rse, the story of the cakes. In the
depths of the Saxon forests there were always a few neatherds and
swineherds, scattered up and down, living in rough huts enough, we may
be sure, and occupied with the care of the cattle and herds of their
masters. Among these in Selwood was a neatherd of the King, a faithful
man, to whom the secret of Alfred's disguise was intrusted, and who kept
it even from his wife. To this man's hut the King came one day alone,
and, sitting himself down by the burning logs on the hearth, began
mending his bow and arrows. The neatherd's wife had just finished her
baking, and having other household matters to attend to, confided her
loaves to the King, a poor tired-looking body, who might be glad of the
warmth, and could make himself useful by turning the batch, and so earn
his share while she got on with other business. But Alfred worked away
at his weapons, thinking of anything but the good housewife's batch of
loaves, which in due course were not only done, but rapidly burning to a
cinder. At this moment the neatherd's wife comes back, and flying to the
hearth to rescue the bread, cries out: "Drat the man! never to turn the
loaves when you see them burning. I'ze warrant you ready enough to eat
them when they are done." But besides the King's faithful neatherd,
whose name is not preserved, there are other churls in the forest, who
must be Alfred's comrades just now if he will have any. And even here he
has an eye for a good man, and will lose no opportunity to help one to
the best of his power. Such a one he finds in a certain swineherd called
Denewulf, whom he gets to know, a thoughtful Saxon man, minding his
charge there in the oak woods. The rough churl, or thrall, we know not
which, has great capacity, as Alfred soon finds out, and desire to
learn. So the King goes to work upon Denewulf under the oak trees, when
the swine will let him, and is well satisfied with the results of his
teaching and the progress of his pupil.

But in those miserable days the commonest necessaries of life were hard
enough to come by for the King and his few companions, and for his wife
and family, who soon joined him in the forest, even if they were not
with him from the first. The poor foresters cannot maintain them, nor
are this band of exiles the men to live on the poor. So Alfred and his
comrades are soon out foraging on the borders of the forest, and getting
what subsistence they can from the pagans, or from the