ing but his scanty pittance of pay,
while he was really studying, with the utmost attention and care, the
number, and disposition, and discipline of the troops, and all the
arrangements of the army. He came very near discovering himself,
however, by overacting his part. His music was so well executed and
his ballads were so fine, that reports of the excellence of his
performance reached the commander's ears. He ordered the pretended
harper to be sent into his tent, that he might hear him play and
sing. Alfred went, and thus he had the opportunity of completing his
observations in the tent, and in the presence of the Danish king.

Alfred found that the Danish camp was in a very unguarded and careless
condition. The name of the commander, or king, was Guthrum.[1] Alfred,
while playing in his presence, studied his character, and it is (not)
improbable that the very extraordinary course which he afterward
pursued in respect to Guthrum may have been caused, in a great degree,
by the opportunity he now enjoyed of domestic access to him and
of obtaining a near and intimate view of his social and personal
character. Guthrum treated the supposed harper with great kindness. He
was much pleased both with his singing and his songs, being attracted,
too, probably, in some degree, by a certain mysterious interest which
the humble stranger must have inspired; for Alfred possessed personal
and intellectual traits of character which could not but have given to
his conversation and his manners a certain charm, notwithstanding all
his efforts to disguise or conceal them.

However this may be, Guthrum gave Alfred a very friendly reception,
and the hour of social intercourse and enjoyment which the general
and the ballad-singer spent together was only a precursor of the more
solid and honest friendship which afterward subsisted between them as
allied sovereigns.

Alfred had one person with him, whom he had brought from Ethelney--a
sort of attendant--to help him carry his harp, and to be a companion
for him on the way. He would have needed such a companion even if he
had been only what he seemed; but for a spy, going in disguise into
the camp of such ferocious enemies as the Danes, it would seem
absolutely indispensable that he should have the support and sympathy
of a friend.

Alfred, after finishing his examination of the camp of Guthrum, and
forming secretly, in his own mind, his plans for attacking it, moved
leisurely away, taking h