of some cakes that were
baking, with instructions to turn them at the proper time. His mind
wandered in thought and he forgot his trust. The good wife returned,
found the cakes burning, and the guest dreaming by the fireside; she
lost her temper, and expressed a decided opinion about the lazy lout who
was ready enough to eat, but less ready to work. In the seventeenth
century there was found in the marshes here a jewel that Alfred had
lost: it is of gold and enamel, bearing words signifying, "Alfred had me
wrought." The following spring (878) he sallied forth, defeated the
Danes in Wiltshire, and captured their king Guthram, who was afterwards
baptized near Athelney by the name of AEthelstan; they still show his
baptismal font in Aller Church, near by.

[Illustration: THE ISLE OF ATHELNEY.]

SHERBORNE.

[Illustration: SHERBORNE.]

Crossing over from Somersetshire into Dorsetshire, we arrive in the
northern part of that county at Sherborne, which was one of the earliest
religious establishments in this part of England, having been founded by
King Ina in the eighth century. Here was the see that was removed to Old
Sarum in the eleventh century, and subsequently to Salisbury. After the
removal, Sherborne became an abbey, and its remains are to be seen in
the parish church, which still exists, of Norman architecture, and
having a low central tower supported by massive piers. The porch is
almost all that survives of the original structure, the remainder having
been burned in 1436, but afterwards restored. Within this church are
buried the Saxon kings, AEthelbald and AEthelbert, the brothers of King
Alfred. Such of the domestic buildings of the abbey as have been
preserved are now the well-known Sherborne Grammar-School. The great
bell of the abbey was given it by Cardinal Wolsey, and weighed sixty
thousand pounds. It bears this motto:

"By Wolsey's gift I measure time for all;
To mirth, to grief, to church, I serve to call."

It was unfortunately cracked in 1858, but has been recast. The chief
fame of Sherborne, however, is as the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, of
whom Napier says that his "fortunes were alike remarkable for enviable
success and pitiable reverses. Raised to eminent station through the
favor of the greatest female sovereign of England, he perished on the
scaffold through the dislike and cowardly policy of the meanest of her
kings." The original castle of Sherborne was built in the reign of Henry
I