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!'" The King's manner indicated that the conference was at an end. He wished to get rid of the Rector, not only because the good man was "boring" him, as would be said now-a-days, but because he had but little trust in Tom Elliot's discretion, and thought that at any moment the page might be led to break forth from what must needs be an irksome confinement. Moreover, the King knew that, sooner or later, he would have to undergo a more serious lecture from some of his councillors, and it was an object with him to make some inquiries in confidential quarters and devise a course of speech if not of action. But the worthy Rector was, as he said, unversed in the ways of the great; and the young King's affable manner had drawn him into forgetfulness of any little lessons of etiquette that he might have ever learned. Instead of departing on the King's hint, he let his tongue wag afresh. "Alack, Sir! may your Majesty's prayers be heard. And may what I have done breed myself no harm! For what saith the Wise Man? 'Burden not thyself above thy power while thou livest, and have no fellowship with one that is mightier than thyself: for how agree the kettle and earthen pot together?'" "It was well said of the Wise Man," observed the King demurely. "And your Reverence will do well to consider the words that follow, if my memory do not deceive me;--'If thou be invited of a great man, _withdraw thyself_!'"