Alf Wight Ch. 3 Sneak Peek · 10:24pm May 27th, 2013
Here's a sneak preview of the upcoming chapter of Alfred Wight in Equestria. Sorry it is taking so very long...
Saturday morning before sunrise was as cold as any February day. It chilled both Donald and me to the bone, with the high wind blowing down into the valley from the dales. The walk from the car park to 23 Kirkgate was both chilling and nerve-wracking, as neither of us knew what was going to happen in the next few minutes, let alone the next few hours.
If Donald showed any sign of trepidation, however, I did not see it. He was brusque and hardy as usual. We both wore our best suits, Donald wearing thick grey tweed, looking very much a gentleman country doctor, and I in second-hand brown tweed, given to me some years ago by Mrs. Marjory Warner, owner of a certain Pekinese that I took care of for many years after my advent in Thirsk. This morning I was ever thankful of the thick wool that wrapped around my mid-section, keeping my core warm.
“Do you think it wise, Alf,” asked Donald, “to take our Wellingtons and Macks with us? It might not do to be unprepared."
“Yes, I do think that would be good. I think we should take some Penicillin, as well as some Benzyl-Penicillins, too. And maybe any horse tools that we can fit in a bag. It might do some good to show these ponies what we’re made of, and what we have to offer.”
Donald clapped me on the shoulder. “Quite right, quite right. Best to have the goods and not need it, than to be wanting.” He then went to the dispensary and grabbed all the antibiotics, pessaries, and horse tools that he could find, sweeping them up into a leather bag. He then stopped for a moment, pondering the bag.
“Alf, do we have any canvas bags? It wouldn’t do well to go to a new world inhabited by sapient equines and offend their sensibilities by toting our instruments in a bag that could have been made out of their great-aunt, now would it?”
“I… see your point, Donald. Let me go have a look round the place and see if I can find something.”
I searched, high and low, from the old top-floor bedsitter Joan and I used at the start of our marriage, all the way down to the basement, under the auspices of the long unused coal chute. It was there that I found my most promising candidate for use. I pulled it out of the years of dust it was hiding under, gave it a good shake, and found a carpetbag, an old moth-eaten thing that did not have the best of odors, at the time.
I returned to the dispensary with my findings, Donald waving me off like an air traffic controller. “Air that thing out, will you, Alf? That bag must have been a promotional item during the building of this house. But if it’s all we have, I guess it will have to do.”
I took it out the French window to the garden and waved it around a bit. Of course, all the dust on the bag blew straight into my face. I was coughing up the dust from the basement, as well as waving the offending item around like a whirling dervish when I saw a flash of light, and there appeared Her Royal Highness. She was about to greet me when she stopped, cocked her head to one side, and raised an eyebrow. I could also see her mouth forming something like the cross between a pout, and a half-sided smile. I immediately stopped my thrashing about, faced our esteemed guest and bowed.
Apparently that was enough for the princess. She promptly snorted through her nose and lips, checked herself, and then fell victim to one of the greatest paroxysms of laughter I had ever seen. She did not hold back. Not since the various disasters I had had when I was courting Joan, did I ever see anyone surrender themselves in such a way to such diversion. What else could I do, but laugh along?
Still Herriot-like as ever. And it's a pity this appears to take place after Callum, "t'young vet wi' t'badger", has departed for Nova Scotia; this gig sounds like it'd be right up his street!
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Callum would eat this up. He and his wife not only went to Canada, but Papua New Guinea, as well. Equestria would be right up his alley.
Sadly, he died in a snow storm there. His wife moved back to Nova Scotia and still lives there.
I don't think the ponies would have a problem with leather, there are some application that leather is all they have to use. Though it is thoughtful of them to err on the side of caution.