

I left the gate lying where it was. Normally I meticulously close all gates behind me but there were no cattle in the fields and anyway, I had had enough of this one.

I rapped sharply at the farmhouse door and Mrs. Ripley answered.

“Now then, Mr. Herriot, it’s grand weather,” she said. Her carefree smile reminded me of her husband’s as she wiped at a dinner plate and adjusted the apron around her ample midriff.

“Yes … yes … it is. I’ve called to see your cow. Is your husband in?”

She shook her head. “Nay, ’e hasn’t got back from t’Fox and Hounds yet.”

“What!” I stared at her. “That’s the pub at Diverton, isn’t it? I thought he had an urgent case for me to see.”

“Aye, well, he had to go across there to ring ye up. We haven’t no telephone here, ye know.” Her smile widened.

“But—but that was nearly an hour since. He should have been back here long ago.”

“That’s right,” she said, nodding with perfect understanding. “But he’ll ’ave met some of his pals up there. They all get into t’Fox and Hounds on a Sunday mornin’.”

I churned my hair around. “Mrs. Ripley, I’ve left my meal lying on the table so that I could get here immediately!”

“Oh, we’ve ’ad ours,” she replied, as though the words would be a comfort to me. And she didn’t have to tell me. The rich scent drifting from the kitchen was unmistakably roast beef, and there was no doubt at all it would have been preceded by Yorkshire pudding.

I didn’t say anything for a few moments, then I took a deep breath. “Well, maybe I can see the cow. Where is she, please?”

Mrs. Ripley pointed to a box at the far end of the yard.

“She’s in there.” As I set off across the cobbles she called after me. “You can be lookin’ at her till ’e gets back. He won’t be many minutes.”

I flinched as though a lash had fallen across my shoulders. Those were dreadful words. “Not many minutes” was a common phrase in Yorkshire and could mean anything up to two hours.

I opened the half-door and looked into the box at the cow. She was very lame, but when I approached her she hopped around in the straw, dotting the injured limb on the ground.

Well, she hadn’t a broken leg. She couldn’t take her weight on it, but there was none of the typical dangling of the limb. I felt a surge of relief. In a big animal a fracture usually meant the humane killer because no number of plaster bandages could take the strain. The trouble seemed to be in her foot but I couldn’t catch her to find out. I’d have to wait for Mr. Ripley.

I went out into the afternoon sunshine and gazed over the gently rising fields to the church tower of Diverton pushing from the trees. There was no sign of the farmer and I walked wearily beyond the buildings onto the grass to await his coming.

I looked back at the house, and even through my exasperation I felt a sense of peace. Like many of the older farms, Anson Hall had once been a noble manor. Hundreds of years ago some person of title had built his dwelling in a beautiful place. The roof looked ready to fall in and one of the tall chimney stacks leaned drunkenly to one side, but the mullioned windows, the graceful arched doorway and the stately proportions of the building were a delight, with the pastures beyond stretching towards the green fells.

And that garden wall. In its former glory the sun-warmed stones would have enclosed a cropped lawn with bright flowers, but now there were only nettles. Those nettles fascinated me; a waist-high jungle filling every inch of space between wall and house. Farmers are notoriously bad gardeners but Mr. Ripley was in a class by himself.

My reverie was interrupted by a cry from the lady of the house. “He’s comin’, Mr. Herriot. I’ve just spotted ’im through the window.” She came round to the front and pointed towards Diverton.

Her husband was indeed on his way, a black dot moving unhurriedly down through the fields and we watched him together for about fifteen minutes until at last he squeezed himself through a gap in a wall and came up to us, the smoke from his pipe rising around his ears.

I went straight into the attack. “Mr. Ripley, I’ve been waiting a long time! You asked me to come straight away!”

“Aye, ah knaw, ah knaw, but I couldn’t very well ask to use t’phone without havin’ a pint, could I?” He put his head on one side and beamed at me, secure in his unanswerable logic.

I was about to speak when he went on. “And then Dick Henderson bought me one, so I had to buy ’im one back, and then I was just leavin’ when Bobby Talbot started on about them pigs he got from me last week.”

His wife chipped in with bright curiosity. “Eee, that Bobby Talbot! Was he there this mornin’, too? He’s never away from t’pub, that feller. I don’t know how his missus puts up with it.”

“Aye, Bobby was there, all right. He allus is.” Mr. Ripley smiled gently, knocked his pipe out against his heel and began to refill it. “And ah’ll tell you who else ah saw—Dan Thompson. Haven’t seen ’im since his operation. By gaw, it has fleeced him—he’s lost a bit o’ ground. Looks as though a few pints would do ’im good.”