All Things Wise and Wonderful Read online

  The farmer gave him a quizzical look. “Aye, how about that, then? Wouldn’t you feel a bit more secure, like, if you had a bit o’ brass put by?”

  “Nay, nay. Ye can’t take it with you and any road, as long as a man can pay ’is way, he’s got enough.”

  There was nothing original about the words, but they have stayed with me all my life because they came from his lips and were spoken with such profound assurance.

  When I had finished the inoculations and the ewes were turned out to trot back happily over the open fields I turned to Roddy. “Well, thanks very much. It makes my job a lot quicker when I have a good catcher like you.” I pulled out a packet of Gold Flake. “Will you have a cigarette?”

  “No, thank ye, Mr. Herriot I don’t smoke.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No—don’t drink either.” He gave me his gentle smile and again I had the impression of physical and mental purity. No drinking, no smoking, a life of constant movement in the open air without material possessions or ambitions—it all showed in the unclouded eyes, the fresh skin and the hard muscular frame. He wasn’t very big but he looked indestructible.

  “C’mon, Jake, it’s dinner time,” he said and the big lurcher bounded around him in delight. I went over and spoke to the dog and he responded with tremendous body-swaying wags, his handsome face looking up at me, full of friendliness.

  I stroked the long pointed head and tickled the ears. “He’s a beauty, Roddy—a grand ’un, as you said.”

  I walked to the house to wash my hands and before I went inside I glanced back at the two of them. They were sitting in the shelter of a wall and Roddy was laying out a thermos flask and a parcel of food while Jake watched eagerly. The hard bright sunshine beat on them as the wind whistled over the top of the wall. They looked supremely comfortable and at peace.

  “He’s independent, you see,” the farmer’s wife said as I stood at the kitchen sink. “He’s welcome to come in for a bit o’ dinner but he’d rather stay outside with his dog.”

  I nodded. “Where does he sleep when he’s going round the farms like this.”

  “Oh, anywhere,” she replied. “In hay barns or granaries or sometimes out in the open, but when he’s with us he sleeps upstairs in one of our rooms. Ah know for a fact any of the farmers would be willin’ to have him in the house because he allus keeps himself spotless clean.”

  “I see.” I pulled the towel from behind the door. “He’s quite a character, isn’t he?”

  She smiled ruminatively. “Aye, he certainly is. Just him and his dog!” She lifted a fragrant dishful of hot roast ham from the oven and set it on the table. “But I’ll tell you this. The feller’s all right. Everybody likes Roddy Travers—he’s a very nice man.”

  Roddy stayed around the Darrowby district throughout the summer and I grew used to the sight of him on the farms or pushing his pram along the roads. When it was raining he wore a tattered over-long gaberdine coat, but at other times it was always the golf jacket and corduroys. I don’t know where he had accumulated his wardrobe. It was a safe bet he had never been on a golf course in his life and it was just another of the little mysteries about him.

  I saw him early one morning on a hill path in early October. It had been a night of iron frost and the tussocky pastures beyond the walls were held in a pitiless white grip with every blade of grass stiffly ensheathed in rime.

  I was muffled to the eyes and had been beating my gloved fingers against my knees to thaw them out, but when I pulled up and wound down the window the first thing I saw was the bare chest under the collarless unbuttoned shirt.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Herriot,” he said. “Ah’m glad I’ve seen ye.” He paused and gave me his tranquil smile. “There’s a job along t’road for a couple of weeks, then I’m movin’ on.”

  “I see.” I knew enough about him now not to ask where he was going. Instead I looked down at Jake who was sniffing the herbage. “I see he’s walking this morning.”

  Roddy laughed. “Yes, sometimes ’e likes to walk, sometimes ’e likes to ride. He pleases ’imself.”

  “Right, Roddy,” I said. “No doubt we’ll meet again. All the best to you.”

  He waved and set off jauntily over the icebound road and I felt that a little vein of richness had gone from my life.

  But I was wrong. That same evening about eight o’clock the front door bell rang. I answered it and found Roddy on the front door steps. Behind him, just visible in the frosty darkness, stood the ubiquitous pram.

  “I want you to look at me dog, Mr. Herriot” he said.

  “Why, what’s the trouble?”

  “Ah don’t rightly know. He’s havin’ sort of … faintin’ fits.”

  “Fainting fits? That doesn’t sound like Jake. Where is he, anyway?”

  He pointed behind him. “In t’pram, under t’cover.”

  “All right.” I threw the door wide. “Bring him in.”

  Roddy adroitly manhandled the rusty old vehicle up the steps and pushed it, squeaking and rattling, along the passage to the consulting room. There, under the bright lights he snapped back the fasteners and threw off the cover to reveal Jake stretched beneath.

  His head was pillowed on the familiar gaberdine coat and around him lay his master’s worldly goods; a string-tied bundle of spare shirt and socks, a packet of tea, a thermos, knife and spoon and an ex-army haversack.

  The big dog looked up at me with terrified eyes and as I patted him I could feel his whole frame quivering.

  “Let him lie there a minute, Roddy,” I said. “And tell me exactly what you’ve seen.”

  He rubbed his palms together and his fingers trembled. “Well it only started this afternoon. He was right as rain, larkin’ about on the grass, then he went into a sort o’ fit.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Just kind of seized up and toppled over on ’is side. He lay there for a bit gaspin’ and slaverin’. Ah’ll tell ye, I thought he was a goner.” His eyes widened and a corner of his mouth twitched at the memory.

  “How long did that last?”

  “Nobbut a few seconds. Then he got up and you’d say there was nowt wrong with ’im.”

  “But he did it again?”

  “Aye, time and time again. Drove me near daft. But in between ’e was normal. Normal, Mr. Herriot!”

  It sounded ominously like the onset of epilepsy. “How old is he?” I asked.

  “Five gone last February.”

  Ah well, it was a bit old for that. I reached for a stethoscope and auscultated the heart. I listened intently but heard only the racing beat of a frightened animal. There was no abnormality. My thermometer showed no rise in temperature.

  “Let’s have him on the table, Roddy. You take the back end.”

  The big animal was limp in our arms as we hoisted him on to the smooth surface, but after lying there for a moment he looked timidly around him then sat up with a slow and careful movement. As we watched he reached out and licked his master’s face while his tail flickered between his legs.

  “Look at that!” the man exclaimed. “He’s all right again. You’d think he didn’t ail a thing.”

  And indeed Jake was recovering his confidence rapidly. He peered tentatively at the floor a few times then suddenly jumped down, trotted to his master and put his paws against his chest.

  I looked at the dog standing there, tail wagging furiously. “Well, that’s a relief, anyway. I didn’t like the look of him just then, but whatever’s been troubling him seems to have righted itself. I’ll—”

  My happy flow was cut off. I stared at the lurcher. His fore legs were on the floor again and his mouth was gaping as he fought for breath. Frantically he gasped and retched then he blundered across the floor, collided with the pram wheels and fell on his side.

  “What the hell …! Quick, get him up again!” I grabbed the animal round the middle and we lifted him back on to the table.

  I watched in disbelief as the huge form lay there. There