All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  Siegfried made a polished apology—he’d had a lot of practice—and bought the man a drink. They parted on good terms.

  The pity of it was that Siegfried, who seldom remembered anything, didn’t remember this. A month later, also in the Swan, he ran into Billy Breckenridge again. This time, Billy wasn’t so jocular. “Hey, remember that bill you sent me twice? Well, I’ve had it again.”

  Siegfried did his best, but his charm bounced off the little man. He was offended. “Right, I can see you don’t believe I paid your bill. I had a receipt from your brother, but I’ve lost it.” He brushed aside Siegfried’s protestations. “No, no, there’s only one way to settle this. I say I’ve paid the three and six, you say I haven’t. All right, I’ll toss you for it.”

  Miserably, Siegfried demurred, but Billy was adamant. He produced a penny and, with great dignity, balanced it on his thumbnail. “O.K., you call.”

  “Heads,” muttered Siegfried and heads it was. The little man did not change expression. Still dignified, he handed the three and six to Siegfried. “Perhaps we might be able to consider the matter closed.” He walked out of the bar.

  Now there are all kinds of bad memories, but Siegfried’s was of the inspired type. He somehow forgot to make a note of this last transaction and, at the end of the month, Billy Breckenridge received a fourth request for the amount which he had already paid twice. It was about then that Siegfried changed his pub and started going to the Cross Keys.

  THIRTEEN

  AS AUTUMN WORE INTO winter and the high tops were streaked with the first snows, the discomforts of practice in the Dales began to make themselves felt.

  Driving for hours with frozen feet, climbing to the high barns in biting winds which seared and flattened the wiry hill grass. The interminable stripping off in draughty buildings and the washing of hands and chest in buckets of cold water, using scrubbing soap and often a piece of sacking for a towel.

  I really found out the meaning of chapped hands. When there was a rush of work, my hands were never quite dry and the little red fissures crept up almost to my elbows.

  This was when some small animal work came as a blessed relief. To step out of the rough, hard routine for a while; to walk into a warm drawing-room instead of a cow house and tackle something less formidable than a horse or a bull. And among all those comfortable drawing-rooms there was none so beguiling as Mrs. Pumphrey’s.

  Mrs. Pumphrey was an elderly widow. Her late husband, a, beer baron whose breweries and pubs were scattered widely over the broad bosom of Yorkshire, had left her a vast fortune and a beautiful house on the outskirts of Darrowby. Here she lived with a large staff of servants, a gardener, a chauffeur and Tricki Woo. Tricki Woo was a Pekingese and the apple of his mistress’ eye.

  Standing now in the magnificent doorway, I furtively rubbed the toes of my shoes on the backs of my trousers and blew on my cold hands. I could almost see the deep armchair drawn close to the leaping flames, the tray of cocktail biscuits, the bottle of excellent sherry. Because of the sherry, I was always careful to time my visits for half an hour before lunch.

  A maid answered my ring, beaming on me as an honoured guest and led me to the room, crammed with expensive furniture and littered with glossy magazines and the latest novels. Mrs. Pumphrey, in the high-backed chair by the fire, put down her book with a cry of delight. “Tricki! Tricki! Here is your Uncle Herriot.” I had been made an uncle very early and, sensing the advantages of the relationship, had made no objection.

  Tricki, as always, bounded from his cushion, leaped on to the back of a sofa and put his paws on my shoulders. He then licked my face thoroughly before retiring, exhausted. He was soon exhausted because he was given roughly twice the amount of food needed for a dog of his size. And it was the wrong kind of food.

  “Oh, Mr. Herriot,” Mrs. Pumphrey said, looking at her pet anxiously. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Tricki has gone flop-bott again.”

  This ailment, not to be found in any textbook, was her way of describing the symptoms of Tricki’s impacted anal glands. When the glands filled up, he showed discomfort by sitting down suddenly in mid walk and his mistress would rush to the phone in great agitation.

  “Mr. Herriot! Please come, he’s going flop-bott again!”

  I hoisted the little dog on to a table and, by pressure on the anus with a pad of cotton wool, I evacuated the glands.

  It baffled me that the Peke was always so pleased to see me. Any dog who could still like a man who grabbed him and squeezed his bottom hard every time they met had to have an incredibly forgiving nature. But Tricki never showed any resentment; in fact he was an outstandingly equable little animal, bursting with intelligence, and I was genuinely attached to him. It was a pleasure to be his personal physician.

  The squeezing over, I lifted my patient from the table, noticing the increased weight, the padding of extra flesh over the ribs. “You know, Mrs. Pumphrey, you’re overfeeding him again. Didn’t I tell you to cut out all those pieces of cake and give him more protein?”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Herriot,” Mrs. Pumphrey wailed. “But what can I do? He’s so tired of chicken.”

  I shrugged; it was hopeless. I allowed the maid to lead me to the palatial bathroom where I always performed a ritual handwashing after the operation. It was a huge room with a fully stocked dressing-table, massive green ware and rows of glass shelves laden with toilet preparations. My private guest towel was laid out next to the slab of expensive soap.

  Then I returned to the drawing-room, my sherry glass was filled and I settled down by the fire to listen to Mrs. Pumphrey. It couldn’t be called a conversation because she did all the talking, but I always found it rewarding.

  Mrs. Pumphrey was likeable, gave widely to charities and would help anybody in trouble. She was intelligent and amusing and had a lot of waffling charm; but most people have a blind spot and hers was Tricki Woo. The tales she told about her darling ranged far into the realms of fantasy and I waited eagerly for the next instalment.

  “Oh Mr. Herriot, I have the most exciting news. Tricki has a pen pal! Yes, he wrote a letter to the editor of Doggy World enclosing a donation, and told him that even though he was descended from a long line of Chinese emperors, he had decided to come down and mingle freely with the common dogs. He asked the editor to seek out a pen pal for him among the dogs he knew so that they could correspond to their mutual benefit. And for this purpose, Tricki said he would adopt the name of Mr. Utterbunkum. And, do you know, he received the most beautiful letter from the editor” (I could imagine the sensible man leaping upon this potential gold mine) “who said he would like to introduce Bonzo Fotheringham, a lonely dalmatian who would be delighted to exchange letters with a new friend in Yorkshire.”

  I sipped the sherry. Tricki snored on my lap. Mrs. Pumphrey went on.

  “But I’m so disappointed about the new summerhouse—you know I got it specially for Tricki so we could sit out together on warm afternoons. It’s such a nice little rustic shelter, but he’s taken a passionate dislike to it. Simply loathes it—absolutely refuses to go inside. You should see the dreadful expression on his face when he looks at it. And do you know what he called it yesterday? Oh, I hardly dare tell you.” She looked around the room before leaning over and whispering: “He called it ‘the bloody hut’!”

  The maid struck fresh life into the fire and refilled my glass. The wind hurled a handful of sleet against the window. This, I thought, was the life. I listened for more.

  “And did I tell you, Mr. Herriot, Tricki had another good win yesterday? You know, I’m sure he must study the racing columns, he’s such a tremendous judge of form. Well, he told me to back Canny Lad in the three o’clock at Redcar yesterday and, as usual, it won. He put on a shilling each way and got back nine shillings.”

  These bets were always placed in the name of Tricki Woo and I thought with compassion of the reactions of the local bookies. The Darrowby turf accountants were a harassed and fugitive body of men. A board would app