The Lord God Made Them All Read online

  I dallied with the idea of shouting for help, but that would have been just too absurd. There was nothing else for it. I seized the top rail in both hands and pushed upwards, trying to close my ears to the tearing sounds from my garments, then, very slowly, I eased my way to safety.

  I left the gate lying where it was. Normally I meticulously close all gates behind me but there were no cattle in the fields and anyway, I had had enough of this one.

  I rapped sharply at the farmhouse door and Mrs. Ripley answered.

  “Now then, Mr. Herriot, it’s grand weather,” she said. Her carefree smile reminded me of her husband’s as she wiped at a dinner plate and adjusted the apron around her ample midriff.

  “Yes … yes … it is. I’ve called to see your cow. Is your husband in?”

  She shook her head. “Nay, ’e hasn’t got back from t’Fox and Hounds yet.”

  “What!” I stared at her. “That’s the pub at Diverton, isn’t it? I thought he had an urgent case for me to see.”

  “Aye, well, he had to go across there to ring ye up. We haven’t no telephone here, ye know.” Her smile widened.

  “But—but that was nearly an hour since. He should have been back here long ago.”

  “That’s right,” she said, nodding with perfect understanding. “But he’ll ’ave met some of his pals up there. They all get into t’Fox and Hounds on a Sunday mornin’.”

  I churned my hair around. “Mrs. Ripley, I’ve left my meal lying on the table so that I could get here immediately!”

  “Oh, we’ve ’ad ours,” she replied, as though the words would be a comfort to me. And she didn’t have to tell me. The rich scent drifting from the kitchen was unmistakably roast beef, and there was no doubt at all it would have been preceded by Yorkshire pudding.

  I didn’t say anything for a few moments, then I took a deep breath. “Well, maybe I can see the cow. Where is she, please?”

  Mrs. Ripley pointed to a box at the far end of the yard.

  “She’s in there.” As I set off across the cobbles she called after me. “You can be lookin’ at her till ’e gets back. He won’t be many minutes.”

  I flinched as though a lash had fallen across my shoulders. Those were dreadful words. “Not many minutes” was a common phrase in Yorkshire and could mean anything up to two hours.

  I opened the half-door and looked into the box at the cow. She was very lame, but when I approached her she hopped around in the straw, dotting the injured limb on the ground.

  Well, she hadn’t a broken leg. She couldn’t take her weight on it, but there was none of the typical dangling of the limb. I felt a surge of relief. In a big animal a fracture usually meant the humane killer because no number of plaster bandages could take the strain. The trouble seemed to be in her foot but I couldn’t catch her to find out. I’d have to wait for Mr. Ripley.

  I went out into the afternoon sunshine and gazed over the gently rising fields to the church tower of Diverton pushing from the trees. There was no sign of the farmer and I walked wearily beyond the buildings onto the grass to await his coming.

  I looked back at the house, and even through my exasperation I felt a sense of peace. Like many of the older farms, Anson Hall had once been a noble manor. Hundreds of years ago some person of title had built his dwelling in a beautiful place. The roof looked ready to fall in and one of the tall chimney stacks leaned drunkenly to one side, but the mullioned windows, the graceful arched doorway and the stately proportions of the building were a delight, with the pastures beyond stretching towards the green fells.

  And that garden wall. In its former glory the sun-warmed stones would have enclosed a cropped lawn with bright flowers, but now there were only nettles. Those nettles fascinated me; a waist-high jungle filling every inch of space between wall and house. Farmers are notoriously bad gardeners but Mr. Ripley was in a class by himself.

  My reverie was interrupted by a cry from the lady of the house. “He’s comin’, Mr. Herriot. I’ve just spotted ’im through the window.” She came round to the front and pointed towards Diverton.

  Her husband was indeed on his way, a black dot moving unhurriedly down through the fields and we watched him together for about fifteen minutes until at last he squeezed himself through a gap in a wall and came up to us, the smoke from his pipe rising around his ears.

  I went straight into the attack. “Mr. Ripley, I’ve been waiting a long time! You asked me to come straight away!”

  “Aye, ah knaw, ah knaw, but I couldn’t very well ask to use t’phone without havin’ a pint, could I?” He put his head on one side and beamed at me, secure in his unanswerable logic.

  I was about to speak when he went on. “And then Dick Henderson bought me one, so I had to buy ’im one back, and then I was just leavin’ when Bobby Talbot started on about them pigs he got from me last week.”

  His wife chipped in with bright curiosity. “Eee, that Bobby Talbot! Was he there this mornin’, too? He’s never away from t’pub, that feller. I don’t know how his missus puts up with it.”

  “Aye, Bobby was there, all right. He allus is.” Mr. Ripley smiled gently, knocked his pipe out against his heel and began to refill it. “And ah’ll tell you who else ah saw—Dan Thompson. Haven’t seen ’im since his operation. By gaw, it has fleeced him—he’s lost a bit o’ ground. Looks as though a few pints would do ’im good.”

  “Dan, eh?” Mrs. Ripley said eagerly. “That’s good news, any road. From what I heard they thought he’d never come out of t’hospital.”

  “Excuse me,” I broke in.

  “Nay, nay, that was just talk,” Mr. Ripley continued. “It was nobbut a stone in t’kidney. Dan’ll be all right. He was tellin’ me …

  I held up a hand. “Mr. Ripley, can I please see this cow? I haven’t had my lunch yet. My wife put it back in the oven when you phoned.”

  “Oh, I ’ad mine afore I went up there.” He gave me a reassuring smile and his wife nodded and laughed to put my mind fully at rest.

  “Well, that’s splendid,” I said frigidly. “I’m glad to hear that.” But I could see that they took me at my word. The sarcasm was lost on them.

  In the loose box Mr. Ripley haltered the cow and I lifted the foot. Cradling it on my knee I scraped away the caked muck with a hoof knife and there, glinting dully as the sunshine slanted in at the door, was the cause of the trouble. I seized the metal stud with forceps, dragged it from the foot and held it up.

  The farmer blinked at it for a few seconds, then his shoulders began to shake gently. “One of me own hobnails. Heh, heh, heh. Well, that’s a rum ’un. Ah must’ve knocked it out on t’cobbles; they’re right slippery over there. Once or twice I’ve nearly gone arse over tip. I was sayin’ to t’missus just t’other day …”

  “I really must get on, Mr. Ripley,” I interposed. “Remember, I still haven’t had my lunch. I’ll just slip out to the car for an antitetanus injection for the cow.”

  I gave her the shot, dropped the syringe into my pocket and was on my way across the yard when the farmer called after me.

  “Have ye got your nippers with ye, Mr. Herriot?”

  “Nippers …?” I halted and looked back at him. I couldn’t believe this. “Well, yes, I have, but surely you don’t want to start castrating calves now?”

  The farmer flicked an ancient brass lighter and applied a long sheet of flame to the bowl of his pipe. “There’s nobbut one, Mr. Herriot. Won’t take a minute.”

  Ah, well, I thought, as I opened the boot and fished out the Burdizzo from its resting place on my calving overall. It didn’t really matter now. My Yorkshire pudding was a write-off, a dried-up husk by now, and the beef and those gorgeous fresh vegetables would be almost cremated. All was lost, and nipping a calf wasn’t going to make any difference.

  As I turned back, a pair of double doors at the end of the yard burst open and an enormous black animal galloped out and stood looking around him warily in the bright sunshine, pawing the ground and swishing his tail b