animal stories (7 page)

It was too much for Phin. He jumped to his feet and cried: “Ah think you’re talking a lot of rubbish. There’s a young feller in Darrowby not long out of college and it doesn’t matter what you call ‘im out for he uses nowt but Epsom salts and cold water.”

Mick the Dreamer

It was nine o’clock on a filthy wet night and I was still at work. I gripped the steering wheel more tightly and shifted in my seat, groaning softly as my tired muscles complained.

Why had I entered this profession? I could have gone in for something easier and gentler—like coalmining or lumberjacking. I had started feeling sorry for myself three hours ago, driving across Darrowby marketplace on the way to calving. The shops were shut and even through the wintry drizzle there was a suggestion of repose, of work done, of firesides and books and drifting tobacco smoke. I had all those things, plus Helen, back there in our bed-sitter at the top of Skeldale House.

I think the iron really entered when I saw the carload of young people setting off from the front of the Drovers’ Arms; three girls and three young fellows, all dressed up and laughing and obviously on their way to a dance or party. Everybody was set for comfort and a good time; everybody except Herriot, rattling toward the cold wet hills and the certain prospect of toil.

And the case did nothing to raise my spirits. A skinny little heifer stretched on her side in a ramshackle open-fronted shed littered with old tin cans, half-bricks and other junk; it was difficult to see what I was stumbling over since the only light came from a rusty old lamp whose flame flickered and dipped in the wind.

I was two hours in that shed, easing out the calf inch by inch. It wasn’t a malpresentation, just a tight fit, but the heifer never rose to her feet and I spent the whole time on the floor, rolling among the bricks and tins, getting up only to shiver my way to the water bucket while the rain hurled itself icily against the shrinking flesh of my chest and back.

And now here I was, driving home frozen-faced with my skin chafing under my clothes and feeling as though a group of strong men had been kicking me enthusiastically from head to foot for most of the evening. I was almost drowning in self-pity when I turned into the tiny village of Copton. In the warm days of summer it was idyllic, reminding me always of a corner of Perthshire, with its single street hugging the lower slopes of a green hillside and a dark drift of trees spreading to the heathery uplands high above.

But tonight it was a dead black place with the rain sweeping across the headlights against the tight-shut houses, except for a faint glow right in the middle where the light from the village pub fell softly on the streaming roadway. I stopped the car under the swinging sign of the Fox and Hounds and, on an impulse, opened the door. A beer would do me good.

A pleasant warmth met me as I went into the pub. There was no bar counter, only high-backed settles and oak tables arranged under the whitewashed walls of what was simply a converted farm kitchen. At one end a wood fire crackled in an old black cooking range and above it the tick of a wall clock sounded above the murmur of voices. It wasn’t as lively as the modern places but it was peaceful.

“Now then, Mr. Herriot, you’ve been workin’,” my neighbor said as I sank onto the settle.

“Yes, Ted, how did you know?”

The man glanced over my soiled overcoat and the boots I hadn’t bothered to change on the farm. “Well, that’s not your Sunday suit, there’s blood on your nose end and cow muck on your ear.” Ted Dobson was a burly cowman in his thirties and his white teeth showed suddenly in a wide grin.

I smiled too and plied my handkerchief. “It’s funny how you always want to scratch your nose at times like that.

I looked around the room. There were about a dozen men drinking from pint glasses, some of them playing dominoes. They were all farm workers, the people I saw when I was called from my bed in the darkness before dawn; hunched figures they were then, shapeless in old greatcoats, cycling out to the farms, heads down against the wind and rain, accepting the facts of their hard existence. I often thought at those times that this happened to me only occasionally, but they did it every morning.

And they did it for thirty shillings a week; just seeing them here made me feel a little ashamed.

Mr. Waters, the landlord, whose name let him in for a certain amount of ribbing, filled my glass, holding his tall jug high to produce the professional froth.

“There y’are, Mr. Herriot, that’ll be sixpence. Cheap at ‘alf the price.”

Every drop of beer was brought up in that jug from the wooden barrels in the cellar. It would have been totally impracticable in a busy establishment, but the Fox and Hounds was seldom bustling and Mr. Waters would never get rich as a publican. But he had four cows in the little byre adjoining this room, fifty hens pecked around in his long back garden and he reared a few litters of pigs every year from his two sows.

“Thank you, Mr. Waters.” I took a deep pull at the glass. I had lost some sweat despite the cold and my thirst welcomed the flow of rich nutty ale. I had been in here a few times before and the faces were all similar. Especially old Albert Close, a retired shepherd who sat in the same place every night at the end of the settle hard against the fire.

He sat as always, his hands and chin resting on the tall crook which he had carried through his working days, his eyes blank. Stretched half under the seat, half under the table lay his dog, Mick, old and retired like his master. The animal was clearly in the middle of a vivid dream; his paws pedaled the air spasmodically, his lips and ears twitched and now and then he emitted a stifled bark.

Ted Dobson nudged me and laughed. “Ah reckon awd Mick’s still rounding up them sheep.”

I nodded. There was little doubt the dog was reliving the great day, crouching and darting, speeding in a wide arc round the perimeter of the field at his master’s whistle. And Albert himself. What lay behind those empty eyes? I could imagine him in his youth, striding the windy uplands, covering endless miles over moor and rock and beck, digging that same crook into the turf at every step. There were no fitter men than the Dales shepherds, living in the open in all weathers, throwing a sack over their shoulders in snow and rain.

And there was Albert now, a broken, arthritic old man gazing apathetically from beneath the ragged peak of an ancient tweed cap. I noticed he had just drained his glass and I walked across the room.

“Good evening, Mr. Close,” I said.

He cupped an ear with his hand and blinked up at me. “Eh?” I raised my voice to a shout. “How are you, Mr. Close?”

“Can’t complain, young man,” he murmured. “Can’t complain.”

“Will you have a drink?”

“Aye, thank ye.” He directed a trembling finger at his glass. “You can put a drop i’ there, young man.”

I knew a drop meant a pint and beckoned to the landlord who plied his jug expertly. The old shepherd lifted the recharged glass and looked up at me. “Good ‘ealth,” he grunted.

“All the best,” I said and was about to return to my seat when the old dog sat up. My shouts at his master must have wakened him from his dream because he stretched sleepily, shook his head a couple of times and looked around him. And as he turned and faced me I felt a sudden sense of shock.

His eyes were terrible. In fact I could hardly see them as they winked painfully at me through a sodden fringe of dirt-caked lashes. Rivulets of discharge showed dark and ugly against the white hair on either side of the nose.

I stretched my hand out to him and the dog wagged his tail briefly before closing his eyes and keeping them closed. It seemed he felt better that way.

I put my hand on Albert’s shoulder. “Mr. Close, how long has he been like this?”

“Eh?”

I increased my volume. “Mick’s eyes. They’re in a bad state.”

“Oh, aye.” The old man nodded in comprehension. “He’s got a bit o’ caud in ‘em. He allus been subjeck to it ever since ‘e were a pup.”

“No, it’s more than cold, it’s his eyelids.”

“Eh?”

I took a deep breath and let go at the top of my voice. “He’s got turned-in eyelids. It’s rather a serious thing.”

The old man nodded again. “Aye, ‘e lies a lot wi’ his head at foot of t’door. It’s draughty there.”

“No, Mr. Close!” I bawled. “It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s a thing called entropion and it needs an operation to put it right.”

“That’s right, young man.” He took a sip at his beer. “Just a bit o’ caud. Ever since he were a pup he’s been subjeck …”

I turned away wearily and returned to my seat. Ted Dobson looked at me inquiringly. “What was that about?”

“Well, it’s a nasty thing, Ted. Entropion is when the eyelids are turned in and the lashes rub against the eyeball. Causes a lot of pain, sometimes ulceration or even blindness. Even a mild case is damned uncomfortable for a dog.”

“I see,” Ted said ruminatively. “Ah’ve noticed awd Mick’s had mucky eyes for a long time but they’ve got worse lately.”

“Yes, sometimes it happens like that, but often it’s congenital. I should think Mick has had a touch of it all his life but for some reason it’s suddenly developed to this horrible state.” I turned again toward the old dog, sitting patiently under the table, eyes still tight shut.

“He’s sufferin’ then!”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, you know what it’s like if you have a speck of dust in your eyes or even one lash turned in. I should say he feels pretty miserable.”

“Poor awd beggar. Ah never knew it was owt like that.” He drew on his cigarette. “And could an operation cure it?”

“Yes, Ted, it’s one of the most satisfying jobs a vet can do. I always feel I’ve done a dog a good turn when I’ve finished.”

“Aye, ah bet you do. It must be a nice feelin’. But it’ll be a costly job, ah reckon?”

I smiled wryly. “It depends how you look at it. It’s a fiddly business and takes time. We usually charge about a pound for it.” A human surgeon would laugh at a sum like that, but it would still be too much for old Albert.

For a few moments we were both silent, looking across the room at the old man, at the threadbare coat, the long tatter of trouser bottoms falling over the broken boots. A pound would amount to two weeks of his old-age pension. It was a fortune.

Ted got up suddenly. “Any road, somebody ought to tell ‘im. Ah’ll explain it to ‘im.”

He crossed the room. “Are ye ready for another, Albert?”

The old shepherd glanced at him absently, then indicated his glass, empty again. “Aye, ye can put a drop i’ there, Ted.”

The cowman waved to Mr. Waters, then bent down. “Did ye understand what Mr. Herriot was tellin’ ye, Albert?” he shouted.

“Aye … aye … Mick’s got a bit o’ caud in ‘is eyes.”

“Nay, ‘e hasn’t! It’s nowt a that’soart! It’s a en … a en … summat different.”

“Keeps gettin’ caud in ‘em,” Albert mumbled, nose in glass.

Ted yelled in exasperation. “Ye daft awd divil! Listen to what ah’m sayin—ye’ve got to take care of ‘im and …”

But the old man was far away. “Ever sin ‘e were a pup … allus been subjeck to it….”

Although Mick took my mind off my own troubles at the time, the memory of those eyes haunted me for days. I yearned to get my hands on them. I knew an hour’s work would transport the old dog into a world he perhaps had not known for years, and every instinct told me to rush back to Copton, throw him in the car and bear him back to Darrowby for surgery. I wasn’t worried about the money but you just can’t run a practice that way.

I regularly saw lame dogs on farms, skinny cats on the streets and it would have been lovely to descend on each and every one and minister to them out of my knowledge. In fact I had tried a bit of it and it didn’t work.

It was Ted Dobson who put me out of my pain. He had come into the town to see his sister for the evening and he stood leaning on his bicycle in the surgery doorway, his cheerful, scrubbed face gleaming as if it would light up the street.

He came straight to the point. “Will ye do that operation on awd Mick, Mr. Herriot?”

“Yes, of course, but … how about …?”

“Oh that’ll be right. T’lads at Fox and Hounds are seein’ to it. We’re takin’ it out of the club money.”

“Club money?”

“Aye, we put in a bit every week for an outin’ in that’summer. Trip to that’seaside or summat like.”

“Well it’s extremely kind of you, Ted, but are you quite sure? Won’t any of them mind?”

Ted laughed. “Nay, it’s nowt, we won’t miss a quid. We drink ower much on them do’s anyway.” He paused. “All t’lads want this job done—it’s been gettin’ on our bloody nerves ever since you told us about ‘im.”

“Well, that’s great,” I said. “How will you get him down?”

“Me boss is lendin’ me ‘is van. Wednesday night be all right?”

“Fine.” I watched him ride away then turned back along the passage. It may seem to modern eyes that a lot of fuss had been made over a pound but in those days it was a very substantial sum, and some idea may be gained from the fact that four pounds a week was my commencing salary as a veterinary surgeon.

When Wednesday night arrived it was clear that Mick’s operation had become something of a gala occasion. The little van was crammed with regulars from the Fox and Hounds and other rolled up on their bicycles.

The old dog slunk fearfully down the passage to the operation room, nostrils twitching at the unfamiliar odors of ether and antiseptic. Behind him trooped the noisy throng of farm men, their heavy boots clattering on the tiles.

Tristan, who was doing the anesthesia, hoisted the dog on the table and I looked around at the unusual spectacle of rows of faces regarding me with keen anticipation. Normally I am not in favor of lay people witnessing operations but since these men were sponsoring the whole thing they would have to stay.

Under the lamp I got my first good look at Mick. He was a handsome, well-marked animal except for those dreadful eyes. As he sat there he opened them a fraction and peered at me for a painful moment before closing them against the bright light; that, I felt, was how he spent his life, squinting carefully and briefly at his surroundings.