All Things Bright and Beautiful Read online

  I looked at her now as she nosed around the straw in her pen. She was a vast sow and the four inch laceration in her neck muscles was obviously posing no threat to her life; but it was gaping and couldn’t be left like that.

  “I’ll have to put a few stitches in there,” I said, and the big Miss Dunn gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

  “Oh dear! Will it hurt her? I shan’t be able to look, I’m afraid.”

  She was a tall muscular lady in her fifties with a bright red face and often as I looked at the wide shoulders and the great arms with their bulging biceps I had the feeling that she could flatten me effortlessly with one blow if she so desired. But strangely she was nervous and squeamish about the realities of animal doctoring and it was always her little wisp of a sister who helped at lambings, calvings and the rest.

  “Oh you needn’t worry, Miss Dunn,” I replied. “It’ll be all over before she knows what’s happening.” I climbed into the pen, went up to Prudence and touched her gently on the neck.

  Immediately the sow unleased a petulant scream as though she had been stabbed with a hot iron and when I tried to give her back a friendly scratch the huge mouth opened again and the deafening sound blasted out. And this time she advanced on me threateningly. I stood my ground till the yawning cavern with its yellowed teeth was almost touching my leg then I put a hand on the rail and vaulted out of the pen.

  “We’ll have to get her into a smaller space,” I said. “I’ll never be able to stitch her in that big pen. She has too much room to move around and she’s too big to hold.”

  Little Miss Dunn held up her hand. “We have the very place. In the calf house across the yard. If we got her into one of those narrow stalls she wouldn’t be able to turn round.”

  “Fine!” I rubbed my hands. “And I’ll be able to do the stitching over the top from the passage. Let’s get her over there.”

  I opened the door and after a bit of poking and pushing Prudence ambled majestically out on to the cobbles of the yard. But there she stood, grunting sulkily, a stubborn glint in her little eyes, and when I leaned my weight against her back end it was like trying to move an elephant She had no intention of moving any further; and that calf house was twenty yards away.

  I stole a look at my watch. Five fifteen, and I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

  The little Miss Dunn broke into my thoughts. “Mr. Herriot, I know how we can get her across the yard.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh yes, Prudence has been naughty before and we have found a way of persuading her to move.”

  I managed a smile. “Great! How do you do it?”

  “Well now,” and both sisters giggled. “She is very fond of digestive biscuits.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She simply loves digestive biscuits.”

  “She does?”

  “Adores them!”

  “Well, that’s very nice,” I said. “But I don’t quite see…”

  The big Miss Dunn laughed. “Just you wait and I’ll show you.”

  She began to stroll towards the house and it seemed to me that though those ladies were by no means typical Dales farmers they did share the general attitude that time was of no consequence. The door closed behind her and I waited…and as the minutes ticked away I began to think she was brewing herself a cup of tea. In my mounting tension I turned away and gazed down over the hillside fields to where the grey roofs and old church tower of Dollingsford showed above the riverside trees. The quiet peace of the scene was in direct contrast to my mental state.

  Just when I was giving up hope, big Miss Dunn reappeared carrying a long round paper container. She gave me a roguish smile as she held it up to me.

  “These are what she likes. Now just watch.”

  She produced a biscuit and threw it down on the cobbles a few feet in front of the sow. Prudence eyed it impassively for a few moments then without haste strolled forward, examined it carefully and began to eat it.

  When she had finished, big Miss Dunn glanced at me conspiratorially and threw another biscuit in front of her. The pig again moved on unhurriedly and started on the second course. This was gradually leading her towards the buildings across toe yard but it was going to take a long time. I reckoned that each biscuit was advancing her about ten feet and the calf house would be all of twenty yards away, so allowing three minutes a biscuit it was going to take nearly twenty minutes to get there.

  I broke out in a sweat at the thought, and my fears were justified because nobody was in the slightest hurry. Especially Prudence who slowly munched each titbit then snuffled around picking up every crumb while the ladies smiled down at her fondly.

  “Look,” I stammered. “Do you think you could throw the biscuits a bit further ahead of her…just to save time, I mean?”

  Little Miss Dunn laughed gaily. “Oh we’ve tried that, but she’s such a clever old darling. She knows she’ll get less that way.”

  To demonstrate she threw the next biscuit about fifteen feet away from the pig but the massive animal surveyed it with a cynical expression and didn’t budge until it was kicked back to the required spot. Miss Dunn was right; Prudence wasn’t so daft.

  So I just had to wait gritting my teeth as I watched the agonising progress. I was almost at screaming point at the end though the others were thoroughly enjoying themselves. But at last the final biscuit was cast into the calf pen, the pig made her leisurely way inside and the ladies, with triumphant giggles, closed the door behind her.

  I leaped forward with my needle and suture silk and of course as soon as I laid a finger on her skin Prudence set up an almost unbearable nonstop squeal of rage. Big Miss Dunn put her hands over her ears and fled in terror but her little sister stayed with me bravely and passed me my scissors and dusting powder whenever I asked in sign language above the din.

  My head was still ringing as I drove away, but that didn’t worry me as much as the time. It was six o’clock.

  43

  TENSELY I ASSESSED MY position. The next and final visit was only a couple of miles away—I could make it in ten minutes. Then say twenty minutes on the farm, fifteen minutes back to Darrowby, a lightning wash and change and I could still be pushing my knees under Mrs. Hodgson’s table by seven o’clock.

  And the next job wasn’t a long one; just a bull to ring. Nowadays since the advent of Artificial Insemination there aren’t many bulls about—only the big dairy men and pedigree breeders keep them—but in the thirties nearly every farmer had one, and inserting rings in their noses was a regular job. The rings were put in when they were about a year old and were necessary to restrain the big animals when they had to be led around.

  I was immensely relieved when I arrived to find the gaunt figure of old Ted Buckle the farmer and his two men waiting for me in the yard. A classical way for a vet to waste time is to go hollering around the empty buildings then do more of the same out in the empty fields, waving madly, trying to catch the eye of a dot on the far horizon.

  “Now then, young man,” Ted said, and even that short phrase took a fair time to come out. To me, the old man was a constant delight; speaking the real old Yorkshire—which you seldom hear now and which I won’t try to reproduce here—with slow deliberation as though he were savouring every syllable as much as I was enjoying listening to him. “You’ve come, then.”

  “Yes, Mr. Buckle, and I’m glad to see you’re ready and waiting for me.”

  “Aye ah doan’t like keepin’ you fellers hangin’ about.” He turned to his men. “Now then, lads go into that box and get haud’n that big lubber for Mr. Herriot.”

  The “lads,” Ernest and Herbert, who were both in their sixties, shuffled into the bull’s loose box and closed the door after them. There was a few seconds of muffled banging against the wood, a couple of bellows and the occasional anglo-saxon expression from the men, then silence.

  “Ah think they have ’im now,” Ted murmured and, not for the first time, I looked wonderingly at his wea