By the sudden surprize with which the Danes had broken the peace and come upon him at Chippenham in the dead of winter, they had almost fulfilled their design and taken him captive. But he had fled, and they had Wessex at will, and were proceeding to divide and occupy the land. The king, with a few companions, had escaped into Selwood, and thence by wood and by fen, like hunted creatures, they eluded pursuit, but were never secure until they had passed beyond Pedrida. What were his reflections on finding himself suddenly an outcast in the winter, a fugitive in the wild? He had experienced hair-breadth escapes, but none like this! He had trusted Guthrum’s oath, had thought him in earnest this time! And even now he was loth to charge this last perfidy upon him. No! this trick was not his, it came from those buccaneers in the Severn Sea. Mad at the defeat of last summer’s combined scheme, which they had come from far north to support, they had forced Guthrum’s hand, and compelled him to join them in this winter raid. And they would not stop there! Finding that he had given them the slip, they would certainly be down upon some part of the coast of Somerset or of Devon, and preparations must be made to receive them. Odda will surely be stirring: he is safe to be on the alert! I must find out what he is doing, and we must work on a plan; he in Devon, and I in Somerset! It was now twelve years since he had come to the front, and had taken his stand by the side of his brother Æthered. The moment when he had begun to share in public affairs had coincided with a great change in the situation. That was the time when the invaders acquired a footing in East Anglia: they made there a centre of operations from which they went out and to which they came in—it had become the head quarters of an invading host which manifested a settled design of conquest. Previously the incursions of the Northmen had been desultory, but from that time they had become methodical. This change had coincided with the death of Æthelbriht in 866, and the accession of Æthered. In the following year had died Alhstan, that vigilant patriot, the old warlike bishop of Sherborne. Æthered and I were the two youngest of the family, and our relations had been peculiarly close. Before we were united by public cares, we had been partners in our private concerns. Our several estates had been kept in one and worked in common, under agreed conditions, so that they had remained undivided. Our names had been coupled together by the common voice of the nation. The style was ever thus:—ÆÞERED CYNING AND ÆLFRED HIS BROÞUR.