It was with a very strange feeling that John Brancker woke up on the morning of the day after his interview with Mr. Avison, and called to mind the fact that he had no office to go to, nor any work to do.
"I feel like a fish out of water, and not a bit like a gentleman of ease and leisure," said John at breakfast next morning, with a little rueful laugh. "Now that I have got back home and am among my old familiar surroundings, all that has happened during the last three months seems almost as if it had never been. More than once this morning I have caught myself looking at the clock, under the impression that it would soon be time to set off; and on coming down stairs I began to brush my hat in the hall just as I used to do every morning."
"After all you have gone through of late, dear, you must give yourself a month's holiday at the very least, before you even begin to think of looking out for another situation."
John shook his head. "It would hardly be worth calling a holiday, because I should be fidgeting all the time, and wondering what was going to become of us."
"Going to become of us, indeed! To hear you talk, one would think there was nothing but the Workhouse before us. It is not often, goodness knows, that I insist upon having my own way, but I do in this. You shall take a month's holiday, going right away from Ashdown; and if we find you too obstinate to go of your own accord, why then Hermy and I will carry you off by main force, and having locked up the Cottage, leave it to take care of itself till our return."
John was pottering about the garden after breakfast, when the Reverend Peter Edislow was announced. He was the Vicar of St. Mary's, the church at which John, previously to his imprisonment, had filled the post of organist for several years. He shook hands with John, and said:
"I congratulate you most cordially, Mr. Brancker, on the result of last Saturday," but there was not much cordiality in his tone. He was a thin, ascetic-looking man, with a somewhat sour and querulous expression of countenance. He regarded himself as the most ill-used person of his acquaintance, and pitied himself accordingly, while cherishing much inward resentment against certain of his ecclesiastical superiors who had passed him over time after time, when there was preferment in the air, in favor of others, altogether his inferiors--or so he was firmly persuaded--in point of learning, eloquence, and sound doctrinal piety. He felt it to be hard--very hard--that his many merits should have received such scant acknowledgment at the hands of those who ought to have been among the first to accord them their due meed of appreciation and reward.
"Thank you, sir," said John. "It is a great pleasure to me to hear you say so. One never knows until trouble overtakes us how many friends and well-wishers one really has. And now about the organ, sir. I presume it is your wish that I should take up my old duties on Sunday next?"
"Hum! Well, the fact is, Mr. Brancker, it is about your position as organist that I have called to see you this morning. We are very well satisfied with Mr. Plympton, who has been officiating during your absence--very well satisfied, indeed--and I think, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, that it would, perhaps, be as well if the existing arrangement were allowed to go on, at all events for some little time to come. You will not fail to appreciate my motives, I am sure."
"All the circumstances of the case!" echoed John, blankly. "Pardon me if I fail to quite apprehend your meaning, Mr. Edislow."