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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