The valley rested. For several days there had been constant rain; though summer was scarcely over, it had turned cold and the sky was cheerless. Over Stanbury Hill there were always heavy, dripping clouds, and the leaves of Adela’s favourite wood were already falling. At the Manor there was once more disorder; before Mutimer and his wife took their departure the removal of furniture had commenced. Over the whole scene brooded a spirit of melancholy. It needed faith in human energy to imagine the pollutions swept away, and the seasons peacefully gliding as of old between the hillsides and amid meadows and garden closes. Hubert Eldon drove over from Agworth, and was in the Public Hall at the appointed time. His business with the men was simple and brief. He had to inform them that their employment here was at an end, but that each one would receive a month’s wages and permission to inhabit their present abodes for yet a fortnight. After that they had no longer right of tenancy. He added that if any man considered himself specially aggrieved by this arrangement, he was prepared to hear and judge the individual case. There was a murmur of discontent through the room, but no one took upon himself to rise and become spokesman of the community. Disregarding the manifestation, Hubert described in a few words how and when this final business would be transacted; then he left the hall by the door which led from the platform. Then followed a busy week. Claims of all kinds were addressed to him, some reasonable, most of them not to be entertained. Mr. Yottle was constantly at the Manor; there he and Hubert held a kind of court. Hubert was not well fitted for business of this nature; he easily became impatient, and, in spite of humane intentions, often suffered from a tumult of his blood, when opposed by some dogged mechanic. ‘I can’t help it!’ he exclaimed to Mr. Wyvern one right, after a day of peculiar annoyance. ‘We are all men, it is true; but for the brotherhood--feel it who can! I am illiberal, if you like, but in the presence of those fellows I feel that I am facing enemies. It seems to me that I have nothing in common with them but the animal functions. Absurd? Yes, of course, it is absurd; but I speak of how intercourse with them affects me. They are our enemies, yours as well as mine; they are the enemies of every man who speaks the pure English tongue and does not earn a living with his hands. When they face me I understand what revolution means; some of them look at me as they would if they had muskets in their hands.’ ‘You are not conciliating,’ remarked the vicar. ‘I am not, and cannot be. They stir the worst feelings in me; I grow arrogant, autocratic. As long as I have no private dealings with them I can consider their hardships and judge their characters dispassionately; but I must not come to close quarters.’ ‘You have special causes of prejudice.’