Vets Might Fly by Might Fly Vets

Author:Might Fly Vets [Vets, Might Fly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-03-28T17:31:40+00:00

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. walk l, c . . c As I le~a ; c whisky?” o Oo “Whisky? No “Well you’ve gone-t something to eat.” ‘ “No, no, no thanks, I’ve got 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 work in’,” my neighbour said as I sank into the settle.

“Yes, Ted, how did you know?”

The man glanced over my soiled mackintosh and the welling tons which 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 shit 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 yare, Mr Herriot, that’ll be sixpence. Cheap at ‘elf 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 familiar. 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.

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