"This storm began on the borders of Bedfordshire (at Eltisley), and passed eastwards through the Isle of Ely. And here is a wondrous thing. Such crops as still stood when it was over were found so rotted that neither horse nor ass, steer nor pig, goose nor hen, would eat thereof." A cyclone of precisely the same character devastated Essex on June 24, 1897, and was as capricious in its visitations. At Eltisley we reach the termination of the long ridge which has kept us at an upland level all the way from Madingley, and our road now runs rapidly down into the valley of the Ouse. We reach that noble stream at the old-world, but thriving, town of St. Neots, where there is a fine old bridge and a magnificent church. The name of this place is locally pronounced not _Neats_, but _Notes_. This last is the correct form, for the name is derived from Neotus, the eldest brother and friend of King Alfred, whom that greatest of our monarchs recognised as the good genius of his life. The original name of this notable personality was Athelstane. He was the eldest grandson of Egbert, the first "King of the English," and held, accordingly, the under-kingship of Kent, at that time the usual appanage of the heir-apparent. This dignity he resigned to enter Religion, at the Abbey of Glastonbury, under the name of Neotus. A special bond of affection united him with his youngest brother, Alfred, who, as an enthusiastic boy of seventeen, took this dearest of brothers as his spiritual guide and counsellor. When, five years later, the successive deaths of the intervening brethren brought him to the throne, we read that the inconsiderate zeal with which he suppressed abuses drew anxious warnings from St. Neot, who foresaw that this overweening course would surely bring disastrous consequences. "But Alfred heeded not the reproof of the man of God, nor listed what he foretold. Wherefore (seeing that a man's sins must needs be some way punished, either in this world or in that which is to come), the Righteous Judge and True willed that he should not be unpunished here, that so he might be spared hereafter."[188] [Footnote 188: The Chronicle of St. Neots.]