One of the latter meandered backwards over the wide stretch of pink bell-heather and tasselled cotton grass which told of a catchment bog, where, even in fine weather, the mountain mists dissolved into dew, and the dew gathered itself into dark peaty pools like brown eyes among the tufted lashes of the bents and rushes. And on either side of this central track two others curved down the rolling moor, north and south, to turn sharply behind a patch of gorse and boulders to join hands, all three, for the steep descent before them, as if afraid of solitude in this new venture. Whence, indeed, had come the collision between the two cyclists, each intent on a suddenly disclosed view. "There is no other way--except back on our traces--back to Blackborough--Good Lord!" came the reply. The first speaker smiled. "So you are a Blackberry also--Well! it is an awful place--one can hardly credit up here that all the soot and dirt is only--say a hundred miles off. Here one can breathe----" He looked as if he could do more than that, as, finally shaking himself free of the last speck of dust, he prepared to start. "Left nothing behind, I hope," said the other, glancing back. "Hullo! There's a letter tumbled out of somebody's pocket in the stramash--yours or mine?" It lay address upwards between them, and the taller of the two with a brief "Mine," picked it up and put it in his pocket. His companion stared at him. "Look here," he said, holding out his hand. "You've made a mistake--that letter belongs to me--I'm Edward Cruttenden." It was the other's turn to stare. "The deuce you are! Why!--my name is Edward Cruttenden!" They stood thus staring at each other with a sudden dim sense of their own similarity, until the shorter of the two shook his head whimsically. "This is confusing," he remarked in a tone of argument. "Let's sit down and have a pipe over it--we shall have to differentiate ourselves before we start out into the world together." Almost at their feet a tiny trickle of water, scarcely heard in its soft bed of sphagnum moss, told that already the descent had begun; but this was stayed a few feet further by a 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 sea beyond, and there seemed no reason why the little lakelet should not take one wild leap into the ocean, and so save itself many miles of weary journeying through unseen valleys. On the brink of this pool, their backs against a convenient boulder, their legs on the short sweet turf that was kept like a lawn by the hungry nip of mountain sheep, the two Edward Cruttendens rested, smoked, and compared notes; somewhat dilatorily, since the afternoon was fine and the effect of a sinking sun on moor and fell absolutely soul-satisfying.