A Sovereign Remedy

all!... I'm

all!... I'm

had collided picked themselves out of the dust unhurt and looked quickly at their machines; finally turning to each other with a smili

the broader, and distinctly the better looking; but they were both excellent specimens of clean, wholesome-looki

r machine is damaged, and mine isn't--Oh! by George! I hadn't noticed the pedal," he added, following the other's look. He bent for clos

so we'll cry q

h," said the other with a sh

n the wavy outline of rolling hill where they stood, dipped down to the

east and west; as such, a meeting-p

which told of a catchment bog, where, even in fine weather, the mountain mists dissolved into dew, and the

a patch of gorse and boulders to join hands, all three, for the steep descent before them, as if afraid of solitude in t

ck on our traces--back to Blackbo

s an awful place--one can hardly credit up here that all the soot a

t, as, finally shaking himself free of th

ncing back. "Hullo! There's a letter tumbled out o

r of the two with a brief "Mine," picked it up and

and. "You've made a mistake--that lette

re. "The deuce you are! Why!--

dden dim sense of their own similarity, until t

s sit down and have a pipe over it--we shall have to differen

rocky hollow in which the stream gathered and brimmed, so that as you looked out over the shallowing pool, the rushes which fringed it stood out against the far distant blue of the

like a lawn by the hungry nip of mountain sheep, the two Edward Cruttendens rested, smoked, and compared notes; somewh

easant-voiced one lazily--"Did your godfathers, etc.

ndsome face had already differentiated itself

ically uninterchangeable; so they'll do for the present. Well, Ted, since you are twenty-seven and I'm gone

harply--"No! but--but what p

e, but with a quaint aloofness about it as

ble in this England of ours to dissociate one man from another by breed--we're hopeless mon

I never knew my father, and m

ne," said

ers too near her nest, became insistent, and seemed to fill the mountain solitude wit

sympathy for you!' So far we start fa

Ned look the other way, and idly busy himself in trying to dissociate a tender

--he paused, settled himself yet more comfortably in his cleft, and with clasped hands behind his head, relaps

s from the tie of a common name. And before them the afternoon sun, slowly sinking towards extinction in the sea, be

and knocked the as

uld say; except, of

y it. A clerk as I am, out for a Whitsun holiday with ten pounds to spend on it

clerks," suggeste

ou will. However you come by it, y

counting a handful of loose gold and silver. "I've a hundre

gn flitted duck-and-drake fashion over the brimming pool at their feet, then disapp

here! stop that, will you--do

eality when a voice from the road behind the

ut tell me the cause of your disagreement, a

most feminine softness of contour which belied the blue shadow of a hard-shaven beard. For the rest he had a fine pair of fiery dark eyes, set close to the thick

ty black suit. "So we will refer to you, sir, since you are bound by y

doubtfully first at the loose gold and silver, then at Ned Cruttenden's critical blue eyes. Both appealed to him strongly; the poetr

Poor or rich, the point at issue between us--my friend over there being a bit of a socialist is, of course, a bit of a mammon worshipper also--is whether gold is--is a sovereign remedy! I say

inal disappearance; but this time the detaining hand was Morris Pugh's. His eager face

ought not," he b

sked Ned

yours. You never earned it, I'll bet, a

ndful on the turf

Why! spend them to please yourselves, of course, as I was doing, as every one does! So I repea

lowed the other two, but for the

distinct injury to one Peter Ramsay

thick-set man, with bright red-bro

stood beside him now, its hoofs half hidden in the moss, while it stretched its inquiring mu

fact too many! Our reverend friend wants the shekels, why he would be puzzled to say, since he preaches that they have no purchasing pow

d so," broke

, whereas if every personality has an equal amount of any one thing, that thing ceases to be a possession and becomes part of the personality!--which, of course, is mere hair-splitting! As for you, doctor, you also are illogical

riven it, all transmuted into gold, to blot out both land and sea, leaving nothing visible save that foreground of rippled brimming pool, set in its fringe of rushes. The peewit, fearful once

rew from it a sheaf of bank notes. "There's a hundred here, and I don't want it--that"--he pointed to the cash--"will carry me through for a week, so my namesake and I could start f

began leisurely to exchange con

rris Pugh, finding his voice first--"To leave money h

se, ourselves--wants it--but mind you--we are to say nothing about the taking to any one else in the world. Of course, we ag

yes, "my prescriptions are personal matters between me and my c

apparently hypothecated--as you Scotch call it, doctor--to

of us may withdraw the deposit to-morrow without notice to any one, if he po

was a

ttenden at last sulkily, "but

stractedly over the golden haze in

root of all ev

. "I'm game! I shall take that money, if some of you

ughed. "So will I, if I can only make up my mi

, then the red-brown eyes under the

allow; very of

ouch murmuring, "Il faut vivre! Pour

at your disposal. And now, namesake, we can start fair

still unrippled pool and the cleft in the rock, while the f