Every Living Thing (All Creatures Great and Small Book 5) by James Herriot

Author:James Herriot [Herriot, James]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781453234525
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

MY CLIENTS’ OPINIONS OF me varied widely, and although there was the odd one or two who thought I was brilliant, a large majority looked on me as a steady, reliable vet, while a few regarded me as of strictly limited ability. But I really think that only one family nourished the private conviction that I was not quite right in the head.

They were the Hardwicks, and it was a pity, because they were some of my favourite people.

This situation was due to a few unfortunate little accidents, and on this sharp and sunny January morning I had no inkling that I was going to sow the seeds of my image disintegration that very day. There had been just enough snow overnight to turn the world white and I could see the road to the Hardwick farm threading its way through a glittering frostiness under a sky of cloudless blue.

It was a long, long road, too, not much more than a rough track, trailing ever upwards for nearly a mile, disappearing from time to time behind bluffs or rocky outcrops until it reached the farm, whose faded red roofs were just visible as I drove up to the first gate.

These farms of many gates were places of dread on busy days, eating up the precious minutes with nothing to show for all the effort. But this morning as I got out of the car, the sun struck warm on my face and the crisp air tingled in my nostrils, and, pushing back gate one, I looked around at the wide landscape, silent and peaceful under its white mantle, and blessed my good fortune. There were six of these gates, and I hopped out happily at each one, the snow crackling under my feet.

Seb and Josh Hardwick were attacking a mountain of turnips in the yard, forking them up onto a cart that stood in the farmyard. Despite the cold, their faces gleamed with sweat as they turned smilingly to me.

“Now then, Mr. Herriot, grand mornin’.” They were typical Dales farmers—quiet, polite, even-natured—and I had always got on well with them.

“How are the calves today?” I asked.

“Lot better,” Seb said. “And thank ’eavens. We were a bit worried.”

I was relieved, too. Salmonella is a nasty thing—highly fatal to young animals and dangerous to humans—and when I had seen the calves a couple of days ago the whole picture had looked ominous.

I went into the fold yard with the brothers and over to the big pen at one end where my patients, twenty in all, were standing, and I felt a glow of satisfaction. Everything was different. Two days ago, there was an air of doom over that pen, with the little creatures, listless and dejected, hanging their heads as the diarrhoea trickled down their tails, but now they were brighter and livelier, looking at me with interest as I leaned over the rails.

Actually I was mentally patting myself on the back, because I felt I had done rather well. I

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