"Who's to run up hill with a pail o' water?" grumbled the man as Smiler began bathing the edge of the wound, after pouring a little water between the lips, but apparently without any effect. Then the smoking went on in silence for a while, till Smiler asked whether the heart was still beating. "Ay, I keep feeling it," said Joe. "S'pose one o' you goes up in one o' the cowls and looks out: you'll see if the pleeceman's coming. I'm getting a bit tired o' holding my hand to his heart." "Let me do it now," said Smiler. "Nay, I begun it, and I'm going on till the pleeceman comes." One of the men had climbed up the steps at once, and they heard his heavy feet as he crossed the great loft where the hops were pressed heavily into the pockets. Five minutes after he was down again to announce that the constable was on his way, and a few minutes after the one man stationed at the tiny hamlet a short distance away came in, red-faced and eager, for, saving over a little egg-stealing and mild poaching, it was rare for his services to be called for. Hence he bustled in, looking very important, and drew out a note-book and pencil, examined the sufferer, asked a few questions, made a show of putting down the answers, with a sad hieroglyphical result, and then turned to Joey. "Now, then," he said, "I'll take charge of him; and one of you must go for the doctor." "Doctor!" cried Joe indignantly. "Why, we sent for him goin' on for hour ago." "Ho! well: stand aside!" "What for?" "Don't you stand arguin', or you may get yourself into trouble," said the constable importantly. "Stand aside!" "Shan't!" "What!" cried the constable, gripping the labourer by the arm. "Can't you see what I'm doing? Want the poor young chap to bleed to death?" "How was I to know?" cried the constable. "Why didn't you say you were doing it? Why don't you tie him up?" "'Cause I wasn't born a doctor," grumbled Joey. "Hops is my line--I can tie them up. Thought you pleecemen did that sort of thing." The constable coughed. "How long will the doctor be?" he said. "All depen's whether he's at home or not. P'raps he's gone on a twenty mile round." "Then we'd better get a door and carry him somewhere," suggested the policeman. "Nay, it's in and out bad enough moving him at all, Joey," cried Smiler. "I won't help move him, for it'll finish him off if we do." The constable frowned, hesitated, and finally said: "Well, as you have sent for the doctor, we'll wait." And they waited for quite two hours before the man who had been again and again sent up to play Sister Anne in the great cowl came down at last to say that he had seen the doctor's chaise coming along the lane, and five minutes after a keen-looking youngish man entered the great barn-like place, examined his patient at once, asking questions the while, and then with clever hands put a stop to further bleeding, bandaged the wound, and contrived that a little water should trickle between the sufferer's lips.