All Things Bright and Beautiful Read Online Free PDF Page B

to Rob Benson’s place. To a ewe with a prolapsed uterus after lambing—a job whose chief delight was comparing it with the sweat of replacing a uterus in a cow.
    It was so beautifully easy. Rob rolled the animal on to her side then held her more or less upside down by tying a length of rope to her hind legs and passing it round his neck. In that position she couldn’t strain and I disinfected the organ and pushed it back with the minimum of effort, gently inserting an arm at the finish to work it properly into place.
    Afterwards the ewe trotted away unperturbed with her family to join the rapidly growing flock whose din was all around us.
    “Look!” Rob cried. “There’s that awd ewe with Herbert. Over there on t’right—in the middle of that bunch.” They all looked the same to me but to Rob, like all shepherds, they were as different as people and he picked out these two effortlessly.
    They were near the top of the field and as I wanted to have a close look at them we manoevered them into a corner. The ewe, fiercely possessive, stamped her foot at us as we approached, and Herbert, who had discarded his woolly jacket, held close to the flank of his new mother. He was, I noticed, faintly obese in appearance.
    “You couldn’t call him a runt now, Rob,” I said.
    The farmer laughed. “Nay, t’awd lass has a bag like a cow and Herbert’s gettin’ the lot. By gaw, he’s in clover is that little youth and I reckon he saved the ewe’s life—she’d have pegged out all right, but she never looked back once he came along.”
    I looked away, over the noisy pens, over the hundreds of sheep moving across the fields. I turned to the farmer. “I’m afraid you’ve seen a lot of me lately, Rob. I hope this is the last visit.”
    “Aye well it could be. We’re getting well through now…but it’s a hell of a time, lambin’, isn’t it?”
    “It is that. Well I must be off—I’ll leave you to it.” I turned and made my way down the hillside, my arms raw and chafing in my sleeves, my cheeks whipped by the eternal wind gusting over the grass. At the gate I stopped and gazed back at the wide landscape, ribbed and streaked by the last of the winter’s snow, and at the dark grey banks of cloud riding across on the wind followed by lakes of brightest blue; and in seconds the fields and walls and woods burst into vivid life and I had to close my eyes against the sun’s glare. As I stood there the distant uproar came faintly down to me, the tumultuous harmony from deepest bass to highest treble; demanding, anxious, angry, loving.
    The sound of the sheep, the sound of spring.

4
    A S THE FAINT RUMBLING growl rolled up from the rib cage into the ear pieces of my stethoscope the realisation burst upon me with uncomfortable clarity that this was probably the biggest dog I had ever seen. In my limited past experience some Irish Wolfhounds had undoubtedly been taller and a certain number of Bull Mastiffs had possibly been broader, but for sheer gross poundage this one had it. His name was Clancy.
    It was a good name for an Irishman’s dog and Joe Mulligan was very Irish despite his many years in Yorkshire. Joe had brought him in to the afternoon surgery and as the huge hairy form ambled along, almost filling the passage, I was reminded of the times I had seen him out in the fields around Darrowby enduring the frisking attentions of smaller animals with massive benignity. He looked like a nice friendly dog.
    But now there was this ominous sound echoing round the great thorax like a distant drum roll in a subterranean cavern, and as the chest piece of the stethoscope bumped along the ribs the sound swelled in volume and the lips fluttered over the enormous teeth as though a gentle breeze had stirred them. It was then that I became aware not only that Clancy was very big indeed but that my position, kneeling on the floor with my right ear a few inches from his mouth, was infinitely vulnerable.
    I got to my feet and as I