All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  “I don’t suppose it makes much difference to me either way,” I grunted.

  “Well don’t look so bloody mournful.” He took an effortless swallow which lowered the level in his glass by about six inches. “What do you expect an attractive girl to do? Sit at home waiting for you to call? If you’ve been pounding on her door every night you haven’t told me about it.”

  “It’s all right you talking. I think old man Alderson would set his dogs on me if I showed up there. I know he doesn’t like me hanging around Helen and on top of that I’ve got the feeling he thinks I killed his cow on my last visit.”

  “And did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. But I walked up to a living animal, gave it an injection and it promptly died, so I can’t blame him.”

  I took a sip at my beer and watched the Alderson party who had changed direction and were heading away from our retreat. Helen was wearing a pale blue dress and I was thinking how well the colour went with the deep brown of her hair and how I liked the way she walked with her legs swinging easily and her shoulders high and straight when the loudspeaker boomed across the show ground.

  “Will Mr. Herriot, Veterinary Surgeon, please report to the stewards immediately.”

  It made me jump but at the same time I felt a quick stab of pride. It was the first time I had heard myself and my profession publicly proclaimed. I turned to Tristan. He was supposed to be seeing practice and this could be something interesting. But he was immersed in a story which he was trying to tell to a little stocky man with a fat, shiny face, and he was having difficulty because the little man, determined to get his full measure of enjoyment, kept throwing himself into helpless convulsions at the end of every sentence, and the finish was a long way away. Tristan took his stories very seriously; I decided not to interrupt him.

  A glow of importance filled me as I hurried over the grass, my official badge with “Veterinary Surgeon” in gold letters dangling from my lapel. A steward met me on the way.

  “It’s one of the cattle. Had an accident, I think.” He pointed to a row of pens along the edge of the field.

  A curious crowd had collected around my patient which had been entered in the in-calf heifers class. The owner a stranger from outside the Darrowby practice came up to me, his face glum.

  “She tripped coming off the cattle wagon and went ’ead first into the wall. Knocked one of ’er horns clean off.”

  The heifer, a bonny little light roan, was a pathetic sight. She had been washed, combed, powdered and primped for the big day and there she was with one horn dangling drunkenly down the side of her face and an ornamental fountain of bright arterial blood climbing gracefully in three jets from the broken surface high into the air.

  I opened my bag. I had brought a selection of the things I might need and I fished out some artery forceps and suture material. The rational way to stop haemorrhage of this type is to grasp the bleeding vessel and ligate it, but it wasn’t always as easy as that. Especially when the patient won’t cooperate.

  The broken horn was connected to the head only by a band of skin and I quickly snipped it away with scissors; then, with the farmer holding the heifer’s nose I began to probe with my forceps for the severed vessels. In the bright sunshine it was surprisingly difficult to see the spurting blood and as the little animal threw her head about I repeatedly felt the warm spray across my face and heard it spatter on my collar.

  It was when I was beginning to lose heart with my ineffectual groping that I looked up and saw Helen and her boy friend watching me from the crowd. Young Edmundson looked mildly amused as he watched my unavailing efforts but Helen smiled encouragingly as she caught my eye. I did my best to smile back at her through my bloody mask but I don’t suppose it showed.

  I gave it up when the heifer gave a particularly brisk toss which sent my forceps flying on to the grass. I did what I should probably have done at the beginning—clapped a pad of cotton wool and antiseptic powder on to the stump and secured it with a figure of eight bandage round the other horn.

  “That’s it then,” I said to the farmer as I tried to blink the blood out of my eyes. “The bleeding’s stopped, anyway. I’d advise you to have her properly de-horned soon or she’s going to look a bit odd.”

  Just then Tristan appeared from among the spectators.

  “What’s got you out of the beer tent?” I enquired with a touch of bitterness.

  “It’s lunch time, old lad,” Tristan replied equably. “But we’ll have to get you cleaned up a bit first. I can’t be seen with you in that condition. Hang on, I’ll get a bucket of water.”

  The show luncheon was so excellent that it greatly restored me. Although it was taken in a marquee the committee men’s wives had somehow managed to conjure up a memorable cold spread. There was fresh salmon and home fed ham and slices of prime beef with mixed salads and apple pie and the big brimming jugs of cream you only see at farming functions. One of the ladies was a noted cheese maker and we finished with some delicious goat cheese and coffee. The liquid side was catered for too with a bottle of Magnet Pale Ale and a glass at every place.

  I didn’t have the pleasure of Tristan’s company at lunch because he had strategically placed himself well down the table between two strict methodists so that his intake of Magnet was trebled.

  I had hardly emerged into the sunshine when a man touched me on the shoulder.

  “One of the dog show judges wants you to examine a dog. He doesn’t like the look of it.”

  He led me to where a thin man of about forty with a small dark moustache was standing by his car. He held a wire-haired fox terrier on a leash and he met me with an ingratiating smile.

  “There’s nothing whatever the matter with my dog,” he declared, “but the chap in there seems very fussy.”

  I looked down at the terrier. “I see he has some matter in the corner of his eyes.”

  The man shook his head vigorously. “Oh no, that’s not matter. I’ve been using some white powder on him and a bit’s got into his eyes, that’s all.”

  “Hmm, well let’s see what his temperature says, shall we?”

  The little animal stood uncomplaining as I inserted the thermometer. When I took the reading my eyebrows went up.

  “It’s a hundred and four. I’m afraid he’s not fit to go into the show.”

  “Wait a minute.” The man thrust out his jaw. “You’re talking like that chap in there. I’ve come a long way to show this dog and I’m going to show him.”

  “I’m sorry but you can’t show him with a temperature of a hundred and four.”

  “But he’s had a car journey. That could put up his temperature.”

  I shook my head. “Not as high as that it couldn’t. Anyway he looks sick to me. Do you see how he’s half closing his eyes as though he’s frightened of the light? It’s possible he could have distemper.”

  “What? That’s rubbish and you know it. He’s never been fitter!” The man’s mouth trembled with anger.

  I looked down at the little dog. He was crouching on the grass miserably. Occasionally he shivered, he had a definite photophobia and there was that creamy blob of pus in the corner of each eye. “Has he been inoculated against distemper?”

  “Well no, he hasn’t, but why do you keep on about it?”

  “Because I think he’s got it now and for his sake and for the sake of the other dogs here you ought to take him straight home and see your own vet.”

  He glared at me. “So you won’t let me take him into the show tent?”

  “That’s right. I’m very sorry, but it’s out of the question.” I turned and walked away.

  I had gone only a few yards when the loudspeaker boomed again. “Will Mr. Herriot please go to the measuring stand where the ponies are ready for him.”

  I collected my stick and trotted over to a corner of the field where a group of ponies had assembled; Welsh, Dales, Exmoor, Dartmoor—all kinds of breeds were represented.

  For the uninitiated, horses a