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  I sighed. “Maybe I can. Bring me a bucket of hot water and some soap.”

  As I lathered my arm I felt a twinge of disappointment. I’d have liked to try that new Prolan injection. But on the other hand there was a certain interest in these rectal examinations.

  “Hold her tail, please,” I said, and began to work my hand carefully past the anal ring.

  We were doing a lot of this lately. The profession had awakened quite suddenly to the fact that bovine infertility was no longer an impenetrable mystery. We were carrying out more and more of these examinations, and as I say, they had a strange fascination.

  Siegfried put it with his usual succinctness one morning.

  “James,” he said. “There is more to be learned up a cow’s arse than in many an encyclopedia.”

  And, groping my way into this animal, I could see what he meant. Through the rectal wall I gripped the uterine cervix, then I worked along the right horn. It felt perfectly normal, as did the fallopian tube when I reached it. In another moment the ovary rested between my fingers like a walnut; but it was a walnut with a significant bulge and I smiled to myself. That swelling was the corpus luteum, the “yellow body” which was exerting its influence on the ovary and preventing the initiation of the normal oestral cycle.

  I squeezed gently on the base of the bulge and felt it part from the ovary and swim off into space. That was lovely—just what was required—and I looked happily along the cow’s back at the farmer.

  “I think I’ve put things right, Mr. Hopps. She should come on within the next day or two and you can get her served right away.”

  I withdrew my arm, smeared with filth almost to the shoulder, and began to swill it with the warm water. This was the moment when young people with dewy-eyed ambitions to be veterinary surgeons usually decided to be lawyers or nurses instead. A lot of teenagers came round with me to see practice and it seemed to me that the sooner they witnessed the realities of the job the better it would be for them. A morning’s pregnancy diagnoses or something similar had a salutary effect in sorting out the sheep from the goats.

  As I left the farm I had the satisfied feeling that I had really done something, and a sensation of relief that Mr. Hopps’ delicacy hadn’t resulted in an abortive visit.

  And when little Mr. Gilby crashed moaning on the cobbles of his byre floor, my first thought was that it was unfair that it should happen to him of all people.

  Because the natural delicacy and reticence of the times were embodied in him to an extreme degree. Even his physical make-up had something ethereal about it; nine stones or tiny bones, taut skin with no fat and a gentle, innocent face, almost child-like despite his fifty years. Nobody had ever heard Mr. Gilby swear or use a vulgar expression; in fact he was the only farmer I have ever known who talked about cow’s “manure.”

  Besides, as a strict methodist he didn’t drink or indulge in worldly pleasures and had never been known to tell a lie. Altogether he was so good that I would have regarded him with deep suspicion if he had been anybody else. But I had come to know Mr. Gilby. He was a nice little man, he was as honest as the day. I would have trusted him with my life.

  That was why I was so sad to see him lying there. It had happened so quickly. We had only just come into the byre and he had pointed to a black Angus Cross cow almost opposite the door.

  “That’s ’er. Got a touch o’cold, I think.” He knew I would want to take the temperature and grasped the tail before putting one foot across the channel so that he could slide between the cow and her neighbour. That was when it happened; when his legs were wide apart in the worst possible position.

  In a way I wasn’t surprised because that tail had been swishing bad-temperedly as we came in, and I am always a bit wary of black cows anyway. She didn’t seem to like our sudden entry and lashed out with her right hind foot with the speed of light, catching him with her flinty hoof full in the crutch as his legs were splayed. He was wearing only frayed, much-washed overall trousers and the protection was nil.

  I winced as the foot went home with an appalling thud, but Mr. Gilby showed no emotion at all. He dropped as though on the receiving end of a firing squad and lay motionless on the hard stones, his hands clutched between his legs. It was only after several seconds that he began to moan softly.

  As I hurried to his aid I felt it was wrong that I should be witnessing this disintegration of his modest facade. The little farmer, I was sure, would rather have died than be caught in this inelegant position, grovelling on the floor gripping frantically at an unmentionable area. I kneeled on the cobbles and patted his shoulder while he fought his inner battle with his agony.

  After a while he felt well enough to sit up and I put my arm around him and supported him while perspiration bedewed the greenish pallor of his face. That was when the embarrassment began to creep in, because though he had removed his hands from their compromising position he was clearly deeply ashamed at being caught in a coarse attitude.

  I felt strangely helpless. The little man couldn’t relieve his feelings in the usual way by cursing the animal and fate in general, nor could I help him to laugh the thing off with a few earthy remarks. This sort of thing happens now and then in the present day and usually gives rise to a certain amount of ripe comment, often embracing the possible effect on the victim’s future sex life. It all helps.

  But here in Mr. Gilby’s byre there was only an uncomfortable silence. After a time the colour began to return to his cheeks and the little man struggled slowly to his feet. He took a couple of deep breaths then looked at me unhappily. Obviously he thought he owed me some explanation, even apology, for his tasteless behaviour.

  As the minutes passed the tension rose. Mr. Gilby’s mouth twitched once or twice as though he were about to speak but he seemed unable to find the words. At length he appeared to come to a decision. He cleared his throat, looked around him carefully then put his lips close to my ear. He clarified the whole situation by one hoarsely whispered, deeply confidential sentence.

  “Right in the privates, Mr. Herriot.”

  CHAPTER 20

  LITTLE PICTURES KEPT FLOATING up into my mind. Memories from the very early days at Skeldale House. Before the RAF, before Helen. …

  Siegfried and I were at breakfast in the big dining room. My colleague looked up from a letter he was reading.

  “James, do you remember Stewie Brannan?”

  I smiled. “I could hardly forget. That was quite a day at Brawton races.” I would always carry a vivid recollection of Siegfried’s amiable college chum with me.

  “Yes … yes, it was.” Siegfried nodded briefly. “Well I’ve got a letter from him here. He’s got six kids now, and though he doesn’t complain, I don’t think life is exactly a picnic working in a dump like Hensfield. Especially when he knocks a bare living out of it.” He pulled thoughtfully at the lobe of his ear. “You know, James, it would be rather nice if he could have a break. Would you be willing to go through there and run his practice for a couple of weeks so that he could take his family on holiday?’’

  “Certainly. Glad to. But you’ll be a bit pushed here on your own, won’t you?”

  Siegfried waved a hand. “It’ll do me good. Anyway it’s the quiet time for us. I’ll write back today.”

  Stewie grasped the opportunity eagerly and within a few days I was on the road to Hensfield. Yorkshire is the biggest county in England and it must be the most varied. I could hardly believe it when, less than two hours after leaving the clean grassy fells and crystal air of Darrowby, I saw the forest of factory chimneys sprouting from the brown pall of grime.

  This was the industrial West Riding and I drove past mills as dark and satanic as any I had dreamed of, past long rows of dreary featureless houses where the workers lived. Everything was black; houses, mills, walls, trees, even the surrounding hillsides, smeared and soiled from the smoke which drifted across the town from a hundred belching stacks.

  Stewie’s surgery was tight in the heart o