Джеймс Хэрриот - All Creatures Great and Small

“They’re in a nice spot, Mr. Skipton,” I said.

“Aye, they can keep cool in the hot weather and they’ve got the barn when winter comes.” John pointed to a low, thick-walled building with a single door. “They can come and go as they please.”

The sound of his voice brought the horses out of the river at a stiff trot and as they came near you could see they really were old. The mare was a chestnut and the gelding was a light bay but their coats were so flecked with grey that they almost looked like roans. This was most pronounced on their faces where the sprinkling of white hairs, the sunken eyes and the deep cavity above the eyes gave them a truly venerable appearance.

For all that, they capered around John with a fair attempt at skittishness, stamping their feet, throwing their heads about, pushing his cap over his eyes with their muzzles.

“Get by, leave off!” he shouted. “Daft awd beggars.” But he tugged absently at the mare’s forelock and ran his hand briefly along the neck of the gelding.

“When did they last do any work?” I asked.

“Oh, about twelve years ago, I reckon.”

I stared at John. “Twelve years! And have they been down here all that time?”

“Aye; just lakin’ about down here, retired like. They’ve earned it an’ all.” For a few moments he stood silent, shoulders hunched, hands deep in the pockets of his coat, then he spoke quietly as if to himself. “They were two slaves when I was a slave.” He turned and looked at me and for a revealing moment I read in the pale blue eyes something of the agony and struggle he had shared with the animals.

“But twelve years! How old are they, anyway?”

John’s mouth twisted up at one corner. “Well you’re t’vet. You tell me.”

I stepped forward confidently, my mind buzzing with Galvayne’s groove, shape of marks, degree of slope and the rest; I grasped the unprotesting upper lip of the mare and looked at her teeth.

“Good God!” I gasped, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” The incisors were immensely long and projecting forward till they met at an angle of about forty-five degrees. There were no marks at all—they had long since gone.

I laughed and turned back to the old man. “It’s no good, I’d only be guessing. You’ll have to tell me.”

“Well she’s about thirty and gelding’s a year or two younger. She’s had fifteen grand foals and never ailed owt except a bit of teeth trouble. We’ve had them rasped a time or two and it’s time they were done again, I reckon. They’re both losing ground and dropping bits of half chewed hay from their mouths. Gelding’s the worst—has a right job champin’ his grub.”

I put my hand into the mare’s mouth, grasped her tongue and pulled it out to one side. A quick exploration of the molars with my other hand revealed what I suspected; the outside edges of the upper teeth were overgrown and jagged and were irritating the cheeks while the inside edges of the lower molars were in a similar state and were slightly excoriating the tongue.

“I’ll soon make her more comfortable, Mr. Skipton. With those sharp edges rubbed off she’ll be as good as new.” I got the rasp out of my vast box, held the tongue in one hand and worked the rough surface along the teeth, checking occasionally with my fingers till the points had been sufficiently reduced.

“That’s about right,” I said after a few minutes. “I don’t want to make them too smooth or she won’t be able to grind her food.”

John grunted. “Good enough. Now have a look at t’other. There’s summat far wrong with him.”

I had a feel at the gelding’s teeth. “Just the same as the mare. Soon put him right, too.”

But pushing at the rasp, I had an uncomfortable feeling that something was not quite right. The thing wouldn’t go fully to the back of the mouth; something was stopping it. I stopped rasping and explored again, reaching with my fingers as far as I could. And I came upon something very strange, something which shouldn’t have been there at all. It was like a great chunk of bone projecting down from the roof of the mouth.

It was time I had a proper look. I got out my pocket torch and shone it over the back of the tongue. It was easy to see the trouble now; the last upper molar was overlapping the lower one resulting in a gross overgrowth of the posterior border. The result was a sabre-like barb about three inches long stabbing down into the tender tissue of the gum.

That would have to come off—right now. My jauntiness vanished and I suppressed a shudder; it meant using the horrible shears—those great long-handled things with the screw operated by a cross bar. They gave me the willies because I am one of those people who can’t bear to watch anybody blowing up a balloon and this was the same sort of thing only worse. You fastened the sharp blades of the shears on to the tooth and began to turn the bar slowly, slowly. Soon the tooth began to groan and creak under the tremendous leverage and you knew that any second it would break off and when it did it was like somebody letting off a rifle in your ear. That was when all hell usually broke loose but mercifully this was a quiet old horse and I wouldn’t expect him to start dancing around on his hind legs. There was no pain for the horse because the overgrown part had no nerve supply—it was the noise that caused the trouble.

Returning to my crate I produced the dreadful instrument and with it a Haussman’s gag which I inserted on the incisors and opened on its ratchet till the mouth gaped wide. Everything was easy to see then and, of course, there it was—a great prong at the other side of the mouth exactly like the first. Great, great, now I had two to chop off.

The old horse stood patiently, eyes almost closed, as though he had seen it all and nothing in the world was going to bother him. I went through the motions with my toes curling and when the sharp crack came, the white-bordered eyes opened wide, but only in mild surprise. He never even moved. When I did the other side he paid no attention at all; in fact, with the gag prising his jaws apart he looked exactly as though he was yawning with boredom.

As I bundled the tools away, John picked up the bony spicules from the grass and studied them with interest. “Well, poor awd beggar. Good job I got you along, young man. Reckon he’ll feel a lot better now.”

On the way back, old John, relieved of his bale, was able to go twice as fast and he stumped his way up the hill at a furious pace, using the fork as a staff. I panted along in the rear, changing the box from hand to hand every few minutes.

About half way up, the thing slipped out of my grasp and it gave me a chance to stop for a breather. As the old man muttered impatiently I looked back and could just see the two horses; they had returned to the shallows and were playing together, chasing each other jerkily, their feet splashing in the water. The cliff made a dark backcloth to the picture—the shining river, the trees glowing bronze and gold and the sweet green of the grass.

Back in the farm yard, John paused awkwardly. He nodded once or twice, said “Thank ye, young man,” then turned abruptly and walked away.

I was dumping the box thankfully into the boot when I saw the man who had spoken to us on the way down. He was sitting, cheerful as ever, in a sunny corner, back against a pile of sacks, pulling his dinner packet from an old army satchel.

“You’ve been down to see t’pensioners, then? By gaw, awd John should know the way.”

“Regular visitor, is he?”

“Regular? Every day God sends you’ll see t’awd feller ploddin’ down there. Rain, snow or blow, never misses. And allus has summat with him—bag o’ corn, straw for their bedding.”