All Creatures Great and Small Read online

  The family regarded him happily, pleased that he was coming with them and content in the knowledge that it would be good for him. Ruth watched his splashings with the light of love in her eyes. She kept looking over at me as if to say “Isn’t this grand?”

  For my part, I was only just stopping myself from tearing out my hair in great handfuls. A compulsion to leap up and pace the floor, to scream at the top of my voice showed that I was nearing the end of my tether. I fought this feeling by closing my eyes and I must have kept them closed for a long time because, when I opened them, Bob was standing by my side in a suit exactly like his father’s.

  I could never remember much about that ride to Darrowby. I had only a vague recollection of the car hurtling down the stony track at forty miles an hour. Of myself staring straight ahead with protruding eyes and the family, tightly packed but cheerful, thoroughly enjoying the ride.

  Even the imperturbable Mrs. Hall was a little tight lipped as I shot into the house at ten to two and out again at two after bolting her good food.

  I was late for the Messiah. The music had started as I crept into the church and I ran a gauntlet of disapproving stares. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Bellerbys sitting very upright, all in a row. It seemed to me that they looked disapproving, too.

  ELEVEN

  I LOOKED AGAIN AT the slip of paper where I had written my visits. “Dean, 3, Thompson’s Yard. Old dog ill.”

  There were a lot of these “yards” in Darrowby. They were, in fact, tiny streets, like pictures from a Dickens novel. Some of them opened off the market place and many more were scattered behind the main thoroughfares in the old part of the town. From the outside you could see only an archway and it was always a surprise to me to go down a narrow passage and come suddenly upon the uneven rows of little houses with no two alike, looking into each other’s windows across eight feet of cobbles.

  In front of some of the houses a strip of garden had been dug out and marigolds and nasturtiums straggled over the rough stones; but at the far end the houses were in a tumbledown condition and some were abandoned with their windows boarded up.

  Number three was down at this end and looked as though it wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer.

  The flakes of paint quivered on the rotten wood of the door as I knocked; above, the outer wall bulged dangerously on either side of a long crack in the masonry.

  A small, white-haired man answered. His face, pinched and lined, was enlivened by a pair of cheerful eyes; he wore a much-darned woollen cardigan, patched trousers and slippers.

  “I’ve come to see your dog,” I said, and the old man smiled.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’ve come, sir,” he said. “I’m getting a bit worried about the old chap. Come inside, please.”

  He led me into the tiny living-room. “I’m alone now, sir. Lost my missus over a year ago. She used to think the world of the old dog.”

  The grim evidence of poverty was everywhere. In the worn out lino, the fireless hearth, the dank, musty smell of the place. The wallpaper hung away from the damp patches and on the table the old man’s solitary dinner was laid; a fragment of bacon, a few fried potatoes and a cup of tea. This was life on the old age pension.

  In the corner, on a blanket, lay my patient, a cross-bred labrador; He must have been a big, powerful dog in his time, but the signs of age showed in the white hairs round his muzzle and the pale opacity in the depth of his eyes. He lay quietly and looked at me without hostility.

  “Getting on a bit, isn’t he, Mr. Dean?”

  “Aye he is that. Nearly fourteen, but he’s been like a pup galloping about until these last few weeks. Wonderful dog for his age, is old Bob and he’s never offered to bite anybody in his life. Children can do anything with him. He’s my only friend now—I hope you’ll soon be able to put him right.”

  “Is he off his food, Mr. Dean?”

  “Yes, clean off, and that’s a strange thing because, by gum, he could eat. He always sat by me and put his head on my knee at meal times, but he hasn’t been doing it lately.”

  I looked at the dog with growing uneasiness. The abdomen was grossly distended and I could read the tell-tale symptoms of pain; the catch in the respirations, the retracted commissures of the lips, the anxious, preoccupied expression in the eyes.

  When his master spoke, the tail thumped twice on the blankets and a momentary interest showed in the white old eyes; but it quickly disappeared and the blank, inward look returned.

  I passed my hand carefully over the dog’s abdomen. Ascites was pronounced and the dropsical fluid had gathered till the pressure was intense. “Come on, old chap,” I said, “let’s see if we can roll you over.” The dog made no resistance as I eased him slowly on to his other side, but, just as the movement was completed, he whimpered and looked round. The cause of the trouble was now only too easy to find.

  I palpated gently. Through the thin muscle of the flank I could feel a hard, corrugated mass; certainly a splenic or hepatic carcinoma, enormous and completely inoperable. I stroked the old dog’s head as I tried to collect my thoughts. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Is he going to be ill for long?” the old man asked, and again came the thump, thump of the tail at the sound of the loved voice.

  “It’s miserable when Bob isn’t following me round the house when I’m doing my little jobs.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dean, but I’m afraid this is something very serious. You see this large swelling. It is caused by an internal growth.”

  “You mean … cancer?” the little man said faintly.

  “I’m afraid so, and it has progressed too far for anything to be done. I wish there was something I could do to help him, but there isn’t.”

  The old man looked bewildered and his lips trembled. “Then he’s going to die?”

  I swallowed hard. “We really can’t just leave him to die, can we? He’s in some distress now, but it will soon be an awful lot worse. Don’t you think it would be kindest to put him to sleep? After all, he’s had a good, long innings.” I always aimed at a brisk, matter-of-fact approach, but the old clichés had an empty ring.

  The old man was silent, then he said, “Just a minute,” and slowly and painfully knelt down by the side of the dog. He did not speak, but ran his hand again and again over the grey old muzzle and the ears, while the tail thump, thump, thumped on the floor.

  He knelt there a long time while I stood in the cheerless room, my eyes taking in the faded pictures on the walls, the frayed, grimy curtains, the broken-springed armchair.

  At length the old man struggled to his feet and gulped once or twice. Without looking at me, he said huskily, “All right, will you do it now?”

  I filled the syringe and said the things I always said. “You needn’t worry, this is absolutely painless. Just an overdose of an anaesthetic. It is really an easy way out for the old fellow.”

  The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.

  “Is that it?” the old man whispered.

  “Yes, that’s it,” I said. “He is out of his pain now.”

  The old man stood motionless except for the clasping and unclasping of his hands. When he turned to face me his eyes were bright. “That’s right, we couldn’t let him suffer, and I’m grateful for what you’ve done. And now, what do I owe you for your services, sir?”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Dean,” I said quickly. “It’s nothing—nothing at all. I was passing right by here—it was no trouble.”

  The old man was astonished. “But you can’t do that for nothing.”

  “Now please say no more about it, Mr. Dean. As I told you, I was passing right by your door.” I said goodbye and went out of the house, through the passage and into the street. In the bustle of people and the bright sunshine, I could still see only the stark, little