THE DOUBLE ALIBI 145 



tudes of Glen Aline. I stayed at the house of a 

 shepherd who, though not an unintelligent man, 

 was by no means possessed of the modern spirit. 

 He and his brother swains had sturdily and suc- 

 cessfully resisted an attempt made by the school- 

 master at a village some seven miles off to get a 

 postal service in the glen more frequently than 

 once a week. A post once a week was often 

 enough for lucky people who did not get letters 

 twice a year. It was not my shepherd, but 

 another, who once came with his wife to the 

 village, after a twelve miles' walk across the hills, 

 to ask ' what the day of the week was ? ' They 

 had lost count, and the man had attended to his 

 work on a day which the dame averred to be the 

 Sabbath. He denied that it was the Sabbath, and 

 I believe that it turned out to be a Tuesday. 

 This little incident gives some idea of the delightful 

 absence of population in Glen Aline. But no 

 words can paint the utter loneliness, which could 

 actually be felt the empty moors, the empty sky. 

 The heaps of stones by a burnside, here and there, 

 showed that a cottage had once existed where now 



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