sion on the _island_, as it might almost
be called, of Ethelney, is told very differently by the different
narrators of it. Some of these narrations are inconsistent and
contradictory. They all combine, however, though they differ in
respect to many other incidents and details, in relating the far-famed
story of Alfred's leaving the cakes to burn. It seems that, though
the cow-herd himself was allowed to regard Alfred as a man of rank in
disguise--though even _he_ did not know that it was the king--his wife
was not admitted, even in this partial way, into the secret. She was
made to consider the stranger as some common strolling countryman,
and the better to sustain this idea, he was taken into the cow-herd's
service, and employed in various ways, from time to time, in labors
about the house and farm. Alfred's thoughts, however, were little
interested in these occupations. His mind dwelt incessantly upon his
misfortunes and the calamities which had befallen his kingdom. He was
harassed by continual suspense and anxiety, not being able to gain any
clear or certain intelligence about the condition and movements of
either his friends or foes. He was revolving continually vague and
half-formed plans for resuming the command of his army and attempting
to regain his kingdom, and wearying himself with fruitless attempts to
devise means to accomplish these ends. Whenever he engaged voluntarily
in any occupation, it would always be something in harmony with these
trains of thought and these plans. He would repair and put in order
implements of hunting, or any thing else which might be deemed to have
some relation to war. He would make bows and arrows in the chimney
corner--lost, all the time, in melancholy reveries, or in wild and
visionary schemes of future exploits.

One evening, while he was thus at work, the cow-herd's wife left, for
a few moments, some cakes under his charge, which she was baking
upon the great stone hearth, in preparation for their common supper.
Alfred, as might have been expected, let the cakes burn. The woman,
when she came back and found them smoking, was very angry. She told
him that he could eat the cakes fast enough when they were baked,
though it seemed he was too lazy and good for nothing to do the least
thing in helping to bake them. What wide-spread and lasting effects
result sometimes from the most trifling and inadequate causes! The
singularity of such an adventure befalling a monarch in disgu