James Herriot (2 page)

Blossom confirmed his words as she ambled through the door and, at a gesture from the farmer, turned along the track.

The old man and I stood watching as the cow made her way unhurriedly up the hill, Jack Dodson in his long khaki smock sauntering behind her. As the path wound behind a clump of sparse trees man and beast disappeared but Mr. Dakin still gazed after them, listening to the clip-clop of the hooves on the hard ground.

When the sound died away he turned to me quickly. “Right, Mr. Herriot, we’ll get on wi’ our job, then. I’ll bring your hot watter.”

The farmer was silent as I soaped my arm and inserted it into the cow. If there is one thing more disagreeable than removing the bovine afterbirth it is watching somebody else doing it, and I always try to maintain a conversation as I grope around inside. But this time it was hard work. Mr. Dakin responded to my sallies on the weather, cricket and the price of milk with a series of grunts.

Holding the cow’s tail he leaned on the hairy back and, empty-eyed, blew smoke from the pipe which like most farmers at a cleansing he had prudently lit at the outset And of course, since the going was heavy, it just would happen that the job took much longer than usual. Sometimes a placenta simply lifted out but I had to peel this one away from the cotyledons one by one, returning every few minutes to the hot water and antiseptic to re-soap my aching arms.

But at last it was finished. I pushed in a couple of pessaries, untied the sack from my middle and pulled my shirt over my head. The conversation had died and the silence was almost oppressive as we opened the byre door.

Mr. Dakin paused, his hand on the latch. “What’s that?” he said softly.

From somewhere on the hillside I could hear the clip-clop of a cow’s feet. There were two ways to the farm and the sound came from a narrow track which joined the main road half a mile beyond the other entrance. As we listened a cow rounded a rocky outcrop and came towards us.

It was Blossom, moving at a brisk trot, great udder swinging, eyes fixed purposefully on the open door behind us.

“What the hangment …?” Mr. Dakin burst out, but the old cow brushed past us and marched without hesitation into the stall which she had occupied for all those years. She sniffed enquiringly at the empty hay rack and looked round at her owner.

Mr. Dakin stared back at her. The eyes in the weathered face were expressionless but the smoke rose from his pipe in a series of rapid puffs.

Heavy boots clattered suddenly outside and Jack Dodson panted his way through the door.

“Oh, you’re there, ye awd beggar!” he gasped. “Ah thought I’d lost ye!”

He turned to the farmer. “By gaw, I’m sorry, Mr. Dakin. She must ’ave turned off at t’top of your other path. Ah never saw her go.”

The farmer shrugged. “It’s awright, Jack. It’s not your fault, ah should’ve told ye.”

“That’s soon mended anyway.” The drover grinned and moved towards Blossom. “Come on, lass, let’s have ye out o’ there again.”

But he halted as Mr. Dakin held an arm in front of him.

There was a long silence as Dodson and I looked in surprise at the farmer who continued to gaze fixedly at the cow. There was a pathetic dignity about the old animal as she stood there against the mouldering timber of the partition, her eyes patient and undemanding. It was a dignity which triumphed over the unsightliness of the long upturned hooves, the fleshless ribs, the broken-down udder almost brushing the cobbles.

Then, still without speaking, Mr. Dakin moved unhurriedly between the cows and a faint chink of metal sounded as he fastened the chain around Blossom’s neck. Then he strolled to the end of the byre and returned with a forkful of hay which he tossed expertly into the rack.

This was what Blossom was waiting for. She jerked a mouthful from between the spars and began to chew with quiet satisfaction.

“What’s to do, Mr. Dakin?” the drover cried in bewilderment “They’re waiting for me at t’mart!”

The farmer tapped out his pipe on the half door and began to fill it with black shag from a battered tin. “Ah’m sorry to waste your time, Jack, but you’ll have to go without ’er.”

“Without ’er …? But …?”

“Aye, ye’ll think I’m daft, but that’s how it is. T’awd lass has come ’ome and she’s stoppin’ ’ome.” He directed a look of flat finality at the drover.

Dodson nodded a couple of times then shuffled from the byre. Mr. Dakin followed and called after him.

“Ah’ll pay ye for your time, Jack. Put it down on ma bill.”

He returned, applied a match to his pipe and drew deeply.

“Mr. Herriot,” he said as the smoke rose around his ears, “do you ever feel when summat happens that it was meant to happen and that it was for t’best?”

“Yes, I do, Mr. Dakin. I often feel that.”

“Aye well, that’s how I felt when Blossom came down that hill.” He reached out and scratched the root of the cow’s tail. “She’s allus been a favourite and by gaw I’m glad she’s back.”

“But how about those teats? I’m willing to keep stitching them up, but …”

“Nay, lad, ah’ve had an idea. Just came to me when you were tekkin’ away that cleansin’ and I thowt I was ower late.”

“An idea?”

“Aye.” The old man nodded and tamped down the tobacco with his thumb. “I can put two or three calves on to ’er instead of milkin’ ’er. The old stable is empty—she can live in there where there’s nobody to stand on ’er awd tits.”

I laughed. “You’re right, Mr. Dakin. She’d be safe in the stable and she’d suckle three calves easily. She could pay her way.”

“Well, as ah said, it’s matterless. After all them years she doesn’t owe me a thing.” A gentle smile spread over the seamed face. “Main thing is, she’s come ’ome.”

My eyes were shut most of the time now as I blundered round the park and when I opened them a red mist swirled. But it is incredible what the human frame will stand and I blinked in disbelief as the iron gates appeared once more under their arch of sooty branches.

I had survived the second lap but an ordinary rest would be inadequate now. This time I would have to lie down. I felt sick.

“Good lads!” the corporal called out, cheerful as ever. “You’re doin’ fine. Now we’re just going to ’ave a little hoppin’ on the spot.”

Incredulous wails rose from our demoralised band but the corporal was unabashed.

“Feet together now. Up! Up! Up! That’s no good, come on, get some height into it! Up! Up!”

This was the final absurdity. My chest was a flaming cavern of agony. These people were supposed to be making us fit and instead they were doing irreparable damage to my heart and lungs.

“You’ll thank me for this later, lads. Take my word for it. GET YOURSELVES OFF THE GROUND. UP! UP!”

Through my pain I could see the corporal’s laughing face. The man was clearly a sadist. It was no good appealing to him.

And as, with the last of my strength, I launched myself into the air it came to me suddenly why I had dreamed about Blossom last night.

I wanted to go home, too.

T
HE FOG SWIRLED OVER
the heads of the marching men; a London fog, thick, yellow, metallic on the tongue. I couldn’t see the head of the column, only the swinging lantern carried by the leader.

This 6:30 a.m. walk to breakfast was just about the worst part of the day, when my morale was low and thoughts of home rose painfully.

We used to have fogs in Darrowby, but they were country fogs, different from this. One morning I drove out on my rounds with the headlights blazing against the grey curtain ahead, seeing nothing from my tight-shut box. But I was heading up the Dale, climbing steadily with the engine pulling against the rising ground, then quite suddenly the fog thinned to a shimmering silvery mist and was gone.

And there, above the pall, the sun was dazzling and the long green line of the fells rose before me, thrusting exultantly into a sky of summer blue.

Spellbound, I drove upwards into the bright splendour, staring through the windscreen as though I had never seen it all before; the bronze of the dead bracken spilling down the grassy flanks of the hills, the dark smudges of trees, the grey farmhouses and the endless pattern of walls creeping to the heather above.

I was in a rush as usual but I had to stop. I pulled up in a gateway, Sam jumped out and we went through into a field; and as the beagle scampered over the glittering turf I stood in the warm sunshine amid the melting frost and looked back at the dark damp blanket which blotted out the low country but left this jewelled world above it.

And, gulping the sweet air, I gazed about me gratefully at the clean green land where I worked and made my living.

I could have stayed there, wandering round, watching Sam exploring with waving tail, nosing into the shady corners where the sun had not reached and the ground was iron hard and the rime thick and crisp on the grass. But I had an appointment to keep, and no ordinary one—it was with a peer of the realm. Reluctantly I got back into the car.

I was due to start Lord Hulton’s tuberculin test at 9:30 a.m. and as I drove round the back of the Elizabethan mansion to the farm buildings nearby I felt a pang of misgiving; there were no animals in sight. There was only a man in tattered blue dungarees hammering busily at a makeshift crush at the exit to the fold yard.

He turned round when he saw me and waved his hammer. As I approached I looked wonderingly at the slight figure with the soft fairish hair falling over his brow, at the holed cardigan and muck-encrusted Wellingtons. You would have expected him to say, “Nah, then, Mr. Herriot how ista this morning’?”

But he didn’t, he said, “Herriot, my dear chap, I’m most frightfully sorry, but I’m very much afraid we’re not quite ready for you.” And he began to fumble with his tobacco pouch.

William George Henry Augustus, Eleventh Marquis of Hulton, always had a pipe in his mouth and he was invariably either filling it, cleaning it out with a metal reaming tool or trying to light it. I had never seen him actually smoking it. And at times of stress he attempted to do everything at once. He was obviously embarrassed at his lack of preparedness and when he saw me glance involuntarily at my watch he grew more agitated, pulling his pipe from his mouth and putting it back in again, tucking the hammer under his arm, rummaging in a large box of matches.

I gazed across to the rising ground beyond the farm buildings. Far off on the horizon I could make out tiny figures: galloping beasts, scurrying men; and faint sounds came down to me of barking dogs, irritated bellowings and shrill cries of “Haow, haow!” “Gerraway by!” “Siddown, dog!”

I sighed. It was the old story. Even the Yorkshire aristocracy seemed to share this carefree attitude to time.

His lordship clearly sensed my feelings because his discomfort increased.

“It’s too bad for me, old chap,” he said, spraying a few matchsticks around and dropping flakes of tobacco on the stone flags. “I did promise to be ready for nine thirty but those blasted animals just won’t cooperate.”

I managed a smile. “Oh never mind, Lord Hulton, they seem to be getting them down the hill now and I’m not in such a panic this morning, anyway.”

“Oh splendid, splendid!” He attempted to ignite a towering mound of dark flake which spluttered feebly then toppled over the edge of his pipe. “And come and see this! I’ve been rigging up a crush. We’ll drive them in here and we’ll really have ’em. Remember we had a spot of bother last time, what?”

I nodded. I did remember. Lord Hulton had only about thirty suckling cows but it had taken a three-hour rodeo to test them. I looked doubtfully at the rickety structure of planks and corrugated iron. It would be interesting to see how it coped with the moorland cattle.

I didn’t mean to rub it in, but again I glanced unthinkingly at my watch and the little man winced as though he had received a blow.

“Dammit!” he burst out “What are they doing over there? Tell you what, I’ll go and give them a hand!” Distractedly, he began to change hammer, pouch, pipe and matches from hand to hand, dropping them and picking them up, before finally deciding to put the hammer down and stuff the rest into his pockets. He went off at a steady trot and I thought as I had done so often that there couldn’t be many noblemen in England like him.

If I had been a marquis, I felt, I would still have been in bed or perhaps just parting the curtains and peering out to see what kind of day it was. But Lord Hulton worked all the time, just about as hard as any of his men. One morning I arrived to find him at the supremely mundane task of “plugging muck,” standing on a manure heap, hurling steaming forkfuls on to a cart. And he always dressed in rags. I suppose he must have had more orthodox items in his wardrobe but I never saw them. Even his tobacco was the great smoke of the ordinary farmer—Redbreast Flake.

My musings were interrupted by the thunder of hooves and wild cries; the Hulton herd was approaching. Within minutes the fold yard was filled with milling creatures, steam rising in rolling clouds from their bodies.

The marquis appeared round the corner of the building at a gallop.

“Right, Charlie!” he yelled. “Let the first one into the crush!”

Panting with anticipation he stood by the nailed boards as the men inside opened the yard gate. He didn’t have to wait long. A shaggy red monster catapulted from the interior, appeared briefly in the narrow passage then emerged at about fifty miles an hour from the other end with portions of his lordship’s creation dangling from its horns and neck. The rest of the herd pounded close behind.

“Stop them! Stop them!” screamed the little peer, but it was of no avail. A hairy torrent flooded through the opening and in no time at all the herd was legging it back to the high land in a wild stampede. The men followed them and within a few moments Lord Hulton and I were standing there just as before watching the tiny figures on the skyline, listening to the distant “Haow, haow!” “Gerraway by!”

“I say,” he murmured despondently. “It didn’t work terribly well, did it?”

But he was made of stern stuff. Seizing his hammer he began to bang away with undiminished enthusiasm and by the time the beasts returned the crush was rebuilt and a stout iron bar pushed across the front to prevent further break-outs.