And now I used to wonder to see him stay and listen patiently to some rambling words of trifling want, told by a wayside thrall, to which it seemed below his rank to hearken, and next I would know that it was thus he made his people love him as no other king has been loved maybe.

There was no man who could not win hearing from him now.
It is said of him that when Neot showed him the faults in his ways, he asked that some sickness, one that might not make him useless or loathsome to his people, might be sent him to mind him against his pride, and that so he had at first one manner of pain, and now this which I had seen.

It may be so, for I know well that so he made it good for him, and he bore it most patiently.

Moreover, I have never heard that it troubled him in the times of direst need, though the fear of it was with him always.
Now what Alfred and Neot spoke of at this time I cannot say, except that it was certainly some plan for the good of the land.

I and my comrades hunted and hawked day by day until the evening came, and then would sup plainly with the king, and then sit at Neot's door in the warm evening, and talk together till the stars came out.
Many things we spoke of, and Neot told me what I would.