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 dog! and yet you cannot watch them burning under your very eyes."
What the king said in reply the tradition which has preserved this pleasant tale fails to relate. Doubtless it needed some of the swineherd's eloquence to induce his irate wife to bake a fresh supply for their careless guest.
It had been Guthrum's main purpose, as we may be assured, in his rapid ride to Chippenham, to seize the king. In this he had failed; but the remainder of his project went successfully forward. Through Dorset, Berkshire, Wilts, and Hampshire rode his men, forcing the people everywhere to submit. The country was thinly settled, none knew the fate of the king, resistance would have been destruction, they bent before the storm, hoping by yielding to save their lives and some portion of their property from the barbarian foe. Those near the coast crossed with their families and movable effects to Gaul. Elsewhere submission was general, except in Somersetshire, where alone a body of faithful warriors, lurking in the woods, kept in arms against the invaders.
Alfred's secret could not yet be safely revealed. Guthrum had not given over his search for him. Yet some of the more trusty of his subjects were told where he might be found, and a small band joined him in his morass-guarded isle. Gradually the news spread, and others sought the isle of Ethelingay, until a well-armed and sturdy band of followers surrounded the royal fugitive. This party must be fed. The island yielded little subsistence. The king was obliged to make foraging raids from his hiding-place. Now and then he met and defeated straggling parties of Danes, taking from them their spoils. At other times, when hard need pressed, he was forced to forage on his own subjects.
Day by day the news went wider through Saxon homes, and more warriors sought their king. As the strength of his band increased, Alfred made more frequent and successful forays. The Danes began to find that resistance was not at an end. By Easter the king felt strong enough to take a more decided action. He had a wooden bridge thrown from the island to the shore, to facilitate the movements of his followers, while at its entrance was built a fort, to protect the island party against a Danish incursion.
Such was the state of Alfred's fortunes and of England's hopes in the spring of 878. Three months before, all southern England, with the exception of Gloucester and its surrounding lands, had been his. Now his kingdom was a small island in the heart of a morass, his subjects a lurking band of faithful warriors, his subsistence what could be wrested from the strong hands of the foe.