I felt trapped at the suggestion. Siegfried knew me so well. But as the hours pa.s.sed and my mind went through its usual gradual adjustment, I finally came round sufficiently to mention the proposition to Helen.

My wife was much less diffident than me. "Let's have a look," she said.

We did have a look, right away, spurred by Helen's better-developed sense of urgency. I knew Hannerly well, sitting as it did right in the heart of our practice. It was tiny; a peaceful backwater of a dozen houses, several of them farms, tucked into the sheltering fell-side and strung along a quiet little road that led nowhere in particular-to a neighbouring village some miles away or branching up the hillside to the high country hundreds of feet above. It was beautiful, but not with the chocolate-box prettiness of the tourist villages. No shop, no pub, no streetlights. To me it was a secret corner of Yorkshire, a little tableau in stone of that stern and lovely county.

The doctor who was leaving showed us round. The house was modest but charming, resting on the face of its own field, a steeply sloping pasture where sheep grazed. An extensive lawn stretched down to a swiftly running beck that widened into a pond where a score of mallard ducks floated serenely and great willows bent their branches towards the water.

Afterwards, in the May sunshine, Helen and I climbed with our dog behind the house, up the gra.s.sy bank past trees heavy with blossom, then over a stile to a lofty green plateau that seemed to overlook the whole world.

We flopped onto the gra.s.s and from our eyrie we looked down past the sheep unhurriedly cropping the gra.s.s to the house lying below us, backed by a great crescent of tree-covered hillside with the rim of the high moorland peeping above the trees. This majestic sweep curved away to a headland where a tall cliff dominated the scene, a huge friendly slab of rock gleaming in the sunshine. Away in the other direction, over the roofs of the hamlet, there was a heart-lifting glimpse of the great wide plain of York and the distant hills beyond.

After the cold spring the whole countryside had softened and the air had a gentle warmth, rich with the scents of May blossom and the medley of wild flowers that speckled the gra.s.s. In a little wood to our right a scented lake of bluebells flooded the shady reaches of the trees.

As we sat there three squirrels hopped one after another from a tall sycamore and, pursued optimistically by fat Dinah, flitted, quick and light as air, over the green and disappeared behind a rise, leaving her effortlessly behind.

Helen voiced my thoughts. "Living here would be heaven."

We almost ran down the hill to the house and closed the deal with the doctor. There were none of the traumas of our previous house-buying efforts; a shake of the hand and it was over.

Helen's words were prophetic. It was a sad moment when we had to leave the happy memories of Rowan Garth behind, but once we were installed in High Field we realised that living in Hannerly was heaven indeed. At times I could hardly believe our luck. To be able to sit at our front door drinking tea in the sunshine and watching the mallards splashing and diving in our pond with the hillside before us aflame with gorse and, way above, that changeless cliff face smiling down. And to live always in a quiet world where the silence at night was almost palpable.

Picking my torch-lit way on Dinah's nocturnal strolls, I could hear nothing except the faintest whisper of the beck murmuring its eternal way under the stone bridge. Sometimes on these nightly walks a badger would scuttle across my path, and under the stars I might see a fox carrying out a stealthy exploration of our lawn.

One morning on an early call just after dawn, I surprised two roe deer in the open and watched enthralled as they galloped at incredible speed across the fields and, clearing the fences like steeplechasers, plunged into the woods.

Here in Hannerly, just a few miles from Darrowby, there was the ever-present thrill for Helen and me that we were living on the edge of the wild.

Chapter 43.

"BY G.o.d, AH'S SWEATIN'!" Albert Budd gasped as he collapsed his sixteen stones onto a chair and wiped his face. Then he gave me an anguished look. "And ah know ah'm goin' to start fartin' in a minute."

"What!" I stared at him in alarm. We had just finished a set of quadrilles at Calum's newly formed Highland dancing club in Kayton village hall, and I was puffing, too, as I sat down next to the young farmer. "Really? Are you sure?"

"Aye, nothin' surer. When Calum roped me in for this dancin' I didn't know there'd be all this jumpin' and jogglin', and I've just had a b.l.o.o.d.y good feed with three Yorkshire puddin's. This is murder!"

I didn't know what to say but I tried to be rea.s.suring. "Just sit quietly for a bit-I expect you'll be all right."

Albert shook his head. "No chance! I can feel it comin' on. He's a b.u.g.g.e.r, is Calum. He came in and grabbed me as soon as I'd finished me dinner. Me mother allus gives me a special do on a Wednesday night after I get back from Houlton market-a few good slices o' beef, sprouts and taties and, like I said, three Yorkshire puddin's and a smashin' spotted d.i.c.k and custard. I'd had a few pints at the Golden Lion, too, and I was just goin' to put me feet up for half an hour when he walked into the house. Said I had to come with him and I thought the dancin' would be like Victor Sylvester on the television."

The stab of pity I felt for the poor chap's predicament was sharpened by the fact that everybody else in the hall was having a wonderful time. Calum's persuasive energies had obviously been successful and there was a good turnout of the local people forming up for an eightsome reel as the gramophone poured out Jimmy Shand's foot-twitching beat.

Helen and I had gladly fallen in with the dancing idea and this was our third visit. With my Glasgow upbringing I had done it all before at school and parties, but I was rusty and had forgotten some of the steps. However, to the majority of the company-farmers, schoolteachers, doctors, and a good cross-section of the local people-the whole business was strange and new. But definitely fun to learn, and at times the loud laughter almost drowned the music.

I could understand that Albert didn't find it funny at all. He was about twenty-five, living with a doting mother who looked after him far too well, and he was one of the many young farmers who had formed a friendship with the ebullient new vet and were eager to join him in his activities, but this was definitely not his scene.

I had often noted that there weren't many fat chaps among the farmers but Albert was a striking exception. Six feet three, beacon-faced and with an enormous belly that he somehow managed to carry round his milking, hay-making and other farming ch.o.r.es. His appet.i.te was legendary in the district and he was a constant menace to those carvery restaurants where you could put down a set amount and eat as much as you liked.

He looked acutely uncomfortable at this moment, resting his hands on his stomach and gazing at me with worried eyes.

I could sympathise with him. I had seen his streaming face bouncing aimlessly above the crowd in the quadrilles and there was no doubt he must be suffering.

"Ah tell ye this, Jim," he went on. "If I have to do any more jumpin' around I've had it. I'm goin' to start fartin', and when ah do ah can't stop!"

"Oh dear, I'm sorry, Albert. It's a bit awkward for you with all these ladies around."

I hadn't meant to be cruel but he stared at me in horror.

"Oh, 'ell!" he groaned, then, "by G.o.d, I'm startin'! I'm gettin' out-I'm off 'ome!"

He was about to rise when the curate's young wife came over.

"Really, Mr. Budd," she said with mock disapproval, "we can't have you sitting against the wall when we need a man for this reel."

Albert gave her a ghastly smile. "Nay...nay...thank ye. I was just..."

"Oh, come now, you mustn't be shy. Most of us are still learning." She put out her hand and Albert gave me a last despairing glance before he was led onto the floor.

His eyes registered acute anxiety as he was stationed between the curate's wife and a pretty young teacher from Darrowby Infants' School, but there was no escape. The gramophone sounded the opening chord, they bowed, then they were off, skipping round hand in hand one way and then the other. I watched in morbid fascination as he halted and faced his partner. Oh my G.o.d, they were starting the pas de bas! That was fatal! For a few moments I watched the tortured face bob-bob-bobbing up and down, the great belly quivering like a blancmange as the music thundered, then I just couldn't look.

I tore my eyes away and searched for some distraction among the dancing throng, and it struck me that all this was another example of something new Calum had brought to Darrowby. These people were just a few of the many on whom he had laid his hand. I looked at him now, the tall, black-moustached figure, magnificent as any Highland chieftain in his kilt, leaping high, kicking out his feet, toes pointed in the cla.s.sical manner while Dierdre, tartan-sashed and graceful, glided expertly among the stumbling rookies.

The thought recurred that Calum had an irresistible attraction for a large number of people and he had brought fresh, meaningful things into their lives, yet there seemed always to be a faint spice of danger for those who followed closely in his beguiling wake; for myself on that barebacked cart-horse, Siegfried with the Dobermanns and now the hapless Albert in agony out on that floor.

Chapter 44.

"LOOK AT THAT, JIM! Surely that's a stray cat. I've never seen it before." Helen was at the kitchen sink, washing dishes, and she pointed through the window.

Our new house in Hannerly had been built into a sloping field. There was a low retaining wall, chest high, just outside the window and behind, the gra.s.sy bank led from the wall top up to some bushes and an open log shed standing high about twenty yards away. A lean little cat was peering warily from the bushes. Two tiny kittens crouched by her side.

"I think you're right," I said. "That's a stray with her family and she's looking for food."

Helen put out a bowl of meat sc.r.a.ps and some milk on the flat top of the wall and retired to the kitchen. The mother cat did not move for a few minutes, then she advanced with the utmost caution, took up some of the food in her mouth and carried it back to her kittens.

Several times she crept down the bank, but when the kittens tried to follow her she gave them a quick "get-back" tap with her paw.

We watched, fascinated, as the scraggy, half-starved creature made sure that her family had eaten before she herself took anything from the bowl, then when the food was finished we quietly opened the kitchen door. But as soon as they saw us, cat and kittens flitted away into the field.

"I wonder where they came from," Helen said.

I shrugged. "Heaven knows. There's a lot of open country round here. They could have come from miles away. And that mother cat doesn't look like an ordinary stray. There's a real wild look about her."

Helen nodded. "Yes, she looks as though she's never been in a house, never had anything to do with people. I've heard of wild cats like that who live outside. Maybe she only came looking for food because of her kittens."

"I think you're right," I said as we returned to the kitchen. "Anyway, the poor little things have had a good feed. I don't suppose we'll see them again."

But I was wrong. Two days later, the trio reappeared. In the same place, peeping from the bushes, looking hungrily at the kitchen window. Helen fed them again, the mother cat still fiercely forbidding her kittens to leave the bushes, and once more they darted away when we tried to approach them. When they came again next morning, Helen turned to me and smiled.

"I think we've been adopted," she said.

She was right. The three of them took up residence in the log shed and after a few days the mother allowed the kittens to come down to the food bowls, shepherding them carefully all the way. They were still quite tiny, only a few weeks old. One was black and white, the other tortoisesh.e.l.l.

Helen fed them for a fortnight, but they remained unapproachable creatures, then one morning as I was about to go on my rounds, she called me into the kitchen.

She pointed through the window. "What do you make of that?"

I looked and saw the two kittens in their usual position under the bushes, but there was no mother cat.

"That's strange," I said. "She's never let them out of her sight before."

The kittens had their feed and I tried to follow them as they ran away, but I lost them in the long gra.s.s, and though I searched all over the field, there was no sign of them or their mother.

We never saw the mother cat again and Helen was upset.

"What on earth can have happened to her?" she murmured a few days later as the kittens ate their morning meal.

"Could be anything," I replied. "I'm afraid the mortality rate for wandering cats is very high. She could have been run over by a car or had some other accident. I'm afraid we'll never know."

Helen looked again at the little creatures crouched side by side, their heads in the bowl. "Do you think she's just abandoned them?"

"Well, it's possible. She was a maternal and caring little thing and I have a feeling she looked around till she could find a good home for them. She didn't leave till she saw that they could fend for themselves and maybe she's returned to her outside life now. She was a real wild one."

It remained a mystery, but one thing was sure: the kittens were installed for good. Another thing was sure: they would never be domesticated. Try as we might we were never able to touch them, and all our attempts to wheedle them into the house were unavailing.

One wet morning, Helen and I looked out of the kitchen window at the two of them sitting on the wall, waiting for their breakfast, their fur sodden, their eyes nearly closed against the driving rain.

"Poor little things," Helen said. "I can't bear to see them out there, wet and cold; we must get them inside."

"How? We've tried often enough."

"Oh, I know, but let's have another go. Maybe they'll be glad to come in out of the rain."

We cut up a dish of fresh fish, an irresistible delicacy to cats. I let them have a sniff and they were eager and hungry, then I placed the dish just inside the kitchen door before retreating out of sight. But as we watched through the window the two of them sat motionless in the downpour, their eyes fixed on the fish, but determined not to go through the door. That, clearly, was unthinkable.

"All right, you win," I said and put the food on the wall where it was immediately devoured.

I was staring at them with a feeling of defeat when Herbert Platt, one of the local dustmen, came round the corner. At the sight of him the kittens scurried away and Herbert laughed.

"Ah see you've taken on them cats. That's some nice stuff they're gettin' to eat."

"Yes, but they won't come inside to get it."

He laughed again. "Aye, and they never will. Ah've known that family o' cats for years, and all their ancestors. I saw that mother cat when she first came and before that she lived at awd Mrs. Caley's over the hill and ah remember that 'un's mother before her, down at Billy Tate's farm. Ah can go back donkey's years with them cats."

"Gosh, is that so?"

"Aye, it is, and I've never seen one o' that strain that would go inside a house. They're wild, real wild."

"Ah well, thanks, Herbert, that explains a lot."

He smiled and hoisted a bin. "Ah'll get off, then, and they can finish their breakfast."

"Well, that's it, Helen," I said. "Now we know. They're always going to be outside, but at least we can try to improve their accommodation."

The thing we called the log shed, where I had laid some straw for them to sleep, wasn't a shed at all. It had a roof, but was open all down one side, with widely s.p.a.ced slats on the other three sides. It allowed a constant through wind, which made it a fine place for drying out the logs but horribly draughty as a dwelling.

I went up the gra.s.sy slope and put up a sheet of plywood as a wind-break. Then I built up a mound of logs into a protective zareba around the straw bed and stood back, puffing slightly.

"Right," I said. "They'll be quite cosy in there now."

Helen nodded in agreement, but she had gone one better. Behind my wind-break, she put down an open-sided box with cushions inside. "There now, they needn't sleep on the straw now, they'll be warm and comfortable in this nice box."

I rubbed my hands. "Great. We don't have to worry about them now. They'll really enjoy coming in here."

From that moment the kittens boycotted the shed. They still came for their meals every day, but we never saw them anywhere near their old dwelling.

"They're just not used to it," Helen said.

"Hmm." I looked again at the cushioned box tucked in the centre of the encircling logs. "Either that, or they don't like it."

We stuck it out for a few days, then, as we wondered where on earth the kittens could be sleeping, our resolve began to crack. I went up the slope and dismantled the wall of logs. Immediately the two little creatures returned. They sniffed and nosed round the box and went away again.

"I'm afraid they're not keen on your box either," I grunted as we watched from our vantage point.

Helen looked stricken. "Silly little things. It's perfect for them."

But after another two days during which the shed lay deserted she went out and I saw her coming sadly down the bank, box in one hand, cushions under her arm.

The kittens were back within hours, looking round the place, vastly relieved. They didn't seem to object to the wind-break and settled happily in the straw. Our attempts to produce a feline Hilton had been a total failure.

It dawned on me that they couldn't bear to be enclosed, to have their escape routes cut off. Lying there on the open bed of straw, they could see all around them and were able to flit away between the slats at the slightest sign of danger.

"Okay, my friends," I said. "That's the way you want it, but I'm going to find out something more about you."