Free All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot Page B

knife?”
    “Yes, that’s right, a carving knife!” Siegfried cried, his scanty store of patience beginning to run out. “And I wonder if you’d mind hurrying. I haven’t much time.”
    The bewildered woman withdrew to the kitchen and I could hear whispering and muttering. Children’s heads peeped out at intervals to get a quick look at Siegfried stamping irritably on the step. After some delay, one of the daughters advanced timidly, holding out a long, dangerous-looking knife.
    Siegfried snatched it from her hand and ran his thumb up and down the edge. “This is no damn good!” he shouted in exasperation. “Don’t you understand I want something really sharp? Fetch me a steel.”
    The girl fled back into the kitchen and there was a low rumble of voices. It was some minutes before another young girl was pushed round the door. She inched her way up to Siegfried, gave him the steel at arm’s length and dashed back to safety.
    Siegfried prided himself on his skill at sharpening a knife. It was something he enjoyed doing. As he stropped the knife on the steel, he warmed to his work and finally burst into song. There was no sound from the kitchen, only the ring of steel on steel backed by the tuneless singing; there were silent intervals when he carefully tested the edge, then the noise would start again.
    When he had completed the job to his satisfaction he peered inside the door. “Where is your husband?” he called.
    There was no reply so he strode into the kitchen, waving the gleaming blade in front of him. I followed him and saw Mrs. Seaton and her daughters cowering in the far corner, staring at Siegfried with large, frightened eyes.
    He made a sweeping gesture at them with the knife. “Well, come on, I can get started now!”
    “Started what?” the mother whispered, holding her family close to her.
    “I want to P.M. this sheep. You have a dead sheep, haven’t you?”
    Explanations and apologies followed.
    Later, Siegfried remonstrated gravely with me for sending him to the wrong farm.
    “You’ll have to be a bit more careful in future, James,” he said seriously. “Creates a very bad impression, that sort of thing.”
    Another thing about my new life which interested me was the regular traffic of women through Skeldale House. They were all upper class, mostly beautiful and they had one thing in common—eagerness. They came for drinks, for tea, to dinner, but the real reason was to gaze at Siegfried like parched travellers in the desert sighting an oasis.
    I found it damaging to my own ego when their eyes passed over me without recognition or interest and fastened themselves hungrily on my colleague. I wasn’t envious, but I was puzzled. I used to study him furtively, trying to fathom the secret of his appeal. Looking at the worn jacket hanging from the thin shoulders, the frayed shirt collar and anonymous tie, I had to conclude that clothes had nothing to do with it.
    There was something attractive in the long, bony face and humorous blue eyes, but a lot of the time he was so haggard and sunken-cheeked that I wondered if he was ill.
    I often spotted Diana Brompton in the queue and at these times I had to fight down an impulse to dive under the sofa. She was difficult to recognise as the brassy beauty of that afternoon as she looked up meltingly at Siegfried, hanging on his words, giggling like a schoolgirl.
    I used to grow cold at the thought that Siegfried might pick her out of the mob and marry her. It worried me a lot because I knew I would have to leave just when I was beginning to enjoy everything about Darrowby.
    But Siegfried showed no sign of marrying any of them and the procession continued hopefully. I finally got used to it and stopped worrying.
    I got used, too, to my employer’s violent changes of front. There was one morning when Siegfried came down to breakfast, rubbing a hand wearily over red-rimmed eyes.
    “Out at 4 a.m.,” he groaned, buttering his toast listlessly. “And I