“Great news!” he cried, as soon as he was near enough for the ladies to hear.  “Great news!  General Cromwell has thoroughly purged the garner.  He has beaten and scattered the Scots at Worcester.  ’Tis said Charles Stuart their king is taken prisoner.  This ‘crowning mercy,’ as it is called by the lord general, befel on the 3rd, the same day last year he beat these same Scots at Dunbar.  ’Tis a great and a bright day in his lordship’s life.”

“Count no man happy till his end,” answered Rose gravely.  “A day of triumph may be a day of doom when God pleases.  And how does this event touch us, thinkest thou, Alain?”

“Why thus,” replied the young man.  “The general is not a man to bear with our lieutenant-governor’s oppressions and piracies for ever.  Like Satan in the Apocalypse, Carteret hath great wrath, because he knoweth that his time is short.  For Admiral Blake hath been collecting his ships at Portsmouth, and our informant says that they were to sail to-day, eighty vessels of war.  They carry a strong force of fantassins, pikemen, and arquebussiers, with the new snaphaunces devised in the low countries.  Their commander is Major-General Haine, Prynne is there as commissioner, and, best of all, Michael Lempriere is on board!”

Rose looked at him with swimming eyes.

“And Michael Lempriere comes as bailiff.  He said that he would.  And then, when your fortunes are once more high, and you have no further need of me ...”

Alain faltered and looked down.  But for that gesture even his despondent mind might have been roused by the look that Marguerite cast upon him.  But the dart was parried by the shield of an obstinate depression.

“I have arranged,” he pursued, “with Sir George.  You know that last year he sent out a ship of five guns to America, laden with passengers, all sorts of grain, and tools for husbandry.  She was lost, being captured (that is to say) off the Isle of Wight by Captain Green, of the Commonwealth’s navy.  The stores were confiscated, but most of the passengers came back to the island, and have been here ever since awaiting a fresh opportunity for New Jersey.  It will come soon, and I sail with the next venture.”

“With the next fiddlestick,” broke in Rose.  “Speak to the silly fellow, Marguerite.  This is the last time of asking.”

Whatever may be thought of Alain’s project of emigration, his information was true enough.  Cromwell had determined to put a stop to the trouble caused by the present doings in Jersey.  Yet he had no desire to repeat the severities of Ireland.  The Jersey cavaliers were good Protestants, there had been no massacres, and their cause was warmly supported by Prynne—­a man with whom the general could not wholly sympathise, but with whom he could still less afford to break on what appeared to him a not very important difference.  Left to himself, he would not probably have been as stern with Jersey as he had been with the blood-stained Rapparees and their allies, solicited by the leader of the Moderates, he was willing to be won.  So he readily agreed to the counsels of those who urged him to accept Prynne’s offer of service, and appointed the Presbyterian confessor to accompany Blake and Haine as a representative of conciliation and indulgence.