' your'n, else you'd ha' been in the Black Hole half your
time for laughin' at your officers."

"Yah! Just as if I can help bein' a good-tempered lookin' chap. Dessay
as I should make as good a sojer as most on 'em as you see over yonder
at those towns. Better be allus on the smile than lookin' savage at
everyone."

"Ay, to be sure, Smiler. Wonder, though, what did make this poor chap
do it? He's a young un, too, for a sojer. I say, any on you hear his
pistol go off last night?"

No one answered; but the man who held the revolver began to examine it.

"Here, just you mind what you're about with that thing," said Smiler.
"I've heard as they'll go off six times o' running. Say, would it hurt
un, if I lit my pipe?"

"Nay," said Joey, "and I'd thank one o' you kindly if he'd take mine out
o' my pocket and fill and light it for me. Can't be very long now
before doctor comes, and I must hold him here downright to stop the
bleeding. Ah! I can feel his heart beating just gentle like."

"You can?"

"Ay; and it's a wonder, too. Poor lad! he's been bleeding like a pig."

The lighting of pipes was preceded by the careful putting away of the
pistol, and just as the men were all puffing contentedly away, Smiler
said--

"Master won't find they ten acres of hops washed if he comes 'ome
to-night."

"No," said Joey; "but you can't wash hops when you're finding sojers
nearly dead in the alleys.--An' here's the water. Ain't hurried yerself
much, lad."

"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