"I want you to look at me dog, Mr. Herriot" he said.

"Why, what's the trouble?"

"Ah don't rightly know. He's havin' sort of ... faintin' fits."

"Fainting fits? That doesn't sound like Jake. Where is he, anyway?"

He pointed behind him. "In t'pram, under t'cover."

"All right." I threw the door wide. "Bring him in."

Roddy adroitly manhandled the rusty old vehicle up the steps and pushed it, squeaking and rattling, along the passage to the consulting room. There, under the bright lights he snapped back the fasteners and threw off the cover to reveal Jake stretched beneath.

His head was pillowed on the familiar gaberdine coat and around him lay his master's worldly goods; a string-tied bundle of spare shirt and socks, a packet of tea, a thermos, knife and spoon and an ex-army haversack.

The big dog looked up at me with terrified eyes and as I patted him I could feel his whole frame quivering.

"Let him lie there a minute, Roddy," I said. "And tell me exactly what you've seen."

He rubbed his palms together and his fingers trembled. "Well it only started this afternoon. He was right as rain, larkin' about on the grass, then he went into a sort o' fit."

"How do you mean?"

"Just kind of seized up and toppled over on 'is side. He lay there for a bit gaspin' and slaverin'. Ah'll tell ye, I thought he was a goner." His eyes widened and a corner of his mouth twitched at the memory.

"How long did that last?"

"Nobbut a few seconds. Then he got up and you'd say there was nowt wrong with 'im."

"But he did it again?"

"Aye, time and time again. Drove me near daft. But in between 'e was normal. Normal, Mr. Herriot!"

It sounded ominously like the onset of epilepsy. "How old is he?" I asked.

"Five gone last February."

Ah well, it was a bit old for that. I reached for a stethoscope and auscultated the heart. I listened intently but heard only the racing beat of a frightened animal. There was no abnormality. My thermometer showed no rise in temperature.

"Let's have him on the table, Roddy. You take the back end."

The big animal was limp in our arms as we hoisted him on to the smooth surface, but after lying there for a moment he looked timidly around him then sat up with a slow and careful movement. As we watched he reached out and licked his master's face while his tail flickered between his legs.

"Look at that!" the man exclaimed. "He's all right again. You'd think he didn't ail a thing."

And indeed Jake was recovering his confidence rapidly. He peered tentatively at the floor a few times then suddenly jumped down, trotted to his master and put his paws against his chest.

I looked at the dog standing there, tail wagging furiously. "Well, that's a relief, anyway. I didn't like the look of him just then, but whatever's been troubling him seems to have righted itself. I'll-"

My happy flow was cut off. I stared at the lurcher. His fore legs were on the floor again and his mouth was gaping as he fought for breath. Frantically he gasped and retched then he blundered across the floor, collided with the pram wheels and fell on his side.

"What the hell ...! Quick, get him up again!" I grabbed the animal round the middle and we lifted him back on to the table.

I watched in disbelief as the huge form lay there. There was no fight for breath now-he wasn't breathing at all, he was unconscious. I pushed my fingers inside his thigh and felt the pulse. It was still going, rapid and feeble, but yet he didn't breathe.

He could die any moment and I stood there helpless, all my scientific training useless. Finally my frustration burst from me and I struck the dog on the ribs with the flat of my hand.

"Jake!" I yelled. "Jake, what's the matter with you?"

As though in reply, the lurcher immediately started to take great wheezing breaths, his eyelids twitched back to consciousness and he began to look about him. But he was still mortally afraid and he lay prone as I gently stroked his head.

There was a long silence while the animal's terror slowly subsided, then he sat up on the table and regarded us placidly.

"There you are," Roddy said softly. "Same thing again. Ah can't reckon it up and ah thought ah knew summat about dogs."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't reckon it up either, and I was supposed to be a veterinary surgeon.

I spoke at last. "Roddy, that wasn't a fit. He was choking. Something was interfering with his air flow." I took my hand torch from my breast pocket. "I'm going to have a look at his throat."

I pushed Jake's jaws apart, depressed his tongue with a forefinger and shone the light into the depths. He was the kind of good-natured dog who offered no resistance as I prodded around, but despite my floodlit view of the pharynx I could find nothing wrong. I had been hoping desperately to come across a bit of bone stuck there somewhere but I ranged feverishly over pink tongue, healthy tonsils and gleaming molars without success. Everything looked perfect.

I was tilting his head a little further when I felt him stiffen and heard Roddy's cry.

"He's goin' again!"

And he was, too. I stared in horror as the brindled body slid away from me and lay prostrate once more on the table. And again the mouth strained wide and froth bubbled round the lips. As before, the breathing had stopped and the rib cage was motionless. As the seconds ticked away I beat on the chest with my hand but it didn't work this time. I pulled the lower eyelid down from the staring orb-the conjunctiva was blue, Jake hadn't long to live. The tragedy of the thing bore down on me. This wasn't just a dog, he was this man's family and I was watching him die.

It was at that moment that I heard the faint sound. It was a strangled cough which barely stirred the dog's lips.

"Damn it!" I shouted. "He IS choking. There must be something down there."

Again I seized the head and pushed my torch into the mouth and I shall always be thankful that at that very instant the dog coughed again, opening the cartilages of the larynx and giving me a glimpse of the cause of all the trouble. There, beyond the drooping epiglottis I saw for a fleeting moment a smooth round object no bigger than a pea.

"I think it's a pebble," I gasped. "Right inside his larynx."

"You mean, in 'is Adam's apple?"

"That's right, and it's acting like a ball valve, blocking his windpipe every now and then." I shook the dog's head. "You see, look, I've dislodged it for the moment. He's coming round again."

Once more Jake was reviving and breathing steadily.

Roddy ran his hand over the head, along the back and down the great muscles of the hind limbs. "But ... but ... it'll happen again, won't it?"

I nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"And one of these times it isn't goin' to shift and that'll be the end of 'im?" He had gone very pale.

"That's about it, Roddy, I'll have to get that pebble out."

"But how ...?"

"Cut into the larynx. And right now-it's the only way."

"All right." He swallowed. "Let's get on. I don't think ah could stand it if he went down again."

I knew what he meant. My knees had begun to shake, and I had a strong conviction that if Jake collapsed once more then so would I.

I seized a pair of scissors and clipped away the hair from the ventral surface of the larynx. I dared not use a general anaesthetic and infiltrated the area with local before swabbing with antiseptic. Mercifully there was a freshly boiled set of instruments lying in the steriliser and I lifted out the tray and set it on the trolley by the side of the table.

"Hold his head steady," I said hoarsely, and gripped a scalpel.

I cut down through skin, fascia and the thin layers of the sterno-hyoid and omo-hyoid muscles till the ventral surface of the larynx was revealed. This was something I had never done to a live dog before, but desperation abolished any hesitancy and it took me only another few seconds to incise the thin membrane and peer into the interior.

And there it was. A pebble right enough-grey and glistening and tiny, but big enough to kill.

I had to fish it out quickly and cleanly without pushing it into the trachea. I leaned back and rummaged in the tray till I found some broad-bladed forceps then I poised them over the wound. Great surgeons' hands, I felt sure, didn't shake like this, nor did such men pant as I was doing. But I clenched my teeth, introduced the forceps and my hand magically steadied as I clamped them over the pebble.

I stopped panting, too. In fact I didn't breathe at all as I bore the shining little object slowly and tenderly through the opening and dropped it with a gentle rat-tat on the table.

"Is that it?" asked Roddy, almost in a whisper.

"That's it" I reached for needle and suture silk. "All is well now."

The stitching took only a few minutes and by the end of it Jake was bright-eyed and alert, paws shifting impatiently, ready for anything. He seemed to know his troubles were over.

Roddy brought him back in ten days to have the stitches removed. It was, in fact, the very morning he was leaving the Darrowby district, and after I had picked the few loops of silk from the nicely healed wound I walked with him to the front door while Jake capered round our feet.

On the pavement outside Skeldale House the ancient pram stood in all its high, rusted dignity. Roddy pulled back the cover.

"Up, boy," he murmured, and the big dog leaped effortlessly into his accustomed place.

Roddy took hold of the handle with both hands and as the autumn sunshine broke suddenly through the clouds it lit up a picture which had grown familiar and part of the daily scene. The golf jacket, the open shirt and brown chest, the handsome animal sitting up, looking around him with natural grace.

"Well, so long, Roddy," I said. "I suppose you'll be round these parts again."

He turned and I saw that smile again. "Aye, reckon ah'll be back."

He gave a push and they were off, the strange vehicle creaking, Jake swaying gently as they went down the street. The memory came back to me of what I had seen under the cover that night in the surgery. The haversack, which would contain his razor, towel, soap and a few other things. The packet of tea and the thermos. And something else-a creased old photograph of a young woman which slipped from an envelope in the scuffle. It added a little more mystery to the man ... and explained other things, too.

That farmer was right. All Roddy possessed was in that pram. And it seemed it was all he desired, too, because as he turned the corner and disappeared from my view I could hear him whistling.

CHAPTER 45.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN much good at small talk but as I sat in the stores day after day without seeing a friendly face I realised how much I used to enjoy chatting with the farmers during my veterinary calls.

It is one of the nicest things about country practice, but you have to keep your mind on the job at the same time or you could be in trouble. And at Mr. Duggleby's I nearly landed in the biggest trouble of all. He was a small-holder who kept a few sows and reared the litters to pork weight in some ramshackle sheds behind the railway line outside Darrowby.

He was also a cricket fanatic, steeped in the lore and history of the game, and he would talk about it for hours on end. He never tired of it.

I was a willing listener because cricket has always fascinated me, even though I grew up in Scotland where it is little played. As I moved among the young pigs only part of my attention was focused on the little animals-most of me was out on the great green oval at Headingly with the Yorkshire heroes.

"By gaw, you should've seen Len Hutton on Saturday," he breathed reverently. "A hundred and eighty and never gave a chance. It was lovely to watch 'im." He gave a fair imitation of the great man's cover drive.

"Yes, I can imagine it." I nodded and smiled. "You said these pigs were lame, Mr. Duggleby?"

"Aye, noticed a few of 'em hoppin' about with a leg up this mornin'. And you know, Maurice Leyland was nearly as good. Not as classy as Len, tha knows, but by heck 'e can clump 'em."

"Yes, he's a lion-hearted little player is Maurice," I said. I reached down, grabbed a pig by the tail and thrust my thermometer into its rectum. "Remember him and Eddie Paynter in the test match against Australia?"

He gave a dreamy smile. "Remember it? By gaw, that's summat I'll never forget. What a day that was!"

I withdrew the thermometer. "This little chap's got a temperature of a hundred and five. Must be some infection somewhere-maybe a touch of joint ill." I felt my way along the small pink limbs. "And yet it's funny, the joints aren't swollen."

"Ah reckon Bill Bowes'll skittle Somerset out when they start their innings today. This wicket's just to 'is liking."

"Yes, he's a great bowler, isn't he?" I said. "I love watching a good fast bowler. I suppose you'll have seen them all-Larwood, Voce, G. O. Allen and the rest?"

"Aye, that I have. I could go on all day about those men."

I caught another of the lame pigs and examined it. "This is rather strange, Mr. Duggleby. About half the pigs in this pen seem to be lame but there's nothing to see."

"Aye well, happen it's like you said-joint ill. You can give 'em a jab for that can't you? And while you're doin' it I'll tell you of the time I saw Wilfred Rhodes take eight wickets in an afternoon."

I filled a syringe. "Right we'd better give them all a shot. Have you got a marking pencil there?"

The farmer nodded and lifted one of the little animals which promptly unleashed a protesting scream. "There was never anybody like awd Wilfred," he shouted above the noise. "It was about half past two and the wicket had had a shower of rain on it when t'skipper threw 'im the ball."

I smiled and raised my syringe. It passed the time so pleasantly listening to these reminiscences. Well content, I was about to plunge the needle into the pink thigh when one of the pigs began to nibble at the heel of my Wellington. I looked down at a ring of the little creatures all looking up at me, alarmed by the shrill screeches of their friend.

My mind was still with Wilfred Rhodes when I noticed what looked like a small white knob on one of the uptilted snouts. And there was another on that one-and that one ... I had been unable to see their faces until now because they had been trying to run away from me, but a warning bell clanged suddenly in my head.

I reached down and seized a pig, and as I squeezed the swelling on the snout a cold wind blew through me, scattering the gentle vision of cricket and sunshine and green grass. It wasn't a knob, it was a vesicle, a delicate blister which ruptured easily on pressure.

I could feel my arms shaking as I turned the piglet up and began to examine the tiny cloven feet. There were more vesicles there, flatter and more diffuse, but telling the same dread story.

Dry mouthed, I lifted two other pigs. They were just the same. As I turned to the farmer I felt bowed down by a crushing weight of pity, almost of guilt. He was still smiling eagerly, anxious to get on with his tale, and I was about to give him the worst news a veterinary surgeon can give a stockman.

"Mr. Duggleby," I said. "I'm afraid I'll have to telephone the Ministry of Agriculture."

"The Ministry ...? What for?'