All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  I must have looked comically surprised because the dark eyes gleamed and the rugged little face split into a delighted grin. I looked at that grin—boyish, invincible—and reflected on the phenomenon that was Cliff Tyreman.

  In a community in which toughness and durability was the norm he stood out as something exceptional. When I had first seen him nearly three years ago barging among cattle, grabbing their noses and hanging on effortlessly, I had put him down as an unusually fit middle-aged man; but he was in fact nearly seventy. There wasn’t much of him but he was formidable; with his long arms swinging, his stumping, pigeon-toed gait and his lowered head he seemed always to be butting his way through life.

  “I didn’t expect to see you today,” I said. “I heard you had pneumonia.”

  He shrugged. “Aye, summat of t’sort. First time I’ve ever been off work since I was a lad.”

  “And you should be in your bed now, I should say.” I looked at the heaving chest and partly open mouth. “I could hear you wheezing away when you were at the horse’s head.”

  “Nay, I can’t stick that nohow. I’ll be right in a day or two.” He seized a shovel and began busily clearing away the heap of manure behind the horse, his breathing loud and sterterous in the silence.

  Harland Grange was a large, mainly arable farm in the low country at the foot of the Dale, and there had been a time when this stable had had a horse standing in every one of the long row of stalls. There had been over twenty with at least twelve regularly at work, but now there were only two, the young horse I had been treating and an ancient grey called Badger.

  Cliff had been head horseman and when the revolution came he turned to tractoring and other jobs around the farm with no fuss at all. This was typical of the reaction of thousands of other farm workers throughout the country; they didn’t set up a howl at having to abandon the skills of a lifetime and start anew—they just got on with it. In fact, the younger men seized avidly upon the new machines and proved themselves natural mechanics.

  But to the old experts like Cliff, something had gone. He would say: “It’s a bloody sight easier sitting on a tractor—it used to play ’ell with me feet walking up and down them fields all day.” But he couldn’t lose his love of horses; the fellow feeling between working man and working beast which had grown in him since childhood and was in his blood forever.

  My next visit to the farm was to see a fat bullock with a piece of turnip stuck in his throat but while I was there, the farmer, Mr. Gilling, asked me to have a look at old Badger.

  “He’s had a bit of a cough lately. Maybe it’s just his age, but see what you think.”

  The old horse was the sole occupant of the stable now. “I’ve sold the three year old,” Mr. Gilling said. “But I’ll still keep the old ’un—he’ll be useful for a bit of light carting.”

  I glanced sideways at the farmer’s granite features. He looked the least sentimental of men but I knew why he was keeping the old horse. It was for Cliff.

  “Cliff will be pleased, anyway,” I said.

  Mr. Gilling nodded. “Aye, I never knew such a feller for ’osses. He was never happier than when he was with them.” He gave a short laugh. “Do you know, I can remember years ago when he used to fall out with his missus he’d come down to this stable of a night and sit among his ’osses. Just sit here for hours on end looking at ’em and smoking. That was before he started chewing tobacco.”

  “And did you have Badger in those days?”

  “Aye, we bred him. Cliff helped at his foaling—I remember the little beggar came arse first and we had a bit of a job pullin’ him out.” He smiled again. “Maybe that’s why he was always Cliff’s favourite. He always worked Badger himself—year in year out—and he was that proud of ’im that if he had to take him into the town for any reason he’d plait ribbons into his mane and hang all his brasses on him first.” He shook his head reminiscently.

  The old horse looked round with mild interest as I went up to him. He was in his late twenties and everything about him suggested serene old age; the gaunt projection of the pelvic bones, the whiteness of face and muzzle, the sunken eye with its benign expression. As I was about to take his temperature he gave a sharp, barking cough and it gave me the first clue to his ailment. I watched the rise and fall of his breathing for a minute or two and the second clue was there to be seen; further examination was unnecessary.

  “He’s broken winded, Mr. Gilling,” I said. “Or he’s got pulmonary emphysema to give it its proper name. Do you see that double lift of the abdomen as he breathes out? That’s because his lungs have lost their elasticity and need an extra effort to force the air out.”

  “What’s caused it then?”

  “Well it’s to do with his age, but he’s got a bit of cold on him at the moment and that’s brought it out.”

  “Will he get rid of it in time?” the farmer asked.

  “He’ll be a bit better when he gets over his cold, but I’m afraid he’ll never be quite right. I’ll give you some medicine to put in his drinking water which will alleviate his symptoms.” I went out to the car for a bottle of the arsenical expectorant mixture which we used then.

  It was about six weeks later that I heard from Mr. Gilling again. He rang me about seven o’clock one evening.

  “I’d like you to come out and have a look at old Badger,” he said.

  “What’s wrong? Is it his broken wind again?”

  “No, it’s not that. He’s still got the cough but it doesn’t seem to bother him much. No, I think he’s got a touch of colic. I’ve got to go out but Cliff will attend to you.”

  The little man was waiting for me in the yard. He was carrying an oil lamp. As I came up to him I exclaimed in horror.

  “Good God, Cliff, what have you been doing to yourself?” His face was a patchwork of cuts and scratches and his nose, almost without skin, jutted from between two black eyes.

  He grinned through the wounds, his eyes dancing with merriment. “Came off me bike t’other day. Hit a stone and went right over handlebars, arse over tip.” He burst out laughing at the very thought.

  “But damn it, man, haven’t you been to a doctor? You’re not fit to be out in that state.”

  “Doctor? Nay, there’s no need to bother them fellers. It’s nowt much.” He fingered a gash on his jaw. “Ah lapped me chin up for a day in a bit o’ bandage, but it’s right enough now.”

  I shook my head as I followed him into the stable. He hung up the oil lamp then went over to the horse.

  “Can’t reckon t’awd feller up,” he said. “You’d think there wasn’t much ailing him but there’s summat.”

  There were no signs of violent pain but the animal kept transferring his weight from one hind foot to the other as if he did have a little abdominal discomfort. His temperature was normal and he didn’t show symptoms of anything else.

  I looked at him doubtfully. “Maybe he has a bit of colic. There’s nothing else to see, anyway. I’ll give him an injection to settle him down.”

  “Right you are, maister, that’s good.” Cliff watched me get my syringe out then he looked around him into the shadows at the far end of the stable.

  “Funny seeing only one ’oss standing here. I remember when there was a great long row of ’em and the barfins and bridles hangin’ there on the stalls and the rest of the harness behind them all shinin’ on t’wall.” He transferred his plug of tobacco to the other side of his mouth and smiled. “By gaw, I were in here at six o’clock every morning feedin’ them and gettin’ them ready for work and ah’ll tell you it was a sight to see us all goin’ off ploughing at the start o’ the day. Maybe six pairs of ’osses setting off with their harness jinglin’ and the ploughmen sittin’ sideways on their backs. Like a regular procession it was.”

  I smiled. “It was an early start, Cliff.”

  “Aye, by Gaw, and a late finish. We’d bring the ’osses home at night and give ’em a right feed and take their harness off, then we’d go and have ou