“‘Your plan is good,’ he said; and I gladly made haste to get ready a fresh sheet, in the beginning of which I wrote what he bade me. And on the same day, as I had anticipated, I wrote therein no less than three other quotations which pleased him, so that the sheet soon became full. He continued to collect these words of the great writers, until his book became almost as large as a psalter, and he found, as he told me, no small consolation therein.” But, studious as was naturally the mind of Alfred, only a small portion of his life, and that chiefly when he became aged, could be given to learning. His career lay in paths of turmoil and war, and his earlier days were spent in camps and among the practical affairs of a small but important kingdom. Already as a child of eight or ten he had heard of battles and rumours of war all around him. He heard of “the heathen men,” as the Danes were called, making advances in the Isle of Wight, at Canterbury and London, and creeping up the Thames into new quarters in Kent and Surrey. There his father, King Ethelwulf, and his elder brothers had met and defeated them with great slaughter at Aclea, or Ockley, “the Oak-plain,” and they returned home to Wessex with the news of a complete victory. It was probably to keep his favourite child out of the way of warfare and danger that Ethelwulf sent him twice to Rome; the second time he himself accompanied him thither, and they returned to find that one of Alfred’s elder brothers, Ethelbald, had made a conspiracy against his own father, had seized the kingdom, and would have prevented Ethelwulf from returning had he been able. But the warm love of his people, who gathered round him, delighted at his return, prevented this project from being carried into effect, and the old man, desiring only peace in his family, divided the kingdom between his two eldest sons; but on the death of Ethelbald, soon after, Ethelbert joined the two divisions together, including Kent, Surrey, and Sussex in the same kingdom with Wessex. When Alfred was eighteen years of age this brother also died, and for five years more a third brother, Ethelred, sat on the throne of Wessex. [Illustration: _Alfred at Ashdune_]