Джеймс Хэрриот - All Creatures Great and Small

It was quite late one evening—about ten o’clock—when the call from Mrs. Mallard came in. Her dog had a bone in its throat and would Mr. Grier come at once. I was starting to say that he was ill and I was doing his work but it was too late; there was a click as the receiver went down at the other end.

Grier reacted to the news by going into a sort of trance; his chin sank on his chest and he sat immobile for nearly a minute while he gave the matter careful thought. Then he straightened up suddenly and stabbed a finger at me.

“It’ll not be a bone in its throat. It’ll only be a touch of pharyngitis making it cough.”

I was surprised at his confidence. “Don’t you think I’d better take some long forceps just in case?”

“Na, na, I’ve told ye now. There’ll be no bone, so go down and put up some of the syrup of squills and ipecacuanha mixture. That’s all it’ll want. And another thing—if ye can’t find anything wrong don’t say so. Tell the lady it’s pharyngitis and how to treat it—you have to justify your visit, ye ken.”

I felt a little bewildered as I filled a four ounce bottle in the dispensary, but I took a few pairs of forceps with me too; I had lost a bit of faith in Grier’s long-range diagnosis.

I was surprised when Mrs. Mallard opened the door of the smart semi-detached house. For some reason I had been expecting an old lady, and here was a striking-looking blonde woman of about forty with her hair piled high in glamorous layers as was the fashion at that time. And I hadn’t expected the long ballroom dress in shimmering green, the enormous swaying earrings, the heavily made up face.

Mrs. Mallard seemed surprised too. She stared blankly at me till I explained the position. “I’ve come to see your dog—I’m Mr. Grier’s locum. He’s ill at the moment, I’m afraid.”

It took a fair time for the information to get through because she still stood on the doorstep as if she didn’t know what I was talking about; then she came to life and opened the door wide. “Oh yes, of course, I’m sorry, do come in.” I walked past her through an almost palpable wall of perfume and into a room on the left of the hall. The perfume was even stronger in here but it was in keeping with the single, pink-tinted lamp which shed a dim but rosy light on the wide divan drawn close to the flickering fire. Somewhere in the shadows a radiogram was softly pouring out “Body and Soul.”

There was no sign of my patient and Mrs. Mallard looked at me irresolutely, fingering one of her earrings.

“Do you want me to see him in here?” I asked.

“Oh yes, certainly.” She became brisk and opened a door at the end of the room. Immediately a little West Highland Terrier bounded across the carpet and hurled himself at me with a woof of delight. He tried his best to lick my face by a series of mighty springs and this might have gone on for quite a long time had I not caught him in mid air.

Mrs. Mallard smiled nervously. “He seems a lot better now,” she said.

I flopped down on the divan still with the little dog in my arms and prised open his jaws. Even in that dim light it was obvious that there was nothing in his throat. I gently slid my forefinger over the back of his tongue and the terrier made no protest as I explored his gullet. Then I dropped him down on the carpet and took his temperature—normal.

“Well, Mrs. Mallard,” I said, “there is certainly no bone in his throat and he has no fever.” I was about to add that the dog seemed perfectly fit to me when I remembered Grier’s parting admonition—I had to justify my visit.

I cleared my throat. “It’s just possible, though, that he has a little pharyngitis which has been making him cough or retch.” I opened the terrier’s mouth again. “As you see, the back of his throat is rather inflamed. He may have got a mild infection in there or perhaps swallowed some irritant. I have some medicine in the car which will soon put him right.” Realising I was beginning to gabble, I brought my speech to a close.

Mrs. Mallard hung on every word, peering anxiously into the little dog’s mouth and nodding her head rapidly. “Oh yes, I do see,” she said. “Thank you so much. What a good thing I sent for you!”

On the following evening I was half way through a busy surgery when a fat man in a particularly vivid tweed jacket bustled in and deposited a sad-eyed Basset Hound on the table.

“Shaking his head about a bit,” he boomed. “Think he must have a touch of canker.”

I got an auroscope from the instrument cupboard and had begun to examine the ear when the fat man started again.

“I see you were out our way last night. I live next door to Mrs. Mallard.”

“Oh yes,” I said peering down the lighted metal tube. “That’s right, I was.”

The man drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “Aye, that dog must have a lot of ailments. The vet’s car seems always to be outside the house.”

“Really, I shouldn’t have thought so. Seemed a healthy little thing to me.” I finished examining one ear and started on the other.

“Well, it’s just as I say,” said the man. “The poor creature’s always in trouble, and it’s funny how often it happens at night.”

I looked up quickly. There was something odd in the way he said that. He looked at me for a moment with a kind of wide-eyed innocence, then his whole face creased into a knowing leer.

I stared at him “You can’t mean …”

“Not with that ugly old devil, you mean, eh? Takes a bit of reckoning up, doesn’t it?” The eyes in the big red face twinkled with amusement.

I dropped the auroscope on the table with a clatter and my arms fell by my sides.

“Don’t look like that, lad!” shouted the fat man, giving me a playful punch in the chest. “It’s a rum old world, you know!”

But it wasn’t just the thought of Grier that was filling me with horror; it was the picture of myself in that harem atmosphere pontificating about pharyngitis against a background of “Body and Soul” to a woman who knew I was talking rubbish.

In another two days Angus Grier was out of bed and apparently recovered; also, a replacement assistant had been engaged and was due to take up his post immediately. I was free to go.

Having said I would leave first thing in the morning I was out of the house by 6:30 a.m. in order to make Darrowby by breakfast. I wasn’t going to face any more of that porridge.

As I drove west across the Plain of York I began to catch glimpses over the hedge tops and between the trees of the long spine of the Pennines lifting into the morning sky; they were pale violet at this distance and still hazy in the early sunshine but they beckoned to me. And later, when the little car pulled harder against the rising ground and the trees became fewer and the hedges gave way to the clean limestone walls I had the feeling I always had of the world opening out, of shackles falling away. And there, at last, was Darrowby sleeping under the familiar bulk of Herne Fell and beyond, the great green folds of the Dales.

Nothing stirred as I rattled across the cobbled market place then down the quiet street to Skeldale House with the ivy hanging in untidy profusion from its old bricks and “Siegfried Farnon M.R.C.V.S.” on the lopsided brass plate.

I think I would have galloped along the passage beyond the glass door but I had to fight my way through the family dogs, all five of them, who surged around me, leaping and barking in delight.

I almost collided with the formidable bulk of Mrs. Hall who was carrying the coffee-pot out of the dining-room. “You’re back then,” she said and I could see she was really pleased because she almost smiled. “Well, go in and get sat down. I’ve got a bit of home-cured in the pan for you.”