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depression, and afterwards the interior was carefully turned out 

 and every spadeful examined without any result. Here it was 

 that the piece of fused modern glass was picked up at a depth of 

 about 21in. from the surface lying on the sand, but nothing of 

 the nature of pottery or charcoal. There was no trace of fire, 

 and the sand was of the usual colour. At a depth of 5ft. the 

 undisturbed and original ground was reached, on which blocks 

 of " Pen stone" were lying. Some had been detached from their 

 bed ; others had apparently been rounded off at one end, and 

 being found useless for the purpose for which the workmen had 

 intended them, were thrown aside. One large block, 4ft. 7in. 

 long, 2ft. 3in. wide, and 1ft. 5in. thick, lying at the bottom of 

 the disturbed ground, caused some little excitement one evening ; 

 and it will not be out of place to mention here that we found a 

 curious tradition afloat amongst the villagers anent the burial- 

 place of King Alfred. They supposed that he was concealed 

 somewhere in the neighbourhood in a golden coffin. The Zeals 

 people claimed him on their aide of the river, the Pen on theirs, 

 and we had been frequently asked whether we had found the 

 gold coffin yet. One garrulous delightful old Pen man ti)ld us 

 that he had found the " chimbley" leading to the coffin, and that 

 he had gone down it and heard and seen such things as he didn't 

 like to talk about. Well, the news had been sjoread by this same 

 old gossip, probably that we had found something at last. It was 

 not difficult to hint that this large block of " Pen stone" might be 

 the cover to the golden coffin ; the hint was taken, and towards 

 the evening, just as we had cleared away the surrounding sand 

 and left the block standing out in relief at the bottom of the pit, 

 a bevy of village damsels was seen approaching the place where 

 we were at work. A timid sort of shrinking advance to look over 

 the mound of earth concealing the bottom of the pit attracted 

 my attention, and on asking the reason, a rosy-faced girl, somewhat 

 more courageous than the rest, said they had heard we had foimd 

 the gold coffin and had come to see it. In fact, the natives could 



