  Then she set
him and the little girls to paring some winter apples; but he was so
awkward at this service that she retired him from it and gave him a
butcher knife to grind.

Afterwards she kept him carding wool until he began to think he had laid
the good King Alfred about far enough in the shade for the present in
the matter of showy menial heroisms that would read picturesquely in
story-books and histories, and so he was half-minded to resign.