All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1)

by James Herriot

“Hello, ’ello, Mr. Farnon in?” “Not at the moment. Can I help you?” “Aye, give ’im a message when he comes in. Tell ’im Bert Sharpe of Barrow Hills has a cow wot wants borin’ out?” “Boring out?” “That’s right, she’s nobbut going on three cylinders.” “Three cylinders?” “Aye and if we don’t do summat she’ll go wrang in ’er ewer, won’t she?” “Very probably.” “Don’t want felon, do we?” “Certainly not.” “O.K., you’ll tell ’im, then. Ta-ta.” I returned thoughtfully to the sitting-room. It was disconcerting but I had listened to my first case history without understanding a word of it.

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. You’ve nothing to worry about there.”

The incident started me thinking about this question of people’s reactions to the sight of blood and other disturbing realities. Even though it was only my second year of practice I had already formulated certain rules about this and one was that it was always the biggest men who went down. (I had, by this time, worked out a few other, perhaps unscientific theories, e.g. big dogs were kept by people who lived in little houses and vice versa. Clients who said “spare no expense” never paid their bills, ever. When I asked my way in the Dales and was told “you can’t miss it,” I knew I’d soon be hopelessly lost.)