of the market place my car, too, appeared to be taken by surprise
because it roared into life at the first touch of the starter.
I had to go back to the surgery for my whelping instruments and in the
siren t moonlit street we got out and I opened the big white door to
Skeldale House. ~;
And once in the passage it was the most natural thing in the world to
take her in my arms and kiss her gratefully and unhurriedly. I had
waited a long] time for this and the minutes flowed past unnoticed as we
stood there, our feet; on the black and red eighteenth-century tiles,
our heads almost touching the vast] picture of the Death of Nelson which
dominated the entrance. ,!
We kissed again at the first bend of the passage under the companion
picture"] of the Meeting of Wellington and Blucher at Waterloo. We
kissed at the second bend by the tall cupboard where Siegfried kept his
riding coats and boots. W kissed in the dispensary in between searching
for my instruments. Then we tried it out in the garden and this was the
best of all with the Rowers still and expectant in the moonlight and the
fragrance of the moist earth and grass rising about us.
I have never driven so slowly to a case. About ten miles an hour with
Helen's head on my shoulder and all the scents of spring drifting in
through the open window. And it was like sailing from stormy seas into a
sweet, safe harbour, like coming home.
The light in the cottage window was the only one showing in the sleeping
village, and when I knocked at the door Bert Chapman answered. Bert was
a council roadman - one of the breed for whom I felt an abiding
affinity.
The council men were my brethren of the roads.^Like me they spent most
of their lives on the lonely by-ways around Darrowby and I saw them most
days of the week, repairing the tarmac, cutting back the grass verges in
the summer, gritting and snow ploughing in the winter. And when they
spotted me driving past they would grin cheerfully and wave as if the
very sight of me had made their day. I don't know whether they were
specially picked for good nature but I don't think I have ever met a
more equable body of men.
One old farmer remarked sourly to me once. "There's no wonder the
buggers are 'appy, they've got nowt to do." An exaggeration, of course,
but I knew how he felt; compared with farming every other job was easy.
I had seen Bert Chapman just a day or two ago, sitting on a grassy bank,
his shovel by his side, a vast sandwich in his hand. He had raised a
corded forearm in salute, a broad smile bisecting his round,
sun-reddened face. He had looked eternally carefree but tonight his
smile was strained.
"I'm sorry to bother you this late, Mr. Herriot," he said as he ushered
us into the house, 'but I'm gettin" a bit worried about Susie. Her pups
are due and she's been making a bed for them and messing about all day
but nowt's happened. I was going" to leave her till morning but about
midnight she started panting like 'elf - I don't like the look of her."
Susie was one of my regular patients. Her big, burly master was always
bringing her to the surgery, a little shame-faced at his solicitude, and
when I saw him sitting in the waiting room looking strangely out of
place among the ladies with their pets, he usually said "T'missus asked
me to bring Susie." But it was a transparent excuse.
"She's nobbut a little mongrel, but very faithful," Bert said, still
apologetic, but I could understand how he felt about Susie, a shaggy
little ragamuffin whose only wile was to put her paws on my knees and
laugh up into my face with her tail lashing. I found her irresistible.
But she was a very different character tonight. As we went into the
living room of the cottage the little animal crept from her basket, gave
a single indeterminate wag of her tail then stood miserably in the
middle of the floor, her ribs heaving. As I bent to examine her she
turned a wide panting nouth and anxious eyes up to me.
I ran my hands over her abdomen. I don't think I have ever felt a more
bloated little dog; she was as round as a football, absolutely bulging
with pups, ready to pop, but nothing was happening.
What do you think?" Bert's face was haggard under his sunburn and he
touched the dog's head briefly with a big calloused hand.
"I don't know yet, Bert," I said. "I'll have to have a feel inside.
Bring me some hot water, will you?"
I added some antiseptic to the water, soaped my hand and with one finger
Carefully explored the vagina. There was a pup there, all right; my
finger tip brushed across the nostrils, the tiny mouth and tongue; but
he was jammed in that passage like a cork in a bottle.
Squatting back on my heels I turned to the Chapmans.
"I'm afraid there's a big pup stuck fast. I have a feeling that if she
could get rid of this chap the others would come away. They'd probably
be smaller."
"Is there any way of shiftin" him, Mr. Herriot?" Bert asked.
I paused for a moment. "I'm going to put forceps on his head and see if
he'll move. I don't like using forceps but I'm going to have one careful
try and if it doesn't work I'll have to take her back to the surgery for
a caesarian."
"An operation?" Bert said hollowly. He gulped and glanced fearfully at
his wife. Like many big men he had married a tiny woman and at this
moment Mrs. Chapman looked even smaller than her four foot eleven inches
as she huddled in her chair and stared at me with wide eyes.
"Oh I wish we'd never had her mated," she wailed, wringing her hands. "I
told Bert five year old was too late for a first litter but he wouldn't
listen. And now we're maybe going to lose 'er."
I hastened to reassure her. "No, she isn't too old, and everything may
be all right. Let's just see how we get on." :
I boiled the instrument for a few minutes on the stove then kneeled
behind my patient again. I poised the forceps for a moment and at the
flash of steel a grey tinge crept under Bert's sunburn and his wife
coiled herself into a ball in her chair. Obviously they were
non-starters as assistants so Helen held Susie's head while I once more
reached in towards the pup. There was desperately little room but I
managed to direct the forceps along my finger till they touched the
nose. Then very gingerly I opened the jaws and pushed them forward with
the very gentlest pressure until I was able to clamp them on either side
of the head.
I'd soon know now. In a situation like this you can't do any pulling,
you can only try to ease the thing along. This I did and I fancied I
felt just a bit of . movement; I tried again and there was no doubt
about it, the pup was coming towards me. Susie, too, appeared to sense
that things were taking a turn for the better. She cast off her apathy
and began to strain lustily.
It was no trouble after that and I was able to draw the pup forth
almost: without resistance.
"I'm afraid this one'll be dead," I said, and as the tiny creature lay
across my palm there was no sign
of breathing. But, pinching the chest
between thumb and forefinger I could feel the heart pulsing steadily and
I quickly opened his mouth and blew softly down into his lungs.
I repeated this a few times then laid the pup on his side in the basket.
I was just thinking it was going to be no good when the little rib cage
gave a sudden lift, then another and another.
"He's off!" Bert exclaimed happily. "That's champion! We want these
puppies alive the knows. They're by Jack Dennison's terrier and he's a
grand 'un."
"That's right," Mrs. Chapman put in. "No matter how many she has,
they're all spoken for. Everybody wants a pup out of Susie."
"I can believe that," I said. But I smiled to myself. Jack Dennison's
terrier was another hound of uncertain ancestry, so this lot would be a
right mixture. But none the worse for that.
I gave Susie half a c.c. of pituitrin. "I think she needs it after
now."
And it was nice waiting. Mrs. Chapman brewed a pot of tea and began to
slap butter on to home-made scones. Susie, partly aided by my pituitrin,
pushed out ~. a pup in a self-satisfied manner about every fifteen
minutes. The pups themselves: soon set up a bawling of surprising volume
for such minute creatures. Bert, relaxing visibly with every minute,
filled his pipe and regarded the fast-growing family with a grin of
increasing width.
"Ee, it is kind of you young folks to stay with us like this." Mrs.
Chapman put her head on one side and looked at us worriedly. "I should
think you've been dying to get back to your dance all this time."
I thought of the crush at the Drovers. The smoke, the heat, the nonstop
boom-boom of the Hot Shots and I looked around the peaceful little room
with the Old-fashioned black grate, the low, varnished beams, Mrs.
Chapman's sewing box, the row of Bert's pipes on the wall. I took a
firmer grasp of Helen's hand which I had been holding under the table
for the last hour.
"Not at all, Mrs. Chapman," I said. "We haven't missed it in the least."
And I have never been more sincere.
It must have been about half past two when I finally decided that Susie
had finished She had six fine pups which was a good score for a little
thing like her and the noise had abated as the family settled down to
feast on her abundant udder.
I lifted the pups out one by one and examined them. Susie didn't mind in
the least but appeared to be smiling with modest pride as I handled her
brood. When I put them back with her she inspected them and sniffed them
over busily before rolling on to her side again.
"Three dogs and three bitches," I said. "Nice even litter."
Before leaving I took Susie from her basket and palpated her abdomen.
The degree of deflation was almost unbelievable; a pricked balloon could
not have altered its shape more spectacularly and she had made a
remarkable metamorphosis to the lean, scruffy little extrovert I knew so
well.
When I released her she scurried back and curled herself round her new
family who were soon sucking away with total absorption.
Bert laughed. "She's fair capped wi" them pups." He bent over and
prodded the first arrival with a horny forefinger. "I like the look o"
this big dog pup. I reckon we'll keep this 'un for ourselves, mother.
He'll be company for t'awd lass."
It was time to go. Helen and I moved over to the door and little Mrs.
Chapman with her fingers on the handle looked up at me.
"Well, Mr. Herriot," she said, "I can't thank you enough for comin" out
and putting our minds at rest. I don't know what I've done wi" this man
of mine if anything had happened to his little dog."
Bert grinned sheepishly. "Nay," he muttered. "Ah was never really
worried."
His wife laughed and opened the door and as we stepped out into the
silent scented night she gripped my arm and looked up at me roguishly.
"I suppose this is your young lady," she said.
I put my arm round Helen's shoulders.
"Yes," I said firmly, 'this is my young lady."
Chapter Twenty-two.
It was almost as though I were looking at my own cows because as I stood
in the tattle new byre and looked along the row of red and roan backs I
felt a kind of pride.
Frank," I said. "They look marvelous. You wouldn't think they were the
same animals"
Frank Metcalfe grinned. "Just what I was thinking meself. It's wonderful
what a change of setting'll do for livestock."
It was the cows" first day in the new byre. Previously I had seen them
only in the old place - a typical Dales cowhouse, centuries old with a
pools, rotting wooden partitions between the stalls and slit windows as
though the place had been built as a fortress. I could remember Frank
sitting in it milking, almost invisible i the gloom, the cobwebs hanging
in thick fronds from the low roof above him.
In there, the ten cows had looked what they were - a motley assortment
of ordinary milkers - but today they had acquired a new dignity and
style.
"You must feel it's been worth all your hard work," I said, and the
young" farmer nodded and smiled. There was a grim touch about the smile
as though he was reliving for a moment the hours and weeks and months of
back-breaking labour he had put in there. Because Frank Metcalfe had
done it all himself. The rows of neat, concreted standings, the clean,
level sweep of floor, the whitewashed, cement-rendered walls all bathed
in light from the spacious windows had been put there by his own two
hands.
"I'll show you the dairy," Frank said.
We went into a small room which he had built at one end and I looked
admiringly at the gleaming milk cooler, the spotless sinks and buckets,
the strainer with its neat pile of filter pads.
"You know," I said. "This is how milk should be produced. All those
mucky old places I see every day on my rounds - they nearly make my hair
stand on end."
Frank leaned over and drew a jet of water from one of the taps. "Aye,
you'r" right. It'll all be like this and better one day and it'll pay
the farmers better too. I've got me TT licence now and the extra
fourpence a gallon will make a he" of a difference. I feel I'm ready to
start."
And when he did start, I thought, he'd go places. He seemed to have all
th" things it took to succeed at the hard trade of farming intelligence,
physical toughness, a love of the land and animals and the ability to go
slogging o endlessly when other people were enjoying their leisure. I
felt these qualities would overcome his biggest handicap which was
simply that he didn't have an money.
Frank wasn't a farmer at all to start with. He was a steel worker from
Middlesbrough. When he had first arrived less than a year ago with his
young" wife to take over the isolated small holding at Bransett I had
been surprised learn that he hailed from the city because he
had the
dark, sinewy look of th. typical Dalesman - and he was called Metcalfe.
He had laughed when I mentioned this. "Oh, my great grandfather cam"
from these parts and I've always had a hankering to come back."
As I came to know him better I was able to fill in the gaps in that
simple statement. He had spent all his holidays up here as a small boy
and though he father was a foreman in the steelworks and he himself had
served his time the trade the pull of the Dales had been like a siren
song welling stronger tile he had been unable to resist it any longer.
He had worked on farms in his spa time, read all he could about
agriculture and finally had thrown up his old I and rented the little
place high in the fells at the end of a long, stony track.
With its primitive house and tumbledown buildings it seemed an
unpromising place to make a living and in any case I hadn't much faith
in the ability townspeople to suddenly turn to farming and make a go of
it; in my short experience I had seen quite a few try and fail. But
Frank Metcalfe had go about the job as though he had been at it all his
life, repairing the broken wal improving the grassland, judiciously
buying stock on his shoe-string budget; there was no sign of the
bewilderment and despair I had seen in so many others.
I had mentioned this to a retired farmer in Darrowby and the old man
chuckled. "Aye, you've got to have farmin" inside you. There's very few
people as can succeed at it unless it's in their blood. It matters nowt