All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  Julia, a scaled-down model of her mother, drifted about the room with the aimless, bored look of the spoiled child; glancing blankly at the dog or me, staring without interest through the window at the smooth lawns, the tennis court, the dark band of river under the trees.

  I gave the terrier a final reassuring pat on the head and got up from my knees. As I put away the syringe, Tavener took my arm. “Well, that’s fine, Mr. Herriot. We’re very grateful to you for relieving our minds. I must say I thought the old boy’s time had come when he started yelling. And now you’ll have a drink before you go.”

  The man’s hand trembled on my arm as he spoke. It had been noticeable, too, when he had been holding the dog’s head and I had wondered; maybe Parkinson’s disease, or nerves, or just drink. Certainly he was pouring a generous measure of whisky into his glass, but as he tipped up the bottle his hand was seized by an even more violent tremor and he slopped the spirit on to the polished sideboard.

  “Oh God! Oh God!” Mrs. Tavener burst out. There was a bitter note of oh no, not again, in her cry and Julia struck her forehead with her hand and raised her eyes to heaven. Tavener shot a single hunted look at the women then grinned as he handed me my glass.

  “Come and sit down, Mr. Herriot,” he said. “I’m sure you have time to relax for a few minutes.”

  We moved over to the fireside and Tavener talked pleasantly about dogs and the countryside and the pictures which hung on the walls of the big room. Those pictures were noted in the district; many of them were originals by famous painters and they had become the main interest in Tavener’s life. His other passion was clocks and as I looked round the room at the rare and beautiful timepieces standing among elegant period furniture it was easy to believe the rumours I had heard about the wealth within these walls.

  The women did not drink with us; they had disappeared when the whisky was brought out, but as I drained my glass the door was pushed open and they stood there, looking remarkably alike in expensive tweed coats and fur-trimmed hats. Mrs. Tavener, pulling on a pair of motoring gloves, looked with distaste at her husband. “We’re going into Brawton,” she said. “Don’t know when we’ll be back.”

  Behind her, Julia stared coldly at her father; her lip curled slightly.

  Tavener did not reply. He sat motionless as I listened to the roar of the car engine and the spatter of whipped-up gravel beyond the window; then he looked out, blank-faced, empty-eyed at the drifting cloud of exhaust smoke in the drive.

  There was something in his expression which chilled me. I put down my glass and got to my feet. “Afraid I must be moving on, Mr. Tavener. Thanks for the drink.”

  He seemed suddenly to be aware of my presence; the friendly smile returned. “Not at all. Thank you for looking after the old boy. He seems better already.”

  In the driving mirror, the figure at the top of the steps looked small and alone till the high shrubbery hid him from my view.

  The next call was to a sick pig, high on Marstang Fell. The road took me at first along the fertile valley floor, winding under the riverside trees past substantial farmhouses and rich pastures; but as the car left the road and headed up a steep track the country began to change. The transition was almost violent as the trees and bushes thinned out and gave way to the bare, rocky hillside and the miles of limestone walls.

  And though the valley had been rich with the fresh green of the new leaves, up here the buds were unopened and the naked branches stretched against the sky still had the look of winter.

  Tim Alton’s farm lay at the top of the track and as I pulled up at the gate I wondered as I always did how the man could scrape a living from those few harsh acres with the grass flattened and yellowed by the wind which always blew. At any rate, many generations had accomplished the miracle and had lived and struggled and died in that house with its outbuildings crouching in the lee of a group of stunted, wind-bent trees, its massive stones crumbling under three centuries of fierce weathering.

  Why should anybody want to build a farm in such a place? I turned as I opened the gate and looked back at the track threading between the walls down and down to where the white stones of the river glittered in the spring sunshine. Maybe the builder had stood here and looked across the green vastness and breathed in the cold, sweet air and thought it was enough.

  I saw Tim Alton coming across the yard. There had been no need to lay down concrete or cobbles here; they had just swept away the thin soil and there, between house and buildings was a sloping stretch of fissured rock. It was more than a durable surface—it was everlasting.

  “It’s your pig this time, then, Tim,” I said and the farmer nodded seriously.

  “Aye, right as owt yesterday and laid flat like a dead ’un this morning. Never looked up when I filled his trough and by gaw when a pig won’t tackle his grub there’s summat far wrong.” Tim dug his hands inside the broad leather belt which encircled his oversized trousers and which always seemed to be about to nip his narrow frame in two and led the way gloomily into the sty. Despite the bitter poverty of his existence he was a man who took misfortune cheerfully. I had never seen him look like this and I thought I knew the reason; there is something personal about the family pig.

  Smallholders like Tim Alton made their meagre living from a few cows; they sold their milk to the big dairies or made butter. And they killed a pig or two each year and cured it themselves for home consumption. On the poorer places it seemed to me that they ate little else; whatever meal I happened to stumble in on, the cooking smell was always the same—roasting fat bacon.

  It appeared to be a matter of pride to make the pig as fat as possible; in fact, on these little wind-blown farms where the people and the cows and the dogs were lean and spare, the pig was about the only fat thing to be seen.

  I had seen the Alton pig before. I had been stitching a cow’s torn teat about a fortnight ago and Tim had patted me on the shoulder and whispered: “Now come along wi’ me, Mr. Herriot and I’ll show tha summat.” We had looked into the sty at a twenty-five-stone monster effortlessly emptying a huge trough of wet meal. I could remember the pride in the farmer’s eyes and the way he listened to the smacking and slobbering as if to great music.

  It was different today. The pig looked, if possible, even more enormous as it lay on its side, eyes closed, filling the entire floor of the sty like a beached whale. Tim splashed a stick among the untouched meal in the trough and made encouraging noises but the animal never stirred. The farmer looked at me with haggard eyes.

  “He’s bad, Mr. Herriot. It’s serious whatever it is.”

  I had been taking the temperature and when I read the thermometer I whistled. “A hundred and seven. That’s some fever.”

  The colour drained from Tim’s face. “Oh ’ell! A hundred and seven! It’s hopeless, then. It’s ower with him.”

  I had been feeling along the animal’s side and I smiled reassuringly. “No, don’t worry, Tim. I think he’s going to be all right. He’s got erysipelas. Here, put your fingers along his back. You can feel a lot of flat swellings on his skin—those are the diamonds. He’ll have a beautiful rash within a few hours but at the moment you can’t see it, you can only feel it.”

  “And you can make him better?”

  “I’m nearly sure I can. I’ll give him a whacking dose of serum and I’d like to bet you he’ll have his nose in that trough in a couple of days. Most of them get over it all right.”

  “Well that’s a bit o’ good news, any road,” said Tim, a smile flooding over his face. “You had me worried there with your hundred and seven, dang you!”

  I laughed. “Sorry, Tim, didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m often happier to see a high temperature than a low one. But it’s a funny time for erysipelas. We usually see it in late summer.”

  “All right, I’ll let ye off this time. Come in and wash your hands.”

  In the kitchen I ducked my head but couldn’t avoid bumping the massive side of bacon hanging from the beamed ceiling.