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  “Oh, I don’t know,” Tristan said. “He’s not a bad sort.”

  “I agree, I’ve nothing against him.” Mr. Mount was deeply religious and had the reputation of being hard but fair. “It’s just that I wouldn’t like him to come up to me and ask if I was trifling with his daughter’s affections.”

  Tristan swallowed, and anxiety flitted briefly in his eyes. “Oh, that’s ridiculous. Deborah and I have a friendly relationship, that’s all.”

  “Well I’m glad to hear it” I said. “I’ve been told her father is very protective about her and I’d hate to feel those big hands round my throat.”

  Tristan gave me a cold stare. “You’re a sadistic bugger at times, Jim. Just because I occasionally enjoy a little female company …”

  “Oh, forget it, Triss, I’m only kidding. You’ve nothing to worry about. When I see old Mount tomorrow I promise I won’t mention that Deborah is one of your harem.” I dodged a flying cushion and went through to the dispensary to stock up for the next day’s round.

  But I realised next morning that my joke was barbed when I saw Mr. Mount coming out of the farm house. For a moment his bulk filled the doorway then he advanced with measured tread over the cobbles till he loomed over me, blocking out the sunshine, throwing a large area around me into shade.

  “That young man, Tristan,” he said without preamble. “He was speakin’ a bit funny like on the phone last night. What sort of a feller is he?”

  I looked up at the great head poised above me, at the unwavering grey eyes probing into mine from beneath a bristling overhang of brow. “Tristan?” I answered shakily. “Oh, he’s a splendid chap. A really fine type.”

  “Mmm.” The huge man continued to look at me and one banana-like finger rubbed doubtfully along his chin. “Does he drink?”

  Mr. Mount was renowned for his rigid antagonism to alcohol and I thought it unwise to reply that Tristan was a popular and esteemed figure at most of the local hostelries.

  “Oh, er—” I said. “Hardly at all … in the strictest moderation …”

  At that moment Deborah came out of the house and began to walk across the yard.

  She was wearing a flowered cotton dress. About nineteen, shining golden hair falling below her shoulders, she radiated the healthy buxom beauty of the country girl. As she went by. she flashed a smile at me and I had a heartlifting glimpse of white teeth and warm brown eyes. It was in the early days before I had met Helen and I had as sharp an interest in a pretty lass as anybody. I found myself studying her legs appreciatively after she had passed.

  It was then that I had an almost palpable awareness of her father’s gaze upon me. I turned and saw a new expression there—a harsh disapproval which chilled me and left a deep conviction in my mind. Deborah was a little smasher all right, and she looked nice, too, but no … no … never. Tristan had more courage than I had.

  Mr. Mount turned away abruptly. “This ’oss is in the stable,” he grunted.

  In those late thirties the tractor had driven a lot of the draught horses from the land but most of the farmers kept a few around, perhaps because they had always worked horses and it was part of their way of life and maybe because of the sheer proud beauty of animals like the one which stood before me now.

  It was a magnificent Shire gelding, standing all of eighteen hands. He was a picture of massively muscled power but when his master spoke, the great white-blazed face which turned to us was utterly docile.

  The farmer slapped him on the rump. “He’s a good sort is Bobby and I think a bit about ’im. What ah noticed first was a strange smell about his hind feet and then ah had a look for meself. I’ve never seen owt like it.”

  I bent and seized a handful of the long feathered hair behind the horse’s pastern. Bobby did not resist as I lifted the huge spatulate foot and rested it on my knee. It seemed to occupy most of my lap but it was not the size which astonished me. Mr. Mount had never seen owt like it and neither had I. The sole was a ragged, sodden mass with a stinking exudation oozing from the underrun horn, but what really bewildered me was the series of growths sprouting from every crevice.

  They were like nightmare toadstools—long papillae with horny caps growing from the diseased surface. I had read about them in the books; they were called ergots, but I had never imagined them in such profusion. My thoughts raced as I moved behind the horse and lifted the other foot. It was just the same. Just as bad.

  I had been qualified only a few months and was still trying to gain the confidence of the Darrowby farmers. This was just the sort of thing I didn’t want.

  “What is it?” Mr. Mount asked, and again I felt that unwinking gaze piercing me.

  I straightened up and rubbed my hands. “It’s canker, but a very bad case.” I knew all about the theory of the thing, in fact I was bursting with theory, but putting it into practice with this animal was a bit different.

  “How are you going to cure it?” Mr. Mount had an uncomfortable habit of going straight to the heart of things.

  “Well, you see, all that loose horn and those growths will have to be cut away and then the surface dressed with caustic,” I replied, and it sounded easy when I said it.

  “It won’t get better on its own, then?”

  “No, if you leave it the sole will disintegrate and the pedal bone will come through. Also the discharge will work up under the wall of the hoof and cause separation.”

  The farmer nodded. “So he’d never walk again, and that would be the end of Bobby.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Right, then.” Mr. Mount threw up his head with a decisive gesture. “When are you going to do it?”

  It was a nasty question, because I was preoccupied at that moment not so much with when I would do it but how I would do it.

  “Well now, let’s see,” I said huskily. “Would it be …”

  The farmer broke in. “We’re busy hay-makin’ all this week, and you’ll be wantin’ some men to help you. How about Monday next week?”

  A wave of relief surged through me. Thank heavens he hadn’t said tomorrow. I had a bit of time to think now.

  “Very well, Mr. Mount. That suits me fine. Don’t feed him on the Sunday because he’ll have to have an anaesthetic.”

  Driving from the farm, a sense of doom oppressed me. Was I going to ruin that beautiful animal in my ignorance? Canker of the foot was unpleasant at any time and was not uncommon in the days of the draught horse, but this was something away out of the ordinary. No doubt many of my contemporaries have seen feet like Bobby’s, but to the modern young veterinary surgeon it must be like a page from an ancient manual of farriery.

  As is my wont when I have a worrying case I started mulling it over right away. As I drove, I rehearsed various procedures. Would that enormous horse go down with a chloroform muzzle? Or would I have to collect all Mr. Mount’s men and rope him and pull him down? But it would be like trying to pull down St. Paul’s cathedral. And then how long would it take me to hack away all that horn—all those dreadful vegetations?

  Within ten minutes my palms were sweating and I was tempted to throw the whole lot over to Siegfried. But I was restrained by the knowledge that I had to establish myself not only with the farmers but with my new boss. He wasn’t going to think much of an assistant who couldn’t handle a thing on his own.

  I did what I usually did when I was worried; drove off the unfenced road, got out of the car and followed a track across the moor. The track wound beneath the brow of the fell which overlooked the Mount farm and when I had left the road far behind I flopped on the grass and looked down on the sunlit valley floor a thousand feet below.

  In most places you could hear something—the call of a bird, a car in the distance—but here there was a silence which was absolute, except when the wind sighed over the hill top, rustling the bracken around me.

  The farm lay in one of the soft places in a harsh countryside; lush flat fields where cattle grazed in comfort and the cut hay lay in long ev