Historical Tales, Vol. 4 | Page 6

a few minutes they had swept round the villa, with
ringing shouts of triumph. In a few minutes more they were treading its
deserted halls, Guthrum at their head, furious to find that his hoped-for
prey had vanished and left him but the empty shell of his late home.
"After him!" cried the furious Dane. "He cannot be far. This place is
full of signs of life. He has fled into the forest. After him! A king's
prize for the man who seizes him."
In vain their search, the flying king knew his own woods too well to be
overtaken by the Danes. Yet their far cries filled his ears, and roused
him to thoughts of desperate resistance. He looked around on his
handful of valiant followers.
"Let us face them!" he cried, in hot anger. "We are few, but we fight for
our homes. Let us meet these baying hounds!"
"No, no," answered the wisest of his thanes. "It would be worse than
rash, it would be madness. They are twenty--a hundred, mayhap--to our
one. Let us fly now, that we may fight hereafter. All is not lost while
our king is free, and we to aid him."
Alfred was quick to see the wisdom of this advice. He must bide his
time. To strike now might be to lose all. To wait might be to gain all.
He turned with a meaning look to his faithful thanes.
"In sooth, you speak well," he said. "The wisdom of the fox is now
better than the courage of the lion. We must part here. The land for the
time is the Danes'. We cannot hinder them. They will search homestead
and woodland for me. Before a fortnight's end they will have swarmed
over all Wessex, and Guthrum will be lord of the land. I admire that
man; he is more than a barbarian, he knows the art of war. He shall
learn yet that Alfred is his match. We must part."
"Part?" said the thanes, looking at him in doubt. "Wherefore?"

"I must seek safety alone and in disguise. There are not enough of you
to help me; there are enough to betray me to suspicion. Go your ways,
good friends. Save yourselves. We will meet again before many weeks
to strike a blow for our country. But the time is not yet."
History speaks not from the depths of that woodland whither Alfred
had fled with his thanes. We cannot say if just these words were spoken,
but such was the purport of their discourse. They separated, the thanes
and their followers to seek their homes; Alfred, disguised as a peasant,
to thread field and forest on foot towards a place of retreat which he
had fixed upon in his mind. Not even to the faithfulest of his thanes did
he tell the secret of his abode. For the present it must be known to none
but himself.
Meanwhile, the cavalry of Guthrum were raiding the country far and
wide. Alfred had escaped, but England lay helpless in their grasp. News
travelled slowly in those days. Everywhere the Saxons first learned of
the war by hearing the battle-cry of the Danes. The land was overrun.
England seemed lost. Its only hope of safety lay in a man who would
not acknowledge defeat, a monarch who could bide his time.
The lonely journey of the king led him to the centre of Somersetshire.
Here, at the confluence of the Tone and the Parret, was a small island,
afterwards known as Ethelingay, or Prince's Island. Around it spread a
wide morass, little likely to be crossed by his pursuers. Here, still
disguised, the fugitive king sought a refuge from his foes.
For several months Alfred remained in this retreat, his place of refuge
during part of the time being in the hut of a swineherd; and thereupon
hangs a tale. Whether or not the worthy herdsman knew his king,
certainly the weighty secret was not known to his wife. One day, while
Alfred sat by the fire, his hands busy with his bow and arrows, his head
mayhap busy with plans against the Danes, the good woman of the
house was engaged in baking cakes on the hearth.
Having to leave the hut for a few minutes, she turned to her guest, and
curtly bade him watch the cakes, to see that they did not get overdone.

"Trust me for that," he said.
She left the room. The cakes smoked on the hearth, yet he saw them not.
The goodwife returned in a brief space, to find her guest buried in a
deep study, and her cakes burned to a cinder.
"What!" she cried, with an outburst of termagant spleen, "I warrant you
will be ready enough to eat them by-and-by, you idle