listened to
Neot not at all. But when we came to his place, I was ready, and
more than ready, to hear what he had to tell me.

Chapter VIII. The Black Twelfth-Night.

When we came to the little out of the way village among the Cornish
hills near which Neot, the king's cousin, had his dwelling, I
thought it strange that any one should be willing to give up the
stirring life at court for such a place as this. Here was only one
fair-sized house in the place, and that was built not long before
by the king for his own use when he came here, which was often. And
Neot's own dwelling was but a little stone-walled and turf-roofed
hut, apart from all others, on the hillside, and he dwelt there
with one companion--another holy man, named Guerir, a Welshman by
birth--content with the simple food that the villagers could give
him, and spending his days in prayer and thought for the king and
people and land that he loved.

But presently, as I came to know more of Neot, it seemed good that
some should live thus in quiet while war and unrest were over the
country, else had all learning and deeper thought passed away. It
is certain from all that I have heard, from the king himself and
from others, that without Neot's steady counsel and gathered wisdom
Alfred had remained haughty and proud, well-nigh hated by his
people, as he had been when first he came to the throne.

At one time he would drive away any who came to him with plaints or
tales of wrong and trouble; but Neot spoke to him in such wise that
he framed his ways differently. And now I used to wonder to see him
stay and listen patiently to some rambling words of trifling want,
told by a wayside thrall, to which it seemed below his rank to
hearken, and next I would know that it was thus he made his people
love him as no other king has been loved maybe. There was no man
who could not win hearing from him now.

It is said of him that when Neot showed him the faults in his ways,
he asked that some sickness, one that might not make him useless or
loathsome to his people, might be sent him to mind him against his
pride, and that so he had at first one manner of pain, and now this
which I had seen. It may be so, for I know well that so he made it
good for him, and he bore it most patiently. Moreover, I have never
heard that it troubled him in the times of direst need, though the
fear of it was with him always.

Now what Alfred and Neot spoke of at this time I cannot say,