All Things Bright and Beautiful

by James Herriot

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “That cheque I’ve just taken. Did I give it to you?”

  “No, you put it in that pocket I saw you.”

  “That’s what I thought. Well it’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “I’ve lost the bloody thing!”

  I laughed. “Oh you can’t have. Go through your other pockets—it must be on you somewhere.”

  Siegfried made a systematic search but it was in vain.

  “Well James,” he said at length. “I really have lost it, but I’ve just thought of a simple solution. I will stay here and have one more beer while you slip back to Walt Barnett and ask him for another cheque.”

  41

  THERE IS PLENTY OF time for thinking during the long hours of driving and now as I headed home from a late call my mind was idly assessing my abilities as a planner.

  I had to admit that planning was not one of my strong points. Shortly after we were married I told Helen that I didn’t think we should have children just at present. I pointed out that I would soon be going away, we did not have a proper home, our financial state was precarious and it would be far better to wait till after the war.

  I had propounded my opinions weightily, sitting back in my chair and puffing my pipe like a sage, but I don’t think I was really surprised when Helen’s pregnancy was positively confirmed.

  From the warm darkness the grass smell of the Dales stole through the open window and as I drove through a silent village it was mingled briefly with the mysterious sweetness of wood smoke. Beyond the houses the road curved smooth and empty between the black enclosing fells. No…I hadn’t organised things very well. Leaving Darrowby and maybe England for an indefinite period, no home, no money and a pregnant wife. It was an untidy situation. But I was beginning to realise that life was not a tidy little parcel at any time.

  The clock tower showed 11 p.m. as I rolled through the market place and, turning into Trengate, I saw that the light had been turned off in our room. Helen had gone to bed. I drove round to the yard at the back, put away the car and walked down the long garden. It was the end to every day, this walk; sometimes stumbling over frozen snow but tonight moving easily through the summer darkness under the branches of the apple trees to where the house stood tall and silent against the stars.

  In the passage I almost bumped into Siegfried.

  “Just getting back from Allenby’s, James?” he asked. “I saw on the book that you had a colic.”

  I nodded. “Yes, but it wasn’t a bad one. Just a bit of spasm. Their grey horse had been feasting on some of the hard pears lying around the orchard.”

  Siegfried laughed. “Well I’ve just beaten you in by a few minutes. I’ve been round at old Mrs. Dewar’s for the last hour holding her cat’s paw while it had kittens.”

  We reached the corner of the passage and he hesitated. “Care for a nightcap, James?”

  “I would, thanks,” I replied, and we went into the sitting room. But there was a constraint between us because Siegfried was off to London early next morning to enter the Air Force—he’d be gone before I got up—and we both knew that this was a farewell drink.

  I dropped into my usual armchair while Siegfried reached into the glass-fronted cupboard above the mantelpiece and fished out the whisky bottle and glasses. He carelessly tipped out two prodigal measures and sat down opposite.

  We had done a lot of this over the years, often yarning till dawn, but naturally enough it had faded since my marriage. It was like turning back the clock to sip the whisky and look at him on the other side of the fireplace and to feel, as though it were a living presence, the charm of the beautiful room with its high ceiling, graceful alcoves and french window.

  We didn’t talk about his departure but about the things we had always talked about and still do; the miraculous recovery of that cow, what old Mr. Jenks said yesterday, the patient that knocked us flat, leaped the fence and disappeared for good. Then Siegfried raised a finger.

  “Oh, James, I nearly forgot. I was tidying up the books and I find I owe you some money.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, and I feel rather bad about it. It goes back to your pre-partnership days when you used to get a cut from Ewan Ross’s testing. There was a slip-up somewhere and you were underpaid. Anyway, you’ve got fifty pounds to come.”

  “Fifty pounds! Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure, James, and I do apologise.”

  “No need to apologise, Siegfried. It’ll come in very handy right now.”

  “Good, good…anyway, the cheque’s in the top drawer of the desk if you’ll have a look tomorrow.” He waved a languid hand and started to talk about some sheep he had seen that afternoon.

  But for a few minutes I hardly heard him. Fifty pounds! It was a lot of money in those days, especially when I would soon be earning three shillings a day as an A.C. 2 during my initial training. It didn’t solve my financial problem but it would be a nice little cushion to fall back on.

  My nearest and dearest are pretty unanimous that I am a bit slow on the uptake and maybe they are right because it was many years later before it got through to me that there never was any fifty pounds owing. Siegfried knew I needed a bit of help at that time and when it all became clear long afterwards I realised that this was exactly how he would do it. No embarrassment to me. He hadn’t even handed me the cheque….

  As the level in the bottle went down the conversation became more and more effortless. At one point some hours later my mind seemed to have taken on an uncanny clarity and it was as if I was disembodied and looking down at the pair of us. We had slid very low in our chairs, our heads well down the backs, legs extended far across the rug. My partner’s face seemed to stand out in relief and it struck me that though he was only in his early thirties he looked a lot older. It was an attractive face, lean, strong-boned with steady humorous eyes, but not young. In fact Siegfried in the time I had known him had never looked young, but he has the last laugh now because he has hardly altered with the years and is one of those who will never look old.

  At that moment of the night when everything was warm and easy and I felt omniscient it seemed a pity that Tristan wasn’t there to make up the familiar threesome. As we talked, the memories marched through the room like a strip of bright pictures; of November days on the hillsides with the icy rain driving into our faces, of digging the cars out of snow drifts, of the spring sunshine warming the hard countryside. And the thought recurred that Tristan had been part of it all and that I was going to miss him as much as I would miss his brother.

  I could hardly believe it when Siegfried rose, threw back the curtains and the grey light of morning streamed in. I got up and stood beside him as he looked at his watch.

  “Five o’clock, James,” he said, and smiled. “We’ve done it again.”

  He opened the french window and we stepped into the hushed stillness of the garden. I was taking grateful gulps of the sweet air when a single bird call broke the silence.

  “Did you hear that blackbird?” I said.

  He nodded and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing as myself; that it sounded just like the same blackbird which had greeted the early daylight when we talked over my first case those years ago.

  We went up the stairs together in silence. Siegfried stopped at his door.

  “Well, James…” he held out his hand and his mouth twitched up at one corner.

  I gripped the hand for a moment then he turned and went into his room. And as I trailed dumbly up the next flight it seemed strange that we had never said goodbye. We didn’t know when, if ever, we would see each other again yet neither of us had said a word. I don’t know if Siegfried wanted to say anything but there was a lot trying to burst from me.

  I wanted to thank him for being a friend as well as a boss, for teaching me so much, for never letting me down. There were other things, too, but I never said them.

  Come to think of it, I’ve never even thanked him for
that fifty pounds…until now.

  42

  “LOOK, JIM,” HELEN SAID. “This is one engagement we can’t be late for. Old Mrs. Hodgson is an absolute pet—she’d be terribly hurt if we let her supper spoil.”

  I nodded. “You’re right, my girl, that mustn’t happen. But I’ve got only three calls this afternoon and Tristan’s doing the evening. I can’t see anything going wrong.”

  This nervousness about a simple action like going out for a meal might be incomprehensible to the layman but to vets and their wives it was very real, particularly in those days of one or two man practices. The idea of somebody preparing a meal for me then waiting in vain for me to turn up was singularly horrifying but it happened to all of us occasionally.

  It remained a gnawing worry whenever Helen and I were asked out; especially to somebody like the Hodgsons. Mr. Hodgson was a particularly likeable old farmer, short-sighted to the point of semiblindness, but the eyes which peered through the thick glasses were always friendly. His wife was just as kind and she had looked at me quizzically when I had visited the farm two days ago.

  “Does it make you feel hungry, Mr. Herriot?”

  “It does indeed, Mrs. Hodgson. It’s a marvellous sight.”

  I was washing my hands in the farm kitchen and stealing a glance at a nearby table where all the paraphernalia of the family pig-killing lay in their full glory. Golden rows of pork pies, spare ribs, a mound of newly made sausages, jars of brawn. Great pots were being filled with lard, newly rendered in the fireside oven.

  She looked at me thoughtfully. “Why don’t you bring Mrs. Herriot round one night and help us eat it?”

  “Well that’s most kind of you and I’d love to, but…”

  “Now then, no buts!” She laughed. “You know there’s far too much stuff here—we have to give so much away.”

  This was quite true. In the days when every farmer and many of the townsfolk of Darrowby kept pigs for home consumption, killing time was an occasion for feasting. The hams and sides were cured and hung up but the masses of offal and miscellaneous pieces had to be eaten at the time; and though farmers with big families could tackle it, others usually passed delicious parcels round their friends in the happy knowledge that there would be a reciprocation in due course.

  “Well, thanks, Mrs. Hodgson,” I said. “Tuesday evening, then, seven o’clock.”

  And here I was on Tuesday afternoon heading confidently into the country with the image of Mrs. Hodgson’s supper hanging before me like a vision of the promised land. I knew what it would be; a glorious mixed grill of spare ribs, onions, liver and pork fillet garlanded with those divine farm sausages which are seen no more. It was something to dream about.

  In fact I was still thinking about it when I drew into Edward Wiggin’s farm yard. I walked over to the covered barn and looked in at my patients—a dozen half grown bullocks resting on the deep straw. I had to inject these fellows with Blackleg vaccine. If I didn’t it was a fair bet that one or more of them would be found dead due to infection with the deadly Clostridium which dwelt in the pastures of that particular farm.

  It was a common enough disease and stockholders had recognised it for generations and had resorted to some strange practices to prevent it; such as running a seton—a piece of twine or bandage—through the dewlap of the animal. But now we had an efficient vaccine.

  I was thinking I’d be here for only a few minutes because Mr. Wiggin’s man, Wilf, was an expert beast catcher; then I saw the farmer coming across the yard and my spirits sank. He was carrying his lassoo. Wilf, by his side, rolled his eyes briefly heavenwards when he saw me. He too clearly feared the worst.

  We went into the barn and Mr. Wiggin began the painstaking process of arranging his long, white rope, while we watched him gloomily. He was a frail little man in his sixties and had spent some years of his youth in America. He didn’t talk a lot about it but everybody in time gained the impression that he had been a sort of cowboy over there and indeed he talked in a soft Texan drawl and seemed obsessed with the mystique of the ranch and the open range. Anything to do with the Wild West was near to his heart and nearest of all was his lassoo.

  You could insult Mr. Wiggin with many things and he wouldn’t turn a hair but question his ability to snare the wildest bovine with a single twirl of his rope and the mild little man could explode into anger. And the unfortunate thing was that he was no good at it.

  Mr. Wiggin had now got a long loop dangling from his hand and he began to whirl it round his head as he crept towards the nearest bullock. When he finally made his cast the result was as expected; the rope fell limply half way along the animal’s back and dropped on to the straw.

  “Tarnation!” said Mr. Wiggin and started again. He was a man of deliberate movements and there was something maddening in the way he methodically assembled his rope again. It seemed an age before he once more advanced on a bullock with the rope whirring round his head.

  “Bugger it!” Wilf grunted as the loop end lashed him across the face.

  His boss turned on him. “Keep out of the dadblasted road, Wilf,” he said querulously. “I gotta start again now.”

  This time he didn’t even make contact with the animal and as he retrieved his lassoo from the straw Wilf and I leaned wearily against the wall of the barn.

  Yet again the whizz of the rope and a particularly ambitious throw which sent it high into the criss-cross of beams in the roof where it stuck. The farmer tugged at it several times in vain.

  “Goldurn it, it’s got round a nail up there. Slip across the yard and fetch a ladder, Wilf.”

  As I waited for the ladder then watched Wilf climbing into the shadowy heights of the barn I pondered on Mr. Wiggin. The way he spoke, the expressions he used were familiar to most Yorkshire folk since they filtered continually across the Atlantic in films and books. In fact there were dark mutterings that Mr. Wiggin had learned them that way and had never been near a ranch in his life. There was no way of knowing.

  At last the rope was retrieved, the ladder put away and the little man went into action once more. He missed again but one of the bullocks got its foot in the loop and for a few moments the farmer hung on with fierce determination as the animal produced a series of piston-like kicks to rid itself of the distraction. And as I watched the man’s lined face set grimly, the thin shoulders jerking, it came to me that Mr. Wiggin wasn’t just catching a beast for injection; he was roping a steer, the smell of the prairie was in his nostrils, the cry of the coyote in his ears.

  It didn’t take long for the bullock to free itself and with a grunt of “Ornery crittur!” Mr. Wiggin started again. And as he kept on throwing his rope ineffectually I was uncomfortably aware that time was passing and that our chances of doing our job were rapidly diminishing. When you have to handle a bunch of young beasts the main thing is not to upset them. If Mr. Wiggin hadn’t been there we would have penned them quietly in a corner and Wilf would have moved among them and caught their noses in his powerful fingers.

  They were thoroughly upset. They had been peacefully chewing the cud or having a mouthful of hay from the rack but now, goaded by the teasing rope, were charging around like racehorses. Wilf and I watched in growing despair as Mr. Wiggin for once managed to get a loop round one of them, but it was too wide and slipped down and round the body. The bullock shook it off with an angry bellow then went off at full gallop, bucking and kicking. I looked at the throng of frenzied creatures milling past; it was getting more like a rodeo every minute.

  And it was a disastrous start to the afternoon. I had seen a couple of dogs at the surgery after lunch and it had been nearly two thirty when I set out. It was now nearly four o’clock and I hadn’t done a thing.

  And I don’t think I ever would have if fate hadn’t stepped in. By an amazing fluke Mr. Wiggin cast his loop squarely over the horns of a shaggy projectile as it thundered past him, the rope tightened on the neck and Mr. Wiggin on the other end flew gracefully through the air for about tw
enty feet till he crashed into a wooden feeding trough.

  We rushed to him and helped him to his feet. Badly shaken but uninjured he looked at us.

  “Doggone, I jest couldn’t hold the blame thing,” he murmured. “Reckon I’d better sit down in the house for a while. You’ll have to catch that pesky lot yourselves.”

  Back in the barn, Wilf whispered to me. “By gaw it’s an ill wind, guvnor. We can get on now. And maybe it’ll make ’im forget that bloody lassoo for a bit.”

  The bullocks were too excited to be caught by the nose but instead Wilf treated me to an exhibition of roping, Yorkshire style. Like many of the local stocksmen he was an expert with a halter and it fascinated me to see him dropping it on the head of a moving animal so that one loop fell behind the ears and the other snared the nose.

  With a gush of relief I pulled the syringe and bottle of vaccine from my pocket and had the whole batch inoculated within twenty minutes.

  Driving off I glanced at my watch and my pulse quickened as I saw it was a quarter to five. The afternoon had almost slipped away and there were still two more calls. But I had till seven o’clock and surely I wouldn’t come across any more Mr. Wiggins. And as the stone walls flipped past I ruminated again on that mysterious little man. Had he once been a genuine cowboy or was the whole thing fantasy?

  I recalled that one Thursday evening Helen and I were leaving the Brawton cinema where we usually finished our half day; the picture had been a Western, and just before leaving the dark interior I glanced along the back row and right at the far end I saw Mr. Wiggin all on his own, huddled in the corner and looking strangely furtive.

  Ever since then I have wondered….

  Five o’clock saw me hurrying into the smallholding belonging to the Misses Dunn. Their pig had cut its neck on a nail and my previous experience of this establishment suggested that it wouldn’t be anything very serious.

  These two maiden ladies farmed a few acres just outside Dollingsford village. They were objects of interest because they did most of the work themselves and in the process they lavished such affection on their livestock that they had become like domestic pets. The little byre held four cows and whenever I had to examine one of them I could feel the rough tongue of her neighbour licking at my back; their few sheep ran up to people in the fields and sniffed round their legs like dogs; calves sucked at your fingers; an ancient pony wandered around wearing a benign expression and nuzzling anyone within reach. The only exception among the amiable colony was the pig, Prudence, who was thoroughly spoiled.