He made them the combined center of his operations, going from them in all directions in plundering excursions.

Alfred soon raised an army and advanced to attack him; and these operations were the commencement of a long and tedious war.
A detailed description of the events of this war, the marches and countermarches, the battles and sieges, the various success, first of one party and then of the other, given historically in the order of time, would be as tedious to read as the war itself was to endure.
Alfred was very cautious in all his operations, preferring rather to trust to the plan of wearing out the enemy by cutting off their resources and hemming them constantly in, than to incur the risk of great decisive battles.

In fact, watchfulness, caution, and delay are generally the policy of the invaded when a powerful force has succeeded in establishing itself among them; while, on the other hand, the hope of _invaders_ lies ordinarily in prompt and decided action.
Alfred was well aware of this, and made all his arrangements with a view to cutting off Hastings's supplies, shutting him up into as narrow a compass as possible, heading him off in all his predatory excursions, intercepting all detachments, and thus reducing him at length to the necessity of surrender.
At one time, soon after the war began, Hastings, true to the character of his nation for treachery and stratagem, pretended that he was ready to surrender, and opened a negotiation for this purpose.

He agreed to leave the kingdom if Alfred would allow him to depart peaceably, and also, which was a point of great importance in Alfred's estimation, to have his two sons baptized.

While, however, these negotiations were going on between the two camps, Alfred suddenly found that the main body of Hastings's army had stolen away in the rear, and were marching off by stealth to another part of the country.