“It needs no further excuse, reverend Sir, say on, and fear nothing.”  La Cloche seated himself on the corner of the chair.

“It is my humble duty to warn your Majesty that Jersey is no suitable place for your residence,” he said.

“We are very much of your mind,” answered Charles, “but how made you the mighty discovery?”

“I have been dining,” answered the clergyman, “in company with the Honourable Sir Edward Nicholas, Knight, Secretary of State to your Majesty.  Certain of your Majesty’s affectionate servants and well-wishers were of the party, as also the Lieutenant-Governor, who was the host.  The discourse was grave; and albeit without permission of the gentlemen—­yet, in virtue of mine office, I hope I but anticipate their humble duty to your Majesty, if I take upon myself to lay their thoughts before you.”

“And for your own part, Sir, as a Jerseyman having, both by religion and as a Member of the States, the means of knowing what the people think, you would fain join your own private word to those who are refusing an asylum to Charles Stuart in the dominions of his fathers.  You had better let them speak for themselves.”

The clergyman shuffled in his uneasy seat.  The perspicacity of the young man—­it is a part of a Prince’s stock-in-trade—­had taken him by surprise.

“I am an old man,” he faltered, “unversed in affairs of State.  If it be true, however, that the Lord Jermyn....”

“Our mother’s trusted councillor, Mr. Rector!  What of my Lord Jermyn?  Thou hast not said enough—­or, by God! thou hast said too much.”

The Chaplain’s island temper hardened under menace, even from the Lord’s Anointed.  What he felt he did not indeed care to lay bare:  yet the upshot he would tell.  The King’s recent exploit in the parish of which he was Rector had come to his ears, garnished and exaggerated, perhaps; and he was determined to get rid of such visitors if he could.  The news from France was an occasion, and he gladly used it.  Lord Jermyn, it seemed, had been talking openly—­and not for the first time—­of selling the Channel Islands to France; and his connection with the Queen made men suspect that he had not entertained such a design without high sanction.  On the other hand the Rector knew that Carteret would sooner cede the Island over which he was set to Cromwell than see it occupied by the French.  The King would be in obvious danger, and he had determined, under that excuse, to endeavour to dispose the King’s mind towards a removal which he himself, on other grounds, considered highly desirable.  Charles listened to all the clergyman had to say, with impatience thinly veiled by good breeding.  When the speaker came to a pause, the King said, with a kinder manner, “Thou hast done well, and hast given no just cause of offence to anyone.  Mr. Secretary is an approved friend:  but I need not remind your Reverence of the prayer of the Psalmist:  ‘Let not his precious balms break mine head!’”