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He could not settle down to write and study in the handsome room Charles had allotted him for his books. Indeed his books were mostly not yet on the shelves that the carpenter had set up, but were piled upon the floor and furniture. He paced among them, picked them up and set them down, tearing out scraps of knowledge which his mind seemed at once to cast off. He felt restless, unable to begin any course . . . sometimes he thought it was the breaking up of his habit that had done the harm. He no longer had to set out morning and evening for Leasan Church, to read prayers, nor were there any appointments with his clerk anent registers or fees or gravestones, nor meetings with his churchwardens to discuss repairs and boundaries. His days were mapped out only by meals, and he had always been indifferent to eating.

He spent most of his time out of doors, wandering over what had once been his parish and visiting those who had once been his parishioners. His successor, an amiable, pompous man, would have liked to be on good terms with him, but Gervase chose to regard him with contempt. Dr. Braceley was a fool and a pedant; he made mock of his Whiggish principles and formal learning. The parishioners, he declared, liked their old Parson best, and still considered him the rightful Vicar of the parish—in which he erred, for the majority of Leasan folk much preferred the kindly, bustling Doctor to the erratic shepherd who had not so much led them as wandered among them for the last twenty years. If only he had known it, his connexion with the Manor had been his chief recommendation; when they forgot it he was a "wagpasty," a "strutting old dawcock," a "Tory jack o'lantern." But he had no idea of this.