Summary
Chapter 41
Herriot has become an inspector for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. This means he needs to check all the local cattle to see if they have tuberculosis. Herriot has arranged a very tightly scheduled day of tuberculin vaccinations and inspections. He has asked all the farmers to bring their cows into the barn for his visit. However, Herriot soon realizes that the farmers do not have an urgent sense of timing.
In this chapter, Herriot visits the first of many farms. He and the farmer are struggling to herd the cattle into an enclosed area. Herriot reflects that he thought that inspection work would be easy, but that this is definitely not an easy start to his day. Finally, they call on the farmer’s neighbor, who imitates the sound of a fly, which makes the cows charge up a hill and into the barn. Herriot is surprised by this, and says it was “like magic.”
Chapter 42
Herriot continues inspecting cattle at other farms, but because of the delay at the first farm, he is very late. To examine the cows for tuberculosis, Herriot has to feel their udders for any abnormality and check to see if they have been coughing, leaving spit on the barn wall. The farmers are unhappy that he is late, and some of them have turned their cows out to pasture again. Thus, the farmer and Herriot have to herd the cows inside again. At one farm, Herriot is repeatedly kicked by a cow, to the great amusement of the farmer. By the time he reaches his last farm of the day, he is so tired that he is examining the cows in a half-asleep state, and he mistakes a bull for a female.
Chapter 43
Herriot visits the dogs and cats of Miss Stubbs, a poor elderly woman who is very sick and cannot leave her bed. Mrs. Broadwith is her caretaker. Apparently Miss Stubbs' family used to have money, but her father lost it all; now, all she can afford is her small cottage, her animals, and her caretaker. Herriot describes her cottage as small and cluttered, and Miss Stubbs' bed has a cardboard sign hanging over it that says “God is Near.”
Miss Stubbs’ animals have various ailments, and all of them more than ten years old. When one of her dogs dies, she tells Herriot that she will die next. Herriot tells her not to worry, but she says she is not afraid. She is upset because she thinks that she won’t be able to see her animals in heaven, since people have told her that animals don’t have souls. Herriot comforts her by saying that, if having a soul means being able to love, then animals are better off than most humans. She is greatly comforted. A month later, Herriot finds out that Miss Stubbs has died—a farmer mentions to him that her house is for sale. He worries about her animals, but finds out that they have been taken in by Mrs. Broadwith, who promises she will care for them well.
Chapter 44
Herriot attempts to get closer to Helen Alderson by joining the local Music Society. There, Helen often goes to concerts every Tuesday night, accompanied by two older ladies. During the tea break, Herriot often tries to chat with Helen, but is thwarted by the old ladies, who only want to talk about music. One day, Herriot and Helen are asked to do the cleanup duty, washing the teacups after a concert. Herriot finally gets up the nerve to ask her on a date. She agrees, but Herriot fears he may have pressured her into saying yes when she really didn’t want to. Still, he is relieved to have asked her out.
Chapter 45
Siegfried reads an article that says that farmers do not care for their animals. Herriot remembers a man, Kit Bilton, who is always raising a pig for family consumption: every time they have to kill their pig, Kit cries for days. Herriot thinks an ideal farmer should not be as emotional as Kit, but should still care about the welfare of the animals. Herriot tells Siegfried that he believes that farmers with fewer animals usually do have some sort of affection for the animals, as they often give them names. On the other hand, Herriot does not imagine that the farmers with large stocks have any affection for their animals.
That day, Herriot goes to a large farm to do some dental work on two horses. The man who owns the farm, John Skipton, has worked his way up from a poor laborer to become a wealthy landowner; he owns a large, beautiful, old home. John takes Herriot down a hill to see two very old horses. The horses have an obvious affection for John, and John for them. John tells Herriot that the horses have been “retired” for twelve years, and have done no work during that time. After Herriot performs the dental work and returns to his car, a farm worker stops Herriot to ask if he had come to see the “pensioners”—the retired horses. The worker finds it strange that John visits the horses daily, and has kept them so many years without making them work, especially because he could have gotten money by selling them for meat. Herriot realizes that, despite the fact that John owns a big farm and hundreds of animals, John loves these horses, and that is why he keeps them.
Chapter 46
Herriot reflects on how it is often the largest, strongest men who pass out while observing a bloody surgery. He says he has noticed that women and smaller-sized men almost never faint, but large, over-confident men are usually the first to go down at the sight of blood.
Herriot recalls a procedure on a cow where he asked for participation from an observer. The man who volunteers is a broad-shouldered man who looks very much like a Viking. However, at the first sign of blood, the man falls back and hits the floor in a faint.
Herriot recalls another situation in which a farmer wants Herriot to demonstrate a procedure on a pig so that the farmer can do the procedure himself in the future. The farmer pays Herriot before the operation, but faints during the operation. At the end of the procedure, Herriot needs to give the farmer his change. While in general Herriot says he has not been able to do much to revive anyone who faints, in this case, he discovers that the farmer is able to wake up at the sound of the change hitting the table.
Chapter 47
Herriot has to deal with the Sidlow family, a very unfriendly family that believes that vets are “useless creatures, parasites and expensive layabouts.” Mr. Sidlow believes he knows how to cure animals using his grandfather’s invented remedies. Because of this, he always waits until the last minute to call a vet, meaning that, by the time the vet arrives, the animals are almost always incurable.
In one part of the chapter, Herriot is called to fix the knee of a racehorse. Afterwards, the horse’s caretaker gives Herriot a tip on which horse to bet on in the race. Although Herriot doesn’t usually bet, he takes out money and is planning on going to place the bet. However, he is interrupted when he gets a call from the Sidlows, to look at a cow with diarrhea. During the visit, Herriot’s thermometer gets sucked into the cow’s rectum, and Herriot has to spend time washing himself down to stick his arm into the cow to find the thermometer. The whole event takes so long that, by the time Herriot gets back to the racetrack to place his bet, the race has already been won, and Herriot realizes the bet he was going to make would have earned him a lot of money.
Chapter 48
Herriot is going to take Helen on a date. Tristan suggests that he takes her to a nice hotel restaurant, where they serve a fancy dinner and have a dance every Saturday night. Tristan says that the place requires patrons to wear a dinner jacket. However, Herriot doesn’t have a good dinner jacket, just an old, out-of-fashion one that is too tight on him. Regardless, Mrs. Hall (the housekeeper) alters it, and Herriot feels prepared for the date. He goes to pick up Helen, who looks stunning in a strapless blue dress. As they drive to the date, the car goes through a small flood, and they both have to get out and push the car out of the water. Because of this, they have to go back to Helen’s house so she can change shoes, and Herriot has to borrow a pair of outdated dress shoes from Helen’s father.
They set off again on their way to their dinner. On the way, the car gets a flat tire, but Herriot is used to this problem and quickly resolves it. When they finally arrive, they realize that the dinner dances only happen once a fortnight. Herriot is upset, but says they can at least stay for dinner. The dining room is very elegant; Herriot notes is that he is the only one wearing a real dinner jacket, and he feels foolish. To add to his embarrassment, the waiter is rude to Herriot when he realizes he is not staying at the hotel. Helen and Herriot eat dinner together, but there are long periods without any conversation. Herriot feels that the date has been a disaster, and doubts that Helen even wanted to come in the first place.
Chapter 49
This chapter provides another humorous example of Siegfried’s contradictions.
The brakes in the car are broken, but Herriot still has to use this car to make all his rounds. Herriot has mentioned the brakes to Siegfried numerous times, and Siegfried has said he will get the mechanic to fix them. When Herriot checks with the mechanic, they report that Siegfried hasn’t contacted them. Because the car is Siegfried’s property, Herriot has to wait until Siegfried solves the problem.
Because the Yorkshire Dales are very hilly, Herriot often finds himself in difficult situations. Once, he has to crash into a wall in order to avoid a herd of sheep. The problem is finally resolved one day after Siegfried drives the car. Siegfried almost crashes into a farmer’s Buick because the brakes don’t work, and is forced to drive in circles around the farm because he cannot stop. After this, Siegfried gets angry at Herriot for not having advised him of the issue.
Chapter 50
Herriot visits a millionaire, Harold Denham, who has many dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and fish. Harold is an odd character because he has chosen a life of doing almost nothing, even though he comes from a rich farming family. Harold likes to spend his time betting on football (soccer) matches, but his habit is especially peculiar because he knows nothing about football, he never watches the games, and he also never wins. He takes a special interest in Herriot because Herriot is interested in football, and one time Herriot even won a bet on a game; this makes him an "oracle" in Harold's eyes.
One day Harold asks Herriot to treat an enormous Great Dane who has recently had puppies. When Harold leaves the room to get Herriot some water to wash up. The dog, alone with Herriot, thinks Herriot is going to harm her puppies, and attacks him. She leaps at his face and bites him in the leg, while Herriot fends her off with a chair. Afterwards, at Skeldale House, Siegfried laughs about the incident until he sees the wound on Herriot’s leg: it's near his groin, meaning the situation could have been much graver for Herriot!
Analysis
This set of chapters begins with Herriot’s adventures as an inspector, which he believes will be a simple job, checking cows for tuberculosis. Herriot’s new position demonstrates his professional development. What Herriot does not realize, is that the job is a lot more difficult than he thinks. For one thing, the pace of life in the country has him frustrated, because, in his words, “the Dales farmers’ attitude to time was different from my own” (249). Comedy ensues as Herriot tries to help farmers wrangle their cows into enclosed areas.
The tuberculosis testing is also a sign of the advances in technology of the times. In the 1930s, the British government was trying to eradicate tuberculosis from cows, because it was transmitted to humans through the milk (Woods). The Dalesman, however, have some aversion to the changing of times, as Herriot has noted in previous parts of the book, and are thus not as cooperative with Herriot as he would have hoped. Herriot notes that, even though the efforts he was making at the time were the best preventative measures that he had to offer, in the present day (the 1960s, when the author wrote) “The modern young vet just about never sees a T.B. cow” (261).
The theme of human-animal connection is continued in these chapters in Herriot’s encounters with Miss Stubbs and John Skipton. In Chapter 43, Miss Stubbs, a very sick, elderly, impoverished woman, asks Herriot whether he believes she will see her dead pets in the afterlife. Herriot comforts her because he does believe animals have souls. This moment allows Herriot to illustrate that Miss Stubbs feels a strong connection to her animals, so much so that she hopes she will meet them again after she dies; also, this moment shows that Herriot, too, believes that animals can feel this connection. He remarks that, “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans” (87). The human-animal connection runs in both directions.
In Chapter 45, John Skipton is another example of human-animal connection, although, this time, the connection is unexpected and ironic. The chapter begins with Siegfried telling Herriot about an article he reads claiming that farmers do not really care very much about their animals. Herriot agrees that, on large farms, the farmers must not feel affection for each animal; this scene sets up the expectation that, on large farms like John Skipton’s, the animals and humans do not have a caring connection—just an economic one. However, when Herriot meets the “pensioners," Mr. Skipton’s retired horses, this expectation is subverted. Mr. Skipton has allowed these horses to live far beyond their useful years, and they are no longer serving any economic purpose for John. The ironic conclusion from these facts is that John Skipton feels love and connection with these two horses, which is the opposite of what Herriot had expected to find.
The episodes in these chapters also contain their share of humor, as expressed through irony and paradox. In one story, Herriot learns about which kind of people tend to faint at the sight or talk of blood—ironically, and contrary to his expectations, mostly, large, masculine, men are the ones who cannot stand being near blood. In another story, Herriot treats the dogs of an eccentric millionaire, Harold Denham. Mr. Denham likes to bet on football (soccer) even though he paradoxically does not watch nor have any knowledge of the sport, and he never wins. This paradox illustrates the leisure culture of the time: the man spends money on the games as a pastime because he has the money to spend, not because he cares about the sport of the games.
Chapters 44 and 48 detail Herriot’s pursuit of Helen. This process is described as slow and needlessly complicated. Herriot explains that this is due to his shyness, and laments that he has made “no progress at all." Herriot unambiguously presents Helen as the object of his affection, and sensory imagery is used to illustrate her importance. “A string quartet was scraping away industriously, but I hardly heard them. My eyes, as usual, were focused on Helen” (274). When Herriot finally gains the courage to ask Helen out and she says yes, this optimistic moment is undercut by Herriot’s agitated mindset. The series of rhetorical questions—“Did she really want to come out? Had she been hustled into it against her will?” (276)—illustrates his fears and concerns.
Herriot and Helen’s first date, typically a positive experience, is described as awkward and uncomfortable. Herriot is disappointed that nothing has gone according to plan, and becomes increasingly worried that Helen has lost interest in him. Their time together was characterized by a “strained silence." Despite this, Helen claimed to have had fun, and the two part politely.
