At any rate the man I seek is young and fair-looking, and would, I should think"-- and he smiled as he remembered Alfred's studious habits--"be one of the most shiftless of those here." "There is such a one," the man replied, "and several times friends of his have been hither to see him.

He dwells at my next neighbour's, who is often driven well-nigh out of her mind--for she is a dame with a shrewish tongue and sharp temper--by his inattention.

She only asks of him that he will cut wood and keep an eye over her pigs, which wander in the forest, in return for his food; and yet, simple as are his duties, he is for ever forgetting them.

I warrant me, the dame would not so long have put up with him had he not been so fair and helpless.
However bad-tempered a woman may be, she has always a tender corner in her heart for this sort of fellow.

There, you can take this path through the trees and follow it on; it will take you straight to her cottage." The description given by the man tallied so accurately with that of the king that Edmund felt confident that he was on the right track.