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  I revisited the bullock a week later and this time he galloped round the box like a racehorse when I approached him. When I finally trapped him in a corner and caught his nose I was breathless but happy. I slipped my fingers into his mouth; the tongue was pliable and almost normal.

  “One more shot Eric,” I said. “Wooden tongue is the very devil for recurring if you don’t get it cleared up thoroughly.” I began to unwind the rubber tube. “By the way, I don’t see Judy around.”

  “Oh, I reckon she feels he’s cured now, and anyway, she has summat else on her plate this mornin’. Can you see her over there?”

  I looked through the doorway. Judy was stalking importantly across the yard. She had something in her mouth—a yellow, fluffy object.

  I craned out further. “What is she carrying?”

  “It’s a chicken.”

  “A chicken?”

  “Aye, there’s a brood of them runnin’ around just now. They’re only a month old and t’awd bitch seems to think they’d be better off in the stable. She’s made a bed for them in there and she keeps tryin’ to curl herself round them. But the little things won’t ’ave it.”

  I watched Judy disappear into the stable. Very soon she came out trotted after a group of tiny chicks which were pecking happily among the cobbles and gently scooped one up. Busily she made her way back to the stable but as she entered the previous chick reappeared in the doorway and pottered over to rejoin his friends.

  She was having a frustrating time but I knew she would keep at it because that was the way she was. Judy the nurse dog was still on duty.

  CHAPTER 41

  MY EXPERIENCE IN THE RAF hospital made me think. As a veterinary surgeon I had become used to being on the other end of the knife and I preferred it that way.

  As I remembered, I was quite happy that morning a couple of years ago as I poised my knife over a swollen ear. Tristan, one elbow leaning wearily on the table, was holding an anaesthetic mask over the nose of the sleeping dog when Siegfried came into the room.

  He glanced briefly at the patient. “Ah yes, that haematoma you were telling me about, James.” Then he looked across the table at his brother. “Good God, you’re a lovely sight this morning! When did you get in last night?”

  Tristan raised a pallid countenance. His eyes were bloodshot slits between puffy lids. “Oh, I don’t quite know. Fairly late, I should think.”

  “Fairly late! I got back from a farrowing at four o’clock and you hadn’t arrived then. Where the hell were you, anyway?”

  “I was at the Licensed Victuallers’ Ball. Very good do, actually.”

  “I bet it was!” Siegfried snorted. “You don’t miss a thing, do you? Darts Team Dinner, Bellringers’ Outing, Pigeon Club Dance and now it’s the Licensed Victuallers’ Ball. If there’s a good booze-up going on anywhere you’ll find it.”

  When under fire Tristan always retained his dignity and he drew it around him now like a threadbare cloak.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “many of the Licensed Victuallers are my friends.”

  His brother flushed. “I believe you. I should think you’re the best bloody customer they’ve ever had!”

  Tristan made no reply but began to make a careful check of the flow of oxygen into the ether bottle.

  “And another thing,” Siegfried continued. “I keep seeing you slinking around with about a dozen different women. And you’re supposed to be studying for an exam.”

  “That’s an exaggeration.” The young man gave him a pained look. “I admit I enjoy a little female company now and then—just like yourself.”

  Tristan believed in attack as the best form of defence, and it was a telling blow because there was a constant stream of attractive girls laying siege to Siegfried at Skeldale House.

  But the elder brother was only temporarily halted. “Never mind me!” he shouted. “I’ve passed all my exams. I’m talking about you! Didn’t I see you with that new barmaid from the Drovers’ the other night? You dodged rapidly into a shop doorway but I’m bloody sure it was you.”

  Tristan cleared his throat. It quite possibly was. I have recently become friendly with Lydia—she’s a very nice girl.”

  I’m not saying she isn’t. What I am saying is that I want to see you indoors at night with your books instead of boozing and chasing women. Is that clear?”

  “Quite.” The young man inclined his head gracefully and turned down the knob on the anaesthetic machine.

  His brother regarded him balefully for a few moments, breathing deeply. These remonstrations always took it out of him. Then he turned away quickly and left.

  Tristan’s facade crumbled as soon as the door closed.

  “Watch the anaesthetic for a minute, Jim,” he croaked. He went over to the basin in the corner, filled a measuring jar with cold water and drank it at a long gulp. Then he soaked some cotton wool under the tap and applied it to his brow.

  “I wish he hadn’t come in just then. I’m in no mood for the raised voices and angry words.” He reached up to a large bottle of aspirins, swallowed a few and washed them down with another gargantuan draught. “All right then, Jim,” he murmured as he returned to the table and took over the mask again. “Let’s go.”

  I bent once more over the sleeping dog. He was a Scottie called Hamish and his mistress, Miss Westerman, had brought him in two days ago.

  She was a retired school teacher and I always used to think she must have had little trouble in keeping her class in order. The chilly pale eyes looking straight into mine reminded me that she was as tall as I was and the square jaw between the muscular shoulders completed a redoubtable presence.

  “Mr. Herriot,” she barked. “I want you to have a look at Hamish. I do hope it’s nothing serious but his ear has become very swollen and painful. They don’t get—er—cancer there, do they?” For a moment the steady gaze wavered.

  “Oh that’s most unlikely.” I lifted the little animal’s chin and looked at the left ear which was drooping over the side of his face. His whole head, in fact, was askew as though dragged down by pain.

  Carefully I lifted the ear and touched the tense swelling with a forefinger. Hamish looked round at me and whimpered.

  “Yes, I know, old chap. It’s tender, isn’t it?” As I turned to Miss Westerman I almost bumped into the close-cropped iron-grey head which was hovering close over the little dog.

  “He’s got an aural haematoma,” I said.

  “What on earth is that?”

  “It’s when the little blood vessels between the skin and cartilage of the ear rupture and the blood flows out and causes this acute distension.”

  She patted the jet black shaggy coat. “But what causes it?”

  “Canker, usually. Has he been shaking his head lately?”

  “Yes, now you mention it, he has. Just as though he had got something in his ear and was trying to get rid of it.”

  “Well that’s what bursts the blood vessels. I can see he has a touch of canker though it isn’t common in this breed.”

  She nodded. “I see. And how can you cure it?”

  “Only by an operation, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh dear!” She put her hand to her mouth. “I’m not keen on that.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “It’s just a case of letting the blood out and stitching the layers of the ear together. If we don’t do this soon he’ll suffer a lot of pain and finish up with a cauliflower ear, and we don’t want that because he’s a bonny little chap.”

  I meant it, too. Hamish was a proud-strutting, trim little dog. The Scottish terrier is an attractive creature and I often lament that there are so few around in these modern days. After some hesitation Miss Westerman agreed and we fixed a date two days from then. When she brought him in for the operation she deposited Hamish in my arms, stroked his head again and again then looked from Tristan to me and back again.

  “You’ll take care of him, won’t you,” she said, and the jaw jutted