Within half an hour the feet appeared at the vulva followed by a wet nose whose nostrils twitched reassuringly. But they were big feet-this would be a bull calf and his final entry into the world could be a tight squeeze.

I got into a sitting position and gripped a slippery cloven hoof in each hand. Leaning back, feet against the dung channel, I addressed Number Eighty Seven again.

"Come on, old lass. A couple of good shoves and we're there."

She responded with a mighty inflation of the abdomen and the calf surged towards me as I pulled, giving me a glimpse of a broad forehead and a pair of slightly puzzled eyes. For a moment I thought the ears were going to slip through but then the cow relaxed and the head disappeared back inside.

"Once more, girl!" I pleaded, and this time it seemed that she had decided to stop playing around and get the job over with. She gave a prolonged strain which sent head and shoulders through, and as I hauled away I had only that momentary panic I always feel that the hips might jam in the pelvis. But this one didn't stick and came sliding beautifully on to my lap.

Puffing slightly, I got to my feet and parted the hind legs. Sure enough the little scrotum was there; he was a fine bull calf. I pulled some hay from the rack and dried him off and within minutes he was sitting up, sniffing and snorting, looking around him with interest.

He wasn't the only interested party. His mother, craning round in her neck chain, gazed fascinatedly at the new arrival before releasing a deafening bellow. I seized the front feet again and pulled the calf up to the front of the stall where the cow after a brief examination began to lick him from head to tail. Then as I watched, entranced, she suddenly rose to her feet so that she could reach some of the little creature's more inaccessible corners.

I smiled to myself. So that was that. She had got over the milk fever and had a nice live calf, too. All was well with Number Eighty Seven.

Mr. Blackburn came up and stood by my side and I realised that the noise in the byre had subsided. The milking was finished.

The farmer took off his white hat and wiped away the sweat from his brow. "By gaw, that was a rush. We were short-handed this mornin' and I was sure we were goin' to miss that milk feller. He's a terror-won't wait a minute, and I've had to chase after 'im in a tractor with the churns afore now."

As he finished speaking a hen leaped with a squawk from the rack. Mr. Blackburn reached forward and lifted a warm newlaid egg out of the hay.

He inspected it for a moment then turned to me. "Have you 'ad your breakfast?"

"No, of course not."

"Well tell your missus to put this in the fryin' pan," he said, handing me the egg.

"Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Blackburn, I'll enjoy that."

He nodded and continued to stand there, gazing at the cow and calf. Dairy farming is one of the hardest ways of making a living and this pre-dawn turmoil was an every day occurrence in his life. But I knew he was pleased with my efforts because he faced me suddenly and his weathered features broke into a delighted grin. Without warning he gave me a friendly thump on the chest.

"Good old Jim!" he said, and walked away.

I dressed, got into the car and placed my egg with the utmost care on the dash, then I eased myself gingerly on to the seat because that hosing had sent a pint or two of dirty water down into my underpants and sitting down was intensely uncomfortable.

As I drove away the darkness was thinning into the grey beginning of a new day and around me the white bulk of the fells began to lift from the half light-massive, smooth and inexpressibly cold.

I looked at the egg rocking gently on the dash, and smiled to myself. I could still see Mr. Blackburn's sudden grin, still feel his punch on the chest, and my main sensation was of reassurance.

Systems may be changing, but cows and calves and Yorkshire farmers were just the same.

CHAPTER 37.

ON MY WAGE OF SEVEN and threepence a day, out of which was deducted maintenance for wife and child, I was unable to indulge in high living even if I had wanted to, but one evening in Windsor I decided to allow myself the luxury of one glass of beer, and as I pushed open the pub doorway the first thing I saw was a man sitting at the corner of the bar with a small dog under his chair.

Little things like that could lift me effortlessly back to my old life, and I could almost hear George Wilks, the auctioneer, in the Drovers Arms at Darrowby.

"I reckon that's the best Pub Terrier I've ever seen." He bent down from the bar counter and patted Theo's shaggy head as it protruded from beneath his master's stool.

It struck me that "Pub Terrier" wasn't a bad description. Theo was small and mainly white, though there were odd streaks of black on his flanks, and his muzzle had a bushy outgrowth of hair which made him undeniably attractive but still more mysterious.

I warmed to a Scottish colleague recently who, when pressed by a lady client to diagnose her dog's breed and lineage replied finally, "Madam, I think it would be best to call him a wee broon dug."

By the same token Theo could with safety be described as a wee white dug, but in Yorkshire the expression "Pub Terrier" would be more easily understood.

His master, Paul Cotterell, looked down from his high perch.

"What's he saying about you, old chap?" he murmured languidly, and at the sound of his voice the little animal leaped, eager and wagging, from his retreat.

Theo spent a considerable part of his life between the four metal legs of that stool, as did his master on the seat. And it often seemed to me to be a waste of time for both of them. I often took my own dog, Sam, into pubs and he would squat beneath my seat, but whereas it was an occasional thing with me-maybe once or twice a' week-with Paul Cotterell it was an unvarying ritual. Every night from eight o'clock onwards he could be found sitting there at the end of the bar of the Drovers' Arms, pint glass in front of him, little curly pipe drooping over his chin.

For a young man like him-he was a bachelor in his late thirties-and a person of education and intelligence, it seemed a sterile existence.

He turned to me as I approached the counter. "Hello, Jim, let me get you a drink.drink."

"That's very kind of you, Paul," I replied. "I'll have a pint."

"Splendid." He turned to the barmaid with easy courtesy. "Could I trouble you, Moyra?"

We sipped our beer and we chatted. This time it was about the music festival at Brawton and then we got on to music in general. As with any other topic I had discussed with him he seemed to know a lot about it.

"So you're not all that keen on Bach?" he enquired lazily.

"No, not really. Some of it, yes, but on the whole I like something a bit more emotional. Elgar, Beethoven, Mozart. Even Tchaikovsky-I suppose you highbrows look down your noses at him?"

He shrugged, puffed his little pipe and regarded me with a half smile, one eyebrow raised. He often looked like that and it made me feel he ought to wear a monocle. But he didn't enthuse about Bach, though it seemed he was his favourite composer. He never enthused about anything, and he listened with that funny look on his face while I rhapsodised about the Elgar violin concerto.

Paul Cotterell was from the south of England, but the locals had long since forgiven him for that because he was likeable, amusing, and always ready to buy anybody a drink from his corner in the Drovers'. To me, he had a charm which was very English; casual, effortless. He never got excited, he was always polite and utterly self contained.

"While you're here, Jim," he said. "I wonder if you'd have a look at Theo's foot?"

"Of course." It is one of a vet's occupational hazards that wherever he goes socially it is taken for granted that there is nothing he would rather do than dole out advice or listen to symptoms. "Let's have him up."

"Here, boy, come on." Paul patted his knee and the little dog jumped up and sat there, eyes sparkling with pleasure. And I thought as I always did that Theo should be in pictures. He was the perfect film dog with that extraordinarily fuzzy laughing face. People paid good money to see dogs just like him in cinemas all over the world.

"All right, Theo," I said, scooping him from his master's knee. "Where's the trouble?"

Paul indicated the right fore foot with the stem of his pipe. "It's that one. He's been going a bit lame off and on for the last few days."

"I see." I rolled the little animal on his back and then laughed. "Oh, he's only got a broken claw. There's a little bit hanging off here. He must have caught it on a stone. Hang on a minute." I delved in my pocket for the scissors which always dwelt there. A quick snip and the job was done.

"Is that all?" asked Paul "Yes, that's it."

One eyebrow went up mockingly as he looked at Theo. "So that's what you were making all the fuss about, eh? Silly old trout." He snapped his fingers. "Back you go."

The little dog obediently leaped to the carpet and disappeared into his sanctuary beneath the stool. And at that moment I had a flash of intuition about Paul-about his charm which I had often admired and envied. He didn't really care. He was fond of his dog, of course. He took him everywhere with him, exercised him regularly by the river, but there was none of the anxiety, the almost desperate concern which I had so often seen in the eyes of my clients when I dealt with even the most trivial of their ailments. They cared too much-as I have always done with my own animals.

And of course he was right. It was an easier and more comfortable way to live. Caring made you vulnerable while Paul cruised along, impregnable. That attractive casualness, the nonchalant good manners, the imperturbability-they all had their roots in the fact that nothing touched him very deeply.

And despite my snap diagnosis of his character I still envied him. I have always been blown around too easily by my emotions; it must be lovely to be like Paul. And the more I thought about it the more I realised how everything fitted in. He had never cared enough to get married. Even Bach, with his mathematical music, was part of the pattern.

"I think that major operation deserves another pint, Jim." He smiled his lop-sided smile. "Unless you demand a higher fee?"

I laughed. I would always like him. We are all different and we have to act as we are made, but as I started my second glass I thought again of his carefree life. He had a good job in the government offices in Brawton, no domestic responsibilities, and every night he sat on that same stool drinking beer with his dog underneath. He hadn't a worry in the world.

Anyway, he was part of the Darrowby scene, part of something I liked, and since I have always hated change it was in a sense reassuring to know that no matter what night you went into the Drovers' you would find Paul Cotterell in the corner and Theo's shaggy muzzle peeping from below.

I felt like that one night when I dropped in near closing time.

"D'you think he's got worms?" The question was typically off-hand.

"I don't know, Paul. Why do you ask?"

He drew on his pipe. "Oh I just thought he looked a bit thin lately. Come up, Theo!"

The little dog, perched on his master's knee, looked as chirpy as ever and when I reached over and lifted him he licked my hand. But his ribs did feel rather prominent.

"Mmm, yes," I said. "Maybe he has lost a bit of weight. Have you noticed him passing any worms?"

"I haven't, actually."

"Not even little bits-whitish segments sticking round his rear?"

"No, Jim." He shook his head and smiled. "But I haven't looked all that closely, old boy."

"Okay," I said. "Let's worm him, just in case. I'll bring in some tablets tomorrow night. You'll be here ...?"

The eyebrow went up. "I think that's highly probable."

Theo duly got his worm tablets and after that there was a space of several weeks when I was too busy to visit the Drovers'. When I finally did get in it was a Saturday night and the Athletic Club dance was in full spate. A rhythmic beat drifted from the ballroom, the little bar was packed, and the domino players were under pressure, squashed into a corner by the crush of dinner jackets and backless dresses.

In the noise and heat I struggled towards the bar, thinking that the place was unrecognisable. But there was one feature unchanged-Paul Cotterell on his stool at the far end of the counter.

I squeezed in next to him and saw he was wearing his usual tweed jacket. "Not dancing, Paul?"

He half closed his eyes, shook his head slowly and smiled at me over his bent little pipe. "Not for me, old boy," he murmured. "Too much like work."

I glanced down and saw that something else hadn't changed. Theo was there, too, keeping his nose well clear of the milling feet. I ordered two beers and we tried to converse, but it was difficult to shout above the babel. Arms kept poking between us towards the counter, red faces pushed into ours and shouted greetings. Most of the time we just looked around us.

Then Paul leaned close and spoke into my ear. "I gave Theo those pills but he's still getting thinner."

"Really?" I shouted back. "That's unusual."

"Yes ... perhaps you'd have a look at him?"

I nodded, he snapped his fingers and the little dog was on his knee in an instant. I reached and lifted him onto mine and I noticed immediately that he was lighter in my hands.

"You're right" I said. "He's still losing weight."

Balancing the dog in my lap, I pulled down an eyelid and saw that the conjunctiva was pale.

I shouted again. "He's anaemic." I felt my way back over his face and behind the angle of the jaw I found that the post pharyngeal lymph glands were very enlarged. This was strange. Could he have some form of mouth or throat infection? I looked helplessly around me, wishing fervently that Paul wouldn't invariably consult me about his dog in a pub. I wanted to examine the animal, but I couldn't very well deposit him among the glasses on the bar.

I was trying to get a better grip with a view to looking down his throat when my hand slipped behind his fore leg and my heart gave a sudden thump as I encountered the axillary gland. It, too, was grossly enlarged. I whipped my fingers back into his groin and there was the inguinal gland, prominent as an egg. The prescapular was the same, and as I groped around feverishly I realised that every superficial lymph gland was several times its normal size.

Hodgkin's disease. For a few moments I was oblivious of the shouting and laughter, the muffled blare of music. Then I looked at Paul who was regarding me calmly as he puffed his pipe. How could I tell him in these surroundings? He would ask me what Hodgkin's disease was and I would have to explain that it was a cancer of the lymphatic system and that his dog was surely going to die.

As my thoughts raced I stroked the shaggy head and Theo's comic whiskered face turned towards me. People jostled past, hands reached out and bore gins and whiskies and beers past my face; a fat man threw his arm round my neck.

I leaned across. "Paul," I said.

"Yes, Jim?"

"Will you ... will you bring Theo round to the surgery tomorrow morning. It's ten o'clock on a Sunday."

Momentarily the eyebrow twitched upwards, then he nodded.

"Right, old boy."

I didn't bother to finish my drink. I began to push my way towards the door and as the crush closed around me I glanced back. The little dog's tail was just disappearing under the stool.

Next day I had one of those early waking mornings when I started tossing around at six o'clock and finished by staring at the ceiling.

Even after I had got my feet on the ground and brought Helen a cup of tea the waiting was interminable until the moment arrived which I had been dreading-when I faced Paul across the surgery table with Theo standing between us.

I told him straight away. I couldn't think of any easy way to lead up to it.

His expression did not change, but he took his pipe out of his mouth and looked steadily at me, then at the dog and back again at me.

"Oh," he said at last. "I see."

I didn't say anything and he slowly ran his hand along the little animal's back. "Are you quite sure, Jim?"

"Absolutely. I'm terribly sorry."

"Is there no treatment?"

"There are various palliatives, Paul, but I've never seen any of them do any good. The end result is always the same."

"Yes ..." He nodded slowly. "But he doesn't look so bad. What will happen if we don't do anything?"