"
"Stay, Father," said Alfred the Atheling, starting up. "Let me write
while the thanes speak," and he gathered up pens and such, and a roll of
parchment, sitting down at the table and then holding pen ready, and
looking at us.
The king smiled at him and his haste, and said, "Verily, Thanes, you
must mind your words if Alfred writes them down, for he will ever keep
records of tales such as yours, saying that they are for men to read
hereafter."
But that had no terrors for us, seeing that we had a plain tale to tell,
truth and nothing more. So, as Ceorle bid us, we four sat down by the
window, and the king asked me to tell my story from the first.
So I began by saying that I had seen the landing of the Danes at Stert,
and warned the watchmen of the levy.
There Alfred stopped me, holding up his pen suddenly.
"Tell us, Thane, of the Watchet landing," he said.
And when I began to tell of that he looked up again, with his eyes
dancing, and asked me how I came on Quantock hill.
Thereat the king laughed a little, saying that Alfred should have been a
lawman, and the atheling said that, with his father's help, he meant to
be such, and a good one.
And that he has become, for the laws he has given us will last, as it
seems to me, till the name of Saxon has departed.
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