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Yet with it all he knew that he did not want to be back again, as Vicar of Leasan. That part of his life was done with. After all, he had been nearly as long in France as he had been in Leasan, and no one had thought it strange that he should drop France behind him and forget all he had learned there, which was more than he had learned in Leasan. He still wore his gown, but that was partly because as a High Churchman he wished to proclaim that he was still in Holy Orders though he no longer exercised them, partly because he disliked the new fashions that had come into being he gave up wearing lay dress—the surcoats and cravats and ruffles and buckles that had supplanted the doublets, collars, cuffs and boots of the earlier mode.

He spent much of his time writing letters to other non-Jurors among the clergy. . . . That was, he told himself, one reason why he felt so much at a loss—the movement which he had trusted to provide for his activities was making a poor, lame start. Only four hundred parish priests had refused to swear—a sorry number, when he had promised Charles that two-thirds of the Establishment would go out. The vacancies would be as quickly and easily filled as the vacancy at Leasan, and the nine Bishoprics as well. Instead of facing a disruption that would bring it to terms and treaty, the Church of England would go on exactly as before. . . . There had been a far bigger stirabout at the Reformation, when most of the clergy and all the Bishops, save one, had refused to swear; he could no longer tread contemptuously over Nicholas Pecksall's grave.