James Herriot's Dog Stories

by James Herriot

  ‘Well, we’d better get out on the road again,’ he gasped, and as he spoke the front door bell rang again.

  The colour drained rapidly from his face and he clutched my arm. ‘That must be Miss Westerman this time. God almighty, she’s coming in!’

  Rapid footsteps sounded in the passage and the sitting room door opened. But it wasn’t Miss Westerman, it was Lydia again. She strode over to the sofa, reached underneath and extracted her handbag. She didn’t say anything but merely shrivelled Tristan with a sidelong glance before leaving.

  ‘What a night!’ he moaned, putting a hand to his forehead. ‘I can’t stand much more of this.’

  Over the next hour we made innumerable sorties but we couldn’t find Hamish and nobody else seemed to have seen him. I came in to find Tristan collapsed in an armchair. His mouth hung open and he showed every sign of advanced exhaustion. I shook my head and he shook his, then I heard the telephone.

  I lifted the receiver, listened for a minute and turned to the young man. ‘I’ve got to go out, Triss. Mr Drew’s old pony has colic again.’

  He reached out a hand from the depths of his chair. ‘You’re not going to leave me, Jim?’

  ‘Sorry, I must. But I won’t be long. It’s only a mile away.’

  ‘But what if Miss Westerman comes?’

  I shrugged. ‘You’ll just have to apologise. Hamish is bound to turn up – maybe in the morning.’

  ‘You make it sound easy . . .’ He ran a hand inside his collar. ‘And another thing – how about Siegfried? What if he arrives and asks about the dog? What do I tell him?’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that,’ I replied airily. ‘Just say you were too busy on the sofa with the Drovers’ barmaid to bother about such things. He’ll understand.’

  But my attempt at jocularity fell flat. The young man fixed me with a cold eye and ignited a quivering Woodbine. ‘I believe I’ve told you this before, Jim, but there’s a nasty cruel streak in you.’

  Mr Drew’s pony had almost recovered when I got there but I gave it a mild sedative injection before turning for home. On the way back a thought struck me and I took a road round the edge of the town to the row of modern bungalows where Miss Westerman lived. I parked the car and walked up the path of number ten.

  And there was Hamish in the porch, coiled up comfortably on the mat, looking up at me with mild surprise as I hovered over him.

  ‘Come on, lad,’ I said. ‘You’ve got more sense than we had. Why didn’t we think of this before?’

  I deposited him on the passenger seat and as I drove away he hoisted his paws on to the dash and gazed out interestedly at the road unfolding in the headlights. Truly a phlegmatic little hound.

  Outside Skeldale House I tucked him under my arm and was about to turn the handle of the front door when I paused. Tristan had notched up a long succession of successful pranks against me – fake telephone calls, the ghost in my bedroom and many others – and in fact, good friends as we were, he never neglected a chance to take the mickey out of me. In this situation, with the positions reversed, he would be merciless. I put my finger on the bell and leaned on it for several long seconds.

  For some time there was neither sound nor movement from within and I pictured the cowering figure mustering his courage before marching to his doom. Then the light came on in the passage and as I peered expectantly through the glass a nose appeared round the far corner followed very gingerly by a wary eye. By degrees the full face inched into view and when Tristan recognised my grinning countenance he unleashed a cry of rage and bounded along the passage with upraised fist.

  I really think that in his distraught state he would have attacked me, but the sight of Hamish banished all else. He grabbed the hairy creature and began to fondle him.

  ‘Good little dog, nice little dog,’ he crooned as he trotted through to the sitting-room. ‘What a beautiful thing you are.’ He laid him lovingly in the basket, and Hamish, after a ‘heigh-ho, here we are again’ glance around him, put his head along his side and promptly went to sleep.

  Tristan fell limply into the armchair and gazed at me with glazed eyes.

  ‘Well, we’re saved, Jim,’ he whispered. ‘But I’ll never be the same after tonight. I’ve run bloody miles and I’ve nearly lost my voice with shouting. I tell you I’m about knackered.’

  I too was vastly relieved, and the nearness of catastrophe was brought home to us when Miss Westerman arrived within ten minutes.

  ‘Oh, my darling!’ she cried as Hamish leaped at her, mouth open, short tail wagging furiously. ‘I’ve been so worried about you all day.’

  She looked tentatively at the ear with its rows of buttons. ‘Oh, it does look a lot better without that horrid swelling – and what a nice neat job you have made. Thank you, Mr Herriot, and thank you, too, young man.’

  Tristan, who had staggered to his feet, bowed slightly as I showed the lady out.

  ‘Bring him back in six weeks to have the stitches out,’ I called to her as she left, then I rushed back into the room.

  ‘Siegfried’s just pulled up outside! You’d better look as if you’ve been working.’

  He rushed to the bookshelves, pulled down Gaiger and Davis’s Bacteriology and a notebook and dived into a chair. When his brother came in he was utterly engrossed.

  Siegfried moved over to the fire and warmed his hands. He looked pink and mellow.

  ‘I’ve just been speaking to Miss Westerman,’ he said. ‘She’s really pleased. Well done, both of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, but Tristan was too busy to reply, scanning the pages anxiously and scribbling repeatedly in the notebook.

  Siegfried walked behind the young man’s chair and looked down at the open volume.

  ‘Ah yes, Clostridium septique,’ he murmured, smiling indulgently. ‘That’s a good one to study. Keeps coming up in exams.’ He rested a hand briefly on his brother’s shoulder. ‘I’m glad to see you at work. You’ve been raking about too much lately and it’s getting you down. A night at your books will have been good for you.’

  He yawned, stretched, and made for the door. ‘I’m off to bed. I’m rather sleepy.’ He paused with his hand on the door. ‘You know, Tristan, I quite envy you – there’s nothing like a nice restful evening at home.’

  The situation of a patient escaping is by no means unique. It is something which has happened to many vets, particularly in the thirties when small animal work was very much a sideline and there were few organised arrangements for hospitalisation. It was especially traumatic when formidable people like Miss Westerman and Siegfried were involved. It is interesting to record another of the satisfying little operations – the treatment of an aural haematoma. A very quick relief from pain. I also relished the chance to chronicle a typical vignette from Tristan’s love life.

  41. Roddy Travers and Jake

  I suppose it isn’t unusual to see a man pushing a pram in a town, but on a lonely moorland road the sight merits a second glance. Especially when the pram contains a large dog.

  That was what I saw in the hills above Darrowby one morning and I slowed down as I drove past. I had noticed the strange combination before – on several occasions over the last few weeks – and it was clear that man and dog had recently moved into the district.

  As the car drew abreast of him the man turned, smiled and raised his hand. It was a smile of rare sweetness in a very brown face. A forty-year-old face, I thought, above a brown neck which bore neither collar nor tie, and a faded striped shirt lying open over a bare chest despite the coldness of the day.

  I couldn’t help wondering who or what he was. The outfit of scuffed suede golf jacket, corduroy trousers and sturdy boots didn’t give much clue. Some people might have put him down as an ordinary tramp, but there was a businesslike energetic look about him which didn’t fit the term.

  I wound the window down and the thin wind of a Yorkshire March bit at my cheeks.

  ‘Nippy this morning,’ I said.

&nb
sp; The man seemed surprised. ‘Aye,’ he replied after a moment. ‘Aye, reckon it is.’

  I looked at the pram, ancient and rusty, and at the big animal sitting upright inside it. He was a Lurcher, a crossbred Greyhound, and he gazed back at me with unruffled dignity.

  ‘Nice dog,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, that’s Jake.’ The man smiled again, showing good regular teeth. ‘He’s a grand ’un.’

  I waved and drove on. In the mirror I could see the compact figure stepping out briskly, head up, shoulders squared, and, rising like a statue from the middle of the pram, the huge brindled form of Jake.

  I didn’t have to wait long to meet the unlikely pair again. I was examining a carthorse’s teeth in a farmyard when on the hillside beyond the stable I saw a figure kneeling by a drystone wall. And by his side, a pram and a big dog sitting patiently on the grass.

  ‘Hey, just a minute.’ I pointed at the hill. ‘Who is that?’

  The farmer laughed. ‘That’s Roddy Travers. D’you ken ’im?’

  ‘No, no I don’t. I had a word with him on the road the other day, that’s all.’

  ‘Aye, on the road.’ He nodded knowingly. ‘That’s where you’d see Roddy, right enough.’

  ‘But what is he? Where does he come from?’

  ‘He comes from somewhere in Yorkshire, but ah don’t rightly know where and ah don’t think anybody else does. But I’ll tell you this – he can turn ’is hand to anything.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, watching the man expertly laying the flat slabs of stone as he repaired a gap in the wall. ‘There’s not many can do what he’s doing now.’

  ‘That’s true. Wallin’ is a skilled job and it’s dying out, but Roddy’s a dab hand at it. But he can do owt – hedgin’, ditchin’, lookin’ after stock, it’s all the same to him.’

  I lifted the tooth rasp and began to rub a few sharp corners off the horse’s molars. ‘And how long will he stay here?’

  ‘Oh, when he’s finished that wall he’ll be off. Ah could do with ’im stoppin’ around for a bit, but he never stays in one place for long.’

  ‘But hasn’t he got a home anywhere?’

  ‘Nay, nay.’ The farmer laughed again. ‘Roddy’s got nowt. All ’e has in the world is in that there pram.’

  Over the next weeks as the harsh spring began to soften and the sunshine brought a bright speckle of primroses on to the grassy banks I saw Roddy quite often, sometimes on the road, occasionally wielding a spade busily on the ditches around the fields. Jake was always there, either loping by his side or watching him at work. But we didn’t actually meet again till I was inoculating Mr Pawson’s sheep for pulpy kidney.

  There were three hundred to do and they drove them in batches into a small pen where Roddy caught and held them for me. And I could see he was an expert at this, too. The wild hill sheep whipped past him like bullets but he seized their fleece effortlessly, sometimes in mid-air, and held the fore leg up to expose that bare clean area of skin behind the elbow that nature seemed to provide for the veterinary surgeon’s needle.

  Outside, on the windy slopes, the big Lurcher sat upright in typical pose, looking with mild interest at the farm dogs prowling intently around the pens, but not interfering in any way.

  ‘You’ve got him well trained,’ I said.

  Roddy smiled. ‘Yes, ye’ll never find Jake dashin’ about, annoyin’ people. He knows ’e has to sit there till I’m finished and there he’ll sit.’

  ‘And quite happy to do so, by the look of him.’ I glanced again at the dog, a picture of contentment. ‘He must live a wonderful life, travelling everywhere with you.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ Mr Pawson broke in as he ushered another bunch of sheep into the pen. ‘He hasn’t a care in t’world, just like his master.’

  Roddy didn’t say anything, but as the sheep ran in he straightened up and took a long steady breath. He had been working hard and a little trickle of sweat ran down the side of his forehead, but as he gazed over the wide sweep of moor and fell I could read utter serenity in his face. After a few moments he spoke.

  ‘I reckon that’s true. We haven’t much to worry us, Jake and me.’

  Mr Pawson grinned mischievously. ‘By gaw, Roddy, you never spoke a truer word. No wife, no kids, no life insurance, no overdraft at t’bank – you must have a right peaceful existence.’

  ‘Ah suppose so,’ Roddy said. ‘But then ah’ve no money either.’

  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 sa
w 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 sniffling 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.